When the space you hold is too safe

by | Sep 12, 2019 | holding space

Last week I had the pleasure of hosting a retreat with a circle of beautiful women in one of the most beautiful locations I’ve ever worked. The retreat centre was so beautiful and luxurious, in fact, that it wouldn’t have surprised me to see Oprah emerge from a room raving about her new favourite things.

The women who’d flown me to Costa Rica for this retreat were warm, friendly, wise and strong. They clearly loved each other deeply and were willing to support each other through thick and thin. They’d been a small community for seven years already, meeting monthly for personal development conversations and yearly for a retreat with a facilitator/teacher like me. They knew each other’s stories, and had supported each other through death, divorce, family illness and everything in between. One night, when we sat together over drinks and a delicious meal, they each took turns describing the beauty and strength they saw in each other and it was one of the most moving things I’ve ever witnessed.

When things are too beautiful though, there’s often a shadow lurking just beneath the surface.

When I say there was a “shadow”, I’m not talking about an ugly meanness or pettiness that was being masked by so much kindness and love. No – I saw nothing that would suggest that their kindness and love for each other was anything other than genuine.

The shadow was quite different from that. What was there beneath the surface (and which was acknowledged by the group toward the end of the first day) was a tendency they had to hold a SAFE space which sometimes kept them from being BRAVE.

Because they cared so much for each other and were accepting and supportive of each other’s choices and paths through life, they were reluctant to ask each other hard questions or challenge unhealthy patterns when they saw them. They all wanted their community space to feel safe, but that safety was getting in their way of their growth and perhaps even their healing.

(The added challenge, from my limited cultural perspective, is that, much like Canadians, Costa Ricans tend to err on the side of politeness. But politeness as a cultural value is often a way of masking the complexity that’s underneath.)

When a space is too safe and we’ve become comfortable in that safety, we don’t want to challenge it, we don’t want to say anything that will rock the boat, and we don’t want to offend anyone else lest they abandon us. One of the results is that we become reluctant to be too vulnerable because our shadows might scare the other people away. We choose comfort over courage and we chase away or silence anyone who threatens that comfort.

It wasn’t that these women wanted to be stuck in comfort. On the contrary – they are all brave and bold women who have accomplished remarkable things in their careers and families and they are in this community precisely because they WANT to grow and evolve. Growth does not scare them. Hard work does not scare them. Facing uncomfortable truth does not scare them. Quite the opposite – few groups have been more direct and courageous in ASKING me to help them see the shadow they had trouble seeing for themselves.

What I witnessed was less of a desire to stay safe and more of an entrenched pattern that had become part of their way of co-existing. It was a pattern that was hard to see because they were too close to it. Like a piece of lettuce stuck between your teeth, some things are hard to see without a mirror. They’d brought me to Costa Rica partly because they recognized in me a potential mirror.

Over the course of the second day, once we’d started to shine a light into the shadowy places, these women began to open up and share increasingly vulnerable and painful things – unresolved things, shameful things, trauma, fear, etc.. They also started to ask each other more challenging questions, inviting bravery, growth and new perspectives. In the evening of the second day, the pattern had shifted significantly and they were excited about what was possible with the new language and brave questions I’d offered. That evening’s conversation was vulnerable, openhearted, brave, and deep.

During the course of our last evening together, they asked me to give direct feedback about what I’d witnessed in their group, what things they seemed to be afraid to talk about, where they were stuck, and how they could continue to grow. I was able to speak honestly because I knew these women had the strength to receive what I’d say without defensiveness, as well as the courage to take whatever I offered to heart. They didn’t need me to give them courage (they already had it in spades), they simply needed someone to help them see what was hidden from their view.

What I witnessed among these women is not uncommon among communities, friendships, families, etc. where there is deep care and love. Sometimes we mistake “care” with “letting people stay comfortable in old patterns”. And sometimes we assume that holding space is only about providing safe space where a person feels free of judgement and free of the need to change or grow. Holding space, though, is much more complex than that. (Otherwise I wouldn’t have enough content for an 8 month course.)

Now… I don’t want to give the impression that this is a binary thing – that a space is either safe or brave and that one is better than the other. That’s simply not true. For one thing, there are times when we need to be held in safety without any pressure to change our behaviour or our choices. Especially when healing from trauma or when deep in new grief, safety is paramount and should not be compromised.

ALSO a feeling of safety is usually a first step in establishing enough trust so that we CAN step into bravery. A loving community like these women have provides the solid ground from which we can leap into courage.

BUT at some point safety is not enough and sometimes it even creates a barrier to our growth. As I’ve said before, safety can become a trap and a crutch. In fact some people who cling to their own safety do harm to others in the process. (For example, in race relations or gender conversations when the dominant people in the room demand a “safe space” what they’re really asking for is allowances for their fragility. That fragility, left unchallenged, can cause great harm to the more marginalized in the room. When I work in those spaces, I make safety for marginalized people a greater priority than safety for those who’ve always assumed the privilege of safety.)

If you find yourself in a community that has become too safe (and perhaps somewhat stagnant), here are some things that might help:

  1. Check-in about people’s readiness for more bravery. A community that’s thrust into bravery without preparation and/or discernment about their readiness can quickly become fractured beyond repair. Start with a hard conversation, revealing what you believe to be true about an over-reliance on safety, and ask people whether they feel emotionally stable enough to try something different. If most people are comfortable with the way things are, you may need to seek out another community to meet your needs. (Sometimes, on the other hand, when you’re establishing a new community where bravery needs to be built in, transparency around that expectation should be built into the way people are invited in. In my courses, for example, I include an indication of this expectation in the group agreements.)
  2. Build trust that can support bravery. If we don’t trust the people we’re with, it’s much more difficult to be brave in their presence. Trust-building involves keeping stories confidential, showing up when you promise to show up, being an engaged listener, withholding scorn, and being dependable. To build trust (and, consequently, bravery), people in the community need to be willing to be vulnerable and authentic with each other and to take off their masks so that others feel more safe to take off their masks.
  3. Invite an outsider to serve as the mirror. One of the things that really impressed me about this group was their openness to hearing what I was witnessing and their genuine desire to be nudged out of their comfort zones. An outsider (especially one who is skilled in community-building, facilitation and truth-telling) can offer a perspective that is nearly impossible to see from the inside. It can feel risky to let someone peer into your group’s shadows, and it can take some investment of time and money, but it can also be transformative. Be discerning, though, in who you invite in and how much you’ll allow yourselves to be disrupted.
  4. Invite the pink elephant into the room. One of my favourite ways of inviting the shadow to be revealed in a circle (and encouraging more bravery) is to use a pink elephant as a talking piece. (This is something that emerged out of a moment of inspiration and challenge in one of my team retreats and I credit Susan Dupuis for the idea.) When I pull out the pink elephant, I tell people that I have a sense that there’s something beneath the surface that people might be afraid to reveal, and then I pass it around the room and invite anyone who wants to share something to offer it to the group. A talking piece helps to slow down the conversation and keeps people from interjecting while tender things are being spoken.
  5. Practice asking braver questions. If people have indicated a readiness for brave space, then start by asking braver questions that invite new perspectives and growth. At the end of our time together in Costa Rica, the women had agreed that, when one shares a story that indicates they might be stuck in the safety zone, they’ll ask “are you ready for a brave question?” If the person says yes, they’ll offer something that will invite the person to see their story through a new lens. A brave question might be something like “What might change if you let go of this resentment?” or “How are you trying to protect yourself from pain?” or “Do you believe you’re worthy of more happiness?” (For more brave questions, check out 50 Questions that Could Change Your Life.)
  6. Take care of each other. Stepping into bravery and vulnerability can leave us feeling tender and raw, and that’s a time when community support is even more necessary. If you are in a transition period with your community/family/partnership/etc., where you’re learning to be more brave, make sure you’re also setting aside extra time for play, self-care, group-care, and laughter. Eat meals together, go for walks in nature together, go dancing – anything that helps you to deepen your bond so that your container is strong enough to hold the bravery.

Not everyone is ready for bravery, and you may have some resistance in your group or family, but when the readiness is there, a brave space can bring transformation and growth that’s far beyond what’s possible in the comfort zone.

Note: Thank you to the women who hired me for this retreat for giving me permission to share it.

——–

Learn lots more about safe space and brave space (and how to hold both) in my online course, Holding Space Practitioner Program.

Power saws and wild women

by | Jul 23, 2019 | courage, Uncategorized

 

Listen to me read this post…

 

 

“Can you believe my mom built an ACTUAL couch?!” Those words made me chuckle when my daughter said them to her friend. Every mom secretly covets a Daughter Brag, especially from a teenager.

Yes, I built a couch. And a coffee table to go with it. (As well as a bonus barbecue table out of the scraps.) It’s for outdoor use, built with 2X4s and covered with foam cushions that I shaped to fit and sewed covers for. It’s rough, imperfect, and simple… but it’s magnificent. And it’s big enough to host a party.

A month ago, on Father’s Day (because… what better day to buy something for yourself when you’re a single mom, and what better day to find a sale at the hardware store?), I bought a compound mitre saw. It’s a scary-beautiful thing and I’ve wanted one for a long time. It’s scary, because a part of me was scared I’d slice off a finger the first time I tried to use it. And it’s beautiful because it makes me feel powerful and self-reliant. Even in the weeks before I found time to use it, when I’d gaze at it sitting on my garage floor, I’d feel a rush of excitement just because it’s mine. It’s a badass woman who keeps a power saw in her garage!

Why did I build a couch? Because I’m not in the habit of starting with small projects once I decide to try something. I thrive on the rush of adrenaline that comes from diving into something big that almost tips me into overwhelm. It’s what keeps me going and keeps me excited and keeps me challenged.

And also because a couch feels like self-reliance, resourcefulness, and self-empowerment. If I can build my own furniture, I have the power to craft my own environment.

The couch-building was SO MUCH FUN. Cutting wood with a compound mitre saw was SO MUCH FUN. I worked for long hours in shady spots on my patio (and then in the garage when it rained), often forgetting to eat, because, like a child who has to be told it’s suppertime, I was so engrossed in play.

The compound mitre saw makes me feel like I’ve found my way back to the little girl I once was – the little girl who was most happy when she was living wild, building teepee-like structures with a friend in the woods on our farm and then begging her mom to lend them a pot and let them pick vegetables from the garden so they could cook their own stew on the fire at the centre of the teepee. Or the little girl who would spend hours on her horse, racing down country lanes, wondering what might be around that next corner. Or the little girl who begged her dad to teach her how to drive a tractor, because she wanted to be just as empowered and self-reliant as her big brothers.

I want a big, beautiful, powerful, adventurous, self-reliant, openhearted life. I want a life where scary-beautiful compound mitre saws are possible and adventure is always just around the next corner. I want a life that takes me to the edges of my comfort, and then nudges me past, into the unknown. 

I’m not saying it’s what everyone should want, but it’s what I want. It’s what I’ve ALWAYS wanted – even when I didn’t speak it out loud.

It took me a long time to believe I was worthy of a big, beautiful, powerful, adventurous, self-reliant, openhearted life, or even that I had the right to ask for it. I believed it as a little girl in the makeshift teepee in the woods, but then, little by little, it was trained out of me. Like a wild animal who’s been domesticated and then forgets how to survive in the wilderness, I lost sight of my wildness for a long, long time. I’m fifty-three and I feel like I’ve just now, in the four years since my divorce, come back to it once again.

It was trained out of me in all of the little ways that girls are trained not to ask for too much. In the playground when the boys got to be wild and adventurous and the girls were expected to be quiet and polite. In Sunday school when I was taught that my desires were sinful and should never be entertained (unless they were in alignment with God’s desires). In grade school when I was taught that nice little girls shouldn’t be too loud or too bossy or too demanding or too smart (and they should certainly never use power tools). In youth group when I was taught that I should seek a good man and become a good wife. At home when I was taught that women weren’t allowed to be in leadership positions or drive tractors or have too many opinions or speak from a podium. In junior high when girls could only take sewing and cooking classes while the boys got to play with power saws and wood.

It was trained out of me in all of the little ways that wives and mothers are shamed into giving up who they are to accommodate their husbands and children. In the ways my needs came second (or third) and keeping the peace meant giving myself up, inch by inch. In the guilt-inducing comments I’d get from friends and strangers after a business trip about how hard it must be for my children when I’m away. In the way my ex-husband’s insecurity and fear of the world were projected onto me and shamed me into staying small. In the way women’s magazines focus on decorating and dieting while men’s magazines focus on strength and adventure.

It was trained out of me, but it was still there, lurking under the surface. Every time it would emerge and I’d speak too loudly or do something dangerous or step out of line or want too much it would be stuffed back in, either by the shaming comments from someone who wanted me to behave, or by my own internalized oppression. As I said in a Facebook post earlier this week… Those with internalized oppression are the best at policing and silencing themselves. That’s how abuse works – at some point you don’t need the abuse to keep you silent, you simply need the body memory of it.

Several years ago, a friend met someone who knew me in high school and asked that person what I was like back then. “Nice. And quiet.” was the response. Those three words have haunted me for a long time. What a boring way to be described! I don’t WANT to be “Nice. And quiet.” That’s the version of me that I’ve been trained to be and I’m done with it. I want to be something different – more wild, more dangerous, and more powerful.

I want to be “the woman who uses power tools and builds couches”, “the woman with an unquenchable thirst for adventure”, “the woman who lives close to the edge”, and “the woman who speaks boldly and without apology”. I want to be “the woman in touch with her wildness and passion.” And, for my daughters’ sake, I want to be “the woman who raises wild and unruly women.”

My ex-husband used to say, when he was feeling insecure and needy, “Some day you’ll be successful and you’ll leave me. You’ll publish a book and buy a fancy car and you won’t need me anymore.” It used to make me angry, because it was passive-aggressive and meant to make me feel guilty for the kinds of desires that would take me away from him. He wasn’t entirely wrong, though – it was in re-discovering my own power and self-reliance that I found the courage to walk away from a relationship that wanted to keep me safe and small.

In that brave act (that took me five tumultuous years to follow through on), I re-awakened the woman who refuses to be “Nice. And quiet.” I re-awakened the little girl who wanted to build her own home in the woods and cook stew over a campfire and ride her horse into the wilderness. I re-awakened the woman who longed to own power tools and build her own furniture. I re-awakened the wild heart that wasn’t willing to settle for relationships that kept her small and safe.

I re-awakened her, and though I had to abandon the version of God who wanted to punish me for wanting to much, I have found instead a God/dess who thrives in my wildness, who created me to be this way and who dances with me through this big, beautiful, wild world.

In this stunning, truth-telling article (which my daughter forwarded to me because we’ve been having many conversations about what women give up in the months since she broke up with her boyfriend of three years), there’s a story from Japanese folklore of a crane who plucks out her own feathers so that a man will marry her. In doing so, she loses her identity and her ability to fly. “To keep becoming a woman is so much self-erasing work. She never sleeps. She plucks out all her feathers, one by one.”

I became that crane wife, plucking out my wildness and losing my capacity for flight. I started becoming it when I was a little girl being taught not to want too much and I perfected it when I was a wife and mother teaching my own girls (by my example) not to want too much.

I’m not going to be that crane anymore. I’m done with plucking out my feathers. I’m going to fly even if it intimidates those stuck on the ground. I’m going to fly even if it’s risky and dangerous and others want to project their fear onto me and protect me from the danger. I’m going to fly and I’m going to use power tools and I’m going to build furniture and I’m going to follow adventure where it leads me.

In my work, I often talk about the difference between safe space and brave space. Safe space is necessary for the healing phase of our journeys, but if we stay there too long, we get comfortable and then safe becomes oppressive and growth doesn’t happen. In safe space, we start silencing others who present dangerous ideas that make us uncomfortable. Growth is limited in safe spaces.

In brave space, on the other hand, we agree to the risks inherent in speaking dangerous things into the circle and living close to the edge. We agree to occasionally make each other uncomfortable (and accept it from others) because we know that it will help us grow. We agree to look at our own blindspots and the ways in which we’re addicted to comfort.

I want to live in brave space. That’s why I’m buying power saws that might cut off a finger but that allow me to build beautiful things. And that’s why I’m growing my team and pushing the edges of my workand traveling around the world to be in places and sit in circles that nudge me into discomfort. I spent many years in safe space, healing the wounds of the past, and that was a valuable investment for a time, but now I want brave space.

Some day, I might find myself in another intimate relationship. I am not so fiercely self-reliant that I don’t crave intimacy and community and someone to walk alongside me in my adventures. Sometimes self-reliance becomes lonely and hard and closed off – I don’t want that.

I know, though, that I will bring my wildness with me into any relationship I enter, and if that person doesn’t bring their wildness too, then it won’t be worthy of my time. And if that person doesn’t delight in my wildness, then it also won’t be worthy of either of our time.

I will bring my wildness and I will embrace those who want to walk alongside me on this brave adventure – whether in an intimate partner relationship or in the many beautiful friendships I am fostering all over the world. I will bring my power tools and my willingness to walk on the edges and do brave things and I will support others in doing the same.

We will gather around fires in wild spaces and we will talk of our adventures and our fears and we will help each other find our way back to our wild selves.

This week, I plan to sleep on my new couch, outdoors, under the gazebo (which I also built), because that’s what a wild woman would do.

 

 

p.s. If you want to be in circle with others exploring brave space, come join us in the Holding Space Practitioner Programwhich starts again in October 2019. Or come join me in an openhearted writing circle in B.C. in August. 

 

Your discomfort won’t kill you

by | Nov 10, 2017 | growth, holding space, journey, Labyrinth

Yesterday morning I was in an emotional tailspin. The night before, at the end of a long day of coaching clients, I made a couple of mistakes that were pointed out by people and it put me in a shame spiral. And then, partly because I was already fragile, another person’s actions annoyed me and I landed in an anger spiral that resulted in me saying some words I shouldn’t have.

I could just chalk this up to jet lag and excuse myself for it all by saying that I’m still adjusting to being home and that I jumped into client work too quickly after the intensity of facilitating three retreats and I should have known better than to interact with people who challenge me after a full day of coaching… but that would largely be me letting myself off the hook for bad behaviour. All of those things are true… but there’s also something else for me to consider in this. It’s what I tell my clients all of the time…

My discomfort will not kill me.

Making mistakes won’t kill me. Getting angry won’t kill me. Having to clean up from my mistakes won’t kill me. If anything, those things will make me a little more resilient and help me grow. And I am reminded, once again, that when I insist on self-care and periods of quiet and introspection after doing intense work far from home, it’s not only for my own good, but for the good of those impacted by my moods.

Today I’m not talking to any clients and I’m going to be gentle with myself. And I’m going to make retributions for some of the mistakes I made yesterday. And I’m choosing not to hide the shame bits because there is worthwhile learning in them.

I used to run from discomfort – try to numb myself from it in any way I could. Shut down the anger, eat away the shame, distract myself from the pain, lash out when I needed to blame someone other than me. I was too scared to look inside of it, too scared I’d see only ugliness in the shadows.

I still hide sometimes (hello Netflix, my favourite distraction) but I’m learning, gradually, to stay more present in it, breathe/pray/dance/journal my way through it, until it begins to crack open and I find the gems in the shadows. It takes less time to shift than it used to – I still got a reasonable night’s sleep the night before last, despite the places my spiralling brain wanted to take me. I will survive. I can see my own shadow now without letting it consume me.

Though I might not like it, discomfort is one of my greatest teachers. In fact, I’m not sure if I ever learn anything worthwhile without at least a little discomfort.

Discomfort became fairly central to one of my retreats last week. It’s usually at least somewhat present at all of my retreats (because I encourage people to stretch themselves), but at this one we had an opportunity to go deeper with it than usual.

The retreat was about holding space for others, and each of the retreat participants had been given an assignment that, on the fourth day of the retreat, they would practice holding space for the group. On Saturday, each person signed up for a 45 minute slot when they could host a conversation on a topic that mattered to them, teach us a movement/art/meditation practice that would help us hold space for ourselves, or find some other creative and meaningful way of helping us explore what it means to hold space.

Few people go on retreat and expect to do some of the hosting/teaching themselves, so there was, not surprisingly, some resistance and discomfort. Some handled it with humour, some shut down with anxiety, and some pushed back against me. None of it was offensive (they were genuinely good-hearted and emotionally mature people taking ownership of their own responses), but I could sense the work they needed to do in order to step forward into their own leadership.

I assigned this work not because I wanted the easy way out (ie. a day of no teaching), but because I knew that they would leave the retreat with more skills if they practiced what they were learning in a safe and supportive environment. And I knew, from personal experience, that working through their discomfort would be good for them in the end.

At the beginning of all of my retreats, I introduce participants to the concept of “brave space”. “While we will work together to make this space safe for everyone,” I say, “I prefer to talk about ‘brave spaces’ rather than safe ones. Sometimes, when we focus on safety, we’re actually focusing on comfort, and we don’t take risks or face challenges with bravery. While you are here, I want to encourage you to be brave, to have conversations that challenge you, to face the shadow in yourself when it shows up, to look after yourself in radical ways, and to dare to re-engage even when things get difficult.” (Note: click on the link above to learn more about where this concept emerged.)

I follow that up by saying “this is also a consent-based environment. While I will encourage your bravery, and may nudge you past comfort, I also promise to accept ‘no’ as an answer. You alone know what you can handle and I invite you to take responsibility for where your boundaries need to be and what you’re not willing to consent to.”

Thirdly, I say (in the words of my teacher, Christina Baldwin) that “in this space, we ask for what we need and offer what we can. That means we are each invited to honour our own needs, look after ourselves, and respond as well as we can to other people’s needs. We will practice reciprocity, step into our personal leadership, honour boundaries, and do our best to make this space both brave and safe for all of us.”

When I assigned the participants at this retreat the task of hosting a 45 minute segment of our Saturday, I encouraged them to step into brave space. “This is your chance to push past your comfort zone, to try something that might feel too risky at home where you’re surrounded by people who know you. In this environment, where people are committed to holding space for each other, dare to push through your discomfort to find your bravery.”

When Saturday arrived, the air was charged with a mixture of anticipation, excitement and fear. I knew it would be good, but of course I also had moments of doubt, wondering whether it might backfire. Would people hate it and hate me and leave the retreat with a bad taste in their mouths? Would we have enough energy to support nine people’s individual steps into courage? Would it be repetitive if too many sessions were similar? Would those with anxiety simply shut down and not be able to participate? How would I support them if they did?

You can probably guess how it all played out. The day was brilliant. People were courageous and supportive and creative and inspiring. We had nine very different sessions, each one of them keeping us engaged and inspired. We made art, we learned movement practice, we had an honest conversation about creating more inclusive space in women’s circles, we learned a beautiful Maori greeting (hongi), we practiced mindfulness, and we played. It was one of the best days I’ve had in a long time.

On Sunday morning, after the last session, I invited everyone to participate in a ritual to mark what had transpired. On a piece of paper, each person wrote down what they wanted to honour themselves for and what commitment they wanted to make to themselves for the future. They then carried the piece of paper into the labyrinth, and placed it on a cairn of stones at the centre. When they emerged from the labyrinth, I offered each one a personal blessing, reflecting on something I’d witnessed in them during the week, and then, if they chose, they could step over a line on the ground that marked the crossing of a threshold into whatever would come next.

Standing at the edge of the labyrinth was a beautiful experience. There was energy and excitement mixed with contemplation and some fear. There was commitment and resolve and courage and fierceness. There were tears and there was laughter. There was humanity and humility and hope. That labyrinth served as the container for the complexity of all human emotions, while I “held the rim”.

Rhonda, one of the retreat participants, later said this of the labyrinth experience… “I realized at that moment, at the center of the labyrinth, everything that I had always sought, chased, pursued, agonized to find and discover in my own life and purpose was already within. I just need to accept it. I felt God look at me with the biggest smile and say ‘It’s about time.’ It was a most defining moment. I feel like I am no longer living ‘from’ my history.”

Later that day, it was time for us all to depart. As I looked around the circle of women, I couldn’t help but notice the difference from just a few days earlier. These were courageous, strong women who were now a little more aware of their own courage and strength. They had worked through their discomfort, trusted each other to hold space for their fear, and emerged triumphant.

The good-byes from that retreat were different from what they often are at retreats. People were ready to go home. They were ready and excited to step into what was next. Unlike what often happens at the end of retreats, they didn’t seem to have the need to cling to the comfort and warmth of the circle that had held them. Though they valued the support of the group, they stepped away with a sense of self-reliance.

They had come as learners and they were leaving as leaders. 

They had chosen not to let their discomfort keep them from finding their courage. I can hardly wait to see what they are capable of!

Today, while I consider what to do with the discomfort I faced a couple of days ago, I make a new resolve to step into courage because I have the memory of those women to inspire me.

Sign up for my six month Holding Space Coach/Facilitator Program to learn more about what it means to hold space. 

Pin It on Pinterest