Imagine a knot. A rope wound over and under and around itself so many times in so many ways that it’s confusing to comprehend exactly what’s going on.

There are states of being similar to a knot, in which feelings, thoughts and actions contradict each other, undermine each other, interrupt each other… until we become stuck and bound. Following the course around trying to find the loose end, moving to try to break loose or cut through can often make the knot even tighter.

All knots are the same regarding one thing: right in the middle they have nothing. Inside every knot there is space, no matter how small, no matter how choked it may seem.

How about inhabiting that space? Visualizing the knot going on around you and knowing that you are not there, but rather in the space that sits right in the middle and which can never be eaten up by the knot. This space can actually be a good spot to take a break, gain some perspective or breathe while conditions change.

Fritz Perls, the father of Gestalt therapy, would refer to “creative indifference” and “zero point” (terms coined by Friedlander) and also to the “centre”. This centre is an emptiness which, far from being nothing, is a “fertile void” in which all potential creativity exists, where all possibilities emerge from. People with an artistic practice are more familiar with the experience of the fertile void, at least in their work, but we can all relate to our lives like artists, practising not getting in the way of inspiration.

Going into the centre of the knot as a way to turn all counters back to zero and lay space open for the new to come.