Often I get questioned about what it means to hold space with a person. In my everyday life I’ve found something I think sheds some light on this.
In our house we decant a lot of water. We use distilled water for humidifiers and, most important, for our cats’ water fountains. Our Vet, The Cat Doctor, shared with us that distilled water is almost the perfect Ph for a feline, and ours thrive on it. Rather than buy gallon after gallon of water we invested in a home distiller which has worked out great. And to be honest this is our Cats’ world and we’re only serving in it!
Because the water here has a lot of lime or scale or something we boil the water before it goes into the distiller. We still get scale in the distiller but it’s far less than we do when we don’t boil it first. So this means we boil two pots full of water in the electric kettle, and let it cool. The boiled water is then poured into gallon jugs we reuse and they go to the distiller. Once the water is distilled we then have to decant the water from the distiller jugs into other recycled jugs to store and use the now distilled water. This is the water cycle in our little patch of the world.Â
This all seems to be a lot of detail to share about our dance with water, but I recently made a discovery. When I am cooling the first kettleful of boiled water, it goes into my favorite kitchen tool - my 2 liter Pyrex pouring mixing bowl with a handle. This bowl is perfect for just about everything, but when pouring the water from the Pyrex into the funnel and the jug it kept dribbling. The stream would slide down the outside of the pour spot and make me a little wet and a bit crazy. This was much the same problem I’d have with the collection jugs from the distiller. I couldn’t keep a smooth steady non-sloppy stream.
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One day I noticed something. When I held back and let the water proceed at its own pace the stream usually stayed steady. The Aha moment was when I stopped trying to get ALL of the water into the funnel and instead focused on just the surface. Pay attention to the surface, what I can actually manage, and the ALL is still there underneath and becoming the surface in time. Now, in my mind, I slide the water off the top and it’s always successful. And the distiller jugs need the same touch - the surface must stay back so that air can creep into the mouth of the jug and let the water out. Aha indeed.Â
So, why am I bringing this up here? Well, as I was putting this all together in my brain I began relating it to what goes on in my heart and my head. This all informs a lot of what I do when I hold space with someone, even myself. The depths of what we’re thinking and feeling and fearing can feel overwhelming. When it’s all too much it can cause us to dump it all out at once and walk away which can be very sloppy and messy. Doing this is a choice, and perfectly viable, but when we aim to look within we don’t go deep right away. When we stay with what’s on the surface and let that be enough, what was hidden below often makes its way to the surface.Â
When we’re holding space together I listen to what is said and also what isn’t said. We can be patient and not look at everything all at once, becoming overwhelmed. Staying with what can be said on the surface allows it to slide off and what was hidden below is accessible and we can look a bit deeper as we go.
I so appreciate when something mundane dispenses greater wisdom. It's like that adage: how you do the small things is how you do the big things.
I think it's also why I appreciate the pairing of two seemingly disparate concepts -- how is a funnel like holding space for someone, as you've asked here.
Or, what can a funnel teach me about connecting with my teenagers? Or, how can I channel the funnel at different points in my day?
Thank you for the inspiration.
I really like this, Carole as it answers the question I asked at the end of my piece about Lucy (the horse who lost her stablemate, Rocky). But in trying to imagine what you just described (great description) I found I couldn’t relate - that what you described was not how I perceive or process grief. SO interesting. Obviously there is no one right way to come to terms with or process emotions, so now I am even more curious to hear what others will say.