The phrase 'holding space' is immensely popular with those in therapeutic, healing, coaching, wellness, and women's circles, but what's really happening?

I've investigated this over the last few years with those I've worked with and colleagues, and it turns out to be mainly trauma-driven.

Holding is the opposite of what we're trying to be as we heal and become more present. The opposite of holding in this relaxed, engaged and present. 

We don't want to be holding anything! It creates tension, deflects from our presence, and has our energy too focused on the other person, which either consciously or unconsciously creates a reaction in them, of either infantilisation or resistance. Neither is going to help the process of becoming more present.

So it's really useful to question what's driving it, as ALL healing arts professionals have a trauma history, which is why our personal work is essential to facilitating the process of coming home to our true selves and meeting the world from a base of increasing love.

A big caveat to this is that there is no 'healed' point. All of the markers I talk about are on a sliding scale from a more fear-based, adapted way of being to embodying more and more love, and connecting with others from a sense of security and safety within ourselves.

In this episode, I talk through the following:

WHAT TRAUMA-DRIVE SPACE HOLDING LOOKS AND FEELS LIKE

• a sense of 'holding' in our body
• perpetually pushing our own needs to one side to take care of others, have a sense of self-sacrifice and hoping to be seen a certain way in return for our 'holding'
• viewing others as less than or feeling sorry for them
• trying to hold the whole group field or person with our energy
• feeling perpetually exhausted after 'holding space'
• attached to the outcome of other people's state of being
• finding it difficult to be vulnerable with people, either 1:1 or in groups in daily life
• can't feel our own body or emotions whilst 'holding space'
• feel unappreciated for all our efforts

WHAT'S DRIVING TRAUMA-BASED 'HOLDING SPACE'?

WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE ON THE RECEIVING END OF TRAUMA-DRIVEN SPACE HOLDERS

WHAT WE CAN DO IF SPACE HOLDING IS TRAUMA-DRIVEN

A Guided Practice To Reclaim Your Energy & Come Home To Your Body >

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Melanie is an experienced Soul & Shadow Worker, Womb Medicine Woman, podcast host, writer and trainer.

For over 20 years, she has supported individuals and healing professionals to restore connection with the body, repair attachment and separation wounds, and embody primordial wisdom rooted in the womb, heart and soul.

Melanie's approach blends somatic womb healing, shadow integration, shamanic healing and soul-level repatterning - offering a deep and lasting pathway back to the true self.

She hosts The Sacred Womb Podcast, leads The Unification Of The Divine Masculine & Feminine Training and is currently writing her first book: The Sacred Womb - a handbook for coming home to our true nature, along with Poems For Peri-Menopause.