While navigating challenging times, (family health crises, disruptions in travel, unexpected financial expectations) I have noticed something about partnership.
It helps when one person is able to hold a steady state of coherence for the partnership. It is not always the same person. The role shifts and adapts to the strength and capacity of each individual in the moment. One becomes the steady voice, the calm perspective There is one who recognizes that it is time to remain grounded, hold the course, and bring forward the coherence of the light. This, to me, is true partnership. The ability to recognize when it is your turn to hold the field, and when it is your turn to rest within it..held and protected.
One day, I watched two of our horses resting together. One was lying down in the sun while the other remained standing nearby. Both were resting. Neither was striving. It reminded me that perhaps holding the field doesn't always look like doing more. Maybe it looks like remaining in coherence.
Then another thought followed.
What happens when there is no one to hold the field with you?
The single parent. The only child caring for aging parents. The person navigating illness, grief, or uncertainty on their own.
Watching horses has taught me that companionship matters. When a horse is separated from its herd, it often develops other ways of coping with stress. Pacing. Chewing. Shutting down. Hypervigilance. We don't judge those behaviours before considering the circumstances because we understand that they are responses to an unmet need.
What if we offered people the same grace?
We can't always see the full picture. We don't always know who is carrying life's challenges without someone to help hold the field, or who has learned to cope in the only ways available to them. The behaviours we witness are often only the visible expression of a story we know nothing about.
Perhaps we can become compassionate observers. Choosing curiosity before judgment amd presence before assumption. Remembering that every behavior has a context, even when we cannot see it.
Whether someone has a partner beside them or is carrying more than we realize on their own, perhaps the invitation is the same: to meet ourselves and one another with a little more compassion. We never truly know the whole story.
~ From Jolaine, with love
