Here’s an extract from a post I put up in our forum about Holding Space.
Unconditional love and compassion are part of the heart feel. I don’t usually use those words deliberately because they mean so many different things to different people and that difference in meaning can get in the way of understanding the fundamental thing – that real heart feel has no blame or judgement in it, that it is an ability to automatically look at the problem or behaviour and see the real cause behind it.
The heart feel is the one that I personally found the most difficult to learn and what I am sharing here, is how we can set ourselves up for success – and that is what I am dedicating this part of the forum to.
This part of the forum is not about offering someone advice or patting them on the back or trying to make them feel better. It is literally about Holding Space, so that whoever needs it can find their way through to the gold underneath whatever is going on for them.
Holding space is just being in the same inner awareness that we use with our horses and having no judgment or blame of our own and paying attention to and cleaning up our own Not Quite Rights that come up while we are in this mindset. And cleaning up our own Not Quite Rights MAY involve reaching out to someone else to assist or be assisted – or it MAY NOT. It will just as likely bring a better understanding of ourselves.
And if all this seems a bit woo woo, then think about WHY we are looking for the heart feel – it’s because people with a strong heart feel can get horses to co-operate and do extraordinary things easily. They can reach through to even difficult and dangerous horses and get awesome co-operation.
And when we add this feel to the other four, we have sheer poetry.
My personal experience of the heart feel is a physical feeling of expansiveness around my heart, kind of a gentle pulling sensation, coupled with an all the way to my bones sense of the rightness of whatever it is that I am dealing with.
Because the heart feel was definitely NOT my natural strength AND I have come to this feel relatively recently, I believe that I have been able to identify the things that will help you to achieve this feel as smoothly and easily as possible – in line with the rest of my “doing it the easy way” philosophy.
The big thing that I want to put bells and whistles and drum rolls around is that for people who are working with their strength in genuine heart feel, it is completely natural for them to not blame the horse and to look behind their behavior for the real cause of that behavior or problem.
And for those of us who do not have heart feel as a strength yet, then that attitude doesn’t necessarily come easily.
When heart feel is not our natural strength, then an easy path to that feel will come as we:
a) Firstly decide that we want it. So you could pause and do that right now if you wanted to and
b) Decide that we want to notice when we are slipping into judgment or blame or making our horse – or anyone else wrong – because, very importantly, the heart feel is not limited to our work with horses. Again, you could pause and decide to notice that now and
c) Gently encourage ourselves to consistently be aware of our feelings and eventually automatically look beyond the “problem”, to where our horse – or that person – is really coming from and from that place of understanding to figure out how best to help them.
d) “Gently” being the all important operative word – because for many of us, the first person that we need to practice this no judgment and no blame stuff is with ourselves. And figuring out how to help someone else (horse or human), often involves doing nothing but a change in ourselves.
Like everything I have been working with lately – it seems that trying too hard can get in the way of this feel coming naturally. Being kind to ourselves is a vital part of the process of having this feel as a natural strength – that is, noticing when we are slipping into judgment or blame or making OURSELVES wrong is an important part of developing this feel as a strength too.
The thing that I want to emphasize is that there is nothing wrong with a weakness in our heart feel, just like there is nothing wrong with a weakness in the physical feel or the inner awareness of the energetic feel or only occasionally getting the thoughts and ideas for problem solving of the mental feel – we ALL have weaker elements in our five feels and even in the feel that is our strength, we will occasionally NOT have all our ducks lined up in a row.
And that’s OK. Do you get it? That is REALLY OK. It can’t be anything else but a good deal if we want to look behind the behavior or the problem to whatever is REALLY going on – whether it’s for ourselves or whether it’s for someone else or for our horse.
Just use the very, very powerful intention that we want to notice when our heart feel or indeed when any one of our feels is weak and then pay attention to what comes up, that will help us grow that feel stronger. Decide that you want to know the answer to “Whose is it?” and “What do I need to know or do?” and “Has it all gone yet?” about feeling crappy – that simple recipe again.
And here’s another explanation of Holding Space from the delightful Anna from Sensitivity Uncensored.
Basically, holding space means that you allow yourself to be with another individual without trying fix them, judge them, win their affection or affect any kind of outcome.
It’s harder than it sounds.
I’m a yoga teacher, an alternative health practitioner, and a medical intuitive — I teach people how to fix their problems on a professional level. And have you met me? I like to solve problems. That’s part of the reason I got into Ayurveda — putting a report of findings together is like solving a big puzzle. So when a close friend or lover comes to me with a laundry list of things gone wrong, I immediately go into “fix it” mode.
Note to self: you cannot hold space for someone while simultaneously trying to fix their problems.
Holding space is about allowing a situation to unfold without fueling the emotions that may be part of it. Holding space is trusting that by allowing a person to express their emotions freely, their deeper healing is already at work. Anything you say while holding space must be free from your judgements about them and their situation. You get to create a safe space for them to have their process.
I chose this explanation of Anna’s because it fits so beautifully with what was happening in day 2 and day 3 of Talk to the Animals. That willingness to listen, to HEAR, with the soft smiling eyes that feel good, IS Holding Space and in my experience – supported by many student’s experiences too – Holding Space can be enormously powerful in terms of supporting that person or that animal to find their own healing in utterly miraculous ways sometimes.
When we’re in the Inner Awareness that you were working with during Talk to the Animals, with that intention to just hold them in your heart without trying fix them, judge them, win their affection or affect any kind of outcome – then you ARE creating a safe container for them to express their feelings and be heard and you ARE Holding Space and you ARE allowing them to connect with the powerful healing energy of The Universe.
When I’m in that space, if I do feel anything other than the expansive heart feeling, then it may be that there IS something I need to know or do for or about that person or animal that I’m Holding Space for. In that case, I figure that out and take action if I have to.