CREATE
SPACE...HOLD SPACE
THE ULTIMATE FORM OF CARING
When our mother was dying,
my sister and I gathered to be with her in her final hours. Neither of us had
any prior experience of supporting someone in transition out of this life into
the next, but we were pretty sure we wanted to accompany Mum for as long as she
was still here.
While
we supported our mother, we were, in turn, supported by a gifted palliative
care nurse who came in every little while to care for her and to talk to us
about what we could expect in the coming hours. She gave us only as much
information as we felt we needed about what to do for her now, and later with
Mum’s body after her spirit had passed.
“Take
your time,” I recall her saying one time. “You don’t need to call the funeral
home until you’re ready. Gather any people who will want to say their final
farewells. Sit with your mum as long as you need to. When you’re ready, call
and they will come to pick her up.” We knew that we were being supported by
someone who knew her stuff from a long history of relevant experiences, and who
at furthest, was only a phone call away.
In the years since then, I’ve often thought about those nurses and
the important role they played in our lives. They were much more than what can
fit in the somewhat sterile title of “palliative care nurse”. They were facilitators,
companions, coaches, and guides. By offering gentle,
relevant, non-judgmental support and guidance, they helped us walk one of the
most difficult journeys of our lives. And they did it without any hint of them
wanting to do the walking for us. They were just available, to guide and steady
us if needed.
The work that they did can best be summed
up by a term that’s become common in some of the counseling circles in which I
work...... they were holding space for us.
What do I mean “to hold space” for
someone else? I mean that we are willing to walk alongside another person in
whatever journey they’re on, without judging them, without making them feel
inadequate, without trying to “correct” or “fix” them, or without trying to
interfere or “do things for them” or otherwise impact the outcome. When we hold
space for other people, we open our hearts, offer unconditional emotional and
intellectual support, and let go of judgement and any urges to protect or usurp
initiative.
Holding space is a complex chain thing. It's a bit like the suits
of chain mail that mediaeval knights used to wear. Interlinked loops of metal
that, in concert, allowed the wearer to move freely, but provided effective
protection from onslaught. In fact, the more I think about it, holding space is
a seminal activity that spreads its tendrils throughout the social fabric,
binding people together in a network of sharing purposes. Sometimes I find
myself holding space for people close to me,
while they hold space for others, some of
whom I may not even know.
Holding space is inter-dependence in action. Inter-dependence is a
median state of social being somewhere between the unhealthy extremes of being
an untouchable hermit, and being a powerless parasite.
In our situation, for example, the nurses were holding
space for us while we held space for
Mum, for each other, and for family members who could not be present. And
though I know nothing about the nurses' support systems, I suspect that there
were others holding space for them as they
did this challenging and meaningful work.
I suspect it might be virtually impossible to be a strong space
holder unless we have others who will hold space for
us. Even the strongest leaders, coaches, nurses, etc., need to know that there
are some people with whom they can be vulnerable and weak when they need to be,
without fear of being judged or disadvantaged.
In my own roles as teacher, facilitator, coach, father, and
friend, etc., I do my best to hold space for
other people in the same way. It’s not always easy, because I have a very human
tendency to want to fix things for people, give them advice, or judge them for
not being further evolved than they are. By the same token I have to keep
working patiently holding space for parts of myself, too, because I know that
I'm no different – and it’s important.
And so do their opposites.
At the same time, there are people in my life that I trust
to hold space for me. Hopefully they can do
it when I need it, but it doesn't always work out that way. It isn't a question
of their not caring; it's usually just a matter of timing. That's when it's handy
to have more than one “best friend”.
To
truly support people in their own growth, transformation, grief, etc., we can’t
do it by taking their power away (ie. trying to fix their problems for them),
shaming them (ie. implying that they should know more or do better than they
do), or overwhelming them (ie. giving them more information than they’re ready
for – something I'm very prone to do.). We have to be prepared to step to the
side and create space for them to make their own choices, offer them unconditional
love and support, give gentle guidance (and sometimes a push) when it’s needed,
encourage them to feel safe when they make mistakes, and be there waiting for
them when they've explored a pathway that turned out to be a dead end..
Holding space is not something that’s exclusive to
facilitators, coaches, or palliative care nurses. It is something that ALL of
us can do for each other – for our partners, children, friends, neighbours, and
even strangers who strike up conversations as we’re riding the bus to work.
Here
are the lessons I’ve learned from those who have held space for me.
1. Give people permission to
trust their own intuition and wisdom. When we were supporting Mum in her
final hours, we had no prior death-experience to rely on, and yet, intuitively,
we knew what was needed. We knew to sit and sing hymns to her, and we knew how
to love her. We even knew when it was time to inject the medication that would
help ease her pain. In a very gentle way, the nurses let us know that we didn’t
need to do things according to some arbitrary health care protocol – we simply
needed to trust our intuition and accumulated wisdom from the many years we’d
loved Mum.
2. Give people only as much
information as they can handle. Do not overwhelm people with far more than
they can process in the tender time they're struggling to handle. Too much
information leaves people feeling overwhelmed, incompetent and unworthy. That's
not what we intend for them – in fact, it's the opposite. Be like our
aboriginals with their great secrets – introduce only as much as their growth will
allow at a time when it's relevant -- to them, not to you.
3. Mind your own business.
Don’t take their power away. Do-gooders need to learn this one,
big-time. When we take decision-making power out of people’s hands, when we “do
for” them, we leave them feeling patronised, invaded, useless and incompetent.
We really need to stop enabling victimhood. There may even be some times when
we need to step in and dispense tough love for other people (ie. when they’re
dealing with an addiction and an intervention feels like the only thing that
will give them the “escape hatch” they're looking for), but in almost every
other case, people need the autonomy to make their own choices (including our
children).
If you're not sure
whether an action on someone else's behalf is your business or not, here's a
good test of where responsibility lies – Who will be the main beneficiary if
this crisis works out? If it isn't you, mind your own business. If they
need your advice, by all means share your experience, but leave Choosing up to
them. Don't usurp their response-ability. Any choices to be made are on their
side of the line.
Good-care people know
that we need to feel empowered in making decisions, for ourselves and on behalf
of others, and so they offer support but never try to direct or control us.
4. Keep your own ego out of
it. This
is a big one. We all get caught in that trap now and then – when we begin to
believe that someone else’s success is going to depend on our “help”, or when
we think that their failure reflects poorly on us, or when we couldn't live
with ourself if we didn't interfere (selfish guilt!). or when we’re convinced
that whatever emotions they choose to unload on us are about us instead of
them. It’s a trap I’ve occasionally found myself slipping into when I teach. I
can become more concerned about my own success (Do the students get me? Am I
succeeding with them? Do their experiences reflect on my ability to teach?
etc.) than about the success of those I'm working with. I take whether they
“get it” or not – personally. But that doesn’t serve anyone – not even me. To
truly support their growth, I need to keep my ego out of it and create the
space where they have the opportunity and retain their choice to grow
and learn. They are their own therapist. I'm just there to ask questions that
may point them in the direction of a possible path to explore.
5. Inspire or empower them
to feel safe enough to fail. That does not include offering
paternalistic noises of sympathy – they give off the odour of you being somehow
superior to them. If you cannot be with the other as a fellow traveller, better
to keep your counsel and just be present and available.
When people are learning,
growing, or going through grief or transition, they are bound to make some
mistakes along the way. When we, as their space holders, withhold judgement and
shame, we offer them the opportunity to reach inside themselves, to find the
courage to take risks and the resilience to keep going even when they fail.
When we let them know that failure is simply a part of the journey and not the
end of the world, they’ll spend less time beating themselves up for it and more
time learning from the situation.
6. Give guidance and help
with humility and thoughtfulness. A wise space holder knows when to withhold
guidance (ie. when it makes a person feel foolish or inadequate, or when
they're just not ready yet) and when to offer it gently (ie. when a person asks
for it or is too lost to know what to ask for, except “help”). A guide does not
take power or autonomy away; he/she stands ready to gently challenge us to take
up possible things we can do that enable us to self-realise our power in the
matter. This is a careful dance that we all must do when we hold space for
other people. It takes practice and humility to recognise the areas in which
others feel most vulnerable and incapable, and be able to offer the right kind
of support without diminishing or shaming them.
7. Create a simple container
for complex emotions, fear, trauma, etc. When people feel that they are held
in a deeper way than they are used to, they feel safe enough to allow complex
emotions to surface that might normally remain hidden. Someone who is practised
at holding space knows that this can happen
and will be prepared to hold it in a gentle, supportive, and non-judgmental
way. Some counsellors talk about “holding the rim” for people. A 3-dimensional
circle becomes the space where people feel safe enough to fall apart without
fearing that this will leave them permanently broken or that they will be shamed
in front of others around them.
Become the kind of person
that is available and present to offer strength and courage. This is not easy
work, and it is work that I continue to learn about as I host increasingly more
challenging conversations. We cannot do it if we are overly subjective or
emotional ourselves, if we haven’t done the hard work of looking into our own
shadow, or if we are not confident of the ultimate evolution of the people we
are holding space for. Good guides show up with tenderness, compassion, and
confidence. If we show up in a way that doesn’t offer assurance that we can
handle difficult situations in a balanced way, or that we are afraid of
failure, we won't deserve their trust.
8. Encourage and allow
others to make different decisions and to try different experiences than you
would. At Lifeline, counsellors are constantly reminded that the
only real expert in the other person's life is the other person – they just
don't realise it at the time. Resist the temptation to bring to the process
preconceptions of “This is how it should go”.Holding space is about respecting
each person’s differences and recognising that those differences may lead to
them making choices that we would not make. Sometimes, for example, they make
choices based on cultural norms that we can’t understand from within our own
experience. When we hold space, we release control and we honour differences.
It's our challenge to be relevant to them, not the other way 'round. It's much
more effective this way, too.
Holding space is not something
that we can master overnight, or that can be adequately addressed in a list of
tips like the ones I’ve just given. It’s a complex practice that evolves as we
work at it, and it is unique to each person and each situation.
Begin by practicing on yourself. Stay open to what is actually
going on with you. Create and hold open space for all facets of your Self. Give
yourself space to be all that you are, without judgment. Give yourself room to
make and experiment with different choices. Make space for change, it only to
see what it feels like and see what happens.
Then stay open for others to connect with you. No need to go out
looking. Life will deliver like-minded seekers to your door at precisely an
appropriate time – for both of you. Then simply meet them evenly at their level
of experience and consciousness. If you don't know what that is like, ask them What
does it feel like to be you in this situation?
And pay attention to the answers that come your way.
We hold space for one another because it's an essential part of
fully being. If it's done for gratitude or for any other reason or purpose,
it's conditional, and you're not going to be very effective. Nor will either of
you be satisfied. Along the way, you may find gratitude in the other's eyes;
you may not. You may not even be there when that miraculous shift in ways of
seeing happens for the other person. Completion may not even come from the
people you directly deal with, but the space you create for others will come
back to you a hundredfold – that is Universal Law.
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