I’ve told so many clients over the years:
“We all need people to hold space for us. It is my honor to do it for you, but don’t ever think I don’t have an army of people doing it for me, too.”
I say this with easily and intense confidence, like it’s fully integrated (ha, joke’s on them), because I do truly believe the sentiment, and I really do have an army of healers that I pay, just like they pay me, to create space for me. The wobbly point that makes it funny is that I’m still learning how to actually live inside of it.
Here’s what it looks like in real time:
I’m sitting across from someone I pay to hold space for me. They’re doing exactly what they’re supposed to do–they are present, attentive, and keeping the energy steady. They are amazing at their job. They ask me how I’m doing, ask me what I need. I arrive, ready to do the thing, answer the question with honesty, but as I hype myself up, I also feel this bullshit building in my chest. Something raw, something heavy, something I know I’ve been holding and I can’t figure out how to put down. The second before it comes up in my throat, I stop. I pull back the tears, I cling to the heavy object that’s drowning me like a life jacket, and I ask them how they’re doing. Or I soften my response or I pivot away quickly out of the emotion or I make a (always very clever) joke. It’s like I’m taking the weight off me by redistributing it back into something shared rather than just dropping the weight in front of them and exposing the fact that I, only me, was holding it to begin with.
And I know that isn’t the agreement.
The agreement is: I show up, they hold space.
That’s it. Plain and simple.
And yet, I insist on making it reciprocal.
My response is exactly that, a response. It’s entirely automatic because I don’t fully trust a space where I’m not also responsible for something. Where I don’t have to check in or manage the energy or make sure they’re okay, too. There’s a big piece of me that genuinely feels uncomfortable being the only one receiving. I can’t even have a group of people sing Happy Birthday to me without my body filling with dread; it’s just too much attention. Turn the spotlight away, please and thank you. Here, let someone else blow out the candles. No no, they can take the first piece of cake.
This isn’t because I don’t actually want the space, but it’s because I don’t know how to exist in it without trying to rebalance it. Somewhere along this life journey I learned that staying connected meant paying attention to everyone else first. If I could anticipate, soften, and/or stabilize, I have a secure place in the system. And as with any task, I become VERY good at my role. So good that it slowly kills me before I notice my talent.
So now, sitting in a space where none of that is required of me, I can feel myself reaching for it anyway even when my inner boundaries are saying, “WHAT are you doing, woman?! You don’t need to ask them how they’re doing! They’ll go to their circle about how they’re feeling, not you. This is your time, and no, for the billionth time, it’s NOT selfish.”
Ignoring that sage advice, I dive head first into this martyrdom of, “No no no, YOU first. I insist.”
And in a flash, I’m back to nervously screaming, “Rewind, wait a second… actually no, I don’t fucking insist. I do want to walk through the doorway first. I don’t want to displace my own needs, wants, and whatever the fuck else for someone else’s comfort. I AM GOING TO TAKE UP SPACE, goddammit!”
And there I am, panting, holding up my flaming sword of personal justice, exhausted and sweaty and confused.
“Did I do it? Did I do the thing I’m supposed to do? Did I win?”
“I don’t know. Who fucking knows anything anymore… I’m exhausted.”
The ping pong of these voices sometimes yields me doing the thing and taking up space and sometimes I can’t do the thing and take up zero space.
These extremes are always my discomfort messenger and this one is telling me: I am not needed in the way I used to be needed, and I haven’t yet learned how to relax into that new version of my self.
To move into this new version of myself, I will swing between extremes as I learn. Balance, for me, isn’t a fixed midpoint I arrive at–it’s something I experience in motion. I move from one edge to the other, learning something different each time. Like night turning to day and back again, these opposites aren’t failures to stabilize; they are the way I stabilize. The extremes aren’t a problem to solve. They are the rhythm I’m learning to trust.
