Holding Space: an Alternative to 7 Ineffective Ways of Dealing with Emotions
The Art of Holding Space is something that the world desperately needs in our era of rapid growth and expansion.
Have you ever sat with a friend who is feeling deeply upset? Have you ever had a conversation with someone who was angry? Have you ever felt in a way that made you feel uncomfortable with your emotions?
There are several ways in which we tend to respond to the emotions of ourselves and others that aren’t easy to deal with:
We take them personally.
When someone expresses an emotion of anger, resentment, discontent or bitterness, we assume it is a personal attack on our individual being. This often results in retaliation, arguments, and feeling bad long after the interaction is finished. Often we will over analyze why a person acted that way towards us, what we did wrong. We’ll think, “Why me? What’s wrong with me?” Meanwhile, the feelings of that other person could have nothing to do with us, and everything to do with them.
We try to fix them.
When our friend is crying in front of us, a family member tells us that they are depressed, or someone confesses to us that their heart just got broken, our natural reaction often is to try to “fix” it. We will go out of our way to cheer them up, tell them it’s not a big deal, try to convince them that it will get better soon enough, or advise them to look on the bright side. This is often not helpful at all. On the contrary, the person that shares their feelings with us may feel like we are unable to hear them. It may make them feel even worse, like we are trying to brush off their feelings, invalidate them and pretend they are not as real as they truly are to that person. Why do we do this? It’s because seeing our loved ones in emotional pain or simply witnessing another person struggling can make us very uncomfortable. We want to be able to ‘do something’ about it, find a way to make it better quickly. Unfortunately, feelings don’t work that way, and trying to fix how another person feels ends up causing more damage than good.
We ignore them.
When another person’s feelings masks us uncomfortable, or the way we feel does, we may simply try to ignore those feelings to avoid dealing with them altogether. This never plays out well because feelings and emotions don’t just go away. What happens instead is a buildup of an emotional ‘baggage’ in our relationships with other people and with ourselves. This ‘baggage’ may stay buried beneath the surface long enough, but sooner of later it finds its way out - and can ‘explode’ right in our faces all at once. A big fight, a meltdown, a panic attack or severe anxiety can all be a result of feelings and emotions that have been ignored for far too long. Even though facing emotional problems can be extremely difficult, it is far worse to try to avoid dealing with them altogether.
We become desensitized to them.
Emotional storms and challenges that shake us often can result in a PTSD that can in turn result in our shutting down and closing ourselves off to feelings. Severe cases of this can include narcissism that is often a result of extreme emotional abuse. This is not so much a conscious choice but a means of self-defense in order to survive in an emotionally devastating environment. In this case, seeking professional help is often necessary because opening up to feelings after shutting ourselves off from them for a long period of time can be very painful and difficult to do on your own.
The become them.
When we are out of control over our emotional well-being, it may feel like we become our emotions. When that happens, it is almost impossible to separate yourself from the way you feel. This can cause us to experience uncertainty of our true identity and cause major rifts in our ability to trust ourselves. In the case of Empaths (people who feel the emotions of others as their own), this can be even more confusing, because without healthy boundaries, Empaths will ‘mop up’ the emotions of people around them and become overwhelmed with the chaos this creates within them. It is often challenging to distance yourself from the way you feel, but techniques such as meditation, breathing and exercise can be very helpful.
We get triggered by them.
When another person feels some strong emotion and shares it with us, this can trigger a similar emotion within ourselves, stirred up by the memories of past experiences or feelings in our own lives. This is not very healthy for us and often can sabotage our emotional well-being. Try to recall having a great day when you feel happy and aligned, and then suddenly a friend calls you and ‘dumps’ their emotional ‘baggage’ on you - and moments later you find yourself aggravated, annoyed or angry, chiming in with your own memories of how a similar thing once happened to you. This certainly affects the rest of your day. So how can we defend against this? It is important to recognize if another person is looking for support to work through their emotions or is simply trying to ‘dump’ their emotions on you. If the latter is true, you owe it to yourself to defend your own emotional balance and prevent this from happening in order to maintain it.
We isolate.
Sometimes the emotional rollercoaster of our own feelings and those of others causes us to feel confused, frustrated and exhausted. When that happens, it can be extremely hard to reach out - and so we isolate, ‘hide under the covers’ and hope to wait out the storm. A healthy dose of solitude combined with self-care can be wonderful for your emotional well-being, but how can you tell the difference between that and isolating? Isolating goes hand-in-hand with avoidance. Missed calls, cancelled meetings, oversleeping, purposefully avoiding contact with others are all signs of isolating. As it progresses, isolating can turn into depression, and the festering fears can prevent you from reaching out for the help that you need. Isolating can be very dangerous, and though it can be extremely difficult to reach out, it is best to do it anyway.
So what if instead of all these seven ineffective tactics we tried holding space?
First of all, what does it mean to hold space for emotions? Here are a few tactics that can help you put this technique to use:
Don’t judge the emotion. Whether it is your own or someone else’s, simply allow it to be. Don’t try to determine whether it’s negative or positive, good or bad. Observe the emotion and affirm that it’s valid. If it makes you uncomfortable, acknowledge that to yourself.
Don’t react. It’s ok to want to. But hold yourself back from making a conclusion, trying to influence the feeling, rejecting or embracing it, expressing your opinion, etc. Simply study it as impartially as you can.
Separate yourself from it. Holding space means being bigger than the emotion or feeling in a sense that you let it be while letting yourself be with it instead of becoming it. If this doesn’t make sense, it will eventually, the more you practice this approach. You are not your feelings and emotions - you are so much more. The distance will show you that it’s possible to feel a certain way and yet remain separate from that feeling in a healthy, profound way.
Create a safe environment for the way you (or someone else) feel. Essentially, holding space is all about safety. Grief, fear, anger, frustration, anxiety, depression and many more emotional expressions that are uncomfortable are, nonetheless, always valid. The more safety you can create for yourself (or another person) to feel in any way that you do, the more space you can create for the feeling to be healed and released when you (or they) are ready.
Once you begin the practice of holding space for your own emotional process and for the feelings of others, you will discover an innate ability to remain centered in any circumstance. You will no longer fall an easy victim of emotional “dumping” and will be able to process emotional trials and tribulations in a much more balanced way.
This does take practice to master, so don’t be too hard on yourself at first! It may take some time to remember to apply this technique, and even when you become quite good at it, you may still occasionally become engulfed in a feeling that consumes you almost completely. And that’s ok! We are human - and being human means being perfectly imperfect.
As someone who identifies as an Empath, and having felt like a victim of my own emotional states for most of my life, I can promise you one thing - this tactic will transform your relationship with emotions and will help you gain a sense of control over the way you deal with the feelings of people around you. It will empower you and give you a solid foundation on which you can build resilience and a sense of emotional stability.