Hello and welcome back to practicing human the podcast where every day we're getting a little better at life.

I'm your host Corey Muscarra and in today's episode we're going to talk about why your ability to hold another person's suffering is directly related to your ability to hold your own suffering.

More to come on that in a moment. First, let's settle in together with the sound of the bells. The Okay, so let's talk about holding space, specifically for another person who is going through something difficult, something

painful.

Now, as human beings, we are always interacting with others, and this ability to be able to hold a

compassionate caring spacious presence for another person while they're going through something painful is one of the

greatest gifts you can offer another person and if you're looking to deepen your

relationship with your partner deep in your relationship with your partner,

deepen your relationship with your children,

with your friends, with your students,

with your colleagues.

This is a skill that is really important to have and will improve your quality of life and then those that you connect with subsequently improving your life even more because it deepens connection.

And you can think about it in your own life anytime you've gone through something difficult.

Chances are there are those people that you think about who you know hold space for you to have those

experiences, people who you've interacted with in the past who could just listen, could just be there with you weren't trying to fix

you change you judge you could just hold your pain with you it's a powerful gift to offer another person. And the first step to developing

it is to develop it within yourself. That is to be able to hold space for another person's suffering requires

you being able to hold space for your own suffering. So why is that? Well, to not hold space for your own suffering,

to not feel your own pain, and by suffering we don't,

it doesn't have to mean the deepest tragedy.

Could just mean your own anger, your own resentment, subtle

forms of grief. To not feel that requires putting an armor up. You have to compartmentalize something, shut down some part of you.

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