Hold Holding Held

There are five aspects to holding.

One: To control, as in controlling or ‘holding ones breath’; to be able to manipulate, kill or do something with what is held; this includes holding onto something for support or protection.

Two: Ownership – this is mine to share or not.

Three: In touch with; knowing; having a ‘grasp’ of.

Four: Responsibility; left holding the baby; ones situation.

Five: Intimacy; taking to oneself, taking hold of oneself as in masturbation; as in second example.

This is complex. It might be that you are trying to control something – as when you hold your breath. You might be trying to control how you feel about someone or something – as when you hold on to something or someone in a dream.

Holding something enable you to manipulate, or create. So you need to define if what you are holding, or the way you are holding, in the dream, has this sort of quality.

Are you trying to protect something or someone by holding? Or are you holding in a possessive way? This might mean an attempt at ownership and not sharing.

Is the holding a sign or responsibility, as when you are holding a baby? Or is it an expression of tenderness, as when you are holding someone?

Holding something in your hand, apart from possession or control, can also mean you have access to it or have the experience of it.

The personality types that we hold within us. If we can tap them they are an enormous resource. Technically they are called Autonomous Complex, and hold in them such varied and spontaneous responses to life, that they have enormous creative potential if they can be met and expressed in a way that does not dominate or destroy the central personality. So it is helpful to integrate these disparate aspects of their personality and unconscious.

We can be held prisoners by our own beliefs, ideas, convictions and habits. Our real existence is formless and beyond conception. It is this realisation that frees us from the prisons of recrimination, of feelings of defeat, of ideas and words – even of constant failure. Being formless, there is no mood, no passion, no philosophy that can hold us. So we can slip away from the agony of guilt or self judgment, we can laugh at the phantom of being right or wrong. See Avoid Being Victims; Allowing the Spontaneous

Example: ‘I am a prisoner in a room with three boys aged three, five and fourteen. They seem to be my children. There are two prison warders, a man, a woman. The man was subservient to the woman who holds the keys and keeps control.’ The children are hungry and frustrated, keep asking me to free them. I asked the woman warder but she refuses, saying, “Sit down and keep quiet”. I suddenly got up, went over to the male warder and said firmly, surprising myself, ” There is no reason to keep these children here.  You are a man. Why don’t you assert your authority and free them?” The man warder got up, took the keys from the woman, who didn’t resist, opened the door, we went out. Carol J.

Example: ‘I was in a large removal van with a woman sat on my lap. I held her breasts with pleasure.’

In exploring his dream Don found that holding the woman’s breasts showed how he was holding onto and held by sexual pleasure. Holding the woman made him a passenger, and not directing his life. But when he let go he could be the driver. This led him to realise that he was tied to his sexual need like a dependency – a dependency that directed his life.

Idioms: can’t hold a candle; don’t hold your breath; get a hold of; have a hold over someone; hold a candle; hold a grudge; hold a meeting; hold back; hold down; hold forth; hold her liquor; hold in; hold it; hold me responsible; hold on; hold out for; hold that over my head; hold the fort; hold the phone; hold the purse strings; hold up; hold water; hold you up; hold your drinks; hold your hand; hold your horses; hold your mouth the right way; hold your nose; hold your own; hold your temper; hold your tongue; how you hold your; .no holds barred; the way you hold your mouth; hold-out; holding the bag

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are there ideas or convictions I hold onto like lifesavers?

What do you hold onto as if you own it?

What do you feel about control?

See Being in Control – Active Passive – Beware of Love – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – The Slow Breath