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One of our first experiences of being alive, of incarnating into the physical realm inside our mothers wombs is being held. I believe we still have this blueprint in our bodies: we hold the cellular memory of being held.

Life is a matrix of multiple layers of holding and being held. Potentially, a foetus is held in the womb, the womb is held by the mother, the mother is held by hr partner (and her home, the partner is held by the tribe…and so on. What else are we or can we be held by? Are we held by the earth? Planetary rhythms and other universal laws? Our breath? Our ancestors or spirit friends? Could those of us who have wombs, also be held somehow within the regular death-rebirth cycle of them? With my lack of any regular structure or routine in my life, and skirting in the unknown so much of the time, I definitely experience myself as being held by the tides of my womb.

And yet how endemic it feels, the feeling of NOT being held, or the deep, aching desire to be held, but the fear that we are too big somehow and no one or nothing around us will manage. This has been a big one for me – I have done so much holding in my life and felt such a scarcity around being held. Through my womb meditations and accessing my cellular memory of being held, I am learning to experience myself and relax into being part of this web of holding and being held.

Some of us tend one way: we tend to be either the holders or the ones being held and the conditioning we have around gender I imagine impacts this considerably. Some of us completely deny our desire to be held. Life is vulnerable and dangerous, and there is no way that we can stay in the safety of a metaphorical womb at all times, however I can’t help but imagine that if we opened ourselves to the possibilities of being held, including these subtler, yet powerful ways, we could transcend our collective existential panic that contributes to our exterminating the planet. Feeling unheld is a pretty disempowered place, perhaps also making us more susceptible to control and manipulation by power-hungry institutions….

On our journey towards empowerment, we are also confronted with the necessity of learning to hold ourselves: doing our best not to run away from uncomfortable feelings when they arise, but to welcome them and allow them to flow. Trying not to perpetually distract ourselves with things outside of us but regularly enquiring within as to how we are and what we need. Not being dependent on others approval of us, but holding and celebrating ourselves in our triumphs and falls, reminding ourselves we are ok as we are. It feels like life is inviting us to both honour ourselves in our vulnerability of desiring to be held – allowing ourselves to ask for that and learn to receive it – AND learn to give ourselves exactly that which we long for from the outside. ♥