MANAGING SPACE

How do you hold space?  I developed a sense and awareness of this when I became a mother. Children need you to hold the space around them in a conscious way.  When the children are very little and are acting up, a conscious mother will look within, gather herself and try to "hold the space" in a different way so that the children feel the shift and manifest the subtle movement in their behavior.  And they mostly do.

I think about this again because I am just coming out of attending a flurry of lectures, workshops and masses and the importance of "holding space" became more and more apparent over the weeks. During our masses or services, for example, some people would enter the room and sit in the silence, preparing themselves for what was to come.  And then others would come in and begin to whisper loudly, text, fidget, thereby creating cracks in the stillness that others were trying to hold in and around themselves in preparation for the Sacrament.  What was their perception of that space and how did each person choose to hold himself in it?

At another lecture, people were coming in and out, standing, sitting, shifting, taking things from the little refrigerator behind the speaker, and generally treating the space and what was happening in it,  in what I personally felt was a rather casual approach. 

This is also why I hate being late.  During one of these lectures, traffic was impossible. I am always early or on time but traffic was heavier than heavy that day and it took us nearly two hours to get to Makati from home. So I walked into the lecture 30 minutes late and I really felt I broke into something that was already being formed by the speaker and everyone who managed to come on time and were holding this space in silence, for thoughts and pictures to flow through.  When you agree to be part of something, what are you truly responsible for? The minute we say "yes" to something, we become part of it. It is not just the speaker's task, for example, to ensure that he does his part. It is our task to create the right space to receive what is being offered, not just for ourselves but for the others who have taken it upon themselves to be part of the activity.

A room is more than just a physical space.  Events can be celebrated more deeply if people who participate in them carry this intention of "holding space" with reverence, respect, quiet, consciousness, and inner strength.  It is a sign of respect for the space and what everyone in it is trying to bring forth.  It is also a conscious way of building community as it can only happen if we are all aware of each other and are willing to carry each other through.