Holding Space

 "The life that you want is on the other side of the pain that you are avoiding."

A man shared this at a recovery meeting the other day and it deeply resonated with me. Woah. I spend a lot of time and energy running away from pain and sadness. It has been a journey for me in recovery, learning how to be with my sadness, my grief and my pain. I am learning still how to do this because it leads to a greater ability to be with others' sadness, grief and pain. And then with that learning comes an exploration of boundaries.

Being with others and witnessing them in their grief and sadness is one of the greatest gifts of recovery. I am learning how to resist the impulse of reacting and trying to make it better for them, which can dismiss and take away from being with them and their experience. I am so grateful to receive opportunities for practising empathy, holding space and listening in the recovery communities that I am a part of. However; I struggle the most with doing this for the people in my inner circle, my closest loved ones, and I have been coming up against this a lot as of lately. 

I notice myself experiencing a clenching up and closing off when my loved one wants to share with me something that they are struggling with. And it frustrates me because I so badly want to be that safe space for the people that I care about, but my fear tends to over power me because it all feels too close to home. The boundaries become blurred between their grief and mine, and I suddenly feel myself searching desperately for an escape, a means to self soothe myself. This manifests in many ways from trying to problem solve for them, to avoiding the conversation from progressing any further by changing the subject or ignoring them, to simply getting angry at them for feeling their feelings. 

How can I know that your pain will not overpower you and stop you from taking the necessary actions you need to take to overcome it? 

I cannot know.

How do I know that you are going to be ok and will come out of this darkness into the light?

I do not know.

As an addict, I regularly experience the polarity of this craving for intensity, emotional drama and pain while simultaneously craving an escape from it all, to numb myself from it. What that results in sometimes, is an effect on my loved ones where they feel like they can open up to me and then are suddenly left alone when their emotions become too much for me. 

I think my work remains in continuing to surrender and be with my pain, to explore my fears around it and work on my boundaries with others so that I can be of service and present to the people I love most. So much of what I learn in recovery is a design for living in the outside world. I want to hold space for the people I love to feel supported and able to be honest with me about what it is they are going through. And in this year, where we are all confronting uncertainty at every angle, I hope it opens up space for more conversations around what gives us discomfort. I keep coming up against this and I know that there is healing for me to do in holding love and compassion for the little girl who just felt like she couldn't be sad. 

It's ok to be sad. I am still learning this. I hope you know that too.