Home About Courses Free Resources 1-on-1 Mentorship Retreats Login Contact
← Back to all posts

When Holding Space feels...Awkward 😬

by Genevieve Zizzo
Nov 27, 2025
Connect

 

* Trigger warning - Miscarriage is discussed in this post

👋🏻 Hey there healer!

Have you ever had one of those sessions where something really emotional comes up — and suddenly you’re not sure what to do? 

Yeah… same.

Early in my practice, I had this lovely patient come in and, almost as soon as she sat down, she started to cry and told me she’d just had a miscarriage.

It completely caught me off guard. 

One of my close colleagues had also just gone through a miscarriage, and I remember feeling this wave of emotion I didn’t quite know how to hold.

I could feel tears welling up, and before I even thought about it, I blurted out,

"I’m so sorry for your loss. My colleague just had the same thing happen to her, I know it's really difficult”

And then there was this long, awkward pause — both of us teary, both of us not really sure what to do next.

I felt like I totally said the wrong thing.😥

I kind of stumbled through the rest of the session.

Looking back, there are definitely things I’d say differently now… but that moment ended up being such an important one for both of us.

She’s actually still my patient today, more than ten years later.

And I think that small, awkward, honest moment of connection helped build a trust that’s carried through all those years.

These days, I’ve realized that’s really what “holding space” means — not having the perfect words or polished responses, but being real and steady when things get hard.

Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is just breathe, stay calm, and remind yourself,

“My presence is enough.”

Because it is.

👉You don’t have to fix everything.

👉You don’t have to make it okay.

👉You just have to stay with it — with them — without closing off your own heart.

If you’ve ever had a patient cry, or share something really heavy, and you weren’t sure what to do, I just want to say: you’re not alone.

We’ve all fumbled our way through those moments.

And honestly, they’re the ones that make us better practitioners and more compassionate humans.

 Keep going, you're doing great!

💛 Geneviève

 

🎧 This week on The Body Oracle...

This week’s episode we talk about how age really is just a number - and what you can do about it!

Listen to Episode 8: “If you're afraid of aging...”

Free Online 

Spotify 

Apple Podcasts 

 

Responses

Join the conversation
t("newsletters.loading")
Loading...
Your success CAN look different 🏅
  Over the past few weeks, I’ve been sharing more about my shift into solo practice. I'm not gonna' lie.... I fought the idea of "downsizing" for a while.  Probably several 10's of thousands of dollars too long.... I was straight up attached to a beautiful clinic space I had built out from the studs. I LIKED having people walk into my clinic and say "WOW!"It felt GOOD , and prestigious and suc...
👩🏻‍💼 What replaced my receptionist...
  One of the biggest shifts for me going from a larger clinic to solo practice? Losing my reception team. And I’ll be honest, this was not really something I was excited to "lose" For years, I had built my schedule around it: Back-to-back patients. Someone else answering calls. Someone else handling payments.   Reception was essential to my practice.And I used to justify it as:“It lets me fo...
Flying Solo in practice 🪶
  When I decided to shift back into solo practice, I had a whole story in my head about how it was going to feel.... 💭 I thought I’d miss the buzz of a bigger team.💭 I thought I might feel like I was “downgrading"💭 I even considered that I'd probably have to work more to make it all make sense financially.   And honestly? That’s not how it played out at all. What surprised me wasn’t what I los...
© 2026 Geneviève Zizzo. All Rights Reserved.

Join Our Free Trial

Get started today before this once in a lifetime opportunity expires.