Soaring Over Stress, Episode Nine ~ The Egg, Holding Space and Diaphragmatic Breathing

In this episode of Soaring Over Stress, the host Amy Rae discusses the concept of holding space for ourselves during difficult times. She shares stories from her own life and explains how she used techniques like creating a "grace bubble" and practicing diaphragmatic breathing to find calm amidst chaos. Amy emphasizes the importance of recognizing and validating our own feelings and offers the idea of holding space for ourselves as a way to navigate through stressful situations. Hello, hello, and welcome back to Soaring Over Stress. I'm your host, Amy Rae, and today I thought I'd share a bit of my speech, the one that goes along with this podcast, connected to my business, Eagle Exercises. We will discuss stage one, the egg, and how we hold space for ourselves during turbulent times at work and beyond, but first, a bit of a disclaimer. I recognize that healing and growth aren't always linear. Sometimes they're two steps forward, three steps back. Other times, it's like a roller coaster. I would bet that for some, it's more like this chaotic, swirling path that resembles a ball of yarn, and life is the kitten kicking and tossing it around and kicking the crap out of it. I want you to know that I realize that there are some of you today that are struggling with unspeakable darkness, and I recognize that this one episode isn't going to fix it all. I know that I can't take everyone out of darkness, but what I'm hoping is that I can bring a little light to your darkness, a little comfort to your path, a little hope for your journey, and if I can't do that, maybe, just maybe, knowing that someone else understands the pain will be a comfort in and of itself. As always, I see you, you matter, and your pain counts. So let's begin with an overview of an eagle's characteristics and life cycles. Eagles start out like all birds in the egg, soon followed by the hatchling stage where they begin to emerge. Next is the fledgling, just learning to spread its wings. Then the juvenile, followed by the final stage, adult. Eagles are very interesting animals. They tend to nest in inaccessible places. They do everything possible to protect their young and themselves. Keep that in mind. They tend to fly alone at high altitudes, avoiding narrow-minded birds. Keep that in mind. They have vision and tenacity. Eagles never eat dead things. They don't take in trash. They prepare for training. They are outgoing, confident, and innovative. As you listen today, you might be saying to yourself, okay, well, that's all well and good, but I'm a stressed-out introvert. I'm not really interested in leading. Hell, I can barely lead myself to the coffee maker in the morning. The only thing I have in common with an eagle's characteristics are the fuzzy slippers that I'd prefer to be wearing all day long, and you want me to fly, to soar, and you want me to lead, to excel. No, no, I don't, not at first. First I want you to curl up in the fetal position and simply be. That is step one on our journey. We start in the egg. All things that grow must first start in the quiet, in the darkness, sheltered from the harsh realities of life. We need to curl up in the fetal position and await emerging. We need to go back inside the shell, in the darkness, and simply be still. We're going to do this one step at a time, and the first step is to take a step back. Go inside the egg. It's the only way to grow something truly meaningful. Step one, the egg. Here we will simply hold space. Holding space means you're 100% present, putting your focus on support alone. Holding space allows us to simply be, no fixing, no correction, no advice. An author on the subject, Rika Pearl, says it this way, holding space or creating a container can be especially helpful when someone is in deep grief, struggling with unresolved trauma, or going through the throes of depression. Holding space for yourself allows you to have a place devoid of judgment, but overflowing with empathy, compassion, and grace. Embracing this type of loving kindness is the reverent present moment cultivation of compassion and love for oneself. The egg is your personal container to do this. Let me tell you a story. I recently left a 23-year marriage. There were good days, and there were bad days, and there were a lot of days in between. My then-husband now admits that he was abusive at least 50% of the time. He was emotionally, psychologically, and financially abusive throughout the marriage. There were times he would go into seemingly never-ending rants. He would raise his voice, get angry, and project all of his self-hatred towards me. In those moments, I could feel the daggers of disgust penetrating my heart and psyche, breaking down all I believed about myself. Sometimes it would be snide comments said under his breath, just loud enough to make sure I heard him. I remember other days when he was going off about something. I felt trapped in the room with him, wishing I could stop the pain of his verbal assault. Then, almost like magic, I had this idea. I thought to myself, what if I create a bubble around myself, like an invisible force field where his words can't touch me? I called it my grace bubble. In an instance, I was no longer listening to the words he said. I could only hear his voice rattling off sounds and imagining the frequency hitting the grace bubble and falling to the ground in front of me. They no longer had their power. I remember standing there, thinking to myself, oh my god, this is so wonderful. A smile escaped the corner of my mouth as I quietly began to take back my power, one broken syllable at a time. And he asked me, why are you smiling? And I just kept smiling. He got furious and said I wasn't even listening and stormed off. It was one of the best things I had thought of up until that point. I thought for some, I'm sorry, I know for some, to smile back in defiance would only exacerbate the situation, but for me, I felt it was something that just came naturally and I could no longer hold it back. This is the power of the egg. The power to go back and reclaim your peace. To sit in the calm amidst the storm and say to yourself, I got this. I'm here now. These feelings matter and are valid. Another story. I once had this boss who enjoyed intimidating me. I swear he enjoyed watching me cry. And he was so good about quietly tearing me apart, assuming I would never stand up to him. One particular day, I wasn't feeling well. You see, I have Hashimoto's disease and it can cause debilitating fatigue. I also found out two days ago that I have narcolepsy and cataplexy. In fact, I could use a nap right now, even though I just woke up less than two hours ago. Anyway, I digress. In any event, he knew about my health issues and he saw this as his opportunity. So he made me do all the running and when I asked for a coworker's help, he decided to reprimand me. He said, did I say you could ask someone for help? I told you to do it. You don't get to decide who does what here. I am the boss, not you. I looked him in the eye, body shaking from stress and fatigue. And I said, I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to tear me down. You are trying to break me, hoping I will quit. I walked in the bathroom, shaking and trying to remember how to cope. The egg. Go inside, Amy. Go inside the egg. I began working on my breathing, slowly breathing in, two, three, four, hold, two, three, four, out, two, three, four, rest, two, three, four. This is known as diaphragmatic breathing. This practice allows me to find calm amidst the chaos, a holding space, if you will. This is crucial in dealing with stress and anxiety in environments that you don't necessarily have the option to leave. The picture that I'm connecting to this podcast today is my artistic expression of what happens in the lungs when you face anxiety. Dyspnea is a medical term for when a state occurs. Have you ever seen someone gasping for air as they're having great anxiety? That's because in that moment, the oxygen is pulled from the lungs and redistributed to the muscles so you can more readily flee. But how are we going to outrun ourselves? And moreover, how are we going to outrun our problems? Like when your boss is berating you and you still have seven and a half hours more work to go. Or when your spouse or your co-worker corners you and you can't escape. Or maybe the anxiety is over something seemingly little and there's no reason to run. Or maybe your current environment is actually safe, but you're being triggered by something from your past. Our body and our brain are constantly trying to help us, but sometimes the signals get messed up. This is why it is so important to know how to speak to and through our body so our brain and heart can make the best decisions for us. With diaphragmatic breathing and offering ourselves a holding space via the egg, we can more readily calm the nervous system. Offering a safe haven can wildly change the way you respond rather than react to stressful situations. So that's part one of my speech, the egg, the holding space, if you will. The idea of holding space was a relatively new concept to me about, I'd say about five years ago. And I had a Facebook friend actually message me and say, you know, I was going through a lot and she said, I'm holding space for you. And I was like, what does that mean? And you know, holding space is just basically caring about somebody, not giving advice or correction, just kind of sitting with them and their pain and their struggle and recognizing that these feelings do matter and I'm not going to try to make them go away, I'm not going to throw some toxic positivity into the mix, I'm not going to tell them to be thankful for what they have, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And it's the same thing that we should do for ourselves. When we're going through deep and stressful and difficult situations, we should hold space for ourselves. It doesn't mean we can't offer ourselves hope in the moment, but it means that, look, you know what? I'm going through stuff and I recognize that these are hard things to deal with. And so I'm going to show up for myself, recognizing that people often cannot and I think that's just because by nature we are, we tend to be selfish creatures, at least on some level. I know that people have, you know, I was saying to my friend the other day, I was like, I just wish somebody would hold me. And he was like, I'm sorry you're lonely and I said, I'm not lonely, I just at this moment wish somebody would hold me. And it's those things that, you know, those times where we have to remember that, you know, I'm going to hold myself, metaphorically speaking, and support myself and be there for myself. And I know that it takes a long time, at least for me, it takes a long time to get to a place to say, hey, I recognize I'm struggling and it's okay that I'm struggling and I'm not a bad person for struggling, I'm not weak for struggling, I'm not less than because I'm dealing with something. I'm simply human. And we need to offer that to ourselves and to one another. I saw a guy the other day, great story, standing in line at a store and his shirt said, be kinder to people. And I said, hey, that's a great, that's a great shirt. And it's funny, because I was talking to somebody else about my boss that was giving me a hard time. And he said, yeah, funny story. So apparently, this got shipped to the post office or FedEx, I don't know where. And he called about it. And they said, oh, yeah, if it didn't have the right address on it, even if it had your name and it was close, you know, we throw it away the next morning. And he was like, you throw away people's packages. So he drove over there trying to maybe scoop it up real quick. And he described what the package was. And the people were like, oh, yeah, we know that. And it says, be kinder to people. And we thought it would be really bad, bad karma to throw this in the trash. So we saved it. And he's like, well, the shirt started working ever, even before I started wearing it, which was great. So be kinder to yourself, friends. I want you to remember that. Be kinder to others and be kinder to yourself and recognize that, you know, it's okay to kind of go inside. And even if you're metaphorically going into the fetal position, offering yourself that safe space while you go through darkness, it's completely acceptable. And I would even say, I would encourage it, you know, during your times of stress and anxiety. Remember, listeners, it is okay to go hard through hard things. And it's okay to give yourself grace and understanding during those difficult situations. I want to encourage any of my listeners to reach out to me if you have questions, if you have concerns, if you need a little bit of TLC, even a little bit of free therapy. Quote, unquote, I'm not a therapist, I'm not a doctor. My degree is in social work, and I have a passion for helping people going through mental health struggles. So feel free to find me on Facebook at Eagle Exercises. You can message me there. You can also leave a message here at audio.com, from Amy Rae, Eagle Exercises. I want to thank you all for listening once again, and remember, I see you, you matter, and your story counts. Hang in there, my friends. Until next time.