Soul Joy: Ditch Burnout and Fall in Love with Life
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Soul Joy: Ditch Burnout and Fall in Love with Life
Sacred Space Within: Holding Compassionate Room For Your Truth
The most foundational relationship in your life isn't with your partner, friends, or family—it's with yourself. In this deeply personal exploration, I reveal how the relentless self-judgment that once dominated my thoughts became the catalyst for understanding the profound importance of "holding space" for ourselves.
Many of us live in a state of perpetual self-criticism, mentally flagellating ourselves over every perceived misstep or imperfect interaction. This harsh internal dialogue creates a prison of self-loathing that makes it impossible to show up authentically in our relationships or work. Drawing from my own experience with burnout and compassion fatigue, I share how learning to create a kind, curious internal environment transformed not just my relationship with myself, but every aspect of my life.
The heart chakra—the energy center governing all relationships—requires special attention when building this practice. Through practical techniques like body scanning, mindful awareness, and self-compassion exercises, you'll discover how to identify when your heart energy feels contracted or heavy and how to expand it through intentional self-acceptance. You'll learn to recognize when you're spiraling into judgment and how to gently redirect yourself toward curiosity instead.
Perhaps most powerfully, this practice enables you to speak your truth without the days of subsequent regret and rumination that many of us experience. When we hold compassionate space for ourselves, we gain the confidence to express our authentic perspectives without apology—recognizing that our unique truth is valuable regardless of others' reception.
Whether you're struggling with perfectionism, burnout, or simply want to cultivate a healthier relationship with yourself, these approaches to self-acceptance will help you create an internal environment where healing and growth can flourish. Download this week's companion PDF at JulieMerrimanPhD.com and begin transforming your relationship with yourself today.
Hey y'all, I'm Dr Julie Merriman and welcome to SoulJoy. So today we're talking about a pretty sexy topic, I think, and that is holding space for you. We're moving from the solar plexus chakra to the heart chakra, where all your relationships are ruled. Having a good relationship with yourself is a necessary component of holistic, sustainable self-care, also known as wellness. Okay, how are y'all doing today? First, I really want y'all to know how much I appreciate you hanging out with me for a hot minute while we talk about this sexy topic of holding space for yourself.
Speaker 1:Here at the Merriman House, we are finishing up on the bath remodel. I'm going to be very pleased with that. It's marble and light and just beautiful in there. So I'm excited about that. And as soon as I get that done, I'm going to start on my beloved husband's bathroom. That will be a major remodel. I'm just going to do some painting in there and I redid the pictures and new shower curtain and such, but it'll be a refresh and then I'm done. I'm going to move from the house and go out to my gardens. It's springtime and I can't wait. We've got a few vegetables planted, but I can't wait to get everything planted. So anyway, I'm excited to see that all done and I'm also excited to get to hold space for you and share some of this information with you today. So, okay, professional helpers and really y'all this is for everyone, not just professional helpers, but if you are a professional helper, I have dedicated this podcast to helping prevent and overcome the occupational hazards of our career, specifically burnout, compassion, fatigue and vicarious trauma. So today we're going to talk about holding space for me, which I really consider to be an uber important topic, and it really helps us to have good relationships with others when we can have a good relationship with ourselves. So we have to start with understanding how to hold space for us and then it just transfers over to others once we build those neural pathways, and then it just transfers over to others once we build those neural pathways and y'all.
Speaker 1:Through my crash and burn, when I was highly impacted by burnout and compassion fatigue, I learned truly learned the importance of unconditionally accepting myself. I lived in such judgment of myself I mean I couldn't say a sentence to someone where I didn't get in the car or go to my office and overthink and perseverate on oh, that was stupid. Why would I say it like that? Why didn't I say it like this, or I mean it was just, I just beat myself up all the time. I was really ugly to me, my standards were unrealistically high and, like I said, I just beat the hell out of myself all the time needlessly, needlessly, and it was no fun. If you've ever experienced that, you know it's no fun. I was living in a space of self-loathing for some reason, but I think it was because I was so burned out. But I think it was because I was so burned out I just didn't have the energy to really step back and be self-aware and really understand what I was doing to myself. I had to deeply explore where all this self-loathing had come from, and why did the relationship with myself form in such a manner? Was it always there or was it something that impacted me later in life?
Speaker 1:I really go deep into this in my book In Pursuit of Soul Joy, and so I really I highly encourage you to grab a copy of that. If you really, if this is resonating with you and you're like man, I struggle to hold kind space Maybe I should put that qualifier in there you want to hold kind space for yourself. But again, I go into that. I think I have a good chapter of that in for yourself. So when we think about holding space for ourself, it's important to know, as I said a moment ago, the qualifier is kind. This needs to be a safe space of non-judgment, and I speak about the importance of not judging ourself a lot. But y'all, I speak of that a lot because it's true, when we're sitting there talking crap about ourself, judging ourself, just making ourself miserable with the way we're treating ourself ourselves, how do we show up in life?
Speaker 1:I mean, how we don't show up in life as our best and we're on, we're not living in a space that's our best because we've created this chaos. When we are holding space for ourselves, this is a space that's full of love and curiosity. It's full of positive talk, lots of self-love, a space for you to hold, where you explore what you're experiencing, instead of kicking into real hateful self-talk or just beating yourself up about things. You create a space where you can just maybe you pat yourself on the face and you just say I'm doing the best I can, let's just explore what's going on here. Why am I reacting the way I'm reacting? When you can do that, you're able to explore. What is this feeling telling me about me? Explore what is this feeling telling me about me, what can I learn about myself? And, most importantly, what do I need in this moment so that I can relax and be present and mindful and experience life out of joy? Now I promise y'all, as you're trying to hold space for yourself, there'll be times you make mistakes lots.
Speaker 1:If you're anything like me, lots of times I would sit and try to go hold space for myself and then find myself spiraling and going okay, jules, let's regroup back up, take a deep breath and try this again. I can't tell you how important it is for you to get really curious as you're holding space for yourself. But to do this in a kind way, you need to get yourself grounded and experiment. How do you best ground yourself? If I'm really wound up, I need to pace a bit and I need to have silence and I need to be in a space where I don't have a bunch of people asking me questions. Well, I guess I just need to be alone and pace and really try to get myself grounded. And something about the it's almost like a walking meditation for me. Something about the movement really helps me become embodied and grounded and that full body scan that I talk about a lot, where you check from the crown chakra all the way down to your root chakra and just become curious about any physical sensation, also, for me, helps me to become more. It gets me out of that spiral into my body and that just in and of itself, is grounding.
Speaker 1:As you're holding space, you want to tune in to what is happening in your heart chakra, specifically Now that's in your chest. You want to ask yourself is the energy tight, is it heavy, is it flooding, is it throbbing? What do I need to balance and lighten this energy and make it more expansive? Once you're able to do that, that self-love is going to be so much easier to tap into. And once you're tapped into that, that space you're holding just becomes full of beautiful green energy that just feels nourishing. When it comes to holding space and self-relationship, your heart chakra cannot be ignored. So, y'all, as I mentioned a moment ago, this is a great time for a full body scan to tap into the wisdom that your body has to offer and share with you. And what I'm saying is, when you're holding space for yourself, that's a great time to do that body scan and tap into that wisdom.
Speaker 1:I can remember how I would beat myself up for something I would have done and perseverate on it, maybe for days I mean when I was younger that would socially cripple me at times when I'd be in that perseveration stage and browbeating myself and every word I'd said. Fortunately, it's not that way. Today I'm able to really get embodied and hold that space. But y'all this inability to hold space for myself goes way back and at times I can feel the repercussions. Today and I have had way too much coffee, I can tell as I'm trying to talk Please forgive me Big, deep breath. So the inability to hold space goes way back. Now I'm far better today but if I'm honest, it's something that at times I can still struggle with today and I just want to normalize that for everyone. As we're building neural pathways, there's going to be times it's a little tougher than other times.
Speaker 1:When I was younger I really would doubt myself. I questioned my self-worth, I questioned my value, the whole self-love venue, if you will. I would interact in a manner, maybe saying my truth. Maybe I would be honest. Go into my throat chakra and I would speak my truth. Maybe I would be honest go into my throat chakra and I would speak my truth. Then I would beat myself up for days for having done that, because I thought I might have upset someone or have been judged because they didn't agree with me.
Speaker 1:It would really make me forlorn that I had spoken my truth, which is just sad, because the truth is all we have. You're the only one that has the truth you have and you deserve to live that out. It makes us who we are, makes us unique and it brings our character out. It's a beautiful thing. How I got my mind so warped in that manner is it's beyond me and if you read my book you'll go. Okay, there's a few ahas in there and I'm not alone. We all. As I tell my clients as we're sitting down to do our first therapy sessions anyone who has survived childhood we have something we need to explore in the therapy room. We're human, right and we're raised by humans and that's okay, it's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1:But I would create all kinds of scenarios in my head about having spoken my truth. None of them are true, just fantasies floating around in my head. Only purpose made me miserable. Only purpose made me miserable. I don't want y'all, anyone, to live like that. I want everyone to be able to speak their truth and hold their head up high, with no apologies, and just be tickled that they're even plugged into their truth.
Speaker 1:When we're able to hold space for ourself, we get closer to finding our truth and being confident in our truth. See, I did not understand the necessity of holding space for myself back then. I didn't understand how important it was to love myself unconditionally. And you know y'all, we have the right to love ourselves unconditionally. We have the right to speak our truth and stand by it. Now that I'm able to do this, it comes from learning to value myself and hold space for myself in love and, most importantly, self-compassion. More on that later. I write quite a bit about that in my book. I'm a strong believer in self-compassion. So, my friend, I would ask you have you ever experienced anything like I just talked about? Are you able to love yourself unconditionally? See, holding space is a form of mindfulness. When practicing mindfulness, you Center your awareness on the present moment. Once you're able to're able to do this for yourself, you're able to hold space for others.
Speaker 1:Holding space for yourself involves allowing yourself to feel emotions and practice reflection without self-criticism. I'm telling y'all it's a juicy place to be. It's just a juicy place to be. So I've created an activity for you. So, before I go there, I just want to remind you to subscribe to my email list to get the weekly podcast emailed to you, which includes a bonus PDF that I create for you each week. All you have to do is hop over to my website, hop on my email list. My website is wwwJulieMerrymanPhDcom. Okay, I've got a quick drink of water. We're going to talk about the activity that I created for you today.
Speaker 1:I call it holding sacred space for self and, again, self-acceptance. And holding space for yourself involves creating a safe, compassionate environment where you can feel seen, heard, heard and understood without judgment, allowing you to process emotions and reflect without self-criticism. Had I learned this I think we should teach this in high school had I learned this? When I first got out of high school, before I got into college, before I started on my PhD path, I was a hairdresser. In fact, I worked as a hairdresser and earned to work my way through college. But I can remember doing something I love. I'm very creative, I love doing hair. But I can remember doing someone's hair and I'd be so hung up on how they reacted to it that if I felt the reaction was less than what I expected, that's a whole thing I won't bore you all with in this moment. But the point is I wasn't able to create a compassionate environment for myself. I wasn't able to feel heard and understood without judgment. I was so self-critical. So I would go back and you have a room where you go back and wash towels and mix the color and such, and I go back there and beat myself up a hot minute and then, lo and behold, the person would call a few weeks later to say how much they love their hair and one schedule another appointment and you know, all that was just asinine that I treat myself that way. I was young. I was young, but I do think we should teach this stuff in high school and I want y'all to please go and download this PDF and share it with others, because I think this has a lot of value. So here's a breakdown of these concepts that I'm talking about Self-acceptance, okay, that's about recognizing and accepting your thoughts, feelings and behaviors, even the ones you might not like.
Speaker 1:Hear that, even the ones you might not like. It's about treating yourself with the same kindness and understanding you would offer a friend. It's a foundation for building your self-esteem and your self-compassion. Okay, so that's self-acceptance. Now let's look a little deeper at holding space sacred space for yourself. This involves creating a safe and accepting environment within yourself where you can explore your emotions, thoughts and thoughts without judgment. So picture your chest where your heart chakra lives and see. Picture that energy being balanced and expansive. Creating this environment, holding space for self, is about being present with yourself even when things are difficult, and allowing yourself to feel whatever's arising. Isn't that the truth? When we're at our worst, when the most challenging things come at us, our true self can come up, and that's a beautiful opportunity to explore yourself in a very deep manner and see where there might be some prickles or edges that need to be worked on in that safe space you're holding for yourself.
Speaker 1:Y'all this can involve setting boundaries, practicing mindfulness and engaging in self-care activities, which is what this podcast is all about. It's also about honoring your needs and respecting your emotional capacity. When Kelly, my beloved, amazing husband, last year, when we were in the hospital, constantly in and out, in and out with brain surgeries and brain infections and brain tumors and oh it was, I tell you, my emotional capacity was. It was gone. It was my bandwidth was gone and I had to hold some space for myself and know that I was not going to be able to do things to the level where my standards would have liked them to have been, and that was okay. I wasn't going to judge myself on that. Holding space also means giving yourself permission to be imperfect and make mistakes, because, I promise you me, all of us are imperfect and we make mistakes. And let's look at some practical ways to practice a self-acceptance and holding space. So I mentioned it already practicing mindfulness this is simply paying attention to your thoughts and feelings without judging.
Speaker 1:It's simply that, noticing and letting them pass. You hear that that's the important piece. You notice, kind of like smoke. There's some smoke, oh, look up in the air. It goes. We notice and let them pass.
Speaker 1:Engaging in self-care Again, this podcast, bookmark it. This is all about self-care. But engaging in self-care is just making time for activities that nourish your body, mind and soul. Setting boundaries is learning to say no to things that drain your energy and prioritizing your needs without guilt. And practicing self-compassion. Y'all that's treating yourself with the same kindness that you treat that you show to others. Plain and simple. I know you've come, especially if you're in the helping profession you've sat with your clients and they're remorseful about something and you've tried to normalize that for them and tell them how you know, don't be so hard on yourself, it's going to be okay. Turn that, I mean look in the mirror. Turn that around and look in the mirror, saying the same thing to yourself and forgiving yourself. This is big. This is a big one.
Speaker 1:A lot of us, grown as adults, walk around pissed off at ourselves about something we've done, maybe in our early 20s, and we don't haven't taken the time to hold space and really dissect that and realize that that that anger feeling is really towards you. It's. It's not about Bill or Bob or June, it's. It's really about you. You've got to allow yourself to make those mistakes and learn from them, rather than dwelling on past errors. We are not the sum total of our errors, those errors we've made. Well, maybe we are. I've come to think of it because I tell you, every failure or error I made has made me a better person, because I learned something from it. I was able to integrate it into my life practice. Thus helps me to be a better person. But you've got to forgive yourself for past mistakes. When we know better, we do better. Huh, when we know better, we do better.
Speaker 1:Celebrate your strengths, acknowledge and appreciate your unique qualities and accomplishments and y'all, I know this isn't rocket science, but so often we forget this simple stuff. Seek support, reach out to friends and family or your therapist and y'all. The other thing and I know y'all know it, but it's worth repeating there's a skill here. First we have to know what we need, right, and that's just. I mean, it takes some soul searching to know what you need. Then you have to be able to ask for what you need, and that's a whole skill. The last piece of that is being able to accept the support and help that you ask for, which is a skill unto itself, so that seeking support sounds easy, but you got to do a bit of soul searching as you're implementing that piece. And you want to be present.
Speaker 1:Focus on the current moment, avoid dwelling in the past or future. Yeah, that's all we have. I've said it before on here. I'm saying it again all we have is this present moment. The past is a fantasy. The future is a fantasy because they're not here right here, right now. They just live in your head, allow yourself to feel. Don't suppress your emotions. Allow yourself to experience them fully. Now, that's the positive and the negative and everything in between. And yeah, sometimes it sucks, and sometimes we're so divorced from our emotions we don't even know how to feel happy. So really do some soul searching on that piece too, and remember y'all this is a process, self-acceptance and holding space for yourself. It's it's journey, not a destination. You've got to be patient with yourself and celebrate your progress. Okay, that's it for today. Subscribe to my podcast, leave a review and, until next time, take care of you.