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Are You "Being There" For Yourself

Most people would say they are good at supporting their friends and family, but why are we so bad at being there for ourselves?

When my second eldest daughter was a few months old, she developed colic. She would wake every night, crying for several hours, utterly inconsolable. Nothing I did helped her, not breastfeeding, holding her, rocking her, or my attempts to soothe her. Sometimes her cries pierced me so deeply I felt like giving up and leaving her alone. I felt so powerless.

Though it was difficult, my daughter taught me something vital and precious. As I watched her healing journey, I realised I cannot take away someone else’s pain or rescue them. I cannot change what they are feeling, patch it up and move along. All I could do was witness, be there and be present for her.

Yes, I got frustrated, angry, and distraught that I couldn’t do more, but eventually I found a place of calm as I sang mantras and focussed on staying peaceful in my own body. In learning to hold space for her, I learned to hold space for myself. In fact, I couldn’t be present for her, without being present for myself. Her pain triggered my own deep pain, and I had to allow myself to move through it if I was going to help her.

It took the crumbling of a thirteen-year relationship to make me see how much of my energy goes into holding space for others; my four children, ex-partner, and those I work with in my teaching and healing practice. While I can hold space well for others and am sensitive and empathic, I recently realised again that there was a ceiling to this ability.

In order to expand my capacity to be there for others, I needed to truly learn how to be there for myself. I was so focussed outwards, that I was neglecting the very thing that makes me solid and potent as a healing force for others: My own wellbeing.

I have a daily requirement to centre, ground and remain in my own core, otherwise I’m knocked off into other people’s solar systems and wander around in a lost galaxy for a while before finding my way home. We all need to hold space for ourselves if we are going to be able to live life in a healthy and balanced way.

Video - How To Obtain Balance - https://youtu.be/1rHY1VNntRw?si=kWFQWVcHqlIc5tlu

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What Exactly Does It Mean To Hold Space For Yourself ?

We seem to do it naturally for others, but what does it mean to do it for ourselves? For me, holding space means becoming the container to experience myself; to grow, to feel, to express, to test out, to live. It is being present, treating yourself with care, consideration, kindness, compassion and love. Hearing the needs of your body and mind, feeling your emotions, and listening to the yearning of your soul.

It’s a way of being, a lifestyle, a profound choice and a stand you take. It’s not a belief system but is rather a way of being with yourself and meeting your own needs. This can be lifesaving in intimate relationships, where we can ruin a good thing by trying to make the other meet all our needs. We spend every minute of the day with ourselves. How much of it is good, supportive, and kind?

Holding space is like a great pilgrimage home to your own soul. A key to holding space for yourself is to see yourself with all your faults and without judgement and criticism. To see yourself with kindness and love, just as you would a friend. It’s making friends with your fear, inviting Cousin Self-Doubt, Mrs. Perfectionist, Brother Criticism, and Sister Putdown, in for a cup of tea around the fireplace.

Self-acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship to myself. – Nathaniel Brand

 

Holding space for yourself gives you a place to check your direction, to see who or what is in the driver seat of your life, and to adjust your course when you need to. It brings space and awareness into your life, ensuring your life reflects your soul and your longings, so you don’t have to wake up at age forty-five and realise you don’t like who you’ve become.

If you truly want to help others, and make a positive impact on the world, then learning to hold space for yourself, to befriend and love yourself, is the greatest impact you could make on the planet. You can’t hold space for someone else if you can’t be with your own pain and hold space for yourself.  

If there’s no room for you in your life, there isn’t really any room for others. When you’re kind to yourself you impact the lives of others by being less reactive, more responsive, more available, empathic, compassionate, kind, present, balanced and at peace.

If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete. – Jack Kornfield

 

But how do we hold space for ourselves? Here are some simple steps to ensure there is room in your life for you.

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Nine Vital Keys To Holding Space For Yourself

Embracing Your Imperfection

Your “imperfections” are what make you unique and can often be the gateway to your greatest gifts. If you try and be like everyone else, you rob the world of your special talents and the rare contribution that only you can make.

The more you can accept and learn to love your individuality, the more you will express it and the happier you will be. Some of the world’s most uncompromisingly brazen individuals have made enormous impacts. Who would have ever thought a monobrow could be cool, yet Frida Kahlo made it so! Self-acceptance is key to holding space for yourself. The more you accept and love yourself, the more you will look after yourself and value your own needs.

Saying ‘No’

When you say ‘no’ to others, you very often say ‘yes’ to yourself. If you’re doing something for others at the expense of yourself, it is not beneficial for anyone. Through years of pleasing others, my new mantra to live by has become: ‘if something feels right in my heart then it will serve others too’.

Honouring yourself always works out well. It’s unkind to put yourself last and agreeing to do things through obligation always breeds resentment. This is not to say you shouldn’t do things for others (of course you should!), but there’s a way to do it that also supports your own wellbeing. When you say ‘no’ to others, you strengthen your self-esteem, you show yourself that you are important and valuable. And you give others permission to do the same.

Developing Boundaries

When you have good boundaries, are assertive and can say ‘no’ without feeling guilty, then obligatory relationships end and you can enter the realm of the undefended heart – a place where you are able to love freely and generously.

Much of loving is defended loving. When you know you have the strength to stand up for yourself and stand in your own corner, you can actually love more freely. Boundaries don’t need to shut out, they can actually strengthen bonds.