The gift of holding the space

 

A few days ago, a fellow writer that I have nothing but the greatest respect for was having a bad day. My natural inclination as a “helper” and problem solver is to try to “help” but I quickly realized that not all problems need to be fixed. Sometimes when people are venting, they just need to let it out  and sometimes the greatest gift we can give people is the gift of just holding the space and allowing people to be present in their emotions. Sometimes people need us to bear witness to their experiences and respond with nothing more than our presence and love.

We live in a time and a place where we are constantly bombarded with shit, before we have time to process one event, the world has moved on to something else. It is one of the reasons I feel we struggle with death and loss. Anyone who has ever lost a loved one knows that at the point everyone else thinks you are moving on is often the point at which you are truly starting to feel the depths of your loss. This applies to any undesirable emotion, it takes time to process and truly move on. The problem is we are not comfortable with anything less than joyous feelings but the reality is life is lived with a range of emotions and experiences and some are the highest of highs and some of the lowest of lows.

So I leave you this holiday season with a gift that was given to me, I am working on holding the space for all that I care about and acknowledging my own human frailty .  While my day job does require that I solve problems, my life does not have to be about solving; in fact just being is just fine.

To all who celebrate the winter holidays, I wish you a Happy Holidays! Until we meet again.