Holding Yourself
Babies need holding, and so do you.
I've been having the best time leading an in-person group for moms with infants where we’ve been exploring the idea of “holding your mother self.” We’ve been talking openly together about how the need to be held in infancy continues throughout the lifespan. Our emotional system relies on attention and emotional care from other people—we need to be cradled, soothed, and responded to. Over time, we evolve from being infants who depend on caregivers for all of our holding to adults who continue to receive holding from others while also learning to hold ourselves.
Holding yourself means being in relationship with your emotional experience, staying connected to yourself through whatever you’re feeling. It's not fixing. It's staying with.
Think of a caregiver picking up a crying baby. They might rock them, coo at them, rub their back, and acknowledge their discomfort. Above all, they stay close as the baby experiences their feelings.
Again and again in the postpartum group, we've come back to the same idea of holding yourself — allowing your experience instead of fighting it and hearing your own needs. I've found myself practicing this outside the group, too.
At my son's kindergarten graduation, I got unexpectedly tearful during the goodbye song. It was easy to imagine the years passing—those same little voices becoming high school graduates leaving home. I noticed the sadness that comes with loving someone who is always changing, and allowed it to be there.
As I stayed with the sadness, something shifted. I realized that what I was longing for wasn't entirely gone. My son and I were together in the present moment, even though I knew it was passing. When we stay with our emotional experience, something often becomes possible that wasn't before.
Holding yourself is more than making space for difficult feelings. It's about staying close to yourself through whatever you're experiencing, attending to yourself with care.
What in your life could use some holding right now?
What would it look like to attend to yourself with care?