Holding the Space

When learning the craft of therapy, one of the most abstract concepts to learn is the act of “holding space”. In essence, this means creating the environment to allow for emotional expression to occur. In school, it often felt like doing nothing. How can you hold space for someone else’s pain? Shouldn’t I be saying something profound, doing an intervention, or reframing an idea? At the time, I did not know the power that lies in bearing witness to an emotion.

            There is healing in someone witnessing your pain; healing in validation. However, it is something that often brings up discomfort for others. As human beings, we do not like to see others suffer. We want to fix others pain, cheer them up, or help them to get over it. And while dwelling on negativity is not something to strive for, there is healing in bearing witness and in being seen.

            So, what does it actually mean to hold space? Holding space is listening to understand rather than listening to respond. It means seeing an emotional experience with unconditional positive regard and non-judgement. It means giving an experience room to breathe and be seen. There is something magical that happens when someone feels the space to be able to be understood and share their emotional experience with another without judgement, a space that can contain even the ugliest of emotions.

            We are trained in society to see emotions as confusing and something to rid ourselves of rather than to understand. This perpetuates a theme of stigma and misunderstanding. I see emotions as information; information from our brain about our bodies interpretation of our environment, current or otherwise. Information that we should pay attention to. If we are able to hold space for others, what happens when we hold the space for ourselves? It is possible to give ourselves permission to learn to sit with something and to feel more than one thing at a time.

            A popular children’s movie, Inside Out (2015), explored this theme of feeling more than one emotion well. The movie depicts the inner working model of a child’s brain using cartoon characters to represent emotions that the child experiences. The memories create globe like objects colored with the emotion it represents. At the beginning of the movie all of the emotions are singular in color, neatly stacked in rows to represent the brain. Sadness is seen as the wet blanket of the group, always getting into trouble for touching things and turning them blue. As the child grows and the movie evolves, memories become globes tie-dyed with colored mist representing the complexity of the human experience.  

           During a time in society when we are faced with so many conflicting emotions, let’s give ourselves the gift of holding space for ourselves. Let us allow ourselves the ability to be both positive and frustrated with the current state of our lives, or to feel happiness and sadness all at the same time. Maybe instead we give something a name and try to get to know it a little bit better. Maybe we learn the art of holding space and creating tie-dye.