personal growth
HOLDING SPACE FOR LIFE
3 STEPS TO NAVIGATE LIFE’S COMPLEXITIES by Katherine Loranger
On top of the latest rounds of lockdowns, life is bringing some pretty heavy content right now to a lot of people I know. Either they, or someone they know is navigating a life-threatening health diagnosis and ensuing treatment. Some of them have suddenly and unexpectedly lost someone close to them through death or divorce. Some are navigating the uncertainty of running a business during a global pandemic and the potentially devastating financial implications for them and their family. Some are coming face to face with the reality of the quality, or lack thereof, of their most important relationships now that they can’t avoid each other in the day-to-day busyness of running their lives. And some are choosing to dig deep and consciously excavate, unearth and repattern long ago planted seeds of unworthiness, comparison, or other limiting beliefs. Choosing to lean into this time of “the great pause” and to take time to design their next becoming. Choosing to dream and to create and to do the corresponding work.
An Opportunity What this brings to mind for me, is that all of this provides us with an opportunity. An opportunity to hold space for life. In therapeutic terms holding space for someone means being physically, mentally and emotionally present
22
|
for them. Giving them your unconditional presence and positive regard. Suspending judgement and the desire to ‘fix’ anything and allowing them to fully feel whatever emotion or experience they’re in, knowing that they are far more than their experience in that moment. Holding space for yourself is how you do that for yourself. Treating yourself with kindness, care, selfcompassion, and non-judgement. Allowing yourself to be present for whatever you’re going through, giving yourself an opportunity to lean in and reflect on what’s going on and to develop a deeper understanding of yourself. Holding the truth that you are more than this experience. More than this circumstance.
Holding Space for Life Holding space for life though, what does that mean? This is something that came to me in a recent coaching call with a client. Sometimes life brings heavy content. Content that’s part of the human experience that we’ll all have at some point in time. Holding space for life means that in those challenging experiences we hold space for life to show up exactly as it is. Without judgement, without trying to fix it, without trying to run from or avoid it. We just allow life to show up. Messy, and imperfect, and sometimes devastating and shitty. And in holding space, we allow it to be all that, and more. In holding space for life, we choose to come from a both / and energy rather than an either / or energy.
