Holding space means clearing the energy of the physical place we are in, but also creating energetic boundaries around us that do away with distractions, often including the ones we bring along ourselves, so that it is easier to feel alignment with our Self and, therefore, our interactions are more authentic and reflect our truths more fully.
Holding space means our thoughts, our feelings, and whatever we choose to share, are safely contained, without spilling out into the rest of the world, the rest of our lives, if we do not choose to take them there. It means that the energies that are constantly trying to encroach on us are kept at bay.
And it means, too, that we are safe from judgments, those coming from others, and also from ourselves. If we are not safe, then we are not free to explore, to allow curiosity to pull us in unexpected directions and insights to arise in our awareness.
Holding space means we can do the soul work we are called to do.
As we go about our lives fulfilling the roles that we have chosen to take on, that we may have inherited from the people around us, we are sometime interrupted. Sometimes the interruption comes through something big, often painful or frightening, something that shakes up our life. And sometimes, the interruption is only a niggling sense, a feeling, an unfathomable itch that gives us no peace.
It is our Soul, calling us back to our essence. It calls us to recognize that which would emerge into the world through us. It calls us to own the fullness of who we are in spite of the apparent contradictions found in that very fullness. It calls us to remember we are more than we seem, more than our bodies and our minds.
Sometimes that calling is present to us for a long time, we keep going as if we didn’t know it is there. But we intuit the potency of it, we are aware that it will not abate, will not release us to continue as we were. Yet, the force of habit, the familiarity of living and doing as we always have, the approval of our family and peers for continuing as we were, and, especially, the overwhelming power that the fear of change grips us with, all conspire to keep us from heeding that call.
We have not been taught to honor our Soul, not been taught to listen for it. Our world is not built to support this kind of growth, this kind of stretching that feels like taking so great a risk. Our lives are built around keeping on keeping on.
We all need to be reminded of the great Wisdom of Life, which we are part of, and, more so, of the Wisdom we already hold. We all need a mirror that catches our Light and reflects it back to us, so that our physical eyes can behold it. We all need someone who has faith in us when we doubt ourselves; who asks what we would gain, when we ask what we would lose; who recognizes our fortitude when we feel weakness; who speaks back to us our own words of Knowing, which we have already forgotten.
We all need support and companionship on our journey to respond to our Soul.
I am that, I am a spiritual companion. I hold up the mirror for you to see yourself in your power and your potential, walking your own path, guided by your Soul’s compass, through the spaciousness of your own making. This is what my Soul calls me to.
I walk among the bluebells that spill over the forest floor, and I think about the ways I serve. For all of my roles, for all the different ways that I could compartmentalize my service, as a mother and wife, a life coach and spiritual companion, a volunteer, a friend, I know this:
When I am fully present and engaging the whole of my Self, I can be a vehicle for others to reach into themselves and to touch what lives most powerfully within them, to reconnect with their soul and recall who they yearn to be. I can be a vehicle for others to discover their voice, to recognize their essence, to own who they are at their depths. I can be a vehicle for them to recognize what is real, and sacred, to them.
And to do so, I have only to see in them their transcendence, only to remember there is that in each person I encounter. Some, I can perceive, know this about themselves, while some waver, and others have no awareness of it. Many who cross my path ache to remember it.
But this process of recognition circles back in a gift for me. For, in order to be that vehicle, I must recognize and claim the same transcendence in myself, and I must grant myself compassion when I waver. To be that vehicle, I must remember that the potential to express that essence and manifest it at all times is always there, within me. That is what I must remember in my encounters with others, and my encounters with myself.
I stand at the edge of the lake and stare down at the waves, breaking on the beach again and again, foaming as they backtrack and disappearing anew. This place is tumultuous and loud.
And perhaps I am a mirror of this vast lake, the edge of my consciousness is noisy, frenzied, in constant movement.
I forget that I need only move my gaze beyond in order to behold the slate grey lake, lying flat to hold up the white, overcast sky in utter stillness and quiet.
I have a natural tendency, which I can trace back at least as far as adolescence, to notice what feels challenging. It turns out I have been keeping a mental list of everything that I thought has gone “wrong,” of every ill feeling I’ve had, regardless of how fleeting. And I have been keeping this list just beyond the surface of my consciousness, so that it feels almost like a secret I have kept from myself! I am, apparently, exceptionally skilled at this tracking of all that would weigh me down, hold me back, feed my self-pity.
So it is truly a blessing to have acquired a spiritual practice of noticing and sharing the good news of the week with a companion of my Spirit, every Monday evening. Often, I will start out not knowing very clearly if there has even been any good news to share. But as soon as I enter the space of sharing, it comes to me, flooding me with awarenesses of the wonderful, important occurrences. The visit this week of a dear friend, whom I haven’t seen in years definitely qualifies as important, good news. But the awarenesses include the small things that do so much to nourish my soul from moment to moment, such as reading a blog about a widow’s reluctance to share her still fresh grief a few years after her husband’s death, and finding a slew of comments of encouragement and compassion that renew my sense of connection with strangers. Or the chance encounter I have with a house finch when I step out of my car, noticing how colorful his feathers have become, and my day seems suddenly brighter than a moment before.
Regardless of what I may have been feeling when we begin retelling our good news, sharing it is one of the most powerful ways I know to lift my mood. Hearing the news of my friend, and the genuine feelings of celebration it elicits could be another item on my list to share! And even beyond that, looking back at all the wonderful experiences of the week balances out that tendency I have to keep an accounting of all I did not like, it reminds me that there is even more to celebrate than that which I am remembering, and that, when that tendency I mentioned earlier kicks in, I have only to shift my focus to tap into the energy of recognizing my blessings.
And there are more gifts from this practice! One of its highlights is sharing the challenges I am experiencing at the moment through the lens of good news. It’s so easy to be caught up in an energy of struggle, to focus on the distance between where I am and where I want to be. Speaking of the challenge as good news reminds me of what I am receiving by being where I am, and by the process of getting where I am going. And those are blessings easily missed, with only the bigger, more colorful ones being rescued by hindsight. Sharing good news is my way of harvesting every blessing and allowing gratitude to fill me.
I recently heard a fascinating podcast interview of John Lewis by Krista Tippett, where he mentions how showing feelings and true emotions can be perceived as weakness in this culture, and how saying “I love you” can sometimes feel so difficult. As a fan of Bené Brown and her work on shame, I would say that touching into true emotions makes us feel vulnerable.
In the dunes by Lake Michigan, two children, young, unguarded, allow themselves unmeasured pleasure, dragging their feet in the sand and crowing at the trail they make. Now they thread, at top speed, through the still-bare shrubs at the edge of the sand hills, whipping branches behind them. I catch myself thinking I want to play that way, too, but such full-hearted enjoyment would be unseemly in an adult, if anyone were watching.
A person I care deeply for shared a confidence with me, because she felt safe doing so. She is smart, educated, worldly, and her dignity in the eyes of her peers is a matter of great importance to her. She confided that she trusted the wrong people and wound up losing considerable sums of money. The weight of this loss, for her, is doubled by the fear she carries of anyone knowing, of being judged foolish, unworthy of respect.
When I think of her, even in spite of what occurred, I do not find her unworthy. Dignity is not about appropriate behavior, about not taking risks or making mistakes. Right now, I feel it is about soul, about recognizing humanity (my own, as well as hers). I think of dignity as the ability to look up, around, even when fear would hide my eyes. It is standing with clarity and courage, after tripping along the path, or watching another falter alongside me.
There is a photograph my talented great-aunt, Hermi Friedmann, took some 60 or so years ago, of a Colombian peasant woman, perhaps of African ancestry, sitting in front of a large pile of pineapples. Her head is wrapped in a scarf, her fingers work-worn, holding a cigarette to her aged face. She looks weary, and strong. She is the picture of dignity and beauty. (A copy of this photograph can be found here.)
It is in the recognition of our humanity, our timeless strengths as well as our wrenching weaknesses, in allowing ourselves vulnerability and self-acceptance, that old, wounding patterns can come loose and be released, and new, heartening opportunities opened.
Today, I will run in the sand.
I don’t have a copy of the photograph she took, to share with you, so here is a picture of Hermi Friedmann, in her own, full dignity.
Energetic Integrity is a concept that has interested me for years now. It is central to the coaching that I do, and to my life. I have come up with many ways to define it and describe it, sometimes finding those ways effective and precise, and sometimes not so much. I suppose energetic integrity is more a “felt” concept than a mental one. For me, it immediately sends energy shooting up my back, straightening my spine, making me stand taller and plant my feet more firmly on the ground.
Recently, I rediscovered Angeles Arrien’s description of the Four-Chambered Heart (in her book, The Fourfold Way), and it strikes me as another, effective demonstration of energetic integrity. She writes that emotional and spiritual health is achieved through a heart that is full, open, clear, and strong. By that, she means that what I decide to do, I do full-hearted, with focused energy; what I allow into my energy field, I allow with an openness to it, without defensiveness or withholding; what I determine to do, I determine with clarity and a sense of alignment in all of my bodies; and where I take a stand, I do so with courage and strength.
When the four-chambered heart is full, open, clear and strong, I am achieving energetic integrity: there is no leaking energy pulling me away from what I am focusing on because my heart is not in it; there is no energy draining because I am entertaining people or situations that are harmful to me or require me to protect myself excessively; there is no energy draining because I am not rushing into things or “making” things work for me; there is no energy draining because I am facing my fear and using its lessons to strengthen me.
Every day, I strive for energetic integrity. And each day I find that I have learned something I didn’t know the day before, my abilities have increased since yesterday. And each day, too, I find that I am challenged in a new way, that I am called to grow a little more.
Photo credit: Zela (Marja Flick-Buijs) at RGBStock.com
