Growing Large Enough to Hold It

Lately I’ve been returning to an idea that has quietly shaped both my own life and the way I practice therapy:

We don’t find peace by making uncertainty disappear. We find it by growing large enough to hold it.

One podcast I return to again and again is Living Myth, hosted by storyteller, mythologist, and cultural thinker Michael Meade. Drawing from Jungian psychology, mythology, folklore, and archetypal wisdom, he explores the deeper patterns unfolding beneath our personal lives and the collective challenges of our time.

Rather than offering quick answers or self-help strategies, his work invites us to become more curious, more spacious, and more deeply rooted in ourselves.

In one episode, Meade reflects on how easy it is to become fragmented when the world around us feels fragmented.

We naturally look for certainty. For answers. For something solid to stand on.

Yet moments of upheaval can also become invitations—opportunities for a deeper, wiser part of ourselves to emerge if we’re willing to stay present instead of collapsing into fear.

That deeply resonates with how I think about healing.

So often we believe the goal is to eliminate anxiety, grief, confusion, or ambivalence.

But what if the invitation is different?

What if healing is becoming spacious enough to make room for all of it?

For certainty and mystery.

For grief and gratitude.

For fear and curiosity.

For not knowing and continuing anyway.

I’ve come to believe that emotional maturity isn’t having fewer difficult feelings. It’s developing the capacity to stay soft and open in their presence without abandoning ourselves.

There’s an important distinction there.

Making room for uncertainty doesn’t mean we don’t act.

Making room for grief doesn’t mean we don’t seek joy.

Making room for fear doesn’t mean we allow fear to make every decision.

And making room for complexity doesn’t mean everything becomes equally true.

It simply means we don’t have to exile parts of our experience in order to feel whole.

The world may continue to feel uncertain. Our own lives will certainly continue to contain things we cannot predict or control.

But perhaps steadiness doesn’t require certainty.

Perhaps it comes from knowing that we can remain with ourselves even when we don’t know what happens next.

That we can feel deeply without being consumed.

That we can hold seemingly contradictory truths.

That we can stay curious a little longer before reaching for an answer.

That we can remain soft without losing our center.

That’s the practice.

Not certainty.

Presence.

A Simple Grounding Practice: Make Room

Take one slow breath.

Let your shoulders soften.

Notice what is here without trying to change it.

Now quietly ask yourself:

What am I making no room for?

Whatever comes to mind, simply acknowledge it.

I see you.

Take another slow breath and imagine your awareness becoming just a little wider—wide enough to include this feeling without being consumed by it.

There’s nothing to solve right now.

Just notice.

Just breathe.

Just make room for all of it.