I bet when you read the title of this blog – you wondered why on earth Mel would be talking about rockets, astronauts, and space exploration? I can use all those as metaphors for the work I do with women but what I’m talking about is space as a ‘continuous area or expanse which is free, available, or unoccupied’ – the space in our minds.

Stay with me lovelies!!!!

One of the special parts of my work is witnessing women make the decision to invest in themselves and choosing me to help guide them. They come to me because they want to do things differently. One of the most important aspects of my role is to help them create the space that is essential for this work to happen.

So much space is needed for this work. In a world where we have been conditioned to mask, buffer, hide, and swallow our feelings – it takes deliberate and sustained effort to create space for yourself to be able to explore your feelings, understand what they signpost, and the direction you want to take.

But, what is space really?

Think about those moments when thoughts, ideas or the missing piece simply drops into your mind. When does that happen for you?

For me it’s when I am in the shower, our outdoor spa or surrounded by water in general.

For others it is when they’re in that light waking up slumber, walking the dog, running kilometres, swimming laps, having a quiet cup of tea, meditating, yoga practices, savouring that first cup of coffee for the day, gardening or really doing anything that allows you to slow down just a little bit.

Space is any kind of moment that allows your mind to create a gap between your thoughts. It’s right there in that space that the brilliance happens. They become the A-ha! moments. Where you get clarity and can see the way forward.

We have more than sixty thousand thoughts a day and it means our minds are very busy places. It’s no wonder we can feel like there is no space in there for even one more thing!

Holding space and creating space between the moments of our lives isn’t easy. It takes awareness, reflection, action, and a commitment to creating space in our lives as we live out the full human experience. But without the creation of space, we continue living in autopilot. Ultimately, we deny ourselves the growth we crave.

When I designed the Show Up and Take a Breath Program – it was to make space for slow, safe, and deep learning in an intimate setting with women who’ve chosen to invest in themselves.

Just because we want to create space, use the space to grow and find ways to live with this new space – doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Women will say to me this all feels like too much because you’re asking me to do another 256 things when I feel something!

But think about when you needed to merge with another car in traffic – when you were learning, it felt like you had to string together 56 individual movements to be able to merge and not crash!

But you practiced over and over again, and now you merge without even thinking about it. You’ve learnt the skill and now it lives in your physical and mental muscle memory.

Doing the emotional work is the same. You try it, practice it, reflect on it, try it again and again until it lives in your emotional and mental muscle memory. It becomes practice, it becomes habit.

How can we go about making more space in our life to do the emotional work?

It really is as simple as it sounds. We need to make a choice, start small and begin the practice without the expectation of perfection. Remembering that anything is better than nothing. As the saying goes “I would rather fail trying than succeed at doing nothing.”

Try these 7 shortcuts to creating more space for you to step into.

1. Start by deciding to make space in your life. Showing up for ourselves is often one of the barriers, stopping us from looking after ourselves.

2. Choose a ritual or practice to make space.This isn’t about taking hours of your time. It starts with micro moments that build into a practice that works for you. This can move and change with you as life changes and moves with you. Remember to turn the pressure down on yourself.

3. Use the space to do the work.Start with a Thought Download about your feelings and see what it reveals. As an example – if the top emotion is anger, ask yourself what three emotions sit beneath the anger? Is it frustration, disappointment, embarrassment, pain, sadness, guilt, worry, shame or something else? Don’t try to ‘fix it’, just sit with it.

4. Be gentle on yourselfwhilst you practice bringing space into your life and doing the work. There is no timeline, no deadlines – just give yourself permission to be.

5. Notice any moments where you’re trying to achieve perfection. Let go of the expectations of perfection. There is no such thing. Literally say the words – ‘I hear you, I see you, and today I am letting it go.’

6. Notice what happens when you sit in the space you’ve chosen to create for yourself.

7. Breathe. When it all gets a bit much, create a tiny little space and breathe in through your nose, right down into your tummy and then let it all go out of your mouth. Do that three times and notice the reset it instantly creates.

Coaching is a tool there to help you navigate the changes you are wanting to make in your life. There are a couple of ways you can work with me, it could be through events, a program like Show Up and Take a Breath or one-on-one coaching and stay tuned for some online programs currently in development.

Go gently

Mel xoxox