Conscious Living with Lucy
Through this podcast I engage in dialogue with spiritual practitioners, therapists, coaches, mental health and wellbeing professionals to support my mission in guiding people to live consciously in relationships with themselves, others and the world.
This podcast provides a platform to share the work of many wonderful souls working in service, offering their work to support people in discovering themselves and supporting them on their spiritual, healing and transformative journey.
Conscious Living with Lucy
The Transformative Practice of Holding Space
Chara Carruthers joins us to explore the transformative practice of holding space and the healing power of community. Drawing from her background as an Ayurvedic practitioner, yoga therapist, and transpersonal coach, she shares insights on creating a safe container for authentic human connection.
With warmth and wisdom, Chara shares her journey to becoming a facilitator of healing spaces and unpacks the three-layered model of holding space. Chara explains how circle work creates a unique container where participants can feel deeply, process authentically, and experience the medicine of genuine community – something increasingly rare in our individualistic Western culture.
Whether you're feeling disconnected, searching for authentic community, or wanting to develop your capacity to be present with others, this conversation offers practical wisdom and heartfelt inspiration. In Chara's words: "If you're feeling something is missing, seek out your people and make the effort to connect." Your journey to deeper connection begins with this episode!
If you're interested in learning more about Chara's work or working with her visit her website www.blissbodyandsoul.com and get in touch.
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Podcast Music created by Vitaliy Dominichenko
Title: Long Road Trip
To hear the full track and others from Vitaliy please visit https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=iuOM-gVaUgQ&list=OLAK5uy_lQQ7YHnzEbywBY3y4SOiPITLFqrXymtJo
Welcome. I'm Lucy, host of Conscious Living with Lucy podcast. Cara Carruthers is a skilled facilitator with decades of personal and professional practice as an educator, therapist and lifestyle medicine practitioner, working with groups and individuals. Her life and work is grounded in Eastern spiritual traditions, ancient and indigenous wisdom, and modern science and philosophy. Kara holds a master's degree in transpersonal psychology and professional certifications in psychedelics and transpersonal coaching psychology. Kara is a certified holding space practitioner and her work and research centers around holding space for psychedelic experiences. As a yoga therapist, Ayurvedic practitioner, Kara is passionately dedicated to building bridges between ancient lifestyle traditions and modern Western medical approaches to mental health and well-being. Kara believes that a loving and supportive community is a vital and often missing piece of the picture of well-being for so many.
Speaker 2:Wow, well, thank you. Thank you so much for having me as well. I think you know, when I look back over the years, I would have to say that my journey to this work began in the corporate world. For many years I was working in corporate environments and I had a sense from those environments about, you know just kind of how challenging those sorts of things, those environments, can be. And I do remember also just being having access or engaging kind of on a daily basis with folks who were really struggling and feeling that struggle myself. And so at some point I made the very difficult decision.
Speaker 2:I think that if I've had any existential crises in my life, I think the first one was leaving the corporate world and trying to. You know, kind of come to grips with who will I be if I'm not a member of this rat race, kind of thing. You know what? What do I? You know, if of come to grips with who will I be if I'm not a member of this rat race, kind of thing. You know, if I don't have this title, kind of, who will I be?
Speaker 2:But I did make that choice to step away, and I stepped away from that into the yoga world and ultimately choosing to become a yoga therapist and a yoga teacher first and then yoga therapist, and then I sort of found Ayurveda from from that work and that's the deepening into that study, and Ayurveda has sort of been the foundation of basically all of the work that I've been doing over the last I would say, what are we now?
Speaker 2:20, let's say? I would say probably the last 14 years, everything that I've been doing with individuals and groups has very much been informed by yoga and Ayurveda. But Ayurveda kind of more specifically as it relates to supporting people in choosing themselves, in making kind of healthier choices for themselves from a deeper understanding of who they are, and so that whole practice feels like a really small word for something that is so big. But that whole approach to observing yourself, learning yourselves in order to develop the courage to choose ourselves, that really kind of feels like where I am now and where I you know kind of the work that I do. Yeah, so that's kind of a it's a very much of an overview of it, but that kind of gives you a sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, wonderful, wonderful hearing about your journey and yeah, definitely, ayurveda and this approach and really getting helping people get to the core of who they are and using this as a foundation is wonderful. So, and obviously yoga and Ayurveda informs your work a lot. But can you just tell us a bit about holding space and what that means, because obviously there's lots of discussion as well around circle work, but I think these are different, distinct kind of practices. So, yeah, just a bit set in the kind of frame and the context about holding space and how that might differ to circle work.
Speaker 2:Sure. So you know, holding space is something that we all do in one way or another, and it's certainly like in the yoga, in the Ayurveda world or in the world of wellness. Holding space is a term that is pretty familiar, but more recently I've come in. By recently I mean in the world of wellness, holding space is a term that is pretty familiar, but more recently I've come in. By recently I mean in the kind of the last five years I've begun to deepen my study and my understanding and my practice of holding space. And so the you know, in terms of a definition of holding space which I might offer, just to kind of give you some context, there's a one of the teachers that I study with with her name is Heather Platt, and she's written a beautiful book called the Art of Holding Space, and in that book she draws from various traditions and various practitioners in the world health and well-being practitioners, psychology, et cetera to come. She's brought together all of that kind of wisdom into a definition of holding space which she basically says holding space it's walking, it's the willingness to walk alongside someone on whatever journey it is that they are on, without the need to change anything. Judge them, change them change anything, judge them, change them or change the path that they're on in any way, and that's kind of I'm butchering it a little bit, but that kind of gives you a sense for it and you know it's as a practice holding space is. You know it's engaged. It's engaged in many different ways. One of the ways that I've been engaging with holding space and one of the ways that I've learned a lot more about holding space and expanded my own understanding of what it is, my own practice of it and my own kind of larger capacity for years has included circles as a component of it, and part of the reason for that is because I believe so very much in the power of community and also because community has really touched me and you know it's been a really big part of my own growth. It's been a big part of my own yeah, my own kind of unfolding and evolution over the years.
Speaker 2:I came out of an environment where my parents split up when I was 12. I grew up with this deep belief that independence is the way, as you may or may not have guessed already, but just based on my accent, but I'm American, so grew up in, you know, in America and you know very much the undertone of you know what it means to grow up in America, what it means to kind of be American, is this idea that you know, this fierce kind of independence and this, you know, the sort of thing that is often rewarded. And so for me, you know, I grew up in an environment where I was very much intent on trying to make my own way in the world and take care of myself. And I think there were various moments in my life and one of which you're certainly in the middle of experiencing now is having children Having children, yes when I started to realize, ooh, having a community is probably going to be an important part of this Like it was the beginnings of me recognizing I can't do this alone and that my kids I had kids around 2004. They're now just, you know, just about to turn 21.
Speaker 2:But that was the beginning. You know that, that moment, that realization that I can't really do this alone, of my heart kind of cracking open and me softening to the idea that creating community could be a valuable thing for me. And so, you know, since then, and as I've sort of moved through the various, you know, work that I've been doing in my own kind of development as a practitioner and a mother and a friend and all the rest of it. I've had other very powerful moments of being in community and I've begun to realize, especially since COVID, that community is. I call community the medicine and so the way that I've experienced and been using that as a kind of as a tool for supporting other people has been actually in circles, online and in person circles, and it's been wonderful work. It's been really powerful stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can really relate to a lot of that the independence and, yeah, all of the things you describe. There's a lot of resonance there actually, so it's really interesting to hear that and also just that difference between holding space and being in circle as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when we're holding. So, as I was saying to you before, there are various kind of avenues for, or various situations in which you can hold space. There can be that one-on-one type of holding space and I think for many of us that's what we've had the most experience with, especially if you're a parent or a friend or you know even a sibling. You've had that. You may have had that experience of holding space for someone who is moving through what we would call liminal space. So they're moving through this, those place, those times in our lives when, when we can feel a little shaky, you know where there's maybe there's uncertainty or where we're in transition from one state or you know, to another, circle work offers us the opportunity to do it, to hold space not only for ourselves, but to also hold space for numerous other folks and to have space held for us.
Speaker 2:And that, for many of us, is a very it's a unique experience because in circle work it often, when we're holding space in circle, it really is about. It's about listening, it's about tuning into our and it's about regulating and all of these things happen one-on-one as well, but it almost. In some ways, it feels all of these things happen one-on-one as well, but it almost, in some ways it feels like when we're holding space in circle, it feels like it's upping the ante a little bit. It's sort of giving us because there's so much happening and so we're working to kind of regulate ourselves, we're working to listen deeply, we're working to feel very deeply, we're working to feel very deeply, but the you know circle as a tool for engaging in community is very old. No-transcript.
Speaker 1:Wonderful, Thank you. So what would you say? Make up, what are the kind of key ingredients to kind of holding space for others? You might have touched on some of it, but what would you say? You know, and also the qualities that the person holding the space needs to have.
Speaker 2:I guess they kind of interrelate a bit no-transcript layer is what the space holder, the person who's holding space, what they offer to either the group or the individual or whoever it is that they may be holding space for. And that includes things like some of the things that I've mentioned already. That includes things like, you know, being witness, offering, you know, witnessing to the individual, offering a sense of connection, offering what we call containment, and that may include various things. Sometimes it's about ritual, you know, when we talk about containment or something. Sometimes it's about boundaries, non-judgment, compassion, sometimes empathy. And then in the middle layer of the bowl and Heather's model is what guides the space holder, what guides us in the work that we do. And in that layer she talks about, she offers a few things.
Speaker 2:I can't remember everything, but what I do remember is honesty, intuition, discernment, so that ability and that capacity to feel into a situation and to be guided by our intuition. And then the outside layer is what supports the space holder and that I always remember, because in that there's only two things in that layer of the bowl, and that is community and mystery, and I really love that. And so a lot of the work that I've been doing is about exploring all of those different ideas and all of those different components and how they live in. You know the work that I do and how they live in in the way that I hold space for myself as well and, you know, allow myself to be supported as a practitioner yeah, that's wonderful.
Speaker 1:I love that way of describing it and you know all of those kind of core foundational things that you need. But also I really love that way of describing it and you know all of those kind of core foundational things that you need. But also I really love the openness of mystery and making space, because obviously you can be in it and doing all of the work, but then obviously integrating, because in my mind, integration is about, from an Ayurvedic point of view, integration is likened to digesting.
Speaker 2:So it's this process of kind of you know, kind of breaking down things and working through things, of kind of breaking down things and working through things.
Speaker 2:In Ayurveda, integration is this process of digesting digesting experience or information and what that means for people is it means a lot of things. Actually, it can mean breaking things down in terms of just beginning to understand the components of it, but what I like to do and support people around and what I see people really responding to is feeling something, and so as we increase our capacity to feel what's happening, feel the world around us, it also expands in our capacity for integrating life, integrating information, integrating experiences, and so that's often what I'm you know, the way that I'm working with people is really about that, and it can be as simple as asking people how does this feel for you, how you know, as they're processing information, as they're engaging with, as they're in the inquiry around things. And one of the ways I think that Circle working in Circle is quite supportive of that is that when you can sit and listen to another person talking about their life experience, talking about how something landed for them or where they're confused or how they're feeling, there's this invitation to feel yourself, and so that's one of the things I've certainly found is that the circle. You know that as a as a keep wanting to say venue, you know as a, as a kind of a situation for living and processing and learning and exploring what it means to be healthy or what it means to take care of yourself. What's been the most valuable part of it is that that, that opportunity to feel, to feel what's happening for another person, um, and then to from that feeling, it's that invitation to be vulnerable, you know, and doing that and sharing your own experience, you know, with others, and so that's again what holding space is about. You know it's this safe space for people to explore these things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And also, as you were talking, I was thinking about, because most of the work I do as well is, you know, it's the work with ourselves first, always starting with ourselves, others, and then taking this out into the world. And I was just thinking about holding space, being in circle, trying to integrate that and how this can facilitate that process of you know, you're holding space, you're doing your kind of individual work, but then you have the kind of circle to help. You know, testing that out in relationships and then taking that further and you know, the integration. I guess I see that as part of that as well. That's also the integration as you've described it. But also I'm just wondering about, you know, how are we integrating that knowledge first within ourselves and, you know, with others and out wider into the world?
Speaker 2:so, if you want to touch on that at all, how you've seen that happening with people, how it goes beyond this kind of initial holding space and yeah, you know, one of the things that I've in my, in my study of everything and in my kind of practice of living, one of the things that I have come to recognize is, no matter what it is we're doing, if we're, if we're seeking to, you know, to support others, to be of service in the world, you know, even to hold space for, you know, our, our children or our, you know, partners or those, the folks that we, that we love, everything begins with ourselves, just like what you're saying, everything begins with our own practice.
Speaker 2:Everything begins with our, with creating a, a sense of groundedness and stability within ourselves.
Speaker 2:As I'm saying this, I'm thinking about the Sanskrit word that we use in Ayurveda, for what it means to be healthy is svasta, and svasta means it's translated to mean to be established in the self, and so what it really means is, you know, we think about healthy everything, we think about healthy individuals and healthy communities, and you know, whatever it may be, but the reality is that it all begins with us. It all begins with the work that we do on and for ourselves, and so for me, that has been gosh. You know when I think about, you know when you're talking about my origins in this work. I think that first, that first developing that courage to step away from that unhealthy corporate environment was, you know, was definitely one of the one of the big steps for me. I can see that now and then, you know, from there, over the years, I've certainly developed my own practices that include yoga and self-inquiry. I've just come back from spending about a week in Dubai. I spent about three days in the desert on a vision quest.
Speaker 2:Oh, amazing Out in the middle of nowhere and fasting and in the middle of nowhere, and I remember talking to people about this and, of course, there's some people who are like, oh my gosh, like you, they're like, oh my, that sounds amazing.
Speaker 2:And there's other people that are like, why would you ever want to do that? And, honestly, having that opportunity to experience that level of silence, that level of stillness, really did for me. It gave it totally gave me a clear sense of all of the things that I do to take care of myself, all of the you know, everything, from the yoga practice or the breath work or the, you know whatever, the healthy eating or, you know, this spending time in community that I was able through that, through, you know, taking that time out, to really experience a deep stillness. I was able to understand how all of the other things that I choose to do, how they also serve me and how they're also kind of just smaller experiences of that same kind of support. And so, yeah, there's many ways, you know that we can engage with this, but yeah, Sounded very a deep and profound experience you've just had.
Speaker 1:But, as you say, because you've got all of these practices, you can go quite deep, deep with it and holding that space for yourself as well, and that's really what it was. Yeah, it was holding space for myself, for yourself as well, and that's really what it was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was holding space for myself, you know, and that's not easy. It's not an easy thing and I think that's part of the reason why, um, you know, so many folks are are challenged because, yeah, being able being asked first to, to turn inward and hold space for yourself is that, for many reasons, this is not an easy thing and you've got no people to care for and responsibilities and various other things in life to be looking through and you don't necessarily have the tools.
Speaker 1:I mean, if you've been on this work and you're in this journey and this work and you're interested in it, but if you're not as well, and then you know something's coming up, but you don't know, you don't have the toolkit right, so it starts with you. Yeah, wonderful Thank you.
Speaker 1:I just want to touch on. I don't know if this relates or not to kind of holding space, but I'm just wondering about kind of Western approaches to this and indigenous approaches, and you know how they might differ. Or is holding space a kind of? Does it incorporate both aspects? Aspects, and then also, how do we make sure, if it is touching on Indigenous practices, that we kind of respect and honour these, because there's lots of cultural appropriation with some of these practices and I think it's very important that we honour the roots. So that's probably five questions.
Speaker 2:I think holding space as a practice is, it's an inherently human thing to do. You know, and we know this, we get this because you know I think about. You know, when my children were first born, you know, there's always this like I don't know what I'm doing, but, you know, somehow we figure out what we need to do. You know we're able to touch in or to connect to something within us that helps us, that guides us through all of that stuff that I mentioned witnessing and non-judgment, and compassion and all the rest of it. So I think that you know, being that, holding space is kind of an inherently human thing, it's something that we all, we have all practiced and we all have the capacity for. When it comes to, when we look at kind of the more cultural expressions of holding space, which is kind of what I'm hearing you kind of asking about in the Western world, as I've touched on before, with that whole idea of like independence, I think the way that we hold space and the way that we see holding space is slightly different. It's, it can be more transactional in the Western world. You know, when we you know, yes, we have friends and yes, we have family and people who might normally hold space for us. But if we think about our origins or even if we think about more kind of traditional, you know, cultures, the way that they relate to holding space for each other is kind of slightly different to the way that we do that we look at it in the Western world In that, you know, we pay people to sit and listen to our problems or to offer us advice or keep us accountable for our own well-being, whereas in some, you know, indigenous communities and more traditional communities. That's a part of, that's the role of the community and the entire community understands that and the entire community embraces that, that and the entire community embraces that. And so I think, you know, I think at the moment we're kind of, we're kind of living in our two separate camps, but there are places in there are little kind of enclaves, of places in the in the world, in the Western world, where you know I think about some, some yoga spaces or various things where we may start to. You know, I think about some yoga spaces or various things where we may start to. You know where we may.
Speaker 2:I don't necessarily want to say appropriate, but I kind of do, because you know some of even circle work. You know, the idea of sitting in circle has its origins in, you know, indigenous populations and indigenous cultures, and so there can be those moments, especially as we are beginning to kind of embrace things like circle work, you know afresh. Or there can be those moments where we start to incorporate aspects that aren't really informed by our relationship to the land. Or you know the same things that would have informed indigenous, popular or indigenous cultures and developing their own rituals and various things around that. And so I do think that that can be, there can be some danger around that.
Speaker 2:You know where you see people, you know you know creating circles and dancing and doing various things that aren't necessarily attached to their own culture or their own ancestry or various things like that, and I do think it's important, I do think we have to be quite aware of that and that it makes sense to.
Speaker 2:I don't know like there's part of me that wants to say I'm buoyed at that sort of thing. I think awareness is the most important thing, because the foundations of holding space is what I was mentioning to you before. You know, that idea of witnessing and compassion, and so if we allow our attention to rest there. In other words, if we, if we become intentional about offering, you know, witnessing and those other things, as opposed to, maybe, some of the thinking. It needs to look a certain way, you know, have ceremony or do you know what I mean, or be attached to certain things, then we can, you know, we can engage with this idea of holding space in a way that's that's pure and in a way that's authentic to us, as opposed to you know we can engage with this idea of holding space in a way that's pure and in a way that's authentic to us, as opposed to, you know, informed by something outside of our own experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense, you know. So, just yeah, and obviously, and also just acknowledging, you know sometimes the roots of things and, like you say, then finding your own way, so it becomes authentic as well. Yeah, wonderful, thank you. I feel like I could talk to you all day. You probably could. So much I know, I know. So I'm just conscious of time as well.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I guess it would just be good to hear about anything else really about your work that you would like to share so that other people can hear about. It would be great. And I think, yeah, as we kind of start to draw to a close, because otherwise I feel I'll keep you talking all night.
Speaker 2:I think I appreciate the opportunity, appreciate the opportunity. What I think you know what's there for me is what we've been talking about this whole time is this is the importance of community and the importance of finding that and the importance of creating that connection in our lives in whatever way we can. And so, for me, these days my work is very much centered. All the work that I'm doing various, all the various places and the various situations is centered around really exploring the power of community and, for all the various levels of mental, for impacting our mental and physical health, for impacting the health and well-being of our communities and, ultimately, of our world.
Speaker 2:And I think that there are so many things in our world these days that really want to distract us from really feeling the pain and the impact of the disconnection that we're kind of living through. You know, we've got we've got TV and we've got social media. We've got all these various things. We've even got, you know, some of the drama associated with politics and various other things that are happening in the world. But I think you know what I'm wanting to do these days, more than anything, is just bring people together, just invite them to feel the power of being in the same room with another person. You know our group of people talking about things that matter and inviting people to just feel the impact of that, even if it's in a Zoom room.
Speaker 2:I've done so much amazing work with other people, and I'm sure we've all experienced that, that power of connecting with another, even in the Zoom space, and so, yeah, that is also amazing, isn't it? And so I think you know, if there's anything that I would want people to kind of take away from this conversation is that is the importance of you know making that effort to connect and to acknowledge that who they are is a relationship with the world around them, and you know, if they're in any way feeling like something is missing, to seek out a group or seek out another, find their people and make the effort to and I think that's yeah, and I think that's important as well, because lots of people don't have that opportunity.
Speaker 1:So so, knowing you know, especially the way in the Western world society is set up, as you were mentioning, you know, with the independence and all of that and busyness, there's not always time and if that is really a need and that people can look for groups online to provide that space, groups online to provide that space.
Speaker 2:Yeah, online in your name, in your, you know, in your neighborhood next door, even in your very own house, even in your very own home, yeah, making that effort to um, yeah, to lean in and to embrace the community around you as a support wonderful and I will share your details of how people can connect with you because you offer.
Speaker 1:Actually, do you want to say just about the work that you offer? Obviously you hold space, but you know just maybe some specifics so people can know what they can reach out to you about sure.
Speaker 2:So at the moment I am I'm actually at a liminal space myself, so so at the moment I am a practicing Ayurvedic practitioner, so I support people who are interested in learning more about Ayurveda and about using or employing Ayurveda in their own lives for health and well-being. So I do consultations, individual consultations, I teach, so I also do courses for people on RNAi and AIDA and I am a transpersonal coach and so I'm also supporting people in that respect. You know, around different and I, it's all kind of coming, it all kind of works together, and so it's really, I guess, the best way to say it is if, for those folks who are interested in um support for transformation whether that be, you know, transforming some way that they're feeling that they don't want to feel, or exploring um their own potential I kind of support using all of the tools that I've been talking about today. I use those to support people.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, wonderful, Thank you. Thank you so much, and I will share the link to your website so people can reach out to you should they wish. So, yeah, I'll draw our conversation to a close, but before we do, is there any kind of short practice or meditation you would just like to run us through?
Speaker 2:You don't have to, or just a final quote or word or something yeah, um, I suppose you know when I think about a short practice, I think about you know, I was saying to you before how I'm inviting. I often like to invite, invite people to feel, and so I would invite people you know as they're, you know, maybe, as they're beginning to transition away from listening to this conversation, maybe even just to take a pause and close their eyes and tune into how they feel at the end of this conversation. How has this landed for you? What are the sensations that you're feeling in your body? Because I do feel like we don't take enough time to feel the impacts of the choices that we make for everything that we consume. So I would do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wonderful, so true as well. We obviously just get stuck in the cognitive brain and don't really notice how it's feeling at a deeper level. So wonderful. Thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure.
Speaker 2:Same. Thank you, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Thank you, take care.