22. Hidden Holding
The first step in spiritual practice is to know ourselves to be lovable and allow ourselves to be loved.
— John Main, O.S.B
In the decades since my “tenderness opening” with Joko, I have continued to sit in meditation as a way of gradually accessing the presence I didn’t know as a child. Slowly, year-by-year, I have increasingly opened to the underlying tenderness of hidden holding, a presence I could never have imagined in my earlier life.
Through the years I have come to realize that psychotherapy and meditation practice are ultimately about the same theme: coming to trust that we are lovable and loved, that belonging is our original nature. Until and unless we begin to know this, nothing else actually matters. John Main says “the first step” is all about this learning.
I do not expect to ever move beyond this first step.
Michael Hills/Brisbane
This picture of a young child’s hands in the larger hands of his loving parent is the image I now look upon in order to be reminded of my deepest need. It is this image I bring with me into my daily meditation practice.
Until and unless I know the truth of holding, what I do with my life is just more of being busy and self-protective at Level One, trying to stay away from each “you’re unlovable and unloved” being whispered from Level Two.
This is big work.