Make Your World Feel A Little Wider

(gentle music) (clicks loudly) (soft music) [Speaker With Soft Tone] Headspace Studios. (soft music) (gentle music) Hey friends, it's Rosie here. Welcome back to Radio Headspace. (gentle music) The other day, I was catching up with a former student of mine. We were sitting across from each other, tea in hand, and I could feel it almost immediately. That sense of overwhelm that shows up in the way someone talks, the way they pause, the way they say, "I'm fine." And you know it's not quite that simple. She told me she'd been feeling stretched thin, work, relationships, expectations, all of it layering on top of each other in the way that life tends to do. I could see that her eyes were watering as she talked. I could tell it was a lot. And at one point she said, "I don't even know what I need right now." I nodded because that feeling is familiar. She has a sister that lives off the Oregon coast, and I said almost instinctively, "You should go see your sister." She looked at me like I had suggested something indulgent. "Just go? "She asked. Yeah, just go." (gentle music) I've done that drive before. It's one of those roads where the landscape slowly shifts around you. You start inland, the trees are closing in, the smell of pine and damp earth, and then gradually without noticing, the air changes. It gets cooler. You can see the sky as it opens up, and eventually you catch that first glimpse of the ocean stretching out in a way that makes everything feel a little wider and everything in your world a little less important. (soft music) There's something about being in the car alone that can be incredibly therapeutic. No one's asking anything of you. It's just you moving through space, watching the world pass by. You can listen to music, let a song take you somewhere, you can put on a podcast, or you can turn everything off and just listen to the sound of the road beneath you. It's not just the destination, it's the space. I realized as I was talking to her that what she was really describing wasn't just overwhelm, it was saturation, too much input, too many expectations, and little to no room to hear herself think. When I suggested the drive, I wasn't suggesting escape. I was suggesting space. (calm music) And here's where it gets really interesting. A lot of us struggle with that idea, right? Especially in relationships. The moment we feel the need for space, something else shows up right alongside it. Guilt. We think, if I need time alone, does that mean something's wrong? We worry that taking space might hurt someone, might signal distance, might be misunderstood. I've felt that myself. I'm what I would call an introverted-extrovert. I love connection. I love long conversations, shared experiences, being around people I care about, and I also need time alone. It's the only way I can...