Making Space For You | Creating Safe Spaces For Reflection

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Wild Free Well podcast.

Sorry just checking to make sure it was recording.

I'm really happy to have you here today and I'm excited to talk to you about the topic that I've chosen for today.

But before we get started I want to do something that I rarely ever do on the podcast and I want to invite you to take a few deep breaths with me to really ground in.

I think it's relevant to the conversation that we're about to have and I think it's going to make the impact of what I'm going to share even more powerful.

So if you can and you're in a space,

I.

E.

Not driving,

Not operating any kind of machinery,

Where you can close your eyes and take a few deep breaths with me then please feel free.

You can also do with your eyes open.

For me personally I feel like when I close my eyes I get a little deeper and I get a little bit more out of this process.

So yeah if you're ready I'll get you to close your eyes and get into like a comfortable position.

Wiggle,

Shake it out a little bit and we'll start with our first deep breath in through the nose.

And out through the mouth long and slow.

Okay next deep breath in through the nose.

This time we're gonna hold at the top.

Put those shoulders down and exhale long and slow through the mouth.

Last breath in through the nose.

Take another sip of air at the top.

Hold.

Long exhale shoulders down.

And when you're ready you can open your eyes.

Is that not the juiciest like 30 seconds that you will take all day?

It's just so good,

So so good,

So powerful and so simple.

Okay today I am here to talk to you about creating space for yourself but it's not just about creating space.

Creating space is an oversimplification of this discussion because it's about creating space yes but it's also about gifting yourself space,

Giving yourself space.

Okay sorry and we're talking about this both metaphorically and literally okay so we're talking about creating internal space but we're also talking about creating external space okay and the way that our environments impact us.

So what I want to start off by saying is that the idea of space having a safe space again physically in our external world and then also internally having a safe space is so important for self-reflection.

If you're listening to this podcast it's because you are someone who is interested in and motivated towards personal growth.

You like self-help,

You want to improve,

You want to feel better,

You want to understand life on a deeper level right and so in order to be able to do that we really need to have a space that is conducive to that kind of exploration.

It's so easy to say like you're going to do the work or you're going to like take time and time is important too and we talk a lot about time and space on the podcast in general but there is something about the spaces that you occupy being nurturing,

Being open,

Being safe,

Being something that inspires you that really has an impact on the depth and the breadth I suppose of what you can accomplish in terms of personal development.

I have such a personal story about this because one of the first steps is just kind of recognizing whether or not the physical environment that you're in is conducive to your own personal growth.

Okay I don't know if you've been following along with the podcast if you have great you've probably heard a little bit about this story already but I moved about a year and a half ago actually almost two years now which is crazy to think about and one of the things I've noticed is that the house I am living in is not necessarily a physical space that has been conducive to my personal evolution.

In a lot of ways I would say that the house has actually been something that has held me back and I know that that's a lot of pressure and like that's a really big statement to say about a house but it really does feel that way for me that feels very much true like the physical environment in which I've been living has not felt conducive to my personal growth.

This is for a myriad of reasons okay one of the reasons is because I'm living in a house that belonged to someone else someone that I know and the furniture that's in the house is the same furniture from when other people were living here so it's not necessarily my furniture and even when I moved like a lot of my furniture just didn't fit in the house or we haven't found a space for it because a lot of the furniture is built in which is a blessing and a curse because it's cool to have built-in furniture but then you're really tied to the layout of the way that the that things are like even if you look at the space behind me this is all built in right so we have this like kind of custom-made area and it's difficult to kind of find a way to create space within something that is pre-existing and that is taking up all the space and so it felt like very difficult to be able to personalize this space when I moved here and I think that really had a huge impact on me as a person I tend to be somebody very focused on the home if you're into astrology I'm a cancer son and the idea of home nesting nurturing is something that is very important and very prevalent in my life and so not being able to personalize the house was really difficult and then carrying that on being in a space where I don't necessarily feel safe and that safety is not a literal safety I do not feel in danger necessarily like not necessarily I don't feel in danger at all don't feel in danger but that kind of the safety that I'm talking about is more like a personal safety it's something that like you create by putting your mark on a place you know it's that feeling of when you come home and it's just like your shoulders relax and like I'm in my safe space and I don't feel like I've had that up until quite recently when we've really started kind of moving some things around even though that's very challenging and like we're still in the process of making some decisions around how to how to organize the house and stuff like that this is kind of like an ongoing discussion between my partner and I in order to kind of make this space more of a reflection of who we are and we've done things don't get me wrong but like I'm the kind of person that it needs to be I tend to gear towards being all or nothing and that's not something that I'm advocating for but it it tends to be my kind of knee-jerk reaction to things and so I do kind of like want the house to be perfect right away so that has been something that has been a bit of a struggle and definitely impacted my personal growth because there were also other things going on so the house became like another kind of pebble in my shoe if that makes sense among other pebbles that were already there maybe the house wouldn't have been such a big issue if the other areas of my life were a little bit more balanced but like in over the last couple of years basically there's just been a lot going on and it's been such a huge transition period as I've talked about before so like the house situation became I think exacerbated by the fact that there were other things going on and so this is an example of how our physical environment and it maybe not being a reflection of who we are maybe it's not clean maybe it's not organized maybe it's it's missing something that for you is fundamental it really depends like you'll know that better I can't speak to that for you obviously but that really does have an impact on the way that we are able to show up for ourselves because your home is the energy you reside in like the physical space I mean is the home that you reside in right and so that physical energy and the impact of it on your internal energy is it's present it's there whether we want to admit it or not and it's present to varying levels it's not always going to be the same it shifts and moves and so on and so forth but this conversation also needs to go beyond a physical space so there is the aspect of the physical space your home the way that you keep it okay the way that it's designed is it a reflection of you and so on and so forth but when we speak about environments and environments being conducive to personal growth we cannot remove relationships from this conversation because our relationships are other environments in which we find ourselves that may or may not be conducive to our personal growth this can be any relationship this can be a familiar relationship the relationship you have with your partner the relationship you have with your friends the relationship you have with your colleagues at work or you know even with your work environment which is another physical environment obviously but all of these are important because we are energetic beings being impacted by the circles in which we put ourselves right and so if we are in a situation where let's say our family kind of leans towards being a little bit more negative or perhaps being a little bit more combative or perhaps thinks personal growth is not that important and in the meantime it's something that's very important to you so there's that kind of like I don't want to say clash but misalignment perhaps right and that can also create this sort of stifling feeling where we're seeing the way that other people are living moving doing the things that they're doing and we're trying to potentially move differently or do things differently and there is like a little bit of contrast between the two things and that too can have an impact on us because as humans we tend to view what other people are doing as right or better or successful not always but we do have a tendency to compare ourselves to others where we come out the loser and the other people come out the winner right and so we want to be mindful as well that the relationships and those environments the emotional environments that we find ourselves in are also conducive to our personal growth now am I telling you to like say okay family you don't believe in personal development so I'm leaving and like tell your friends okay we're done I'm I don't want to be in this anymore like no obviously not that wouldn't be good advice in any case but what I am saying is that you need to be mindful of the impact that these relationships are having on you so that at least you're aware and you can make decisions moving forward okay whatever that decision looks like for you you may well decide that you do not want to interact with certain people anymore because you've had enough or you've realized that you've outgrown this group or it doesn't fit anymore or whatever it might be right you you can make that decision as well that's not the only decision but certainly being aware of what is going on around you is going to make a massive massive impact right and so after we've done we're done looking at these like you know our environments and deciding whether or not they support us and if we recognize that they are not supporting us we need to begin making small changes whatever that looks like whether that's organizing your your physical environment or reassessing your relationships or at least being aware of the impact that the relationships are having on you and then taking action on your own we are never we are never about changing people that is not what we do here we do not care what other people do we do not care what other people believe everyone is free to be who they want to be believe what they want to believe move the way they want to move in the world you are in charge of you but if you do find yourself in a situation where your relationships are no longer reflective of the kind of relationships that you want you need to get really clear on what kind of relationships and what kind of containers you are actively searching for and so we can use a compare and contrast technique here so we can look at what we don't like about our current environment and use it as an opportunity to brainstorm what our ideal environment would look like so if you're in a relationship where people are predominantly negative then you would look for a relationship or other containers where the energy is predominantly positive right we know we're using that contrast we're using what we don't want to zero in on what we do want and that can be a really powerful tool to get some clarity on what isn't working and what you actually want and I would I would also say I'm gonna put a little asterisk here I want you to be really mindful we don't want this to turn into a gigantic wine fest so we're not here to complain about how you know the relationships just aren't whatever blah blah blah and the house isn't just whatever blah blah blah it's like okay we need to use that information to then get us the steps and kind of begin to put like the breadcrumbs on the path to where we actually want to be that is the ultimate goal here right so how can we carve out space I mean it's emotional and energetic space right that we're talking about but it's also physical space and if you are like me and you are struggling with the your home environment perhaps it's not it's no longer or it has never been a reflection of who you are then I would really encourage you to begin to carve out a space in the house where you can dedicate a little bit of time to personalizing it this can be easier said than done I know it certainly was for me but it really is valuable to begin to make decisions that reflect who you are as a person I can give an example of this when we were renovating our kitchen and our bathroom the kitchen the bathroom are in stark I mean like frighteningly stark contrast to the rest of the house the house the rest of the house is quite warm in terms of tone and the bathroom in the kitchen are like white gray clean airy like it's just a totally different vibe but and and that was really useful but actually this was the biggest thing for for us personally for both Francesco and I we have again remember please it's important that all of our furniture is built in and so we can only move with the furniture that we have already available to us and so we had a couch and we were looking to potentially replace the couch but the couch is like built to the specifications of the built-ins and it's a sectional and it's humongous like it's genuinely massive one day I will I will show you guys because I plan on doing some videos from there too in the future but we went to like replace it and we couldn't really find anything that was the right size and so we decided to re reupholster the the couch that we had and we went to the the artisan that we that did our couch like the upholster that did our couch and we were looking at color swatches and I mean this is one of the reasons why I really love Francesco but we were looking at color swatches for the couch and we look at the color swatches look at each other and then we both point to the same couch to the same color swatch and it is lilac it's like bright purple and I mean bright purple like it's kind of towards gray but we're just like we're not actually going to get a purple couch like that's crazy that's that's a that's a horrible decision long-term like part of the reasons why we decided to do the couch and the colors or sorry the the kitchen and the bathroom and the colors that we chose is because white is relatively timeless you know although I will say sorry that there is also a purple cabinet in our in our bathroom and we were looking for purple tiles for the kitchen but we didn't find any so like we we did make like decisions to like personalize it but we tried to stay like as neutral as possible with like some pops of color oh the focus is gone here hang on I'm just gonna get that back is it back it's not really close really far okay so yeah but we were like are we actually going to make the decision to buy a purple couch and it's like we are we are we definitely did so we have a like gigantic purple sectional in our living room which sounds awful but is actually delightful and we love it and that decision to like make the space ours was just really powerful and I mean aside from the fact that reupholstering the couch also made it much more comfortable just the decision to stylistically create something that we both really loved was massive it was huge it was so so important to carve out that space for ourselves so like that's something that I would encourage you to do is to find some way to make a space a corner a room of your house what you are looking for what you are craving the energy that you want to embody like how do you want this space to feel and what do you want this space to evoke in you what feelings do you want it to bring out in you right and then kind of go from there and make your decisions based on that how do we carve out emotional space that can be a little bit more difficult but I feel like that I mean as with all things in personal development the part that is always the hardest is making the decision to do the damn thing so a lot of times where we get tripped up is in making the decision to actually create the space for ourselves to ensure that we have that space so if you are looking for emotional space if you are looking for a safe space with people as well so not just on your own but like in in collaboration or in connection with other people then you need to make the decision to actually do things to find it keeping in mind that if you do not have that right now in the spaces that you occupy currently you may not be able to easily create them in that same container okay so remember we cannot change people we cannot force people to be different we cannot bend them to our will we cannot make them what we want them to be the only thing that we can do is use our energy as a way to have a positive ripple effect and a positive impact on the people around us that yes but changing people no so if you are struggling in your relationships and in your emotional environment right now you may need to look elsewhere which would mean putting yourselves in positions to find other people new people different people whether that be like going to a book club or you know joining a meetup group or using like one of the apps to find new friends and looking for people specifically who have common interests as you right and there are so many apps that you can use for that to meet friends nowadays and and luckily we have this resource like the internet that is connecting us in different ways and puts us in front of people that we may not have necessarily run into on the street though we can also run into them on the street if we are in a position to go to a class to do something that we like or where we're kind of focusing on our interests and we're we're meeting other people who are also interested in the same thing okay the other thing I would say is that you want to look for a container that embodies again the energy that you want to create in your life so if we're talking about safety we want to look for a container that automatically feels safe that automatically in kind of encompasses the things that you're looking for if you're looking for adventure the same thing right you want to put yourself in front of a group or in a group where there are other adventurous people or you're doing adventurous things and so people are either already adventurous inherently or innately adventurous or they are looking to cultivate that in their lives right and that's being still on the same aligned path with you so all of those are really good opportunities to kind of put us in a different energy and to expand I mean to expand who we are as people to evolve to grow to learn to step outside of our comfort zones like there's so many benefits that come from from all of this right and one of the things that I will say harking back to the beginning when we were talking about you know having safe spaces for self-reflection being able to like kind of go deeper whether that be a safe space in community alone whether it be a physical or emotional environment this is so important for our personal development because we are impacted so much so much more than I think we'd like to believe by the people that surround us and by the spaces that we occupy so if we can find a way to put ourselves in front of a group of positive people over time we will see an impact of that collective energy that group energy really changing the way that we move in the world in the same way that potentially being surrounded by negative people long term has also had an impact on you I will say from a personal from a from a personal standpoint I've noticed a massive difference in myself having lived in Italy for ten years so I've been here for almost a decade now and I noticed a difference in the way that I think and how I approach life that is a little bit more feels a little bit more uphill my mindset feels a little bit more uphill here than it did in Canada I think in Canada and maybe potentially in North America in general and especially as somebody who is from I would say lower middle class but I don't think I would say upper middle class but from like a you know in and around the middle class and I'm also white and you know there's a lot of privilege happening there but I do think that there is an inherent sort of sorry there is an inherent sort of story prevalent in North America that like you can do the things that you want to do you can move forward in the way that you want to you you have so many opportunities and doors open to you and and things like that and I realize that that is not the lived experience of every person especially people of color and we could go down the socio-political rabbit hole with this but I'm going to choose not to in this case I'm using myself as an example and I am I'm definitely calling out the privilege because I think it's there I don't think that you can have a conversation without doing that but I don't want to talk necessarily about about how other people are being unjustly blocked it's happening I think most of us are aware of that but it's more important that I say to the story that I'm trying to tell you that that I acknowledge the ways in which my life is easier because of the luck I had of being born a white lower middle class woman but anyways because in North America there is a general sense of like you can achieve your dreams go for what you want like you can make it happen if you work hard enough it'll work and I think in Italy there is a different collective energy that is a little bit heavier and that believes that things are a little bit harder historically speaking just to kind of give context to this comment there have there has a historically been always more employees than employers available in Italy okay so there's always been more people than jobs and I think that that when we're talking about something that encompasses at least 40 hours of your life per week right it has a huge impact when you feel like there's not a lot of possibility there and so I do think that that over time has impacted my mindset and it's really interesting from that point of view again like just a kind of reiterate how important the environment is and the spaces that you occupy are to your personal development the more you put yourself in a positive space the more you put yourself in a space where anything is possible and where you can achieve your dreams and you can move forward and you can be the best version of yourself or be who you want to be or move the way you want to move or whatever it is that you're after the more it's going to shift the way that you perceive the external world the way that you move in the external world the people that you attract to you I mean it all has a ripple effect but sometimes we struggle and that's kind of the the point of this of this podcast in particular sometimes we struggle to get there when the spaces that we occupy are not conducive to that growth are not conducive to that exploration discovery expansion and so on and so forth so moving beyond that obviously if we are choosing to stay in an environment where our energy is being negatively impacted by the physical and emotional spaces that we occupy it is going to impact inevitably our lives our daily lives long term because again we are we tend to be sponges we say this about children as if there's an age that you reach where you stop being a sponge but it's not true we're all sponges we're all energetic beings we're all pinging off of each other all day long and if we are in an environment that is toxic or upsetting or you know just even if it's not like the extreme side of things even if it's just something that like doesn't fully make us comfortable or doesn't allow us to be seen it doesn't allow us to be heard be appreciated feel loved feel supported doesn't really allow all of who we are to unfold and be present in that space then that can be really difficult and this is something that I talk about in in one of my coaching programs because I think it's so important for us to really be in a space and in a community because when we are working with a coach one-on-one it's wonderful and it's super powerful and there's a lot of things happening there and it's so targeted and focused on you that it's great but sometimes especially if we're feeling alone in the world or alone with what we're feeling alone with what we're working towards and the goals that we're trying to achieve being in community can be so powerful because it's not just the coach then that witnesses you but it's the it's the collective right it's the community that has been built within that space that is witnessing you and there's so much power in that because it helps us to it helps us to embody a different energy and begin to make the internal shifts that make the external shifts easier so what I mean by that is here we've been talking about changing our internal and external spaces to make them feel overall the conversation has been around safety why safety safety is a really good foundation and a really strong launching pad for us to move towards whatever it is that we want right and so that's kind of what the the focus of this podcast has been on but it's about anything that you want to achieve when we are in a space where we have that safety where we can feel that kind of support whether it be from another person or from a book or from a course like I don't really care what it is it doesn't really matter find your thing and go with God as it were but when we find those things and we create that internal safety we can create that foundation everything else begins to unfold really quite simply for us like it just kind of goes and it makes it going after the big kind of scary but exciting things that we have in our lives a hell of a lot easier because we have not just the support system which is really important but because we've allowed other people to see us and to witness us in all of who we are which is what like if we go back to the beginning of the conversation when we were talking about relationships potentially not being conducive to growth that's part of the discussion right because when we don't feel safe in a space we are not going to bring forth all of who we are and if we are not bringing forth all of who we are and we're holding ourselves back that way we're never really tapping into our full potential and so it makes it a lot harder to kind of go after the things that you want to go after and this doesn't have to be a conversation about goal achieving and whatever it's not about that it's about feeling good that's it and then the goals they flow naturally from there but really about creating a space where you feel safe and seen and heard and understood and loved for all of who you are and then using that as a springboard to get to where you ultimately want to be.

So just to kind of recap the spaces that we occupy have a bigger impact on us than we are potentially giving them credit for and I know that I was also naive to this in terms of every sense I mean over the course of my life certainly in my relationships Lord Almighty but we're getting into that but definitely I was naive and I was not necessarily putting myself in spaces that were conducive to my growth and it definitely held me back and I will say too just as a side note I have seen friends and colleagues and I have seen other people even like other coaches in my industry who have put themselves in spaces with other like-minded women and the growth that they have achieved has been exponential in comparison to the growth that I have achieved trying to do things on my own like told just just totally calling myself out for for a second here there is a huge power in putting yourself in those spaces and and and the way that it makes you feel and the reflection of other people back to you so reflecting you back to you but also reflecting potentially who you want to be or what you want or what you're working towards back to you what I mean by that is when you see somebody and we've all been in this scenario before we see somebody who has this inner light there is just something there you can't explain it you can't quantify it but you know that you like that person and you're drawn to them and you want to be around them yeah you know the feeling that I'm talking about those people not only reflect like they not only shine light out of themselves their own light but they reflect the light that you have within you back to you they are calling you back to yourself and we sometimes fail to see that and we approach the conversation with jealousy but actually it is nothing more than a mirror of the light within you that you are searching for and so being in those spaces with other women with other people with whatever I don't care like reading a group being reading a group Lord Almighty reading a book and being part of a book club for example or knitting being a part of a knitting circle or you know being part of a run club you are in a position where not only are people pushing you to be your best which is wonderful but they're also automatically interested in you because they share an interest with you because you guys are all working towards a common goal as well but also it's just you are able to see yourself in the people that you are surrounded with and you get a totally different like reflection and perspective on who you are as a person there's just so much power in this there's so much I could say and I'm going to stop here so yeah I just I'm really grateful for you being here thank you so much for listening for supporting me for tuning in for leaving reviews when you leave reviews and if you have anything that you would like to say or share with me please do I would love to connect with you it just means the world to me when people reach out