The Hidden Weight of Holding Space: Feeling Exhausted after "just talking" to Clients

Why You’re So Tired After “Just Talking” to Clients: The Hidden Weight of Holding Space

You’ve probably said it yourself or heard another practitioner say it:

“I don’t know why I’m so tired… I just spent the day talking to clients.”

And the honest response?
“Your brain and nervous system were working overtime all day.”

So let’s get one thing out of the way right now:

You are not weak. You are not too sensitive. You’re not “bad at boundaries.”

You’re a practitioner whose entire nervous system is showing up to support someone else and that comes with a real energetic cost.

It’s time to stop shaming yourself for your thinner capacity, for feeling overwhelmed, for feeling dysregulated, or for feeling completely “done” after you close your last session of the day.

Because when you’re working with a client, you have no idea how many layers your body and brain are navigating underneath the service.

Most people think they’re “just talking.”

But you are doing so much more than that.

The 5 Systems Working Hardest During Client Sessions

Here are the top brain and nervous system processes activated every time you hold space, attune, or support emotional regulation.

1. Your Autonomic Nervous System

Your built-in safety scanner.
All session long it’s evaluating:
Are we okay? Are THEY okay? Are we connected? Are we safe?

It’s regulating your breath, heart rate, tone, and facial expressions and co-regulating with your client’s system while you speak.

2. Your Prefrontal Cortex

Your internal anchor.
It helps you stay grounded, compassionate, thoughtful, and clear.
It prevents you from reacting, freezing, or getting pulled into your client’s story.
This is where ethical, intentional communication comes from.

3. Your Amygdala

Your emotional smoke detector.
It monitors emotional intensity - your client’s and your own.

It catches micro-expressions, subtle changes in tone, discomfort, fear, or shame.
This is the early-warning system for relational safety.

4. Your Insular Cortex (Part of your Cerebral Cortex)

Your “felt sense” center.
It tracks your internal sensations and reads your client’s somatic cues.

That moment when you feel a client soften or shut down?
That isn’t imagination.
That’s your nervous system doing live emotional analytics.

5. Your Mirror Neurons

Your built-in resonance system.
They sync your breath, posture, micro-expressions, and tone with your client.

This isn’t “good rapport.”
This is your neurology working to help them feel safe.

Why You’re Actually Exhausted

When you’re holding space - even if it’s not “therapy” - you’re using your entire neurobiological system to guide, support, soothe, or attune to someone else’s internal world.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re working within…

• mental health

• finances

• fitness

• business

• relationships

• coaching

• sales or service

Your work is SO much more than talking.

It’s:
✨ attunement
✨ co-regulation
✨ emotional holding
✨ nervous system syncing
✨ guiding another person through micro-moments of shame, fear, activation, clarity, or relief

No wonder you’re tired.
No wonder you need space after sessions.
No wonder some days your capacity feels thin.

You are doing deeply human, deeply taxing work.

This Is Exactly Why We Created The Informed Practitioner

If you’re a helper, healer, coach, practitioner, or service provider… you weren’t meant to hold all of this alone.

The Informed Practitioner is a monthly support circle for those working at the intersection of care and entrepreneurship:

💜 where strategy meets self-awareness
💜 where boundaries meet business
💜 where nervous system literacy and ethical leadership come together
💜 where co-regulation isn’t something you give, it’s something you receive

This space exists so you can care for yourself the way you care for others.

✨ Join Us for Our Free Kickoff Workshop

The Practitioners Circle of Care

🗓 December 9 at 9:30am PT

Together we’ll explore:

🟣 the power of peer support
🟣 nervous system capacity in practice
🟣 joy as medicine
🟣 the relief of not holding everything alone

If you felt seen by this post…
If you’ve been holding more than anyone realizes…
If you’re craving a sustainable, trauma-aware way to do the work you love…

Come join Lea Morrison (trauma educator and expert) and I.
Your nervous system will thank you.

👉 Registration details here.

Comment and let me know... have you noticed the heavy, tired feeling after holding space for a client?