Today we're going to talk about holding

space. So this is really confusing

because people will say like yeah, like

you know, when someone comes to you with

a problem, like let's say your spouse

got a bad performance review or your

fiance is having a bachelorette party

but half of her people have canceled.

They come to you and they're really

upset, right? Someone's trauma dumping,

someone's coming to you upset. And so

what a lot of people will say is like

yeah, the right thing to do is to hold

space. But we don't know how to do that.

Like how do you hold space, right? Is

this just like doing just holding space?

And the answer is like actually yeah,

that's exactly what it is. So in order

to understand this, let's start with

kind of the scenario, okay? So let's say

someone comes to you with a problem.

Let's say they're kind of trauma

dumping. And then they come to you with

a problem and our first instinct is to

fix it, right? So we're like they're

coming to me with my problem, I have

this bad performance review. Let me let

me help you, okay? Let me tell you what

you need to do. You do A, B, and C,

that'll fix your problem and then you'll

be golden. But we've been told don't do

that. Don't be a problem solver, don't

fix things. And in instead we have

replaced it with something else. We're

going to validate their feelings. Oh my

god, that must be so hard for you. Oh my

god, I know, isn't that terrible? And

sometimes that works. But sometimes like

people don't like it, right? Have you

guys noticed that sometimes when you're

like coming to someone with a problem,

they start like therapizing you and

you're like don't do that. Don't

therapize me. Like don't use those

validating statements and things like

that. It just feels wrong to do. And the

other challenge with this sort of

validating your feelings sort of thing

is it has a role in friendships, but

that's really a technique that is

frequently used in therapy and like your

friends may not like that. Your spouse

may not like that. I know mine certainly

doesn't. So I'll give you all a good

example of this. So I recently got a

game for myself and for my daughter and

I was really excited to have her play

the game. I was like oh she's going to

love this game. So we started to playing

the game and then I became a terrible

backseat gamer because when I got the

game for her, I'm like okay, this is so

much fun. She's going to really like

this stuff, but she wasn't playing the

game the way that I wanted her to play

the game. I was like, "You're not doing

this right. You're not doing this right.

You're not doing this right." So, she

got really frustrated with me and

understandably so. And so then you know,

then she went downstairs and I went

downstairs with her and she was grabbing

a snack from the pantry and then I was

like, you know, I did what any Harvard

psychiatrist would do. And I was like,

"Yeah, you know, Vera, I realized that I

got this game and I had this certain

vision for the game, but I'm not letting

you enjoy it. I got the game for you to

enjoy. And the way that I'm talking to

you the way that I'm forcing you to do

things is actually the exact opposite.

Like, I'm ruining your experience. I'm

not helping your experience. In fact,

I'm ruining it and I'm really sorry for

that." And then she kind of sighed and

she was like, "Dad, it's fine. You don't

have to say I'm sorry. It's so hard to

stay mad at you." And I was like, "Hold

on a second." She was like kind of

annoyed that she couldn't stay mad at

me, right? So, he she's a 10-year-old

kid and her dad is a Harvard-trained

psychiatrist and I realized, "Oh my god,

I have done something wrong. Let me go

fix it. Let me go use the words of my

training, of my like decade of practice

in psychiatry. My child is is mad at me.

No more. I'm going to fix it, right? I'm

going to validate her feelings."

And I don't know if you guys have felt

this, but like have you all noticed that

sometimes you want to stay mad at

someone? And one of the most infuriating

things is when someone can like poke

holes in the water balloon of your anger

and then your anger starts to seep away

and you don't want that. You actually

like you're like, "Ah, just let me be

mad at you for a while." That is what

holding space is about. When we hold

space, we will be able to handle their

anger, okay? So, option number one is

fix their problems. So, holding space

gratifies that, right? So, holding space

will fix that and I'll explain how this

works. So, in order to understand why

it's hard to hold space, right? It's

hard for my daughter me to hold the

space for my daughter to be angry with

me. We have to understand one really

important thing, which is the emotional

umbilical cord. In common colloquial

language, we could call this empathy,

but I think empathy's been like defined

in so many different ways. So, I like to

call it the emotional umbilical cord as

a psychiatrist. So, what this means is

that when someone else has a negative

emotion, we have this little umbilical

cord that goes from us to them, and they

transfer some of that negative emotion

to us. If this did not exist, no one

watch TV shows or movies, right? So, if

you think about a TV show or a movie,

there's like some tragic scenario and

someone dies, and these are like fake

people on a screen. They're not even

real, right? This is like literally we

all know it's a fictional character

that's an actor pretending to have lost

a child, but there's no no actual death

in this situation at all. But because of

this emotional umbilical cord, when the

character on the screen starts crying,

we start absorbing that emotion. I keep

seeing comments Dr. K, how do I apply

this to a situation in my life? That's

literally why we created a coaching

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help you get [music] unstuck. This

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lasting change. So, if y'all are

interested, check out the link in the

description below. So, the biggest thing

that makes it hard to hold space for

people is not their suffering, it is our

inability to tolerate the negative

emotion that they are transferring to

us, okay? They feel bad, transfer some

of that emotion, now I feel bad. I don't

like feeling bad, so what am I going to

do? I'm going to shut off their negative

emotion. So, if they are frustrated, I

love my daughter, she is angry with me,

I feel that anger from her, I can't

tolerate that. What does a dad want to

avoid at all costs? Having my beautiful

daughter be mad at me. That I can't

handle. I can't handle her anger. So, I

have to shut it off. So, the first way

that I shut it off is I fix the problem

for her, right? Or in your case, right?

Let's say you've got a friend who's got

a problem, you can fix the problem for

them. If you fix the problem for them,

they no longer feel bad. If they no

longer feel bad, they no longer transfer

that negative emotion to you, and then

you no longer feel bad. Now, you're

happy, I'm happy, we're all happy. See,

let me fix it for you. The second way

that we basically do the same thing is

validate their feelings. They feel bad.

Let me validate their feelings. Oh,

yeah, you're right. You're right. Oh,

that is sad. Oh, you're you deserve to

be angry. Oh my god, that's so terrible.

Then, they start to feel better. And if

they start to feel better, they stop

transferring that energy to you. And

there's almost sometimes a desperateness

to validating someone's feelings. This

person is like trauma dumping on me.

Like, oh my god, let me validate,

validate, validate, so they stop. Okay?

Key principle here is that we don't feel

good. And if you really pay attention to

yourself, you will notice that there's

something within you that is hard to

tolerate. And you want to make that go

away. And so, fixing the problem by

providing solutions is one way. Fixing

the problem by making them feel better

is the other thing. But if you look at

both of those things, there is an

intolerance

of the negative emotion of the other

person. That's what makes it hard to

hold space. So, first step is that you

have to notice that when you are holding

space for someone, you will basically

have to literally hold from a

neuroscience perspective their negative

energy. Now, the second thing that makes

this hard is that Okay, so how do you

hold space? What do you do? And this is

what's so confusing about it. Holding

space is intentional inaction. So, a lot

of people think that holding space is

doing nothing cuz you're not doing

anything, right? You're not like

offering solutions. you're not like

validating them, you're just hold but

but what what is that? How do I do that?

And that's what's so confusing about it.

It is intentional inaction. So, it's not

that you're doing nothing, it is that

you are doing no particular thing. You

are And this is where like it's in the

language. You are literally holding like

if you think about it like if I'm

holding a pen, like what am I doing?

This isn't I'm not doing anything with

the pen. I'm just holding it. And yet

holding is an intentional inaction,

right? It's just It's just here. But I'm

holding it, but it's here. I'm not doing

any I'm not writing, I'm not putting it

down, I'm not picking it up, I'm just

holding it. And then the second question

is, what are you holding? You're holding

space. So, you are holding emptiness.

And this is where we get like oh, Zen.

Hold emptiness.

Wonderful. Okay.

Then how do you actually do it, right?

So, you have to understand that you are

intentionally not acting. So, a good

example of this is like, you know, let's

say that I'm a hunter and I'm waiting in

a blind to like I've put out some corn

and some hapless deer that under doesn't

understand these things is coming to eat

the corn.

So, I'm kind of doing nothing, but I'm

not like doing nothing. I am waiting for

something to happen, right? So, that's a

kind of an example of an intentional

inaction. With holding space, you're not

necessarily waiting, but that's just an

example, right? Of

waiting for something to happen. You are

not doing nothing, but you're sort of in

a holding pattern, right? You're waiting

for something to happen. So, holding

space isn't quite waiting. I'm using

that as another example of intentional

inaction. We are purposely not acting,

okay? And as we purposely not act, we

are kind of absorbing some of that

negativity. So, then the question is,

okay, but like how do you do that? You

guys see like you're still like how do

you do that? So, we're going to tell

you. So, the first thing is you don't

want to be mentally checked out. So,

when you're doing nothing, it's like

holding space is not like

Oh my god. So, the first thing that you

want to do when you're holding space is

you want to like lean in and be body

language facial expression engaged. So,

when I'm holding space with someone, I'm

usually like, right? Or like I was doing

this with my wife the other day. We were

in bed and she was telling me about some

something going on in her social life

and I was like, you know, we're both

laying in bed and I'm just like, "Oh my

god. Hmm.

Hmm."

You know, so you're tuned in. You want

to be tuned in. And then the second

thing is that I want y'all to kind of

envision that you're not doing

something, but what you're doing is

you're holding a plastic bag. Like

you're holding a bag and you're letting

the other person put things into the

bag. That's what holding space is. You

are there with them, but you are not

taking the lead. See, when you fix their

problems, you are taking the lead. Even

when you validate them, if you're not

careful, there are two kinds of

validation. Hopefully, I'll I know this

gets kind of weird and subtle and

abstract. There is the validating their

feelings in order to get them to stop.

Like, "Shut the [ __ ] up, bro. Like, I

can't handle this anymore. I'm so tired

of this. Let me just validate you

validate Let me therapize Let me

therapize you. Ah. Let me give you the

therapize so that you feel better. Ah."

Right? But you're still taking charge of

the situation. Holding space is imagine

that they're speaking and you are

holding a bag and you're letting them

put whatever they want. And even if you

sort of think about it, if I'm holding a

bag, I'm not doing anything except for

holding the bag. They're kind of doing

all the work of what they put into the

bag. And so, this is sort of where

basically holding space is tolerating

your internal negative emotion, which

you need to understand because until you

realize that you're feeling that, you'll

try to get rid of it automatically and

you won't you'll kind of it'll like

bypass you. Second thing is kind of tune

in, lean in, and then just hold, right?

So, just hold the bag for them to put

stuff in. So, if they want to whine

about something, if they want to

complain about something, you just let

them complain and you kind of stay with

them in that complaining. If and at some

point if they're like, "Yeah, I don't

know like like there's something I need

to do. I can't figure out what to do."

You can kind of ask like, "Is there

something Is there something you want

help with?" Right? You just ask. The key

thing about holding space is you You not

acting, right? You are sort of your job

is the police line do not cross. You are

creating the space within which they get

to decide what to do. That is what

holding space is. Now, one another kind

of tip that I'll give you guys

is sometimes when you're holding space,

let's say someone is trauma dumping.

There's a really key indicator for when

you know holding space is working and

when you know you're done. Because how

do you know if you're done? And that is

going to be your own internal state,

okay? So, at some point when people

trauma dump, what you'll notice is that

some of them start to get really really

really repetitive, right? And they start

repeating themselves a lot and it kind

of you feel your primary internal

experience is going to be boredom. And

it's kind of interesting because we know

that like we have this idea that talking

about your feelings is like healthy,

right? We have to talk about our

feelings.

But, there are a lot of people and you

may be one of them where you notice that

talking about my feelings is like

like playing some like a song on repeat.

It's not actually doing anything for us

emotionally. And when someone trauma

dumps on you, you can pay attention to

your own internal feeling. Because the

more that you feel bored with the

situation, the more useless the trauma

dumping is becoming. Now it's getting

into that road thing. There's no like

emotional energy behind it. It's just

kind of like reflexive sadness,

reflexive this kind of stuff. That's not

really where the money is. That's what

we learn in in psychotherapy is you got

to follow the feelings.

So, how do you know when you've kind of

done enough? You can sort of pay

attention. The moment that you you cuz

remember holding space is about you

absorbing their discomfort and at some

point that discomfort will start to

decline. And how do you know when you're

done? When you start to feel bored

literally or you feel an absence of

feeling, that's when you can try to

direct them a little bit and say like,

"Yeah, so it's it you know, here's what

I understood about your situation." You

can reflect back at you said this, this,

and this. What are you thinking? How do

you How are you approaching this

situation? Right? It's not like solve

the problem for them, but you can subtly

indicate, hey, like,

where we going from here? Okay? So, the

next time someone comes to you with a

problem, option number one, problem

solve. Option number two, validate to

decompress their emotion. Option number

three, hold the bag for them for them to

put things into.

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