Space to Exhale (eBook)

A Handbook for Curating a Soft, Centered, Serene Life

Lisa Hurley (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025
432 Seiten
Wiley (Verlag)
978-1-394-29069-7 (ISBN)

Infos

Say no to hustle culture, and yes to a life of ease. Lisa Hurley, Anthem Award-winning activist and founder of The Great Exhale, provides you with an inspiring and practical guide to help you beat burnout, embrace rest, and live a soft, fulfilling life.

Part memoir, part manifesto, part meditation manual, Space To Exhale is a self-help book that empowers you to put your mask on first, remove your superhero cape, and create lasting life-work balance. 

Lisa draws on her experience as a Reiki Master, community builder, and burnout survivor, sharing anecdotes about her trials and triumphs-as well as the tools that have helped her transform. Through healing modalities like affirmations, meditations, and breathwork, as well as her powerful Exhalation Point framework, Lisa guides you on a life-changing journey to help you:

• Know Yourself: Remember who you are, align with your values, and celebrate your strengths.
• Love Yourself: Practice positive self-talk, select your close circle, and prioritize rest.
• Be Yourself: Show up authentically, protect your energy, and live a soft, centered, serene life.

Filled with soft-life strategies and written with Lisa's warmth, wit, and well-earned wisdom, Space To Exhale invites you to curate a life filled with joy, peace, and glimmers of delight. This transformative handbook is for anyone who is tired of feeling tired and is ready to get some rest; for Black women who are done with being the 'Strong Black Woman,' and are ready to step into their Soft Black Woman era; and for everyone who is ready to live a life that truly serves their highest good.
Space To Exhale is a balm for the spirit. It earns a well-deserved spot on the bookshelves of anyone seeking to curate a life filled with love, alignment, and peace-so they can move from merely surviving to vibrantly thriving.

LISA HURLEY is an Anthem Award-winning activist, writer, and community builder. She is the founder of The Great Exhale, a virtual sanctuary for Black women. Her advocacy operates at the nexus of self-care, community care, joy, and rest. She has been quoted in Forbes and Adweek, and hosts the Space To Exhale podcast.

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Say no to hustle culture, and yes to a life of ease. Lisa Hurley, Anthem Award-winning activist and founder of The Great Exhale, provides you with an inspiring and practical guide to help you beat burnout, embrace rest, and live a soft, fulfilling life. Part memoir, part manifesto, part meditation manual, Space To Exhale is a self-help book that empowers you to put your mask on first, remove your superhero cape, and create lasting life-work balance. Lisa draws on her experience as a Reiki Master, community builder, and burnout survivor, sharing anecdotes about her trials and triumphs as well as the tools that have helped her transform. Through healing modalities like affirmations, meditations, and breathwork, as well as her powerful Exhalation Point framework, Lisa guides you on a life-changing journey to help you: Know Yourself: Remember who you are, align with your values, and celebrate your strengths. Love Yourself: Practice positive self-talk, select your close circle, and prioritize rest. Be Yourself: Show up authentically, protect your energy, and live a soft, centered, serene life. Filled with soft-life strategies and written with Lisa s warmth, wit, and well-earned wisdom, Space To Exhale invites you to curate a life filled with joy, peace, and glimmers of delight. This transformative handbook is for anyone who is tired of feeling tired and is ready to get some rest; for Black women who are done with being the "e;Strong Black Woman, and are ready to step into their Soft Black Woman era; and for everyone who is ready to live a life that truly serves their highest good. Space To Exhale is a balm for the spirit. It earns a well-deserved spot on the bookshelves of anyone seeking to curate a life filled with love, alignment, and peace so they can move from merely surviving to vibrantly thriving.

Textauszug

Author's Note

 

Let us take a collective breath

Inhaling ease, and joy, and peace

Exhaling the exhaustion and disconnection so many of us feel

Breathe
Breathe
Breathe

It is time for a divine recalibration

I am ready for one, and by opting to respond when this book chose you, you are clearly ready for one too

We are aligned and we are agreed:
There must be a better way
Of living this thing called life

Not hurried, or harried, or constantly hustling, but

Soft
Centered
Serene

This is your invitation to a life gently lived

To a state of grace
To a return to self
To a slower pace

This is your invitation to practice the pause

To divest and rest
To be much more
To do much less

Beloved, this is your invitation to exhale

We have created a sacred space in which to do our healing work
So let us embark on this heart-centered journey together

Inhale
Exhale

Let us commence

There is little that is not made better, easier, and more manageable by pausing to take a breath. That said, Space To Exhale is not a book about breathwork—at least not solely. That is its core, but there is so much more.

Neither is it a book about achieving perfection. We don't need the pressure of trying to achieve the unachievable. Healing is not linear; it is not a destination that can be reached like a terminus in a station. The journey is always ongoing, but incremental advancements can be made along the way.

Space To Exhale is a book about making progress, bit by bit, step by step, and yes, breath by breath, toward enjoying a more easeful life.

It is about making room so your mind, heart, spirit, and body can heal. About creating a divine vacuum into which abundance can flow.

This book is my gift to you. Thank you for choosing to receive it. It is a gift to myself as well because I, too, am still on my healing journey. And isn't any road trip better with company? I love that we're traveling together

Let's turn up the music and go.

Why Did I Write Space To Exhale?

To answer that I must take you back to the summer of 2023. I was exhausted. So were many of the Black women in my circle. And we had been tired for a long, long time. In addition, most of us in the activism space were being repeatedly bullied, microaggressed, and censored. We felt stressed, unsafe, and burned out from trying to navigate spaces that were actively built to hinder us from thriving.

We were—and are—tired of being strong for everybody else, but having no one to lean on when we need support.

There were many group chats and backchannel conversations about us needing to feel safer and more relaxed; about us needing spaces where we do not have to fear censorship or reprisal simply for stating facts; about us needing a space where we genuinely belong. We wanted to be away from prying eyes and from people who, in mixed-demographic groups, usually ended up harming us. My response was twofold:

First, in order to encourage Black women to take a breath and practice the pause, I started posting more frequently about the need for us all to rest. In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, when we were all still trying to figure out up from down, I wrote this post:

TFW you're done with the week, but it's only Tuesday.

It feels like somehow Covid has simultaneously sped up and slowed down time. Whyyyyy are the weeks so long?

It feels as if we're collectively:

• Frozen in the present, but focused on the future.
• Panicked, but productive.
• Blessed, but burned out.
• Needing, yet resisting, rest.

Over the past year and a half everything has changed, but we're expected to keep on keeping on as if everything is the same.

• Our bodies are tired.
• Our minds are tired.
• Our hearts are tired.
• Our spirits are tired.
• And we're tired of feeling tired.

We need rest.

More to the point, we need to normalize and prioritize rest, rather than rewarding busyness for its own sake.

Today, give yourself permission to rest. Even if just for a few minutes.

• Rest.
• Rest.
• Rest.

Take a breath.

Companies, if you can, show your employees some grace. Give them permission to take a break (A day? A week, maybe?) without fear of judgment or reprisal.

Let your employees rest.

Second, I'm a believer in verbs, so the other thing I did was take action. I created the soft, safe sanctuary I could tell Black women needed: The Great Exhale (TGE). It's an online community for any Black woman across the diaspora who is ready to remove her superwoman cape, take a deep breath, and rest. It's a community focused not so much on networking and clawing our way to the top,* but more so on sisterhood, soft living, serenity, and support.

Of course, because questioning Black women is a global pastime, I received lots of pushback about making the community exclusively for Black women. (Many people have a belief that being pro-Black means being anti-everything else. That is not the case.) However, I knew then what some of us have always known and what even more of us have now accepted in a post-2024 election world: Black women need to stop carrying everyone else and start lifting ourselves and each other. And that begins by prioritizing our self-care.

Because we’re done. DONE. We’re done with caring for others to our own detriment.

We’re done with being the voice of reason and humanity to people who don’t see us as fully human. We’re done with dealing with people who prioritize blue bracelets and pink hats over Black lives.

We're done with being the “Strong Black Woman.” The era of the Soft Black Woman has begun.

In the pre-launch phase of TGE I also received pushback about the community being “too quiet.” Apart from the fact that I'm an introvert, so there's literally zero chance of me creating anything frenetic, my response was, “It's called The Great Exhale, not The Great Adrenaline. The whole goal is to relax.” Constant work and everlasting busyness are what is expected of Black women—and that's what inflicts some of the deepest damage upon us. The Great Exhale is an antidote to those harmful expectations. You don't go into a meditation room only to find disco balls, strobe lights, and loud music. You expect zen, peace, and rest. That is what The Great Exhale provides.

I chose to stay true to my vision. I'm happy to say that my instincts were right. The feedback from my community members has been overwhelmingly positive, and one of the things they mention most often is how beautifully calming the vibe is. Black women have to be “on” everywhere else. Inside TGE, we get to relax and simply … be.

We focus on meditation, affirmations, journaling, soft living and, of course, breathwork. There's a lighter side too: I created channels within the community dedicated to joy, to jokes, to celebrating our hair and our culture. We get to frolic and be free. We get to talk about what we want to talk about without having to parse our words, code switch our language, or spend time explaining what we already know to people who are committed to misunderstanding us. We get to post what we want to post without having to be on the lookout for Uncle Algo (the algorithm) or feel fearful of being censored. And since it's important to circulate the Black dollar, there's also a channel named Minding Our Black Business where community members can promote their products and services or those of any Black-owned company.

Space To Exhale is a continuation of the heart work that I started with The Great Exhale. While it is possible that the virtual community could change in the future—evolution is inevitable—what will remain constant is that it will always be a space for Black women. That is my vow. I owe that to my sistas and to myself.

That said, I want us all to heal: It's the Reiki Master in me. Space To Exhale therefore extends a warm welcome to everyone who is ready to live a softer, more serene life. I have always said that if just one person is positively affected by my words or my work, then I have done my job. However, to have my work make an even broader impact and hopefully help more people is part of the assignment that I have been entrusted with. I am being obedient.

The Framework

My firm belief is that we need to move from the exclamation point energy that the world demands of us, to the exhalation point energy that our souls crave. With that in mind, I created the Exhalation Point Framework to help us dispense with hustle culture and instead embrace ease.

The framework is composed of three elements: Know Yourself, Love Yourself, and Be Yourself.

Know Yourself

Curating a soft life starts with knowledge of self. When you know who you are, it is easier to build a life that is steeped in the energies of peace and abundance.

Love Yourself

Curating a soft life is built on self-love. When you love yourself, you make better choices that serve your highest good.

Be Yourself

Curating a soft life is based on being true to yourself. When you're true to...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 11.6.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Lebenshilfe / Lebensführung
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Betriebswirtschaft / Management
• Schlagworte: affirmations • African American author • BIPOC • black author • black woman career, soft life • black women • black women life advice • black women self help book • breathwork • Caribbean Author • life advice • self care • self care for black women • Self Help • soft living
• ISBN-10: 1-394-29069-1 / 1394290691
• ISBN-13: 978-1-394-29069-7 / 9781394290697