Holding space for someone involves showing love and kindness. 🥰
Everyday people wake up with different moods and emotions, some wake up happy but others feel emotionally drained, lonely or in pain. If you are experiencing loneliness for example, you may want to join social media sites such as Funchatt where people go to have casual laughs and chit chats. You also can find people who will help you with whatever you are going through. This can be grief, pain or trauma.
🫂 Holding space is the act of being mentally, physically and emotionally present for someone.
Holding space for a friend, family or relative is still something most people don’t know how to do, even though they have gone through it at some point in their lives. Holding space can really help someone who is experiencing deep grief, dealing with trauma or in depression. Some people often lack the necessary attention when they are going through hard times or experiencing emptiness.
It is important to learn what holding space for someone is and how to actually do it. But we admit, holding space for someone may sound easy in theory but hard to practice in real life. At one moment or the other, people in our lives need space to be loved, shown empathy and not being judged. When you do that for them, then you would achieve what we now call holding space for someone. Holding space for someone requires that you take the challenge of helping the other person not asking for something in return.
Below are some of the essential ideas you can use to hold space for someone:
1. ❤️ Exercise Love and Kindness
Most traditions in the world have love and kindness rooted in them. In Buddhism for example love means accepting people for who they are no matter what changes in their lives. Practicing love and kindness will help you cultivate compassion, something that you really need to co-exist well with people both offline and online in spaces like Funchatt.
2. 😌 Listen Keenly
When you become a deep listener, you’ll not only hear but also understand what other people are saying. Deep hearing also enables you to listen with your heart. When you want to express sympathy, listening keenly can help you create a unique connection with someone you are trying to hold space for.
3. 😊 Offer Unconditional Positive Regard
Same to love and kindness, unconditional positive regard is the act of holding someone in higher regard according to Carl Rogers. Holding someone in high regard is the building block of healing relationships. This practice is defined by the knowledge that no matter what the other person is going through or has done, the listener will still hold them in deep compassion, respect and positive regard. You can also use this technique to be more empathetic to people in Funchatt and in real life.
4. 🤲 Let Them Be
For most people, this has to be the most difficult element of holding space for someone. Letting them simply means creating a comfortable space and giving the other person a chance to talk about their feelings or remain silent if that’s what they need. Let the other person feel what they want, don’t try to hold them back, sometimes when people feel sad, they may want to cry, you should let them experience that.
5. 😮💨 Concentrate On Your Breathing
To remain calm, you need to check your breathing, this will also help you stay connected to your body. Remember, the body is an important tool to help you ground, relax and create a connection with the other person.
6. 🧘♀️Stay Grounded
It can be very difficult to trust the space and yourself if you are trying to hold space for someone but you are not grounded. You need to concentrate on whatever you are doing while holding space for other people.
7. 🙏🏻 Be In The Present Moment
To implement the things we’ve mentioned so far in this article, you should be willing to be in the present moment with yourself. If you can’t do that, you’ll be extremely pressed with fear, anxiety and negativity.
8. 👐 Don’t Take Their Pain As Your Own
While listening to someone in deep pain, you may end up reflecting on your hurtful situations. When holding space for someone, you need to have clear intentions that although you are in the same situation as them, you are only helping them, not turning their hardship around and making it your own.
9. 🫵 Don’t Judge Anyone
This cuts both ways, don’t try to judge yourself or someone you are holding space for. Let reality be as it is!
10. 🫶 Don’t Try To Fix It
When someone is going through pain, the quickest reaction is to try and fix the problem. Even though this might make you feel better, it might leave the other person feeling even more isolated. So the most important thing is to just be there for the other person. They do not need to be fixed, the only way to get over the pain is to pass right through it.
Practicing these techniques will allow you to ensure you are helpful to the other party. Nowadays people hardly hold space for each other, but if you find yourself in a situation that is causing you pain and grief, you may consider visiting a therapist for clear and pure attention of unconditional positive regard.
Can You Hold Space For Someone On Funchatt?
Everyday we go through different situations, some of them cause grief and pain, but at the end of the day we will need someone to hold space for us, no matter how strong we think we can handle things on our own. If you find yourself in a position of holding space for someone, you can use the elements we have explained above to get you prepared. Remember holding the space does not involve you trying to fix the problem or making their pain you own. Your role is just to be there to listen keenly while expressing love and compassion both on Funchatt and in real life. Try not to judge the other person, no matter what they have done, but instead focus on hearing them out.
