Holding Space

March 30, 2019 2:34 PM

In the age of social media, when the personal is being turned inside out and exploited on what feels like a regular basis, sometimes what is most needed is to be fully present with those we care about. This thoughtful piece explores what that means, using the context of when the author's mother passed away as an example.
posted by TruthfulCalling (6 comments total)

"The circle becomes the space where people feel safe enough to fall apart without fearing that this will leave them permanently broken or that they will be shamed by others in the room."
From the article.

Absolutely. When father was dying, he had 2 of 3 siblings, his buddy who visited him along with a army of support folk near him. His nurse was that person. Absolute saint and was a naval officer. We gathered one night and he broke down and pops never broke down. He did because he felt safe and everyone have him a hug in tears. Except me. When he looked at me, those seconds ticked like stone and I got up, kissed him on the forehead went outside an wept. Later I would tell him my problems, my failure @AOL (this was 1995), etc. because it was part of me. He didn't want a part time son playing Hazel all day, his words. Thanks for posting this.
posted by clavdivs at 3:05 PM on March 30, 2019 [1 favorite]

That's a wonderful term for that idea, I've saved and sent the link to some friends.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 6:59 PM on March 30, 2019

Thanks for posting this. It's given me some new tools for processing difficult times. I'll think over this for a while.
posted by Telf at 12:54 AM on March 31, 2019

The queer feminist of color spaces I've been in have used this term forever and it remains an incredible one. Thank you for sharing <3
posted by yueliang at 11:07 AM on March 31, 2019

A comment not on the article itself, but on the website design: It's annoying that the article credits the "Feature Image" at the top of the article but doesn't list credits for any of the other images, including the illustration by Tina Mailhot-Roberge apparently taken from a 2013 Lifehacker article. Listing credit for one image among a bunch of stock photos leaves the impression that ALL the other images are stock photos.
posted by nicebookrack at 3:41 PM on March 31, 2019 [2 favorites]

Gorgeous piece. Thank you. I spent some of the weekend holding space for a dear friend in his late 50s, who up until 2 years ago had lived in (unnecessary) shame thanks to his fundamentalist upbringing. He's worked some of the shaming out of his system, but it takes more than 2 years to unlearn 50-something years of self-hating, family-rejection damage. Something happened this weekend that ripped the scabs off his rejection wounds, and we were in an environment and community unfamiliar to me, in which I felt like I didn't know what the fuck I was doing.

But I tuned into his body language during his crisis, kept my physical distance when he needed it, asked "Do you want physical contact?" when it looked like he might welcome it (he answered yes), held him as his sobs gradually quieted from racking, to long shuddering breaths, to weeping, to exhausted sleep.

He thanked me afterwards for doing what he'd needed. I said, "Friends support each other," but I know that some of his friends would have gotten judgy cuz of feeling that men shouldn't cry, let alone sob, mustn't show weakness or feel vulnerability, it's embarrassing when they do, all that bullshit.

I love the whole essay, especially this piece: "We cannot [hold space for someone] . . . if we haven’t done the hard work of looking into our own shadow." Thank you for posting, TruthfulCalling.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 12:10 AM on April 2, 2019