The Third Space
The Third Space
What clients are often tell me in session is feeling as though the boundaries they draw between aspects of their lives, such as work and home life, have become more and more blurred over time. This is understandable when considering the value placed on approaches such as “multi-tasking”, “flexible work arrangements” and the increasing number of people working in multiple part-time roles. These practices have their merits, however clients often also identify the additional pressures these create.
My clients often talk about the feeling of carrying ‘baggage’ over between roles – from home life into work, from one job role into another, and from parenting roles into relationship roles. One Australian researcher and author, Dr Adam Fraser, has spent considerable time interviewing and working with people across a range of backgrounds and professions around these struggles, and has written about a concept he calls ‘the Third Space’ (2012). Dr Fraser talks about the importance of establishing some process or ritual around transitioning between these two roles or spaces, hence the Third Space between these two. It’s a simple concept to implement, and brings us into greater consciousness of the present moment so that we’re better able to respond rather than react.
In the first step of the Third Space, Dr Fraser identifies the importance of reflecting on the space we are leaving, in order to mentally close this space off until returning. In particular, being able to highlight for ourselves ‘what went well’, as well as considering ‘what story will I tell myself about this?’ (see my earlier blog post about self-talk language as an extension of this idea). By attempting to reflect on this space in positive, or at least constructive, terms, it minimises the negative baggage we may otherwise carry over into the next role or space. From here, we then want to take a brief moment of pause or refresh, before looking at how we want to ‘turn up’ to the next space.
We’ll look at this step next time!