Everybody needs to be held.

Being held is an experience that is the base for our sense of being grounded, sensing a deep trust in ourselves and in life as well as a state from which we can grow and blossom into who we are.

Sadly, many of us miss this experience.

Being kids of hurt people, who were kids of hurt people, who were kids of hurt people….Being held was not always available to us.

Many times, the missing of that (full) experience, is showing itself in the way we get emotionally complicated in our relationships. It may show itself in the places we lack confidence, or feel unworthy at times. It may show itself in our destructive habits, addictions, and even our chronic pains.

It is when we have the dependency still active in us. The constant search for being held, and at the same time being unable to surrender, confronting ourselves again and again with how much we are not held.

It is the natural need to be seen, held in the whole of who we are which was unfulfilled, and today makes us hide who we are, or go overboard in the effort to excel and prove ourselves.

You can feel how much effort you have in your body, which you do not need to make to stand, walk, sit or even lie down. These efforts are the relics of the old unfulfilled state of needing to be held.

Being held is how everything becomes whole again. How we and all that is around us can be bathed in love. It is the way all can thrive, and grow in the glory of its unique strength and presence. It is how every difficult time and challenge can be mastered better.

When we start to be the holders ourselves, we expand into a presence that frees us.

It is the state with which we achieve healing for ourselves, and become a haven for others.

Moving into being the holders ourselves, we naturally connect to the power of life that is all around us. We connect to a power we are usually ignoring. It frees us from the old habit of looking for power somewhere else and lets us sense this power within ourselves.

Just to make sure we are on the same track: holding is not carrying. It is not holding the burdens of people. It is not an effort we have to do for others.

It is about becoming larger in our capacity to perceive, feel and meet. It is the way we find the stability that our minds cannot fathom.

It is the way we trust ourselves and others to meet all that life offers without feeling trapped, or afraid to be broken. It is the way we can stay grounded when we feel any kind of discomfort or intensity that might be painful. Meeting it without running away, getting stressed, or fighting with it.

When we hold something/someone in our attention, we give it place.

We have to expand.

We become larger (not above or better).

We become trustworthy and receive the beauty and the love it /they can offer.

Being able to hold, allows us to finally “forget ourselves”. Forget our limitations and our obsessive parts.

It lets us become ourselves.

We can fill up our cups. We can fulfill that need for being held in a healthy and grown-up way.

We let life hold us. Reveal its beauty to us.

This is how we become greater parents. One that not only enables their children to grow and glow but also breaks the old cycle of trauma and family burdens.

This is how we can be great friends and be filled with love, care, and connectedness.

This is how we can live with great love and partnership.

This is how we can pursue what is within us, with more trust, patience, and stability.

This is how we can better distance ourselves from whatever reduces us and takes away our energy.

This is how we can fulfill the duty of life which is being supportive of all that gives life.

This is how we can enable more love and health around us and in us.

Start to be the holder yourself.

Holding gives space to people’s fears and hurts that might be suppressed under a different appearance.

It asks you not to shy away or fight those experiences in yourself.

It does not demand from you to solve any problem. Nor to take “in” what you perceive.

Feeling and being touched by it is not “taking in”.

When you find that healthy place of holding, you find a natural state of compassion and separateness.

A knowing of when to act and give combined with a natural healthy balance and boundary.

Stepping into the state of holding, you can give space to those feelings and wounds in yourself. By being the holder, you are freeing yourself from the grip of the past and the frozen memory and experience of the lack. Instead, you connect to your strength and presence. You enter the NOW and the fullness of what there is for you.

Train to be that for the people you love.

Train to be that even in situations you feel uncomfortable in. Those you will tend to jump into judgment, blame, and close yourself off in anger.

Do it with your children.

Do it with your co-workers, employees, or employer.

Do this with your home and the objects around you.

And then please do not forget to do it with your wishes and longings.

Feel that the wish has a “life of its own”. Let it tell its story: where was it hurt, dropped, and neglected…. And feel what it asks then from you when you are the holder of that space for it.

I offer you the choice of being the holder of that space. Of that attention, of that presence.

Everything and everyone need to be held.

You taking the state of a “holder” means you become a vessel for life to hold through you. You become the true beneficiary of life’s beauty and power.

Yours,

Anna

Photo by Sarah Halliday on Unsplash