Holding Space and Empathy
Tags: Gentle Discipline, Gentle Parenting, Empathy, Bias, Holding Space

Holding Space and Empathy

Photo by Rosie Fraser on Unsplash

I am a fixer. Answering questions really helps me because I enjoy fixing problems. I like easing pain, which is what we all want, we are all trying to avoid pain. But sometimes, problem solving isn’t appropriate. Sometimes, what the person asking the questions needs isn’t a fix, it’s a place to vent and receive support, without a solution.

Holding space and empathy are two very important skills we need to practice when helping others. Holding space starts with looking inside ourselves to notice our own triggers and bias before we respond to where someone else is. When our triggers and bias come into play and we try to change someone based on our values and ideals. Once we have examined our own thoughts and feelings, we can respond with empathy and non-judgment for where the other person is. We can be there without trying to fix or change them.

Triggers

Triggers have gotten a lot of press lately. Many misunderstand what triggers are. Many people feel it means avoidance or censorship.

In a broad sense, a trigger is anything that upsets someone. We all have our sticking points, be it sexual assault or violence or liberal views. Every late night TV show contains a trigger warning, the following show contains violence, profanity, nudity, adult situations, watch at your own discretion.

That is all a trigger warning is. “Hey, this subject is commonly upsetting, please proceed if it will not cause you emotional upset.”

Recognizing Triggers

It’s not always easy to recognize your triggers. Too many cultures do not teach us to value feelings. We are taught to avoid upset at all costs. We may stifle it, dissociate, ignore or avoid being upset to survive. Few people were raised with support for their negative emotions.

What we learned is the anger cycle. Negative emotion, try to represent, fail and explode, smooth things over, and repeat. Later, I will talk about self-soothing as a method of managing emotions. Right now we will learn how to identify them.

A few years ago, I made a mistake that led to me having panic attacks. I come from a strong family history of anxiety and overthinking habits. By worrying or exploding, we strengthen those connections in our brain. We can change, but it requires deliberate practice and energy.

The first step to recovery was noticing my thoughts and body. I set regular reminders to check in with myself. At first it was difficult to recall what I’d been thinking about the last hours. Automatic thoughts, especially automatic negative thoughts, were so common I didn’t even notice them until I got deliberate.

Quick body scan

I have a dissociative disorder. Being in my body was not safe for me as a child. The pathway to safety was total disconnect. A few years ago, I started reading a book on healing trauma by Peter Levine. The first exercise is looking at your hand and saying “this is my hand.” I still can’t do that easily. My go to is “I control this hand.”

Regardless of semantics, I exist in this body; I control the muscles. And the tension in the body reflects my tension. The best way to check in with my body is a body scan. Sometimes I find a guided meditation body scan, other times I just notice how tense I am and what body parts are tense. I check in with my solar plexus. Does it have the whirling anxiety feeling? It’s usually always swirling and churning.

Practice regularly. Especially after watching the news, interacting with certain people, and using social media. Are they a positive or negative force in your life? What exactly were the points that caused the tension or swirling? These are your triggers. Write them down so you can work with them later without judgment.

I know that abuse, control, my mistakes, death, and hatred are triggers for me. I can narrow those further, as these are the broad categories. Some of the above, I avoid. Having my Facebook newsfeed show me stories of child abuse or politics does not add to my life. I have the social fixer browser add-on that filters out the junk.

Other times, if I cannot or need not avoid stressful topics, I must self-soothe during exploration and engage in self-care.

Spend the next few days checking with yourself and noting your triggers.

Bias

It is not only triggers that affect the way we react to information we receive. We all have biases that affect our reaction. Bais is our prejudice toward or away from someone or something often unfairly. Bias is learned from our childhood and experiences in life. They are often unconscious, but they can be conscious.

There is a Tumblr post that makes the rounds every few months. It reads “”The first thought that goes through your mind is what you have been conditioned to think. What you think next defines who you are.”.”

That first thought is your bias. Often we do not go beyond our first thought, these are the unconscious thoughts we may not be aware of until we look at our patterns.

Discussing bias can be uncomfortable. Racial bias has been the subject of discussion for decades, and it’s been increasing lately. Well-deserved attention, but I see many people who don’t want to discuss it.

Race is not the only area we can have a bias. We have biases based on gender, race, mental health, exercise, alcohol, drugs are a few examples. Every topic is somewhere you may have a bias that needs examined, especially for holding space.

Harvard’s Implicit Bias Test is a good way to check some of your biases.

Back to the Tumblr post. Once you recognize your conditioned thoughts, you can choose your next ones — the ones that define who you are. Challenge your thinking, ask yourself if your bias reflects who you want to be and how you want to respond.

Empathy

Empathy is the force that allows us to understand and share the feelings of another.

Before we dive into giving empathy, we need to understand feelings. Language gives us thousands of ways to describe our emotions.

The first step in identifying our emotions is to separate from observation. Including examining our triggers, without judgement describing the situation you are seeing.

Being objective and describing just the facts is tough.

For example if your spouse has been on the sofa all day we might say something like “you’re lazy, you just lay around all day.”

The objective description is “You have spent the last four hours on the sofa.”

Or if our child is overwhelmed with emotion, we might say “You’re a spoiled brat laying on the floor screaming your head off demanding candy.”

The objective description is, “You’ve been laying on the floor crying for 10 minutes after I said no more candy.”

The next step is emotions. One common trap people fall into is describing judgment as emotions. “I feel ignored” is not an emotion. Feelings live in your body; you feel afraid, sad, happy, excited. They are yours alone, not related to another person, but they will be related to your needs.

When we respond to others’ feelings, we remove the judgment. I often counsel parents to look beyond the behavior to the emotions behind and need driving the emotion.

A child back talking is not disrespectful, they are upset because they need validation. A child who explodes at homework is not stubborn. They are struggling with fear because they don’t understand their math.

All behavior is a communication of feeling and need. And few of us learned how to express those verbally, instead they look like manipulation, explosion, back talk, stonewalling.

How to Empathy

So now we know the importance of empathy and what we respond to when we give empathy. Next is how to show empathy.

The framework is “When [observation], you seemed [feeling]. Am I right about how you are feeling?”

I often say upset in place of specific emotions, when responding to others, especially older children and adults. I avoid labeling others or putting words in their mouths. With young kids and ourselves, we can feel safer using a specific emotion.

The person on the other end may not be used to empathy and lash out at you. Take a breath and persevere, I have seen great breakthroughs using nonviolent communication.

“I was thinking angry, because [observation] makes me angry too.” or “It’s understandable to feel that way.”

Don’t go into solutions, don’t go into behavior. Any caveat to your empathy erases all the validation you offered, and the person goes back to feeling unheard.

Holding Space

Holding space is a concept I learned about only a few years ago. It is my favorite skill, but also the one I struggle with most.

Holding space requires us to let go of judgment and control, while giving unconditional love and presence.

That is a lot to ask of any human. It requires many skills to come together. Empathy, non-judgment, checking our triggers and biases, holding space request practice. Few of us learned these skills growing up. We often were raised with control and shame. But we can learn these skills with deliberate intention.

Slowing Down

We are in a hurry. We need to get everything done; we have important things to do. Social media has a strange way of changing how we interact. We all want to be right, we all want to leave our opinions. We get a hit of dopamine from it. Being able to throw your comment on a thread and feel satisfaction while you scroll to your next dopamine hit happened by design of social media. It keeps you coming back to their service for another dose.

There has been a lot of talk about a more mindful use of social media. For a long time, I balked at it. My use of Facebook and Twitter are just fine. And my debating wasn’t harmful as I always steered clear of insults, just making good arguments.

It wasn’t until I became an admin for a large Facebook group that I looked at my use. The group requires a high degree of emotional involvement from me, that is both exciting but draining. I didn’t have time to scroll my newsfeed, and I didn’t miss it.

Still in the group, I am guilty of going through questions fast. Everyone wants an answer and everyone has a need, and I only have limited time to address those.

We all need to slow down, to connect more. To see the person behind the common, the little icon, and connect with them.

Holding space means we are with the person as they are. We reserve judgment of where they are now, and we let go of control of the outcome. You allow space for their feelings and thoughts — just as they are.

Holding space is the easiest and most difficult task you can attempt. It should require nothing but our presence, but it really requires our full attention. We have to let go of everything we know and hold space. The person you want to be around, the person you want supporting you.

Holding Space While Giving Advice

One thing I noticed is I give better answers when I can ask questions for clarification and get the person thinking about their situation. It is easy to assume my first judgment is true, but my judgement of the situation may not be how the person views it. The seeker of knowledge may have meant something entirely different. Text especially is easy to misunderstand, it lacks non-verbal cues that we rely on to understand such as tone and body language.

Use empathy first. Connect with the person you are advising. Look for similarities. Acknowledge they are doing the best they can and we are too

Acknowledge your observations without judgement. Acknowledge your triggers and bias and the feelings those create in you and the other person. Notice the story you created based on those and how it is affecting you.

These all happen quickly. When you delve into your thoughts, it can seem like a slow process. Embrace the mindfulness of the process.

You can respond with all that information in mind. Clarify and respond with empathy for where they are.

If it has triggered you to a point where you cannot respond with empathy for someone, then respond with empathy for yourself and read on to learn about self-soothing when your emotions overwhelm you. It is more common than you think.

Self soothing

Self-care is one of my favorite topics to write about. It is so misunderstood. People view it as meditation retreats and hour long baths undisturbed or spa days.

Self-care is messy and imperfect, just like our lives.

Self-soothing is a particular form of self-care. It occurs when you are overwhelmed, making it the most difficult form. I am a fan of prevention through proactive action. Daily meditation is better than trying to break through a panic attack.

But we all get overwhelmed. Emotional first aid is a necessary skill.

But Check in with your body and thoughts. Is your stomach swirling or in knots? Heart racing? Palms sweaty? Mind racing?

If you find that you are overwhelmed, great! Knowing means you can fix it.

Breathe. Cliche, but for a reason. Focusing on your breath slows your body and your mind.

There are tons of meditation techniques you can use to ground yourself. What Works to calm you is not the same as what calms me. Ask yourself what you need right now. Listen. Follow through.

I like to wrap myself in a fuzzy blanket. Listen to soothing music. Drink water or tea. Find a place in my body that is calm and let it spread through my body, especially to the overwhelmed places.

Find what soothes you.

Once you have soothed yourself, consider the following questions:

What did you observe?

What are your triggers?

What is the story you have?

What are you feeling?

Who needs empathy?

Holding space can be a tough endeavour when you first try it. With practice it does get easier, but it is a skill to learn and be practised like others.

It begins when we examine our bias and triggers, and hold space for ourselves with empathy, then we can extend it to others.