Holding the Space Without Taking On The Baggage {Ep 224}

If you’ve ever finished a client session and felt like you’re carrying someone else’s anxiety in your chest, their stress in your shoulders, or their problems in your head, we made this conversation for you. I’m talking about the skill that separates sustainable coaches from burned-out helpers. Holding space with strong emotional boundaries, so you can stay kind, present, and clear without absorbing a client’s baggage.

I get practical and a little blunt. I break down how I tune in with permission, feel what a client feels, and still leave it with them when the call ends. I talk about why “fixing” people is a trap, why no one is broken, and how real growth comes from awareness not from rescuing. I also go hard on active listening, because being truly heard is rare, and it changes everything about trust, safety, and the quality of your coaching, mentoring, or counselling.

We also tackle the sneaky pressure that drains you. Believing you’re responsible for the outcome. Clients choose their pace, their actions, and what they do between sessions. I share how to stay grounded when someone is upset or angry, how to separate your self-worth from their mood, and why tools like journaling can land after the session even if it doesn’t feel like a “breakthrough” in the moment.

If you want to be the person who holds a safe space without losing yourself, listen through and take what you need. Subscribe, share this with a coach-friend, and leave a review so more people learn how to serve without burning out.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi everyone and welcome. This is Tuesday Talks with Darlene, and today's episode is one that I've sort of been wanting to talk about for a while because excuse me, as you can hear, I'm not too well. Ah, excuse me. I wanted to talk about how you can actually hold the space when you're with a client or clients if you do group work as well without taking on their baggage. Now, for me, I actually had to learn how to do this with especially with my um abilities. So I've got my beautiful abilities opened. That meant I needed to learn how to tune into somebody, with their permission, of course, feel what they're feeling, but not

Holding Space Without Absorbing

SPEAKER_00 0:44

take it on. And also not take on other stuff as well. Because when you work with people, it can be easy to walk away feeling like you've picked up everything that they're going through, like you're carrying their stress, their emotions, and their problems with you after the session ends. That's not actually your job though. It's not. You can actually care about somebody, you can hold the space without caring what they feel. Your role as a businesswoman is to be there with them while they move through it, but not take it home with you. Now, today's episode is about learning how to stay open and kind without ending up drained so that you can keep showing up in a steady way and have your energy be nice and clear. There's lots of other um spiritual stuff you can do. I'm going to talk about more of the um more of kind of it's not foundations, but more the words not coming to me. You can tell I'm not quite well. But more um, I don't want to say kinesthetic, but you know, more of that kind of stuff anyway. You'll know what I mean as I go through the episode. Interesting how sometimes words just won't come out. The first thing is to know what's yours to carry. This is one of the biggest things I had to learn, and also when I actually have anything happen, like for this, for me feeling sick, I did actually tune in and go, is this mine? Because I still occasionally, you know, there's times where I'm not um working with my energy the best way that I could, and these kind of things can happen. This is actually mine, though. I know it's mine, I know what it is, and I'm working through it. That's where knowing what's yours to carry is really important because you can care about that client. You don't need to take on their stuff though. You can really listen, and I mean actually listen,

Know What Is Yours To Carry

SPEAKER_00 2:55

which is I'm gonna say it, I'm gonna be really direct here. Not many of you actually do. You listen to talk, you don't actually listen to listen. That's why you've got, and it's a saying, and I I will say it, you've got two ears and one mouth. So the best thing you can do, and I'm gonna be really direct and blunt here, shut your mouth and open your ears. Now, there's lots of training, lots of coaching training out there where you're not taught how to actually listen to somebody. And I can tell you, when you feel heard, it makes a huge difference. And I've actually seen it where there's coaches who will talk over the client. The client's talking and they'll talk over them because they're not actually listening. There's there's a rant, but I do get really angry about it because the times I've actually been heard, I can tell you, are extremely rare. And that's you know why I don't have a huge amount of friends, because a lot of the friends I do have don't actually listen. And it's like, yeah, I'm over it. Again, I will say you can really listen and be present without making their feelings yours. Whatever they're feeling, don't have it become yours as well, because you're gonna walk away from that session, whether it's online, in person, or whatever, you're gonna walk away with pain, with anxiety, with whatever it is. That's not your job to do, though. Your job is to tune in, be with them, and then let them take that. You hopefully during the session,

Real Listening Without Taking Over

SPEAKER_00 4:32

you've helped them work through whatever's going on with them. Remember, what they feel belongs to them, not you. It is not yours. You are there to support them, you're there to listen to them, you are not there to fix them. There's no such thing as people needing healing, people needing fixing. There's no such thing. We don't need healing, we're not broken. And I will say that you'll hear it in AI, it says it all the time. I will say it. No one is broken, it is about awareness. So you're not there to fix them. Your job is to sit there with them, guide them, help them think clearly. It is not to take away all their hard feelings. Because if you take away their hard feelings, they're not going to have the awareness, they're not gonna suddenly go, oh, they're just gonna go, oh, okay, and walk away. And they won't feel like they've actually achieved anything in your session. Because, as I said, it's not your job to take away their hard feelings. People will feel what they want to feel, and if you're someone that negates that, I can tell you it's gonna backfire on you big time. Someone being upset or overwhelmed does not mean you've done something wrong in that session, it just means they are going through something, and your job is to support them, to be with them, to listen. And it's okay to stay kind without becoming the container for everything. Once you stop taking everything on as your own, you start to notice something else. The pressure to be responsible for where they end up. It's theirs. Guess what? It's theirs, it's not yours. That pressure it goes away because you don't take on their stuff. And what you want to do is you want to give the results back to the client because you're not in charge of what they do next. You can guide someone and support them and listen and everything. They still choose to do what they want to do with it. That is not your responsibility. And if they come back to the next session and things haven't changed, you can bring that awareness up. You don't make them feel like crap or anything like that, you just bring the awareness up. Because people move at their own pace. Some

Release Outcome Responsibility

SPEAKER_00 7:07

people change quickly, some take a longer time. That is not something that you can control or speed up. It is not your responsibility, so stop taking it on. Well, this episode's getting ranty. I had a feeling it might happen. Remember, your job is to show up and not make it all work. You do your part in the time that you have with them. What happens after that is theirs to figure out. It's okay to care about their progress without carrying the weight of it. Have you ever noticed people that seem to have their shoulders are like, you know, their shoulders are like so far down. It's like instead of their um, like they've got their neck, and then instead of it sort of going straight out, their shoulders are like at a real bad angle. Not not bad, but at a real angle. That those people carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. You can see it. Anyone that has like head and neck pain, carry the weight. If you're if you've got any neck, shoulder, um, top of your back, any pain like that, tune into it because you're most obviously carrying everyone else's weight. It's not your job to carry. Because even when you stop trying to trying to control the outcome, there is still one more place that this shows up. How you feel about yourself when someone is struggling. That is something that's really it takes a while to actually figure out how you feel about yourself when someone is struggling is a big thing. Because you can go, you can you get to an awareness where you go, I've done everything I possibly can to support them, to listen to them. If they continue to struggle, I will continue to be there for them. There may come a point in time though where you go, we've been doing this for four sessions now and nothing has changed. Maybe you need to get blunt with them. And you know,

Separate Your Worth From Mood

SPEAKER_00 9:19

that's something that you work out in your first session of how you're actually going to talk to them. Because some people need more compassion, others need you to be more blunt. You work that out. And I want you to be aware that you need to separate your worth from their mood. And yes, I'm talking about your worth. Someone's reaction is not a reflection of you. If a client feels upset or stuck, it doesn't mean that you've failed or done something wrong. You can stay steady while they go through their emotions. You don't need to go down with them, you don't need to spiral down. You can stay grounded while they move through their experience. That happened for me when I was doing a diploma counseling a few years ago now. We were doing practice sessions, and it was actually real counseling, like you know, we were but we were practicing on one another. And one of the students got really angry. And guess what? I knew it wasn't about me, it was nothing to do with me. And I stayed calm and I stayed steady in my energy, and I let that person vent. And afterwards, this person could not thank me enough because I was the only person in their life that had let them do that, and they walked away feeling incredible. Can you do that?

Staying Grounded Through Big Emotions

SPEAKER_00 10:46

Do you have the strength and the confidence in yourself to do that? You can do it when you're really grounded and really confident, you can hold yourself or someone gets angry or whatever it is. It's amazing. Because remember, how someone feels does not define your value. You are not better when things go well and not worse when things feel heavy. So if a session doesn't go well, then that doesn't. It matters, of course, because you want the sessions to go as well as possible. If a client hasn't or doesn't feel like they've achieved anything, that's okay. You can just say to them, look, you may not feel like you've achieved anything, but I would love for you to do this, this, and this. It might be okay. I want you to go home and just journal about this session. Because the awareness doesn't always happen during the session, the awareness can happen later on when they're talking to someone else. And that's when also you may feel like crap because you may go, but I told you that. I'm the one that told you that. But your friend then said, and you just go, No, you know what? Great, they got the awareness. I don't care where they got it from. Yes, I may have told them the same thing. Doesn't matter. It does not matter where the awareness comes from. Help them through the session, support them, give them tools to go away with to help. Because yes, you do want the sessions to go well, and you want the person to walk away feeling like something's been achieved. When you can see that clearly, you stop tying your worth to how someone else is feeling in that moment. You start to say, stay more solid in yourself, more grounded no matter what is happening around you. And that is something that I will say, because I've had clients say it to me, I hold an extremely safe space. They feel like they can tell me anything, they can let go, they can be who they want to be with me. And I feel truly honored that I've been able to achieve that. And it's I'm really grateful for it. Remember that holding space is not about taking on other people's weight, it's about being present with them without losing yourself in it. When you stop carrying what is not yours, you are going to start feeling clearer and lighter in your work. And you might be able to hear it. Yes, I'm feeling sick at the moment. I am really clear, I'm really strong because this episode meant so much to me. And I I've been there, I've done all of this. That's why you are someone that still cares, still be still are kind to yourself and to your clients, but you're not drained anymore because you've worked with your energy, you are simply there for someone, you are steady, you are grounded while someone moves through what they need to move through.

Tools Clients Use After Sessions

SPEAKER_00 13:59

And how amazing is it to hold yourself steady, to hold yourself grounded while they go through those feelings. And again, I'm going to say it. I want you to really learn how to listen. That is the most powerful thing you can ever do as a coach, mentor, whatever it is that you do, even if you create social media content for someone, if you can actually listen to them, you are going to create the content they want, not what you think they need. And that is something to be really aware of. And yes, I did get a little bit ranty, and that's okay because there are times I need to get ranty because I need this message out there. As I said, it really hurts when someone doesn't listen to you. And if you're paying them to listen to you and they don't listen to you, I'll tell you what, it's going to backfire. Thank you so much for watching and listening. I'll stop my rant there now. Thank you again, and thank you for liking, sharing, commenting, subscribing. As I said, it really helps me as a small business owner get the message out there. I really want these messages out there. Thank you again, and I'm wishing you a beautiful day wherever you are in this world.