Holding Space, a month-long course I am just now completing, suddenly became real for me the other night. An unexpected text from my cousin conveyed that his sister had lost her battle with cancer and was facing imminent death. I’d felt close to my cousins but rarely saw them as they lived on the west coast. I’d heard about the cancer some years ago but again, had not been staying in touch. Now Sara was left with just hours to live.
Acting on impulse, I called Sara and her husband. I’d only met him twice, several years ago, but we had connected. They shared a love of botany. They had no children, and I had no idea of their constellation of friends and family outside her siblings. But Aaron answered my call, and I was able to give Sara my love and hear her voice. They were home with the care of a death Doula and Hospice.
Maybe because of the meditation seminar I’d just been on, my heart grew large and open and quiet. It felt like it held them, and I expressed that to Aaron. I was holding space—not thinking but feeling. The holding space included my cousin Paul, who was shocked and grieved that Sara had declined so quickly. She was his closest sibling.
Why Hold Space?
In the past, I have often not known what to say or how to act in moments of loss. My tendency had been to ask questions, seek information, “make sense” of what had happened. I think that by putting loss in some kind of context, it made me feel safe. It was the feelings I didn’t know what to do with. Which is the brilliance of Holding Space. It requires none of the above. In fact, holding space can’t happen unless I make room in myself to not “understand” but to Be.
To make room I must stop, inviting the other to stop with me. It’s the one helpful thing I can do. Together, we can breathe. We can feel. In that space, I have a chance to put myself on hold and allow the other person to step into their process. Staying present to openness leaves space to experience what is happening inside. I need to let the other person tell their story rather than respond with my story, my pain. This is going to take practice, especially for me. I’m a beginner and this is the growing end of myself.
Growing ends tend to be green, and fresh, and enticing. Holding space for others means holding space for myself as well. I feel excited and curious about practicing this new way of being present; of learning how to connect better with others and with myself. Of learning how to feel without needing “to do.”