Heather Plett “holds space”. Her workshops allow others to explore their personal growth, but for ages she struggled with what to call them. The answer came four years ago as a palliative care nurse provided support for her dying mother in Canada.

“She had this beautiful way of supporting us; of not making us feel overwhelmed; of taking away some of the things that were uncomfortable for us,” Ms Plett remembered.

“She had a gentle way of anticipating our needs, but not taking away our own authority; of letting us make our own choices and letting us know what to anticipate without overwhelming us with too much information.

“We all felt really supported in that as mum was dying, so that we were better able to be present for mum.” She tried to find a name for that quality.

“Some people are too compassionate, you almost want them to back off, but there was something unique about how she showed up,” she said.

“Because I’m a facilitator, I’m very conscious of how to support people in their growth and development, so I started looking for the language.

“I found it when I started to consider that what she was really doing was holding space.”

A blog post she wrote on the subject went viral.

“My website crashed because it didn’t have the capacity to manage that many people.

“I was getting hundreds, maybe thousands, of e-mails a day in response. It just seemed to resonate.

“There was something unique in how I articulated something that people intuitively knew how to do, but didn’t know how to talk about.

“When we hold space for people, we show up as supporters, but we do it in a way that makes them feel like they still have power over their own lives.

“We withhold our judgment from the situation; we withhold our need to control the situation and we don’t give too much direction. We do it in a way that lets them live their story without us layering our own desires and needs on to it.”

It is something she will discuss at a retreat she is holding here in February with Bermudian Pamela Barit Nolan. The pair met five years ago at a leadership conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Ms Plett’s post has since been read by more than 3 million people, translated into several languages, embedded into school and psychotherapy group curriculums and military chaplaincies worldwide.

The 50-year-old is now writing a book on the subject.

Her “spiritual awakening” came 15 years ago when she had a stillbirth.

“I spent three weeks in the hospital trying to protect the pregnancy, and in the end, he died.

“But in those three weeks, it was a really profound transition for me. I’d been in a highly demanding government job — very busy life and career driven and this stopped me short. It made me realise that this wasn’t really what I wanted in life. I was seeking something deeper.

“That ultimately led me to the work that I do now.”

Ms Plett has three daughters.

She describes herself as a wisdom seeker, edgewalker, community gatherer and story catcher.

“I feel like I’m always a little bit outside of the circle. The edgewalker would be the centurion outside of the community because they have a sense of what has to change and how the world is evolving.

“I tend to be a deep-thinker, always exploring and reading and wanting to know more and having a sense and vision for the future and how the world needs to change.

“The concept of holding space is so much more than what one person does for another — it’s also what we do as a community when we’re in circle together.”

For more information, go to www.transformbda.com/awakening-the-heart or www.heatherplett.com