The Lost Art of Spaciousness: 5 Small Steps to a Fuller Life

Do you ever find yourself longing for more space—to think, breathe, enjoy your life, or simply hear yourself again?

If you're like many of the women I work with, it probably isn't because you're doing anything wrong. You're simply carrying a lot. Between work, family, relationships, responsibilities, and the constant demands of modern life, spaciousness can begin to feel like a luxury reserved for someone else.

But what if spaciousness isn't something you wait for?

What if it's something you intentionally create?

In this episode, I'm sharing why spaciousness has so little to do with having an empty calendar—and everything to do with cultivating a life that has room for you.

Drawing from my own journey as a single mother navigating years of financial scarcity, I explore the surprising parallel between building financial generosity and creating emotional and mental margin. Neither happens overnight. Both begin with small, intentional choices.

In this episode, we'll explore:

• Why so many high-capacity women feel like they're living in "time debt" and emotional overload
• The surprising mindset shift that changes how you think about spaciousness
• Why waiting for life to slow down rarely works
• Five practical ways to begin creating more margin this week—even if your life is genuinely full
• How spaciousness helps you become more present, intentional, and fully alive

If you've been craving a slower pace, a quieter mind, or simply a little more room to enjoy the beautiful life you're already living, I hope this conversation feels like permission to begin.

Because flourishing doesn't require an empty calendar.

It begins with creating enough room to actually inhabit your own life.

If this episode encouraged you, I'd love for you to subscribe, leave a review, or share it with a friend who could use a little more breathing room this week.

RESOURCES & LINKS

• Take the quiz: Are You a Gifted Woman?
• Sign up to receive my Sanctuary Letters
• Book a complimentary Flourishing Call if you're curious about working together
• Follow me on Instagram: @dr.andrealein
• Learn more: andrealein.com

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Transcript

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One of the things I hear from women over and over again is some version of I just want more space, more room to think and to breathe and to hear myself and to just like enjoy life. And yet, for many women, this kind of spaciousness feels completely impossible because their calendars are full and their responsibilities are real and their lives are already stretched very thin. So when someone like me starts talking about creating more spaciousness, the immediate reaction is something like, that sounds wonderful, but where exactly is that supposed to come from? And that's what I want to talk about today, because I think many women like yourself are waiting for spaciousness to arrive someday when in reality, spaciousness is something we get to learn to create. Welcome to the Power to Flourish podcast, where science meets the art of a beautiful life. I'm Dr. Andrea Lyme, positive psychologist, giftedness expert and coach, and modern-day spiritual godmother to brilliant, deep-feeling women. This isn't just another self-help podcast. It's a sanctuary, a sacred space to come back to yourself. Each week we'll explore the emotional experience of gifted, sensitive women and what it means to live a life that feels as beautiful as it may look. Because flourishing isn't a luxury, it's your birthright, and your life is waiting. This is the Power to Flourish Podcast. So, why does spaciousness feel so elusive? Even right in the middle of summer. When I think of summer, I just think of long lazy days. I guess it's maybe from that feeling of childhood, right? We want summer to feel more spacious. But how many of us, if we're being honest, are living lives that like it doesn't necessarily feel like summer is a slowdown? Maybe for some of us it is. But I think one of the reasons this conversation is so challenging is because many women feel like they're living in some form of debt, time debt or energy debt or tension debt, emotional debt, right? It's like I'm already behind, I'm caring too much, I'm trying to keep up with responsibilities and relationships and work and family and life. And so when you, Dr. Andrea, say you need more spaciousness, it can feel almost insulting, you know, or at the very least, very frustrating because I get what you're thinking, because I was you. It's like, okay, that sounds really great, but I barely have enough room for everything I'm already doing. How in the world am I going to find or create more spaciousness? And so if that's where you are, I want you to know I do not think you're failing. I think that you are simply living inside the reality of our modern life. And for many, again, for gifted women in particular, for thoughtful women, people like us who are very hyper-responsible and we're we're just so accustomed to carrying everything that spaciousness feels like a luxury. It's a luxury that we just we feel like we we can't afford it. So recently I have been thinking about a previous version of myself and an analogy that I wanted to bring into this conversation. And it has to do with giving financially. And I remember being a single mom. If you don't know my story, I became a single mom unexpectedly at the ripe age of 19. And while I did have family support in the first few years, I lived at home, I was still in college. At some point, I moved out, I went off to graduate school, and I was doing it on my own. I did not, I was not getting financial support. And so what did that look like for me? I was a full-time student. I was working on top of being a full-time student and a single parent. And so you can do the math, but let me just tell you, there was really no financial margin at all. There was, it was, it was a tough decade. And actually, I was a single mom for 15 years. So it was a tough 15 years. Let's just put it that way. And yet I reached a point somewhere in my late 20s, like turning 30, where I realized that if I waited until I felt, or until I was, financially abundant before being generous with my money, I might wait forever because I just I couldn't even envision a, I didn't, my life did not look financially abundant at the time. And at the same time, it was really important to me to cultivate financial generosity. Now, of course, I was very accustomed to giving of my time and my talents and and any other way I could, but financially, I had always, always been strapped. I did not come from a family with a lot of money. And then I was, you know, a single parent where I wasn't, you know, rolling around in a lot of money. So, but I wanted to cultivate financial generosity. I wanted it to just become part of how I lived. And I envisioned a future version of myself that would have way more money to be able to give. But at that moment in time, that was not my situation. And recently I've been thinking about that because I realize that spaciousness works in a very similar way. Most of us assume spaciousness comes after life calms down, right? Like there's this imagined future. You know, it's after this busy season, after this big project, after the kids are older, when they grow up and start school, or when they grow up and finish high school and they go off to college, or they finish college and they leave the nest, right? Whatever this imagined future is. Like we imagine everything gets easier. It's like me imagining one day I'll have more money and I can give. But for many women, and I think you probably, you know, kind of know this, like, look around at the women that you know of all ages. When does that day really arrive? Now, it is true that there are different stages of life, there's different, you know, seasons and stages. And so sure, things can shift, but this imagined, like this fantasy of like all the spaciousness in the world, I think for at least for women like us, that day does not necessarily ever just like one day, poof, fully arrive. Which means spaciousness isn't something we just stumble into, right? It's it's something we intentionally begin creating. It is built the same way margin is built, right? So, like just with the same idea with becoming financially generous, small amounts first. Small amounts. I did not start giving tons of money away because I didn't have tons of money to give away, but I started small. And the same thing applies to building in margin. We have to protect it intentionally. So, what does spaciousness actually even look like? I think sometimes people hear the word spaciousness and they imagine like some empty calendar or maybe it's two weeks in Bali or something. And that is not necessarily what I'm talking about. I think spaciousness is less about having nothing to do, although that could be one version of it, but it's more about creating room right here, right now, to actually experience your life, to hear your own thoughts and to notice your surroundings, notice the beauty and the goodness and the people that are around you and be present with them, to actually be able to like reflect on your life and be intentional and to be making these conscious choices, right? Instead of constantly reacting. And we know people like that, and maybe we've even been that person at times. But I think for me, spaciousness is this beautiful feeling that your life has enough room for you. It has enough room for you to actually inhabit it. That to me is what spaciousness is. So you may be listening to me right now and going, okay, well, that's really great, Dr. Andrea. So nice that you can talk about spaciousness and I would love that, but you know, I've got three under three, and like, where in the world do I start? Or whatever, whatever the scenario is for you. Maybe you are working full-time and raising a family, and you know, you're on three different volunteer lists. Like, there's so many ways this can look. But I want to give you five practical things that you can start today, this week, to begin intentionally creating. And again, when I set out to become a more financially generous person back in, you know, my like two decades ago, I did not have a lot. So I had to start where I was and begin to make choices. Even though, to be honest, it was kind of scary because there's this feeling of scarcity. And I think the same thing happens when we're talking about our time and spaciousness. There's this feeling like there's just not enough, or we're not going to be able to get all the things done if we create space, right? But that is a mindset shift. So let me give you five concrete things you can begin doing, and they're small, hopefully small enough, you can start experimenting. And in the same way that when I started to give, even in small ways, you then have this experience of what it feels like. And it's expansive, right? Like when you start giving more, there's something that happens in us that it motivates to want to be to give more. I can say that for now. Again, 20 years into this, I dream of, I want to give more and more and more of money away. Like that is my heart because of what it does on the inside. And I want to encourage you, if this is something in an area of life where you've struggled, it's the same thing. It really was hard for me to create spaciousness in my life in a certain stage. And while the circumstances of my life are very different, if I'm not careful, and I've seen women who stop working or, you know, their kids leave and they just fill up their life with more activity. You would think, oh, well, the circumstances have changed. So now there's going to be more spaciousness. That is not necessarily the case, right? It's an inside job. So here we go. Let's dive in. Five small acts of spaciousness you can start today. Number one, stop automatically filling every empty moment. Just like I said, don't be that woman. Don't be that woman who has a moment and it's so uncomfortable that we just we we fill it. This is the con this rather the unconscious reacting in life. And I am just as guilty of some of these things, but I'm going to suggest that we can start right here. We as a culture have become incredibly uncomfortable with empty space. Silence, not filling the void. We scroll on our phones while we're waiting. Do you remember if you're old enough, we used to have to like sit in a doctor's office? I remember dating this guy in my 20s, and he was he was such a reader and he always had a book with him. You may still be this person, but he would go, you know, if he had to wait getting his car work done or the doctor's office or the dentist, anything. Like whenever you were in a place where you'd have to be waiting in the waiting room, he always had a book. And I thought, oh, that's really smart. Cause like just think of how much more reading you could get done. Well, how many of us are really doing that? We are, let's just be honest. We have these phones with us all the time and we're always scrolling. We are listening to something constantly. This is definitely my, this is my bad habit. You know, we don't always have to be listening to a podcast or a show or a YouTube, whatever it is. We don't always have to reach for our phones reflexively because we have a moment free. So this week, I want you to experiment with leaving a few moments unfilled. Again, just start very small. Maybe it's like in those moments where you're, you know, waiting for the kids to get out of camp or swimming lessons or whatever it is, wherever you might be having to wait. Do not reach for the phone. Maybe you don't turn anything on to listen to and you just sit with yourself for a moment. Number two, I encourage you to create one pocket of margin. It does not have to be a whole day. In fact, don't try to do that. Don't do not try to complete like a whole lifestyle overhaul this week. Don't do it. Don't do it. One small pocket, say like 10 minutes, 15 minutes, maybe, you know, take one evening this week or carve out time for one little walk. Or if you're more of a morning person, like carve out a 15-minute block in the morning that is your margin. Protect it. Protect it. This is the most important thing. Protect it. Number three, I want to challenge you to remove one source of unnecessary friction. What does that mean? Ask yourself, what is taking up too much space in my life right now? Is it a particular habit? Is it a commitment you made that made sense at the time, but maybe not so much now? Is it a responsibility that you no longer really need to carry if you're being, you know, if you really look at it, you said yes, but it you shouldn't be carrying it. Oftentimes spaciousness begins by removing something. So when we fill up our lives with so much, it is hard to find, like we have to create the spaciousness. We we have to create the space. Sometimes that means we gotta move some stuff out. Sometimes we just have to check it off the list, like cross it off the list altogether. Sometimes that means we have to delegate, which means we got to deal with whatever is getting in our way of doing that. Um, but find one small thing, one small thing this week that you could remove. I think that will be helpful. Number four is I want you to reconnect with what makes you feel like yourself. Okay, so what helps you feel most alive? What makes you feel like you are actually experiencing your beautiful, precious life? Is it reading? Is it listening to music or making music or singing or cooking or gardening or playing with your kids on the floor or you know, going out with your girlfriends and I don't know, talking about silly things or having deep, meaningful conversations. Like what is it for you? Maybe it's going out dancing. I mean, it anything because remember, spaciousness is not just creating empty space in the calendar, right? It's room, it's actually creating room for the things that bring you back to yourself to allow you to feel like, oh, I am inhabiting this life that I've created. So this is sort of like a an addition. We've talked about some subtraction, but this is an addition. And then lastly, the fifth small action step that you can take this week is ask a better question. And what is that? Instead of asking, how do I find spaciousness? How do I find spaciousness? I want you to begin asking yourself, where can I intentionally create a little more space? Where can I intentionally create a little more space? That mindset shift changes everything. It changes everything. We start looking for the places because they're there. Just like in my budget, like even though I was like, I was in debt, like I was in the negative. I was not, I was not flowing in money at that stage in my life. Like I had student loans, I was not making a lot of money. It was just, it was very anxiety-producing, quite honestly. But I had this intention and this desire in my heart to change. And so the beginning of that was this long journey, which now, you know, almost 20 years later, is so beautiful because it just started in like like how, where, where can I give money? How can I give money? And trust that I'm gonna be okay. That's a that's a big one, I think, for even in this space. Um there's this underlying trust. It's like a leap of faith, especially if you've really felt like this is just not an area that I know how to to flow in, you know, in in a in a life of spaciousness. Or again, for me, it was like being in a flow of generosity at the time, like the money flow. It just, I wasn't living in that place. I hadn't gotten to that place yet. But you have to start it. You're you have to make the decision to start. One of the things that I've learned over the years is that spaciousness, it doesn't magically happen. It rarely arrives like poof overnight. It doesn't arrive dramatically, typically, right? It just requires and begins with these very small acts of intention, like we've been talking about. So whether it's protecting an hour this week or 15 minutes as a start, you know, taking a walk, turning something off, saying no, saying no, paying attention, small acts of spaciousness, small declarations that your inner life matters to. You do not need to create a completely different life overnight, my friend. And I really, really discourage you from trying to do that. Do not even make that your aim. You do deserve, however, a life that has enough room for you to hear yourself think, enough room for you to notice the beauty around you, to experience the joy that is right there already. Enough room for you to become the woman who you're meant to be, right? The full person that you are meant to be in this lifetime. That is my wish for you. And maybe that is the invitation as we close out June, not to necessarily wait for spaciousness to, you know, like magically appear for us. Sometimes for some of us, we're gonna be waiting a really long time and we're gonna be frustrated and discouraged if we passively sit and wait for it to arrive one magical day. We're here to begin creating it, to take agency in our own lives and begin creating it one step at a time. So if this episode encouraged you today, helped you reflect on some things that perhaps need to change, we're still in the middle of summer and hope that you are enjoying it. But if you're already feeling a little like, oh my gosh, I'm exhausted, or I it just doesn't feel like I have space, I want you to stop yourself in your tracks right now and decide to do something different. Decide right now that you are going to walk out this week differently. You're gonna walk out the next month differently. You're gonna walk out this summer differently. You you get to decide that. You get to decide that. We can always make excuses. We can always make excuses. We had to have good reasons. Look, I had really good reasons, really valid, valid reasons. Anyone could look at my bank statement and look at the at what I was carrying alone without help. Like anyone could have looked at that and been like, yeah, we had, yeah, if anything, people should be giving money to you. You're your young single mom who like needs help. Like, but I I wanted to become someone who had the character of generosity. This is about, this is as much about character building as anything else. We don't really talk, you know, it's kind of a funny way to think about spaciousness as like a character building process, but I want you to think about it. Like, do you not want to be the kind of woman whose character is one who feels like she has time and space, not because her calendar has nothing on it, not because she's not participating in life, actually because she's very present and she's participating in exquisitely intentional ways. So she is living her life fully. Her calendar has all sorts of things on it. Like if I showed you my calendar for the summer, there's there's a lot going on. There's a lot going on, right? And even as I, as you're listening to this, um, I am coming off of one big trip and going like into the next big trip. And I will be enjoying the countryside, but I have a long list of tasks to do while I am in this, you know, nice little countryside experience. But it's a decision for me to, you know, how am I gonna experience that? How am I going to build spaciousness, even with at this particular season, a full list of things on the to-do list? And some of those to-do may have to be scratched out or delegated, right? But I still have, I'm still living my life. We're not waiting for some imaginary, empty calendar. I don't think we would feel very fulfilled, even if we got that wish. So be encouraged. Start small. I hope that you take at least one of those five small action steps to take this week. And I look forward to entering into the month of July with you next week. We have lots of really great topics. I'm excited to share with you as we head deeper into the summer. And I hope you have a beautiful, spacious week ahead of you. And until next time, keep flourishing. Thank you for listening to the Power to Flourish podcast. I hope today's conversation left you feeling more seen, more supported, and more deeply connected to yourself. And if this episode resonated, would you take a moment to subscribe, leave a review, or share it with a friend? It's one of the best ways to help this work reach the women who need it most. You'll find show notes, links, and resources from today's episode at powertoflourish.com. And now just a quick reminder: this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. It's not therapy, medical advice, or substitute for professional support. Listening doesn't make me your therapist or doctor. If you're looking for a coach, you know where to find me. All right, people. That's it for now. Until next time, trust yourself. Honor again.