Holding Space and Defying Gravity (on feeling invisible and finding power)
Holding space is having another viral moment, and I have some thoughts
Listen to me read the post…
I’m going to start this post with a story that may make me seem petty and perhaps not as evolved as people think I am. But... I’ve built my work on being truthful, so why stop now?
This week, holding space has been having another viral moment, thanks to a video clip from an interview for the movie Wicked. Tracy Gilchrist mentions to Cynthia Erivo that the queer community has been using the song Defying Gravity, and “really holding space with that”. The context is that, in the fallout from the election in the U.S., the song is helping people feel less alone, afraid and powerless.
When I started to see it happening online, I was, like many people, a little confused about how the term was being used, but then I realized I had an opportunity to add some meaning and nuance to the conversation (since I’ve likely spent more hours with the term than anyone else in the world). I’d seen Wicked on the weekend, so I understood the value of the song for this cultural moment. I commented on a few of the posts and then made a couple of videos of my own to let people know that if they wanted to know more about holding space, we have a LOT of resources. In one of the videos, I intentionally offered the history and lineage of the term, so that people would know where it came from. (No, I didn’t originate it - I learned it through the facilitation community, based in the work of Harrison Owen.)
The moment kept blowing up more and more, and largely, my efforts to contribute were ignored. (At last count, my two TikTok videos have been seen around 400 times, combined.) Even though some of the media made reference to “a viral blog post back in 2015 that popularized the term”, few people went to the effort to find out that I was the author of that blog post and that I’ve since written two books on the topic and created the Centre for Holding Space (with my business partner) to teach people how to deepen the practice for themselves and their communities.
I’m all too familiar with the fickleness of social media, and for the first few days, I was able to brush it off and mostly laugh about it. I kept telling myself that a viral moment in pop culture has nothing to do with the deep and meaningful work I’ve poured so much love and attention into. Many people were making fun of the term, and some were being downright cruel, so there was a part of me that was happy to be left out of it.
But then I woke up this morning and felt... invisible. Overlooked, unappreciated, and irrelevant. I wallowed in self-pity for a while, and then entertained a few other emotions, including anger. I toyed with the idea of sending out some strongly worded emails, or posting something on social media about my frustration over being ignored.
My feelings were compounded by the fact that the last few years have been increasingly difficult for us at the Centre for Holding Space. Regardless of how hard we work and how many beautiful things we put into the world, fewer and fewer people pay attention to our work. We invested a lot of money to try to improve our reach and to work with social media algorithms more successfully, and it was a complete failure – our numbers (and income) only went down and we were left barely able to pay our bills. To add insult to injury, I keep seeing my work being referenced by others and they’re getting huge numbers of hits, and when I post the same thing, I get next to nothing. It’s clear that the value of our work hasn’t diminished (we hear from people daily about the impact of it), but the changing environment online, post-pandemic weariness, plus changing algorithms have all contributed to making it more and more invisible.
Add to that all of the other ways that a queer, fat, neurodivergent, divorced woman in her fifties, especially after her children are launched into their own lives, feels invisible and irrelevant, and I just kind of broke down under the weight of it all. Our culture values youth, thinness and heteronormativity, and my voice is not the one that’s seen to have much relevance in this cultural context. Does it really matter what I have to say anymore? Is anyone listening, or am I simply shouting into the void?
This morning, after having a good cry about it, I did what I usually do when I’m feeling down – I went for a walk by the lake. It might sound trite, but almost without fail, I feel better when I’ve wandered among the trees, sat at the edge of the water, and bent down to stare at mushrooms. There’s something to be said for eco-regulation – the practice of soothing the nervous system through a relationship with the natural world we’re a part of.
I came back feeling better, but there was still some heaviness that made it hard to concentrate on my work. So I did the other two things that often help me – I had a bath and listened to music. In the bathtub, I turned on Defying Gravity, wondering whether the song could hold space for me too. It didn’t take long and I was weeping in the tub – big, deep, body-shaking sobs.
The moment that Elphaba sings Defying Gravity is the moment that she suddenly realizes three things: 1. She is being manipulated by powerful forces that do not have her best interests at heart. 2. She has more power than she thinks she has and doesn’t have to succumb to those forces. 3. All those who have been marginalized (as she has) need those with power to stand up to the harmful forces.
Earlier in the movie, Elphaba discovers that animals (who have the ability to speak) are being oppressed and imprisoned. One of those animals is Dr. Dillamond, a goat who’s a teacher at her school. When her teacher disappears, Elphaba is determined to figure out how to free him and make it stop. When she defies gravity (discovering, in that moment, that she can fly), she does so because she knows it’s the only way to disrupt the injustice that is happening.
As I listened to the song, crying in the bathtub, I realized how relevant it was not only for the queer community that has found it so meaningful in the wake of the election in the U.S., but also for me, a fat, aging, queer, Canadian woman feeling invisible in her bathtub. To be honest, I was feeling a little like Dr. Dillamond, a teacher whose life’s work is erased when he’s replaced by a mediocre white man (something that’s been familiar to me for much of my life).
I got out of the bathtub feeling... well, not entirely resolved, but at least different. I got out determined that I wasn’t going to let this moment diminish or destroy all of the work that I’ve done over the past decade (and even before that). Even though it might be largely invisible, it still matters – A LOT. In fact, it matters even more now than ever. As I said in an earlier post, I am committed, even though it often feels like an impossibility, to being part of The Great Turning. I am committed to serving love and liberation. I am committed to “defying gravity”.
For as long as I’ve been talking about holding space, I have always been determined to hold the term lightly, to not take too much ownership, and to be in service to this practice that I love so much and that I believe can contribute to a better world. It’s never been “my” term and I’m clear about that. For the first year after my post went viral, in fact, I was reluctant to associate myself too closely with the term and only did so when many people asked me to write and teach more about it.
Sometimes I get tripped up though, and want to claim my space (partly because capitalism teaches me that I should be greedy and more protective of my intellectual property), and I get wounded by a moment like this. But then I always come back to my commitment and resolve.
This is not about my ego – it’s about creating spaces for meaningful conversations and complex emotions, it’s about honouring people’s sovereignty and dignity, and it’s about growing strong communities so that we can stand up to the forces that would cause us harm.
No, it’s not about me - it’s about a commitment to human development and to a more just world. When I get caught up in thinking it’s about me, in fact, I’m succumbing to the belief our culture tries to instill in us that we are isolated individuals needing to guard our scarce resources, rather than collective beings meant to look after each other and the earth we live on.
The world can make me invisible, social media can forget my contribution, but I will carry on, together with my community, spreading a message of love, liberation, and tenderness. I will carry on, creating spaces of belonging for all those who feel othered by the world.