As you head into the weekend, this is an invitation to let go, be in the moment and pause as you transition.
Jean reconnects with the audience, explains she was away (climbing a mountain), and invites viewers to type one word or phrase describing how they feel. She shares that she feels elated and sets a relaxed Friday tone from the spin studio.
Jean invites a pause and leads the group through a simple breathing exercise (inhale three counts, pause one, exhale three) with three full breaths. The practice is meant to center the body and notice how breath connects to emotional state.
She defines the gray space as the in-between of unknown outcomes, indecisiveness, and lack of control, describing how it can feel heavy, exhausting, and emotional. Jean shares that she has been in this space personally and highlights common reactions like wanting to force a decision.
Jean offers concrete practices—breath work, journaling (gratitude and reflection), and taking steady small steps—to manage stress and create a sense of control. She emphasizes focusing on the present moment, questioning anxious thoughts, and using the breath to slow the mind so clearer choices can emerge.
She encourages reaching out to friends or colleagues rather than facing the gray space alone, and reminds viewers that transformation is often painful using a caterpillar-to-butterfly metaphor. The chapter closes with an invitation to take a breath and decide on one small forward step.
Hey everybody, Jean here. I have been a little MIA the last week. I was literally climbing a mountain last Friday and there was no phone reception. And sometimes that's okay. But it's Friday and we're here. However you are showing up into this space, if you want to type a word or phrase that just represents how you feel in this moment, do that. So Friday afternoon, Friday conversations. I have a plant behind me. It looks like literally I have like little wings flying out of my head. Hi Jules, how do you like my little extra hat that's behind my head?
It's literally, it looks funny. But the plant behind me here, just so you know, this is called Melman. All the plants in our studio have names. This is Melman and he is stretching to the ceiling. Hi Luke, happy Friday. So excited to have you. My invitation is to type into the chat one word or phrase about how you feel in this moment right now, this second. So if I were to type one word or phrase, I would say elated. I am currently sitting at our SPIN studio and we just did a test out ride from one of our new instructors in training and they did so good and I'm so proud of them.
So I'm elated today. But on Friday afternoons, I wanted to do this thing where we could come in and take a breath. So before I say anything about the gray space, I invite you to take a pause. Check in with your heart rate, check in with your mind, see how you feel in this moment. And we're simply going to take three breaths together. Now here's how it's going to work. My invitation is going to be to take a long slow inhale for a three count, Alcanus down, a pause for one, and then an exhale for a three count.
So let's do the first. Pause. Exhale. Let's do another one. Inhale. Pause. Exhale. Let's make this one big. Inhale. Pause. Exhale. How do you feel? It's fascinating to me how much our breath can truly connect us, how our breath can express where we're at in any given point in time. So in the gray space, what does that really mean for me as I lead this conversation? It's that space of unknown and indecisiveness. The space where you've done everything you can and everything else is out of your control.
And you have to wait. There's nothing you can do to create a decision. There's nothing in your control to make a movement if something feels stagnant. It's that space between. So this week I've been in the grace space. I've actually been in the grace space for probably a couple months now. There's a big transition happening. I can't really say much about it right now. And I don't know, I don't know the outcome. What I know is how I can show up. What I know is that We have a team of people that we need to keep informed and be transparent and vulnerable with.
But it creates a space that can feel heavy. And I find that as a human, we're all humans, at least right now, we're not always designed to move through the gray space. It can be exhausting, it can be weighted. can be emotional. In that grace space, we might often want to make a decision so that at least we can feel like we're making progress in creating less of that grace space. So it's understanding what that is and what that feels like. So today, Friday, I am learning how to sit in the grace space.
I'm learning how to manage my system. I'm a stress non-eater, so this week that gray space has felt really intense, so I've slept a lot, a lot, and I've had to manage my breath. And so it's fascinating when you're in that space of unknown. What is it that you need to do to allow your system to feel whole? What is it that you need to implement so that you can take some of that stress, that pressure off your heart? Oh, check it out. We also just had our 10 year anniversary at our studio. Isn't this the best balloon arch ever?
But in this space right now, I like to offer a few things when I sit in the gray space. I like to offer in that you can breathe. I've been focusing on that a lot. And as I sit in that gray space, I, sorry, the phone's ringing. Inside that gray space, I go back to my journal and I take time to write. I write about things that I'm grateful for. I write around things that I have experienced in my life. Last year, literally at this time, we were on a 10 mile hike in a mountain that should have been done at this time already, but it wasn't and we were still going.
And so we just did what we do. We take one step forward all the time. And that's what we can control. So when I started this earlier, the things that we can control and can't control, We can't control what has already happened an hour ago, a day ago, a week ago. Hi, Terry. We can't control what's going to happen tomorrow. We can lay out the best plans. We can create the best strategies that are going to help us move forward. But we can't control what happens next. And so my invitation is to control what we can And what we can control is this very moment, and that's it.
And that is where I come back to breath. Because when I sit in that gray space, I can feel my heart race. I can feel a heaviness. I can feel a desire to move, to adjust, to pivot. And I can do my best, but what I can't control is how other people respond, how quickly they respond, how decisions are made when it's not my decision to make. So what I can do inside that grace space is I can just listen to me. I can listen to my heart. What does my heart need right now? I can listen to my mind and I can ask myself, what is my mind telling me right now?
And then I can ask the question, are those thoughts the truth? Or is it the story that I'm creating in this moment? Because that's what I need to create in this moment. And there's no wrong answer. There's just recognizing what are the thoughts and then deciding. Do I want to attach to that thought spiral? Or do I want to recognize that it's just what's in my mind right now? And then I can control my breath. Can always go back to my breath. And while focusing on my breath may not solve all of the challenges that lie ahead, It does allow me to step forward with grace, grace for myself, grounded in a moment of time, which is this moment.
The only one that I really have is the one that I'm in. And it slows my mind down just enough to create a little bit of space so I can check in to see if the thoughts that I'm creating in my mind are actually the truth. And if I believe they are the truth, who can I ask that might help? Who can I ask that can take a step with me? I know that I can phone some friends. I could phone Luke. I could call Jules. I could text Terry. Because oftentimes we're just not alone in that space. It's just whether or not we choose to share.
That can be hard too. So Friday, my invitation to you is take a breath. When you hit that gray space, decide what you need to simply take a step forward. And that can be really hard. It doesn't have to be alone. And I'm not going to say it's going to be easy. But when a caterpillar decides that it's time for it to hibernate, it loses its entire shell, its entire self into jelly. And then that jelly at some point decides it's ready to become and evolve and transition into something else. And that's not easy, it's painful.
And as that jelly starts to form into that butterfly, the cells that start that transition, they fight one another.
