What does holding space actually mean?

People say it all the time.

Holding space.

It can sound vague. Well meaning but unclear.

When I use those words, this is what I am offering you.

When a client comes to me, I am not just listening to their story.

I am holding the empty pages.

Every person carries a kind of inner book. Some chapters are loud and well worn. They know them by heart. They can recite them in their sleep.

But there are also blank pages.

Pages that were never safe enough to be written.
Pages that were shut down by fear, shock or shame.
Pages that exist as a feeling in the body rather than a sentence in the mind.

That blank space, those empty pages are what I am holding.

I am not there to fill it in for you.
Not there to suggest what should be written.
Not there to rush you into clarity.

I am there to protect the space where something new or long buried can begin to emerge.

Sometimes those empty pages are not even conscious.

You just know there is an ache. A tightness. A place you avoid.

When we come near that space, the body often speaks first.

Breath changes. Shoulders brace. Eyes drop.

Holding space means I stay steady right there.

I do not panic.
I do not distract.
I do not push you through it.

I help create enough safety for the blank page to remain open.

And then we wait.

What gets written might be words.
It might be a memory that finally forms.
It might be tears that arrive before language does.
It might be an image, a metaphor, a single sentence.

There is no prescribed format.

The page belongs to you.

Holding space is about respecting that the unwritten parts of your story have their own timing and their own intelligence.

It is about trusting that emptiness is not nothing.
It is potential.
It is protection.
It is the psyche waiting for the right conditions.

My job is to hold the quiet, sometimes painful, sometimes powerful space where your next page can take shape in whatever way it needs to.

That is what holding space means to me.

Trusting that when you are ready, you will begin to make your mark upon the page.