Suzanne Marlatt Stewart
Living in a 55+ community offers many opportunities to be a support for your neighbors and friends. We are at the age when more physical ailments occur. Also, people making their transition. Just on my side of the street in the last couple of years, one lost her younger brother, another her grandson, another her husband, and myself, my son.
The question is, how do we be a support?
The act of holding space for another person is being a container of love and hope. The person doing the holding creates an environment to encourage healing, growth, or transformation of another. They’re a support system in the deepest, truest human form. Personally, I think that’s the hardest part of holding space—recognizing that this process is not about you (the person doing the holding), but rather about the person needing support.
Sometimes I think we must give advice or offer suggestions to make an impact. While practicing holding space, that isn’t the case. To effectively hold space for another, giving advice, feeling important, trying to fix things, having the last word are not important at the moment.
Holding space, or creating a “container,” can be especially helpful when someone is in deep grief, struggling with unresolved trauma, or in the throes of depression.
So, what does it mean to “hold space” for someone? If needed, how does a person do this?
The following are supportive practices you can use to hold space for someone:
1. Practice Loving-Kindness
Loving-kindness is a term rooted in Buddhist tradition, though it appears in other religious and secular traditions as well. It describes the reverent present-moment compassion and love for another living being.
2. Use Deep Listening
When practicing deep listening, we listen not just to hear but to understand. This practice goes beyond any kind of hearing that can be done with the ears. It is listening with the heart.
3. Sit with What Is
This may be the most difficult of the essential elements for those in Western culture. Sitting with what is means simply being with the person for whom you’re holding space. Do not try to change anything.
4. Allow
Allow the other person to feel whatever they are feeling. Hold them if they ask.
5. Breathe
Remember to breathe. Checking in with your breath is an effective way to make sure you remain grounded and in the present moment.
6. Practice Non-Judgment
This goes for yourself and the one for whom you’re holding the safe container: Do not judge. Stay neutral.
7. Don’t Try to Fix It
Often, when someone is in pain, we try to fix it for them. So, above all, be there with the other person. Do not try to fix them. They do not need fixing.
Just being with someone, holding their hand, and allowing them to release can be the most loving gift you can offer.
Rev. Suzanne, a resident of SaddleBrooke, is an independent writer and speaker. She was ordained non-denominational, representing all faiths, and her focus is “inclusive.”