JumpStart Chocolate Covered Anything Day (12/16/24)

QUOTE:  "Often the hardest thing about holding space is that it can feel like you're doing nothing." (Heather Plett)

MESSAGE: People often ask where I get my topics for this newsletter.  I get them from emails I get from people, or like this week, from paying attention to recurring topics in my everyday life.

Try googling ‘holding space’ and see what comes up. If your responses are like mine, it’s all about the Wicked interview where the host was talking about how people were ‘holding space’ for the lyrics of Defying Gravity.  The other day, we had an online session where we were talking about holding space for people in difficult conversations.  Part of my yoga teacher training was learning how to hold space.  

What does that even mean?

In our teacher prep programs, we were taught about ‘wait time’.  I used to tell my students that I was mentally counting 1-Mississippi, 2-Mississippi, 3-Mississippi after I asked a question because that’s what we learned in Teacher School. Holding space is the same thing.  It’s giving time in the present moment to be fully present. It’s stretching time so that rushing is stopped and people are allowed to fully feel, realize what they’re feeling, and process all of it.

The hardest part about holding space is being comfortable with the silence created by the opening of space you’ve created in the schedule. Remember that you have no idea what’s going on in others’ heads - the processing, the embodying, the thinking - and that is SO valuable.
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THIS WEEK, TRY THIS:   In these last few crazy days until Break, think about slowing down a bit and holding space for all the emotions and feelings that are bubbling up for you and for your students and for the other people in your life.  Let it happen even if that voice in your head is saying, “Ain’t nobody got time for this!”

DAD JOKE:  My friend Jack thinks he can communicate with vegetables.  Jack and the beans talk.