Holding Space

Why it’s harder than it sounds

I can’t remember the first time I heard the expression holding space.

It might have been sometime in my early forties, during a period when I was in therapy for a while. At the time, I remember dismissing it a little. It sounded like soft language. Something vaguely New Age. The kind of phrase I assumed only women said in therapy circles or wellness workshops.

Intellectually, I thought I understood the idea.

I didn’t.

Perhaps more accurately, I thought I understood the mechanics: just not interrupting. But again, I had it wrong. My job was not to be comfortable with light open air. Space. It was the opposite. It was learning to be comfortable with emotional weight — sometimes very heavy weight.

So what I had misunderstood was that the space being held is not empty at all, but often full (sometimes unbearably so) of fear, grief, confusion, relief, or joy. The task is not to tolerate silence. The task is therefore to remain present with whatever has “entered” the room. Which can be uncomfortable.

Like many men, I had a fairly well-developed instinct to solve things. If someone came to me with a problem, my reflex was to explain, offer advice, or try to fix it. Interestingly, when a man does this for another man, it rarely triggers much reaction. If it does, it can turn into arguing and counter-arguing in circles without much personalising happening. Just two guys arguing things out. In certain cultures too, people talk on top of each other with little to no negative ramifications.

But when men do it with women, it often lands very differently. Why are you always trying to fix things? Why can’t you just listen?

Part of that reaction is probably about gender dynamics, which are beyond the scope of this essay, as I am far from an expert in that field.

Still, the more I thought about it, the more I realised something deeper was going on.

The first time I consciously tried to practise holding space, it was almost comical. I could feel myself physically restraining the urge to jump in and interrupt. I once heard the expression “listening with your answer running.” Yes. I had become very good at that.

At one point the sensation was so strong that the only image that came to mind was a horse in the gate before a race. All that pent-up energy, leaning forward, waiting for the moment the gate opens.

Except in this case the task was the opposite. Not to bolt. Not to seize the conversational reins. Just stay there in the gate, feeling the energy rise but resisting the instinct to release it.

Just listen.

And that, it turns out, is not nearly as easy as it sounds.

The impulse to respond

For me, the urge to jump in during conversations was rarely malicious or dismissive. Quite the opposite. Often I was simply excited by the subject. Someone would mention a country they had visited, a restaurant they had loved, or a particular idea they had encountered, and immediately my mind would light up. I had been there too. I had tasted something similar. I had wrestled with that idea myself. No ill intent there I thought.

Part of what was happening in those moments, I realise now, was also a desire for connection. When someone shared an experience, I wanted to share mine as well. I wanted them to see me too.

That impulse is not entirely misguided. Much of human conversation is built on recognising ourselves in the experiences of others. The difficulty is timing.

When someone has just opened something vulnerable, the moment is not asking for our story yet.

Connection, after all, is a very human impulse. But connection expressed too quickly can sometimes interrupt the very thing it is trying to honour — the simple act of allowing another person to feel understood.

Conversation is not turn-taking

It took me a long time to understand that engagement does not always make speaking appropriate. A conversation is not simply two people taking turns to speak. It is not one person speaking while the other politely waits long enough that it does not look like an interruption before inserting their own version of the story.

Sometimes a conversation is simply one person sharing something and the other person understanding.

Only after that understanding has truly landed does the space open for sharing in return. That kind of conversational maturity did not come naturally to me.

Part of the reason, I suspect, is that I did not fully understand what was driving my impulse to jump in. Looking back now, I can see that it was not always curiosity or enthusiasm. Sometimes it was something else. That subtle urge to be heard myself. To be understood too, and maybe even more, if I am truly honest.

So mixed into my natural curiosity and love of ideas was a kind of insecurity I did not fully recognise at the time. Not nervousness exactly. Something closer to the need to be seen, to signal that I too had something meaningful to contribute to the moment unfolding in front of me.

And when that impulse meets silence — especially the kind of silence that follows something vulnerable that was just shared by someone — it becomes even stronger.

Why silence makes us uneasy

Because silence has a way of making people uncomfortable. Even the expression “uncomfortable silence” is revealing if you stop and think about it.

In some cultures, pauses in conversation are not only accepted but expected. Quiet reflection is simply part of the rhythm of interaction. The silence is not treated as a problem to be solved. It is treated as part of the conversation itself.

In others, silence feels like something that must be repaired immediately — like a gap to be filled, or something to escape. And the moment the silence stretches even a few seconds too long, someone feels the urge to rescue the room.

And so someone speaks. Either advice arrives, sometimes with solutions, or a related story appears. And with that, the emotional temperature drops. Not necessarily for the person speaking, but for everyone else in the room.

That is when I began to realise something important:
Sometimes we are regulating our own discomfort by trying to regulate someone else’s emotions.

In other words, sometimes when we “help,” we are not helping them at all. We are trying to relieve our own discomfort at witnessing theirs. Once you start seeing that dynamic, it becomes difficult to unsee.

Because if someone cannot regulate themselves internally, they will instinctively try to regulate the environment. Which often means explaining, fixing, arguing, reframing, or simply talking over silence.

All of which collapse the space the other person just opened.

And again, that space to “hold” turns out not to be empty air. It is holding something much heavier.

Holding space means holding emotions. Vulnerability. Courage. Sadness. Grief. Loss. And sometimes even joy. Yes, even joy. Because we interrupt joy almost as quickly as we interrupt pain. Someone shares something wonderful that happened to them and we rush to match it with our own story or experience, as though the moment needs to be balanced by our own version.

When the moment is heavier, the instinct to intervene can be even stronger. In such cases why can’t we simply say: I don’t know what to say. That must be so difficult. Thank you for trusting me enough to share that.

And leave it there.

Without the story about when something similar happened to us. Without the advice. Without the subtle shift in attention back toward ourselves.

Holding space begins to reveal itself as something far less soft than I once assumed. It requires sitting with discomfort without rushing to neutralise it. It requires resisting the impulse to solve.

And if I’m being honest, I suspect men can sometimes find this particularly difficult. Many of us grow up learning how to perform competence long before we learn how to sit with vulnerability. We are taught to provide answers, not presence. To solve problems, not stay with them.

If a man is not fully comfortable with his own emotional landscape, the instinct to steer the conversation toward solutions can become almost automatic. Almost as though not solving something would be a failure, or worse, a weakness.

It is not surprising that this impulse is sometimes mocked as mansplaining. But often what sits underneath it is not superiority so much as discomfort — the uneasy feeling of not knowing how to sit with someone else’s emotions.

Take something as ordinary as a couple navigating perimenopause. What is a man expected to know about what his partner is experiencing physically and emotionally? Often very little. Many men are trying to understand what they should or should not do, while at the same time watching someone they love move through something they themselves cannot experience.

In those moments the instinct to fix things can be overwhelming.

But sometimes the most meaningful response is far simpler. To acknowledge honestly: I cannot fully understand what you are going through, but thank you for trusting me enough to share it with me. I hear you.

Holding space is not about having the right answer. It is about being willing to remain present when there may be no answer at all. And that dynamic does not stop with partners or friendships either.

You see it in parenting all the time as well. A teenager expresses how difficult something feels in their life and the parent immediately moves to correct, reassure, explain, or minimise. We tell them they are exaggerating. That things will be fine. That they should not worry so much. Sometimes we even try to solve the problem before the child has fully expressed what they are feeling.

But why can’t a parent sometimes simply say: That sounds really hard. Thank you for trusting me with that. I’m here for you anytime you want to talk about it.

Let the emotion exist.

Let the child feel understood.

Because if children never experience that kind of space, how are they supposed to learn how to sit with difficult emotions themselves? How are they supposed to learn that emotions do not always need to be solved in order to be endured?

Over time, through therapy, experience, and a fair amount of internal work, I became more familiar with my own interior terrain. And the more comfortable I became sitting with my own discomfort, the easier it became to sit with someone else’s.

There is an expression you sometimes hear that we can only meet others as deeply as we have met ourselves. It can sound a little airy, but there is a real truth buried inside it.

The more familiar we are with our own inner landscape, the less urgent it becomes to repair someone else’s emotions.

Something interesting begins to happen in conversations when that shift occurs.

People feel seen.
They feel heard.

You do not have to rush in with your own story. You do not have to smooth the edges of the moment. You simply stay.

Holding space, it turns out, is not about saying the right thing. It is about resisting the urge to say anything that prematurely closes the space someone else has opened.

And when we manage to do that, something else often happens. The emotion moves. It softens. Sometimes it passes on its own. Because emotions, like weather systems, rarely need to be solved in order to change. They simply need space.

Holding space is not dramatic work.

It is quiet work.

And like most quiet work, it often begins with noticing our own impulses before we act on them.

Learning to stay present

In other pieces I’ve written about neuroplasticity — the idea that repeated behaviours slowly reshape the brain. Learning to sit with another person’s emotions seems to follow the same pattern. I’m not yet great at it, but I can feel the new pathways beginning to take hold.

Interestingly, the better I get at doing this, the calmer I feel in those moments. The pressure to perform wisdom disappears. My ego leaves the room and, somewhat ironically, I feel stronger without it. A quieter kind of strength.

And with that shift, the other person becomes more present too. They often find their own way forward. Or sometimes they do not need to. Sometimes people do not want a solution at all.

Sometimes the most generous thing another person can offer is simply their attention. Not advice, not interpretation, not comparison — just the simple acknowledgement that what we are feeling has been witnessed. Sometimes they simply want to know they are not alone in what they are feeling.

I cannot tell you how many times in a conversation I have thought to myself: I don’t need you to agree with me. I just need you to understand.

Interestingly, psychologists who study conflict and dialogue often make the same distinction. Understanding and agreement are not the same thing. People rarely insist that we share their conclusions. What they long for first is the sense that their experience has been heard and recognised.

The gift of understanding

There’s an expression I read years ago that says: “We write so that we know we are not alone in the world.” Maybe conversation serves the same purpose. Not necessarily to convince someone. Not even always to agree. But to be understood.

And perhaps that simple act — understanding another person, and allowing ourselves to be understood — is one of the most human things we are capable of offering each other. And if we cannot always understand, then at least be thankful for the vulnerability and trust that the other person showed towards us.

Perhaps sitting there while someone speaks is not a burden to rush through at all. Maybe it is a privilege. A quiet sign that someone trusts us enough to open themselves in front of us.

Even when we find ourselves growing a little impatient. Even when the story wanders, or the point takes a while to arrive. Not everyone is brief or eloquent when trying to explain something that matters to them. Sometimes the struggle to find the words is the story itself.

Which might be the real point.

In the end, don’t most of us simply want to be seen? Perhaps the simplest way to offer that to someone is also the hardest.

Just stay.
Just listen.
Just hold the space.

As a gift.
To them.

Maybe to you too.