EP44: Making Space for Change,The Non-Negotiable of a Regenerative Career Transition
This week, I’m sharing what I consider to be the most essential — and perhaps most overlooked — part of any regenerative career transition: making space for change.
This isn’t just about blocking out time or finding one free hour to think. It’s about creating the kind of space where real change can take root — the kind that allows something new to emerge, rather than squeezing transformation into the margins of an already full life. Space in time, space in your physical environment, space in your internal world. Space to listen, to receive, to be changed.
It’s not easy. I’ve spent 15 years as an entrepreneur — a problem-solver, an instigator, a creator. My instinct is always to do. But over the past few years (and especially in the last few months), I’ve been learning what it really means to stop pushing and start preparing. To stop striving and start co-creating. To wait without knowing exactly what’s coming next.
Listen here
Full Transcript
Alisa: Welcome to the Regenerative Worklife podcast. My name is Alisa Murphy, and this podcast is a space where I reflect on what it means to pursue work that actively brings us more life, brings us more closely into alignment with life, and brings life to all those around us — human and non-human. Essentially, this is a place where I explore what it means to live and work regeneratively.
Today I’m going to talk about the first and most essential component of pursuing a regenerative path or making change through a regenerative lens. This is, I would say, my only non-negotiable when I work with people who want to make significant changes in their careers or start a regenerative business: making space for change.
This ties in closely with last week's episode, where I spoke about the concept of waiting to receive or respond — a strategy that comes from my Human Design reading. You can listen to that episode if you're curious.
One essential component of learning to receive and respond, rather than always being an instigator, is this: I spent 15 years as an entrepreneur — someone who felt responsible for making things happen. If I didn’t pursue something, it wouldn’t happen. There was a forcing energy to that. What I’m working on now is learning to receive and respond — and that involves a lot of waiting.
It’s not passive waiting. It’s actively making space. And it’s not easy — not for me, not for my personality type.
Lately, I’ve been receiving, for want of a better word, downloads. I have a morning pages practice, originally inspired by Julia Cameron’s The Artist's Way, which I’ve since blended with Elizabeth Gilbert's Letters from Love. My version involves one page to vent what I'm feeling and thinking, and another page to receive — to receive words from something outside of myself. Let's leave it at that.
What I’ve been receiving in those pages is very clear: do less. Be still. Sit in silence. If I don’t know what to do, do nothing. When in doubt, do less.
All of that is about making space for whatever is coming. And what’s hard about that is... I want a guarantee. I want to know that something good is coming, that this is a worthwhile investment, an efficient way to explore the next chapter of my work or business. But of course, that’s not how this works. You have to make space with trust and faith.
And I think that’s why so many people don’t do it — or really struggle to. You’re making space for something you can’t see. You’re trusting that something undefined is on its way.
But it’s essential.
From my experience with clients, the ones who make space for change — who understand that the change is the work during our time together — make real progress. They devote hours a week just to being with it. Not hours writing business plans or marketing strategies. That will come. First, it’s hours of sitting with questions. Sometimes hours of nothingness.
It takes discipline. But I see firsthand what a difference it makes.
Compare that to clients who are busy — whose hearts are in it but can’t find space. They end up squeezing change into the leftover pockets of their old work life. It just doesn’t work that way. Change doesn’t happen in an hour every week or two. It doesn’t even happen in the same physical space.
If you want to feel a difference, go somewhere new. I recently did a Wild Coaching session with someone who walked in nature regularly, but had never done coaching out in nature. She loved it — and had a lot of insights.
One thing she said really stuck with me: "I need to come here to do my work. Why am I doing my work at my desk — the place where all my dissatisfaction and frustration lives? I need to be where I feel connected and expansive."
She’s since moved a chunk of her work into nature. When she needs to think big picture, she does it with her back to a tree, surrounded by all the wisdom of the living world.
Don’t try to find change in the same space that roots you in the past.
And space goes deeper than physical location. I've worked hard on this in my own life. I already do a lot of my work and coaching outdoors. I know that over-scheduling doesn’t work for me — my body shuts down. I need space in my calendar and in family life. That’s not always easy with three kids, but I’ve become very aware of the importance of it.
Now I’m realising there’s another layer: internal space.
Some of what I’ve received in morning pages has been very clear about this — about being extremely conscious of the content I consume. Reducing it to a minimum.
Because you can’t listen for inner wisdom, or something beyond yourself, in a crowded internal space. Most of us are consuming an extraordinary amount of content. I certainly am. I’m still struggling daily with phone addiction. I get pulled into the vortex and time disappears.
Even when it’s "positive" content — learning, new ideas, inspiring people — it's still taking up internal space. Many people are conscious about their social media habits, but addicted to learning, new philosophies, new modalities.
There’s nothing wrong with any of it. But I invite you to be conscious of how much you’re consuming — and whether right now is the time for it. A regenerative path begins with inner work. It starts with deep listening — to yourself, to nature, to whatever version of spiritual guidance speaks to you. And that takes quiet. It takes stillness.
And even deeper than that... the noise of my own mind. Just how relentless it is. The shoulds, the coulds, the endless creative ideas, the problems to solve.
I'm naturally creative. I'm a problem solver. But it can be exhausting. And I haven’t met many people who have real internal spaciousness from their own thoughts. We have to cultivate it.
So you can see: space is layered. We move between layers. We revisit them. But here’s the truth:
If you want change — even if it feels like it’s already happening to you — making space is essential. It won’t happen without it.
So be honest with yourself: are you making space for the change you say you want?
That might be the block. It might be that simple.
Even if there’s momentum, even if you feel like you’re making progress in your usual way — through activity, energy, pushing — maybe you’re just recreating a version of the same thing. I know that’s been my journey.
If you’re in a corporate job, you’re likely steeped in corporate modalities. I see this all the time. Even the language people use is so dehumanised — full of efficiency speak, productivity hacks, and disconnection.
If you carry that same approach into your next phase — back-to-back schedules, constant output, endless striving — you might find change. But I don’t think it will be the change you’re really seeking.
It will be incremental. And your dissatisfaction will remain.
So I’m inviting — maybe even imploring — you to take this seriously.
Yes, it's most powerful at the beginning of a transition. But it's something you'll need to return to again and again.
I'm five years into this work, and I'm still learning that making space is the work. It creates expansiveness. It creates possibility. And most importantly, it allows us to co-create with something beyond ourselves.
Whether that’s nature, God, the universe, or community — co-creation is necessary. And it requires space to receive and connect.
That’s it for this week. I hope something in this reflection has resonated.
If you’re looking for a concrete takeaway, here it is:
What’s one way you could make more space this week? Time, physical space, less content, internal quiet — choose one.
Before I go: in early September, I’ll be opening up to new long-term clients who want to make meaningful and significant career transitions. This will be one-to-one coaching over six months, typically focused on a specific goal — such as launching a regenerative business — with openness around how we get there.
I’m also exploring the idea of starting with a small group of clients at the same time. That would allow us to build community into the process — to connect you with others going through similar things, while still working individually with me.
If that sounds like something you’d like to explore, reach out and we can set up a call. You can email me at alisa@regenerativeworklife.com or head to the website.
I’d love to speak to you.
See you back here next week.
