I didn’t rake the leaves off the lawn this Fall. My climate activist daughter regularly sends me articles about how the dead leaves create biodiversity in the backyard, serving as places for insects (including pollinators) to hibernate, and then, in the Spring, bringing more birds and flowers to the yard. As for the leaves I needed to clean off the patio and walkway – I built a backyard composter where they can rot into food for the soil.
The neighbours on both sides of my yard raked their leaves, so there’s a clear line between their property and mine – crunchy leaves on one side, grass on the other.
As much as I believe in more healthy symbiosis with the natural world, I will admit I struggled with the decision not to rake. Nobody wants to be THAT neighbour – the one whose cluttered yard is talked about in whispered tones because of the way it brings the property values down. Though I don’t need it to be pristine, I wanted it to be at least as orderly as the neighbours’. (Somebody in our neighbourhood once gave their next-door-neighbour $500 to temporarily clean the clutter from the yard while their house was up for sale.)
I recognize how vain this makes me sound – that I would make decisions that could negatively impact the environment based on what the neighbours think. But it’s the truth, isn’t it? Even when we pretend we’re not paying attention to our neighbours, friends, and family, we’re always at least somewhat aware of the ways that we stand out, the ways we’re seen as odd, and the ways we’re judged for not having our lives together. We do it in our neighbourhoods, at our schools and workplaces, and online. We don’t really grow out of our childhood need to fit in.
But change doesn’t happen until someone is willing to be the outlier, and so I’ll leave my leaves and if they ask about it, I’ll tell them about the insects and the birds. And if my leaves blow onto their lawns, I’ll offer to rake them back onto mine.
This decision, while a minor one in the grand scheme of things, is making me think about the many ways that we choose to hide our messes so that the neighbours don’t see them and so that we conform to the (often unspoken) collective norms and expectations of the places where we live and work. Even if our lives are messy behind closed doors, we want to project the appearance of having shiny, happy, orderly lives.
It’s a cultural thing (especially in wealthier western countries), it’s a neighbourhood thing (especially in the suburbs), and it’s a capitalist thing (especially among those who want others to see that they have the kind of success that is valued within capitalism). In an era of social media, it’s even more prevalent, because we are always peeking into the virtual windows of other people’s curated lives. (Be honest – how often have you moved things out of the frame before you’ve taken a photo to post on social media? The pressure is real, isn’t it?)
On an interview for a parenting podcast, recently, the interviewer asked me to speculate on why, when change is such a constant in our lives, so few of us are truly equipped to handle change in our lives. My answer was some version of this… “Change comes with disruption and messiness. And we have been led to believe, in our culture, that truly successful lives are those without the messiness. When the mess shows up, and we don’t have control over it, we assume we must be doing something wrong.”
We are always comparing our own lives to the curated versions of other people’s lives. If they don’t show their messes, we assume that they don’t HAVE messes. But they do. We all do. Life is messy. We break things. We spill things. We hurt people. We get hurt. We get overwhelmed and incapable of the simplest tasks. We get triggered back to the less mature versions of ourselves. We get resentful of our kids who NEVER clean up after themselves. We get angry with ourselves because “WHY didn’t we teach our kids better?!” We get depressed. We get anxious. We fumble. We fail. ALL OF US.
What if we showed more of that messiness? What if we divested ourselves of the toxic values systems of capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy and we stopped trying to perform to some ridiculous and unreachable standards of perfection? What if we let our bulges spill out over our jeans, left our leaves on the lawn to make happy homes for the critters, left the dirty dishes in the sink when we’re taking photos to share on Instagram, and let people know when it feels like the world is crushing us? What if we agreed to no longer play by the rules that place value on curated lives? What if we invited people into our homes even when we haven’t dusted the furniture in weeks (and then didn’t apologize)? What if we wrote letters to all of the marketers who try to tell us our lives aren’t good enough and we told them we’ll never buy anything from anyone who markets from that kind of manipulative, scarcity mindset?
Maybe then we’d nap more, play more, eat more, and laugh more. Maybe then we’d crawl around on our hands and knees and stare at the pretty bugs gathering under our scattered leaves. Maybe then we’d lean into new ways of being in relationship, where value is placed on presence and not perfection. Maybe then we’d be less hard on ourselves and we’d smile at ourselves when we look in the mirror. Maybe then we’d wake up and realize how much we’ve been manipulated into the kind of shame and self-judgement that keeps us from being real.
People often ask me why it’s so hard to hold space for other people when they’re going through the mess of the liminal space, and I usually say “When you can become more comfortable with your own mess, then you can become more comfortable with other people’s messes. When you stop seeing yourself as someone who needs to be fixed, then you’ll stop trying to fix other people. And when you stop believing that you only have value when you’re DOING something productive and meaningful, then you’ll become better practiced at simply BEING with another person.”
There is a LOT of value in being the kind of friend who is unphased by the mess, who can sit with someone and deeply listen, seeing through to their heart without being distracted by the things that are out of order. There is a LOT of value in being silent when someone simply needs a listening ear and not advice. There is a LOT of value in your presence and your acceptance and your love. And yet… so often we overlook that value and only focus on the value of that which feels more active, productive, and “useful”.
Another question I’ve been asked a few times on interviews recently, and which seems related, is “What about cancel culture? Can we truly have deep and meaningful conversations, and wade into conflict (especially online), when we’re all afraid of saying the wrong thing and being canceled?” Here are my thoughts on cancel culture… It wouldn’t exist if we didn’t live in a culture rooted in capitalism and patriarchy that has placed so much value on perfectionism, ease, order, and power. If we hadn’t developed this skewed belief system that, with the right work ethics, the right thoughts, the right courses, the right purchases, and the right intentions, we can all have perfect, easy lives, we wouldn’t be at risk of being ‘canceled’.
If we all showed our messes more regularly, then we wouldn’t have these ridiculous and unattainable standards of perfection that lead to inevitable failure. If we were open and honest about our fumbling and failure, took responsibility for the harm we’ve done, made amends, and didn’t have so much fear of having our messes exposed, then we would no longer be at risk of being torn off the hollow pedestals that were never meant to hold our weight in the first place.
Take J.K. Rowling, for example – I believe that if she had truly listened, early on when she was first challenged about trans rights, and that she’d been willing to fumble in her attempts to understand what she was being challenged with (and make necessary repairs), then I don’t think there would have been so many people ready to tear her down. We tear down those who don’t live up to our expectations of perfection – expectations that have been skewed by our celebrity-worshiping, humanity devaluing culture. We also tear down those who don’t take responsibility for messing up.
We are not meant to be perfect people. None of us are – not even the celebrities our culture elevates to ridiculous heights. We’ve been manipulated into striving for that perfection, believing it’s attainable, idolizing it when we see glimpses of it in others, and spending more and more of our time and money trying to at least create the illusion that we are close to it.
It’s all a lie. It’s a messed-up fairytale that you’ve been taught since childhood so that you’ll spend more of your money on useless things and abdicate your power to those you believe have greater value than you do.
It’s time to divest of those belief systems and the cultural systems that prop them up. It’s time to live more honest and messy lives. It’s time to stop trying to fix ourselves and other people. It’s time to stop spending our money on things that don’t truly bring us joy. It’s time to stop changing our bodies to meet some ridiculous standards of beauty.
It’s time to let our leaves rot so that they can nourish new life.
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If you’d like to learn more about how to live with the messiness of life and hold space for yourself and others in the midst of it, there is still time to sign up for the Holding Space Foundation Program that starts next week.
A few weeks ago, my shoulder started to ache. My right shoulder has become a bit of a barometer for my emotional state. Specifically, it tends to ache when there are trauma memories being triggered by a particular season or event.
Three years ago, I broke this shoulder on a day when my body was trying to process a couple of traumatic events at once. On the afternoon of that day, I’d had a hard conversation with a couple of dear friends with whom some conflict had arisen. I came off a Zoom call feeling tense and anxious, knowing that the conflict hadn’t been fully resolved. Then, only minutes after the call, my former husband, who’d dropped in to pick up my daughter for a quick errand, brought up some abusive behaviour he’d been guilty of during our marriage and – out of the blue – he wanted absolution for it. I wasn’t ready to process the weight of what he suddenly dropped in my lap, or the casualness with which he brought it up, and my body tensed up even more as my fight/flight/freeze reactivity kicked in.
After that, while trying not to reveal the chaos spinning around in my brain, I took my daughters out for a promised restaurant meal. Though I tried to put on a brave front, my body simply couldn’t fully relax. When I got home, I did the only thing I could think to do in the state I was in – I ran the bathtub full of hot water and added Epson salt. Then – because I was fairly certain I’d need to cry in the bathtub – I locked the door and climbed in.
Unfortunately, one of my daughters was going out that evening and needed her makeup from the bathroom. Somewhat resentfully, I stood up and reached for the bathroom door. Suddenly, because the doorknob was really too far to safely reach from the bathtub, my feet slipped out from under me and I slammed to the floor, twisting my outstretched arm in a manner it wasn’t meant to twist. It was broken, in a way and place that’s tricky to heal, and I had to live with pain for about a year after that.
And that’s how trauma and my aching shoulder became so closely intertwined. It was trauma that put my body into a tense state, which I’m certain resulted in the fall. And now it’s trauma that brings the ache back. When it aches, I’m learning to pay attention to what my body might be needing.
At first, I wasn’t sure why it started aching a few weeks ago. I was feeling relaxed and happy after taking some much-needed time for self-care and family-care during the month of August, and I was excited about my upcoming book launch. Trauma was far from my mind.
But then the memories started to flood back. First, it was the twenty-fifth anniversary of my former husband’s first suicide attempt (which I wrote about in a recent blog post on the Centre for Holding Space website). Then, just a few days later, it was the twentieth anniversary of the day my son Matthew died and was born (in that order).
Just two days later was my book launch. While I was processing all of those memories, I also had to prepare to share my book with the world and do several media interviews about the book.
I chose that book launch date a long time ago, not remembering, at the time, that it would be happening in one of the most difficult weeks of the year for me. Now, when it was about to happen, I was beginning to regret not paying more careful attention to the calendar.
And yet… even as I was struggling to keep my head up when my body wanted to shut down… I started to consider that perhaps this was the PERFECT week to launch a book about holding space. What better time to talk about trauma and grief and overwhelm and boundaries and relationships than in the middle of a week that represents SO MUCH of my learning in those areas?
In fact, those two narratives – the death of my son and the suicide attempts of my former husband – are two of the primary narratives in the book because they shaped me in ways that few other events ever could. They taught me how to survive disruption and chaos. They taught me what it’s like to go through the depths of liminal space. They taught me how to strengthen my boundaries and how to be more clear about my own needs and limitations. They taught me about spiritual bypassing, and about all of the ways that we tend to hijack space instead of hold it. They also taught me about the importance of community.
This book would not exist without those two narratives. It would not exist without the trauma that still holds a place in my body. It would not exist if I hadn’t learned what those two events taught me about resilience and grace and strength and mindfulness.
As I prepared for my book launch, I realized that possibly one of the subconscious reasons why I’d picked that date was because I wanted to write a new memory for my body to hold when next September rolls around. No, my body might never let go of the memory of those traumas, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t hold joy and pride and gratitude simultaneously.
This is one of the greatest survival skills I have learned from the traumas I’ve experienced: After the trauma settles and you have the space to work on healing it, make meaning of the trauma so that you can practice holding it differently. Tell the story of it, again and again, as much as you are able, so that the story takes a new shape in your life and it becomes less and less destructive. Turn it into paintings and dances and songs and blog posts. Mold it into shapes with clay or play doh. Play with it and move with it and teach your body that it can hold it with more lightness and ease. Talk about it in sharing circles and coffee dates with friends. Release it out into the world so that it doesn’t take the shape of shame or resentment in your life.
Your trauma is not the end of the story. In fact, it can be a new beginning. You have the capacity, like an alchemist, to turn it from pain into triumph. You have the capacity to transform it into a gift that you can offer other people who, some day in the future, might experience a similar trauma. You have the capacity to make it into music.
For me, this book marks a milestone in the relationship with my trauma. Like a potter with my hands in the clay, I have worked with those stories again and again, kneading and re-shaping them until they were ready to be offered to the world as gifts. No, that doesn’t mean that my body will forget or that I can stamp “healed” on all of my past wounds, but it means that I can hold it all more lightly than I ever could before, and I can trust that the meaning I’ve found in it all will make its way to those who need it.
This is the beauty and complexity and messiness of being human. We are molded by our trauma, but then we get to turn around and mold that trauma into meaning and gift so that it doesn’t control or imprison us.
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Want to learn to reshape your trauma and to hold space for yourself and others in a deeper way? Join us in a few weeks when we begin the next session of the Holding Space Foundation Program.
I stopped talking about “non-judgement” and replaced it with “selective non-judgement”;
I started talking about boundaries and limitations and the times when you shouldn’t hold space;
I started writing about spiritual bypassing and the many ways we avoid the messiness of the liminal space (i.e. by trying to stay in “love and light”);
I evolved my language around “safe space” and started talking more about “brave space”.
Here’s why that matters: If these nuances are not part of the complexity of holding space, then it can be its own form of spiritual bypassing, it can be a justification for willful blindness, and it can make us complicit in allowing harm to be done.
If I hold space without any judgement, discernment, or boundaries, and if I insist on everyone being allowed to express any opinions they want in the spaces I hold without repercussions or accountability, then the spaces I hold can become cauldrons of toxicity and dangerous ideology, they will overlook the abuse of power and they will almost certainly contribute to the further oppression of those who are already marginalized.
I am currently seeing this happening in the wellness/spirituality/yoga communities. People are invoking the language of holding space to gaslight other people for daring to challenge belief systems and worldviews that contribute to oppression. They’re insisting on things like “safe space” and “no divisiveness” and “unity” and “all beliefs are sacred” and “all lives matter” as a way to shame people for challenging racism, fascism, ableism, and other destructive “isms”.
More specifically, this watered down, spiritual bypassing use of the language of holding space has allowed QAnon (a dangerous, cultish belief system rooted in fascist propaganda which espouses beliefs such as “the pandemic is a hoax” and “Trump is a lightworker who will save the world from a powerful cabal of leftist child traffickers”) to take hold in these communities and has stopped people from challenging the destructiveness of it because they don’t want to create divisiveness or judge other people’s beliefs. (Sadly, I suspect that it may be specifically BECAUSE QAnon saw the potential of this type of culture within this community that they put the effort into targeting it. If you’re looking for a fertile field to grow a dangerous belief system, why not target a space where people won’t put up much resistance or be judgmental when their friends buy in?)
I want to go on record as saying that I DO NOT support this use of a term that has become so close to my heart that I’ve co-founded The Centre for Holding Space (and written a book about it). I AM NOT, nor will I ever be, in support of this language being co-opted for those purposes. And I will not be a bystander and allow this beautiful concept to be corrupted in such a dangerous way.
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” – Desmond Tutu
Holding space is NOT about being neutral in situations of injustice. It is about wise discernment, courage, boundaries, anti-oppression, intersectionality, and fierce love. It is about centring the most marginalized and keeping the oppressor out of the circle (unless they show evidence of change and a commitment to repair). It is about daring to have difficult conversations and it’s about transforming conflict.
Holding space is about honouring the sovereignty and seeking the liberation of ALL people. That means not accepting the abuse of those who threaten that sovereignty or try to take that liberation away.
It doesn’t mean that you have to be unkind to people who’ve bought into belief systems that cause harm, but it means you have to be bold enough to challenge them and, if necessary, keep them out of circles where marginalized people risk being harmed.
Whenever I teach the Foundation Program in holding space, people are always somewhat surprised at the challenge and robustness of it, especially when we get to the part about Holding Space in Complexity. In that module, we talk about power, oppression, intersectionality, and conflict. Suddenly, a concept that started off as simply a way to support a friend through a crisis, or a client through personal or organizational development, becomes somewhat confronting when it calls us to be courageous in the face of injustice and oppression. Suddenly, we are called to be warriors rather than doormats.
From Buddhism, I learned the posture of “strong back and soft belly”. This concept teaches us that we should be welcoming and offer access to our open hearts through our “soft bellies”, but that we should maintain “strong backs”, prepared to become warriors who challenge that which threatens to harm us or other people. This, I believe, is how we should hold space – softness balanced with strength.
That means that there is openness to everyone’s questions, longing, fears, etc., but there are boundaries erected whenever harm is being done. In these spaces, you are allowed to express your beliefs, but you may be challenged if those beliefs don’t honour the dignity and sovereignty of other human beings.
At this point, you may be thinking… “but Heather… it sounds like you’re biased and you get to pick and choose whose belief systems are acceptable in your spaces”. Yes, I will admit to my biases and I will also admit that I am not always right and that I am still learning. (Each of us has biases and to pretend otherwise is another form of willful blindness.) As much as I can, I try to be biased on the side of justice, equity, and the sovereignty and dignity of ALL people. That means that sometimes I choose to intentionally centre the more marginalized and ask that those with more privilege relinquish some of that privilege (and dare to have the belief systems and biases connected to that privilege be challenged). That may feel uncomfortable for some, but I believe that it is the way that we will build more equitable and just spaces.
If you wish to hold space in a way that does not inadvertently create spaces of intentional blindness where dangerous ideas are allowed to grow unchecked, here are some tips:
Be clear and transparent about your values. Let people know that you will err on the side of justice and that you will not be neutral in the face of injustice. Check out the values statements that we have posted on our Centre for Holding Space site for examples. The more clarity you have, the more prepared you’ll be to set healthy boundaries and communicate with those who cross them.
Be clear about what is acceptable in the spaces you host. If you are a group facilitator, pastor, community leader, teacher, etc., it’s good practice to post what is acceptable, and/or invite people in your groups to collectively develop a set of agreements that articulate what is acceptable and then ask that everyone adhere to those agreements.
Work in community and develop a culture where vulnerability is valued and people can be open about their own biases and blindspots. Build trust and a strong container among your co-leaders so that when someone’s blindspots become clear to them they have the resources and support to work through any shame that might be triggered. (This is why I am now in partnership with a strong partner and have a team who work together and allow this work to expand beyond my own biases. I have been stretched because of it.)
Be in relationship with people who are different from you, especially those who are from marginalized populations, so that you have an expanded worldview and can gain perspective about the kinds of behaviour and beliefs that cause harm. If you don’t yet have such friendships, start by following strong leaders/writers/thinkers who are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour), LGBTQ+, differently abled, etc., especially those who clearly articulate how their communities are being marginalized.
Be committed to having your biases challenged and your worldview expanded. None of us can claim to be free of bias or prejudice – it’s in the soil our society was built on and it’s part of the evolutionary development of our brains that’s helped keep us alive and connected to our communities. Some of those biases, in fact, are inwardly directed as internalized oppression. (For example, after all of these years of living as a fat person, I still have to catch myself in the judgements I make about fatness.) We might not be able to free ourselves entirely of harmful biases, but we can be humble enough to admit them and open to having them changed.
BUT… don’t be so open to having your biases challenged that you’ll be easily swayed by manipulation and propaganda. Don’t be afraid to stand firm on your core beliefs. Check your sources, do some research about the origin of ideas and the people behind them, question things that seem preposterous, and look for wise researchers, thought-leaders and journalists whose analysis is rooted in good research methodology and who don’t use manipulation techniques in how they communicate. Use your logic to check an idea before accepting it. (For example, if someone tells you that ALL mainstream media or science agencies are corrupt and controlled by some dark force, contemplate, for a moment, just how many people the world over would have had to have fallen victim to some kind of illogical mind control. And then consider the danger of that kind of belief, the people who would likely be most harmed by it, and the people who most benefit from it.)
And now, for the sake of transparency, here are some of the things I believe:
I believe that Black Lives Matter. I believe that systemic racism exists and I believe it is the cause of many Black bodies being killed or harmed by the police.
I believe that, as a settler on this land, I need to commit myself to reconciliation and repair with the Indigenous people who were here before us and who were colonized by our ancestors (and that includes upholding the treaties and honouring their sovereignty and land rights).
I believe that climate change is real and that our capitalist greed has done damage to our earth. I believe that we need to act urgently in order to mitigate that damage.
I believe in the rights of LGBTQ+ people and people with disabilities and I believe that we should, collectively, honour their sovereignty and dignity and work to create a society where they no longer have to face the harm that has been done to them throughout history.
I believe in science and I believe that, because science is built on a system of checks and balances and peer review, even when scientists make mistakes, there will eventually be better science that will reveal and correct those mistakes.
I believe that, though there is bias and some corruption in the mainstream media, and sometimes they may focus too much on certain things and miss other things that are important, there are a lot of hard-working journalists who have integrity and are committed to telling balanced and well-researched (and fact-checked) stories in the best way they know how. I believe they deserve our support and encouragement (and payment) to keep doing their jobs. I believe that there is great risk in relying only on biased, independent news sources, and I believe that many people become manipulated when that happens.
I believe that COVID-19 is real and that it wasn’t created by evil scientists or big pharma and that people are dying from it and unless we act collectively and responsibly to decrease the rate of infection, we risk putting many more people in harm’s way and we will over-burden our healthcare workers.
I believe that we are collectively responsible to do our best to protect the most vulnerable and marginalized in our society. During a pandemic, that includes following the guidelines our leaders and scientists develop, when they base those guidelines on the most current science available to them.
I believe that there is value in doing our best to strengthen our immune systems (and some of those things fall outside of traditional medicine) and I believe that we should ask for transparency about any possible vaccines and who stands to make a lot of money from them (thankfully, most of us live in democracies where we have those rights and, at least here in Canada, those rights aren’t being taken away), BUT I also believe that those things can distract us away from protecting our most vulnerable and can cause us to marginalize those who don’t have access to immune-boosting supplements, food choices, and practices, or have mental health issues or other challenges that create a barrier. I believe in collective responsibility and I believe that an “every person is responsible for their own health and for finding their own truth” mentality has the potential to do great harm.
I believe that QAnon is a cult and a system of propaganda for the far right (whose immediate purpose is to sway the U.S. election and control the most powerful country in the world). Like cults have been doing for centuries, it preys on people’s vulnerabilities, fears, and isolation, particularly in a time of disruption and insecurity like we’ve been experiencing with the pandemic. I believe that nobody is immune to cults, not even the most intelligent among us, because cult leaders manipulate people’s trauma and attachment systems in such a way that it makes it difficult to access the higher-functioning parts of our brains. Because of that, it is difficult to use reason to draw people away from it. (For more on this, read Terror, Love, and Brainwashing.) I believe that they intentionally manipulate people’s goodness and the things they care about (i.e. saving children from child trafficking) to draw them in. I believe that it is particularly insidious right now because it can harness the power of social media, and I believe it is particularly dangerous because it is mirroring the rise of Naziism in the days and months before the Holocaust.
I had high hopes for what this season of my life would be. Back in late 2019, when I settled on September 29th as the date my book would be launched into the world, I was imagining myself heading out on an extensive trip, connecting with my friends and readers around the world. I wanted to fly to Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands to spend time with the many people I’ve met there in the last few years, people who helped me shape the ideas in the book. I even contemplated getting a camper van and setting out for a long road trip, crisscrossing North America.
Back then I thought the timing was PERFECT – my youngest daughter would have graduated from high school, likely one or two of my daughters would have moved out, and I would be much less needed on the homefront. I could go away for more extended periods than I have in the past.
But, alas. COVID-19 hit. And here I am, at home, spending endless hours on Zoom instead of hugging the people I want to hug and passing my book from my hand to theirs.
Not only am I stuck at home, but all three of my daughters are here too. This year, all four of us will be working or studying from home (even though one is going to university halfway across the country). Our house isn’t very big! We’re having to get creative about finding spaces for everyone to work. (If you follow me on social media, you might have seen the desks I built for them.) We’re hoping we still like each other in a year.
I’ve been feeling some grief about the loss of my book tour. At first, the grief simply felt like inertia – I just couldn’t motivate myself to plan a book launch on Zoom when I’ve already spent more time on Zoom this year than most people will do in a lifetime. And then I recognized it for what it was – grief.
I had to process that grief, and one of the ways I did that was to get out my power tools, buy some wood, and build things.
Something occurred to me while I was building… Sometimes you have to get smaller before you get bigger. Sometimes you have to contract before you expand.
I was reminded of the time, almost exactly eight years ago, just before my mom died. It was August and I’d flown to Ontario to co-host a fairly large gathering. I was excited about the opportunity and it felt like it was the beginning of bigger and bigger work for me. I was ready for my work to grow and my circles to expand. Then, like now, the timing felt perfect for expansion.
But then, while I was in Ontario preparing for the event, I got a call from Mom. She’d seen her oncologist. The cancer was back and was too far progressed for any more treatment. The best she could hope for would be six months to a year of life.
At that gathering, it was suddenly clear that, though I was ready for expansion, what would be needed instead would be contraction. Instead of hosting bigger circles, I would need to spend the next few months in a very small circle – sitting with my mom in her last days of life.
That’s exactly how it turned out. For the next three months, my work nearly ground to a halt. I was still teaching a class at university, but other than that, my business was barely growing. Instead, I spent much more time than usual with mom. Yes, there was a part of me that was resentful over that fact, but I was also glad I had the flexibility to pivot and turn my focus toward her. I will never regret the time I spent with her and with my siblings, especially in those final days of her life.
It took some time, after that, to regroup and to refocus on the expansion I’d been hoping for earlier. For the next two years, I plodded along, growing slowly and learning what I needed to learn from grief (it’s always been one of my greatest teachers). And then, two years after Mom died, I wrote the blog post about holding space at her deathbed, and…. BAM… suddenly the expansion I’d let go of two years earlier came barreling toward me faster than I could have dreamed it would. Suddenly my inbox was exploding and my work was growing exponentially. Over the next couple of years, I built the original program that has evolved into the Holding Space Foundation Program (a program that has sold out all five times it’s been offered). Plus I got to teach in Australia (three times), New Zealand (twice), the Netherlands (three times), Costa Rica, and all over North America. It was more than I’d hoped for back when I was in Ontario ready to co-host that gathering.
And the lesson in that is… sometimes you have to get smaller before you get bigger. Sometimes you have to contract before you expand. Sometimes – despite your readiness to rush into the next big thing – the work has its own timing and it asks you to slow down, to wait, to spend time in reflection, to learn a few more critical things, and to accept a pace that you’ll only have the capacity to understand in retrospect and not in that moment.
I don’t know why this is happening again – that I’m now needing to contract back into my own home, into a small circle with my three daughters. I don’t really need to know the meaning of it (or even if there IS a meaning in it). I simply need to do the next right thing, the thing that’s in front of me to do. For now, that will include more Zoom calls. It will also include more conversations with my daughters before they leave the nest (like the ones that helped birth the course on How to Hold Space for Difficult Conversations in Your Family) and more quiet time for writing and reflection. There will be time for learning new things that likely couldn’t be learned if I were traveling for days on end.
Perhaps there will be expansion in the future. Perhaps, though my personal life feels contracted, the book will have its own expansion, traveling all over the globe and sitting with people as a sort of surrogate for me. And maybe that’s good enough for now. Maybe, in fact, it will give people time to read the book and let it gestate before we come together again.
I am open to what will come. I am open to discovering what magic is possible through the power of the internet. I am open to waiting until COVID-19 no longer keeps us contracted and we’ll all get to experience a return to in-person circles and real hugs again. Imagine what that will be like!
I have passed through the grief that was with me for the last few weeks and now I am beginning to dream again. I am dreaming about what a virtual book tour will look like. Perhaps I can still sit (virtually) in some of the circles I’d hoped would be possible, and maybe even in MORE countries than I’d first imagined. Perhaps I can pop into book club gatherings in South Africa or Singapore or Iran. Perhaps I can visit schools or speak at conferences in Brazil or Bangladesh. Who knows what’s possible?!
I wonder, dear reader, if you’ll begin to dream with me? Would you like to invite me to wherever you are, to sit with whoever you’ve gathered, to talk about what’s on the pages of my book? Please reach out with an invitation and we’ll see what’s possible from the contracted space of my own home. And then, maybe next year, I’ll travel the miles to give you that in-person hug.
It’s Friday afternoon. I’m staring out a large picture window, watching the poplar leaves dance with invisible partners. A squirrel just darted across my line of site, leaping from poplar tree to pine tree to spruce tree. Just beyond those trees is the lake. If I stood up from my semi-reclining position on the couch, I could see it. A moment ago, I was out on the patio, watching a pair of cormorants on the water, until a light rain chased me inside. This morning, I paddled across that lake, when it was as smooth as a plate of glass, on a yellow kayak and I watched an eagle come in for a landing at the top of a tall tree at the edge of a cliff. On the way back, I stopped to photograph lily pads and lotus flowers. After I put the kayak back in its place, tipped over to drain the water that had dripped from my paddle and down my knees, I sat on the dock with my journal and watched a turtle poking its head above the water.
I’m at a cabin in western Ontario. It’s nearing the end of a week of solitude and writing. I haven’t been online since Sunday. I don’t miss it. I have no idea what’s going on in the world and the only time I’ve spoken has been once to the young boy who greeted me on the dock, and for about five minutes each day when the owner of the cabin checks if I need anything. (My answer to her is always the same: “I’ve got everything I need.” Except when I needed more propane for the barbecue.)
Since I arrived here on Sunday, I have done a remarkable amount of work – more work than I normally accomplish in two months at home. I’ve worked twelve hour days since I got here, and today was the first time I allowed myself enough of a break from the work to paddle across the lake.
It always seems somewhat indulgent when I book a cabin like this for a working retreat, or I fly to Reno to stay in my friends’ guesthouse to complete my book, but so far I have never, ever regretted it. Not even a bit. It’s worth every penny I spend on it. And I’ve done some version of it at least once a year for the last eight years or so. (In the early years, I had to find inexpensive options, like borrowing spaces from friends.) I will continue to do it every year for the foreseeable future, though it may look different once my kids are all moved out of the house.
Because this is how I do deep work. This is how I hold space for my wild and wonderful wisdom. This is how I entertain the muse when it’s especially greedy and wants my undivided attention.
Not that it’s only for capitalist reasons, or that I have to justify why I do it, but if I were to work out how much income I generate from what I create in a week like this, the hourly value would be much higher than the usual time I put into my business. It is, therefore, one of the best annual business expenses I ever invest in. (If you have a business that relies on your ability to create things, I highly recommend you consider doing something similar.)
It’s not that I can’t write or create at home. I can and I do. But when I have a major project that requires intense focus and my clearest, most creative mind, I do much better when I remove as many distractions and other commitments as possible (it’s especially important to get offline), give myself large chunks of uninterrupted time, and find a place where nature nourishes and inspires me.
Cal Newport calls this “Deep Work”. It’s “the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It’s a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. … In short, deep work is like a superpower in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy.” Sadly, he says, most people have lost the ability to go deep, “spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there’s a better way.”
It’s true – our world has become too fast-paced, too high-impact, too full of distractions and unrealistic expectations of speed and availability for many of us to do deep work. Just as I am less focused and less creative in my home, where the internet distracts me, the news worries me, and my children’s and clients’ needs and expectations often take precedence over my writing time, so too are people the world over. (Especially in a pandemic.)
Some of us, though, have a special calling to do such deep work. The writers, artists, makers, musicians, philosophers, designers, teachers, inventors, healers and leaders – all of us need to find ways of accessing deeper wells of inspiration than we normally have access to in our day-to-day lives. We need to carve out time and spaciousness to tap into our own wild and wonderful wisdom. We need to create containers where the flicker of our most brilliant ideas can be protected from the wind of the noisy world, and then we need to add fuel to grow that flame into burning heat that warms, lights and destroys whatever it needs to.
It feels a little like an archaeological dig, when I disappear into work like this. When I’m at home and can only work in snippets, I only ever dig a few inches beneath the surface and never get to the really juicy ancient stories buried under centuries of history. When I’m away and can dive into the work for twelve hour stretches, interrupted only by the need to sleep and eat (and occasionally stare out the window or sit on the dock), I get to dig down into the places that make my whole body come alive with wonder and possibility.
I wish that there were more support, more permission, more money, and more acknowledgement of the importance of this kind of dedicated time available for the creators and thinkers of the world. I wish that there were more patrons and/or public institutions that would fund the sparks of ideas that come especially from those who can’t afford a week in a cabin the same way I can. I wish that there were many champions who would advocate for anyone who needs dedicated time to work on their craft, so that they didn’t have to spend all of their energy convincing people of the economic value of their work and could spend more time creating. I wish that we had stronger communities that would identify the makers and dreamers and thinkers among us and would collectively decide that they need to guard, protect, and encourage the space and time for these people to do what they do best. I wish there were eager volunteers for childcare and meal prep for all those whose families take them away from their ability to create.
Because, more than ever in these strange, challenging, disruptive times, we need art. We need music. We need books. We need ideas. We need ingenuity. We need dreams. We need hope. We need makers. We need thinkers. We need inventors. We need scientists. We need healers. We need people to go to those DEEP places.
We need creative people who will imagine our world into climate solutions. We need artists and musicians who will help us dream into more racial justice. We need thinkers and inventors and scientists who will navigate our way through this global pandemic. We need creative community builders and healers and web masters and coders who will help us thrive and connect in the midst of this strange pandemic-imposed disconnection.
But all of these people need to first find ways of doing deep work. They need to be able to carve out space and time without disruption. They need to be given ways of feeding their families and paying their bills so that their minds are not consumed with financial stress and family responsibility.
What will we do to make this happen? I don’t know. Coming up with that solution is not my particular line of genius, but I hope for whoever it IS, they will find a way to disappear into the exquisite solitude of a week in a cabin by a lake (or whatever helps their creativity blossom) so that they can think and create their way into their wild and wonderful wisdom. And then I hope they share it and we all get onboard.
