I have a friend here visiting. She was going through a rough time and she took me up on my offer to come down and take a break from it all.
I was excited when she finally arrived and I was looking forward to us playing with my horses and exploring healing from an embodied perspective. I was ready to hold space for her. Honored, too.
My expectation was we’d choose specific times to explore and do it for a specified amount of time such as 1 hour from 10-11 am or 2 hours from 3-5 pm. With only 5 days, we needed to maximize our time.
Instead, we spent small amounts of time playing with horses or Uzazu embodied intelligence. 30 minutes here, 15 minutes there. One of our longer times together was a little less than an hour, but we didn’t really “do” much. The space together felt chopped up and interrupted.
She extended her stay which meant we had more time to make progress. I felt a little better about not being more helpful so far. For the next week, we mostly sprinkled in short conversations between her clients and mine.
In my mind, I still didn’t think we’d done very much.
But she thought differently. To her, she’d made *tons* of progress because of the space she’d been offered. Space to think, feel, be safe, and play.
“A sacred space,” she called it.
At that moment, the part of me that believes I have to “do more” felt guilty. The part of me that needs to feel useful to be loved and valued flopped on the floor.
This morning in my journaling, I held space for these parts.
Holding space isn’t flashy and it doesn’t get much respect in our productivity and hustle-focused world.
Especially when it comes to helping others, holding space is hard. I have to let go of control. I have to trust that my clients will find what *they* most need. “Try Harder” pokes at me even though learning to trust themselves and *their* process, instead of copying mine, is infinitely more meaningful and transformative.
My practice is to increase my own capacity to hold space–for others AND for myself. It’s the most powerful, generous, and necessary kind of “doing nothing” there is.
