Holding Space

There is a technique that is infinitely healing. This technique taps into the miraculous healing powers of the living body in ways both simple and miraculous. This technique is not really a technique at all. It is an art, a way of being with your client that will dramatically shift a session towards healing. I call this non-technique the art of holding space.

What does it mean to hold space for a client? It is not complicated, yet the simplicity makes it so hard to do. Can you just stay present with this person in front of you? Just hold a part of their body and BE PRESENT. Notice what is happening in their body beneath your hands. Notice and do nothing but notice. No fixing, tweaking, stroking, clearing or stretching is required. Just witness what is there under your hands. Be with that person, that body, that stuck or hurting place.

Holding space is more meditation or prayer than traditional somatic therapy. No locating the tight muscle and working it over until it releases. No prodding and rocking and rubbing. No finding the blocked meridian or chakra and opening the energy. Just hold the body’s space, the energy around a tight or injured spot. Focus on what you feel beneath your hands and sense with your heart. What exactly is there beneath your hands?

Beneath your hands is sacred space. This body under your palms is more beautiful, more miraculous than any Gothic cathedral. This body is made up of more than a billion cells that somehow know how to work in concert and form an integrated whole. What an honor it is to touch this sacred space, to hold it in your hands! Open to the wonder that is there in front of you.

You have held space before. You have. When you listened to a friend talk about her problem and gave her nothing but a kind ear and a shoulder to lean on. That was holding space. And you helped your friend by doing it. You can do the same for your client; offer a kind ear and two hands to lean against while their tissues “talk” to you and sort out what they need to do to feel better.

The most difficult part of holding space is having enough trust; trust in not doing. At first your mind will fight and push to do more than just witness; your mind will scream that you must try something else, stop wasting time. Notice that impulse to do more, to “fix” the problem. Just notice that urge and breathe. Witness your own struggle to stay completely present in the moment and do nothing to alter the moment. We are “doing” creatures.

The only thing to DO now is to listen. Hold space for your client and listen carefully, Listen and realize that the body in your hands is never still. Discover the many energies within the body dancing and shifting, sometimes slowly and rhythmically, sometimes fast and frenetic. Can you sense the boundary between you and this other body? Can you sense the pulse of blood flowing through their tissue and the movement of air in and out of the lungs? And if you are truly still and present, can you feel the chatter of the cells sending messages to and fro by way of the nerve highways? Never will you find total stillness in a living body. Living tissue is never completely still. If you can get quiet and hold space, there is always some wonder to witness.

You will notice that just holding space seems to start a shift in the tissues. The basic act of attention leads to tissue release and a balancing of energies. It seems miraculous that so subtle an action can trigger huge changes in the body beneath your hands. Yet it does. You do not have to know exactly what is wrong or how to fix it. You do not need to know the latest unwinding technique. Just be present and wait. Watch and wait. This body knows what to do. This body knows how to heal.

It is hard to trust in doing nothing. It is infinitely difficult to just be present. You want to help, that is why you are a therapist. Can you stay open to the possibility that doing nothing is healing? This is the art of learning to be present with whatever is right in front of you. It is hard. Know it is hard. Try it anyway.

Try holding space for 1 minute, then 5 or 10. How amazing it is to be willing to just be with a person and their body. Just BE. The world would be a vastly different place if each of us found someone willing to just hold space for us.

Holding space and listening to the body is transforming. Over time you learn to trust that the body under your hands truly does know its own answer, knows how to heal. Your best work will arise from this stillness of holding space. How miraculous and healing is this simple act of holding space.

“With or without your hard work God is always moving in your life.

Wait on the Holy, wait and receive the gifts that come.”

Gunilla Norris, from A Mystic Garden