Being held.

I recently had a professional supervision session. For us arts based therapists, this means we get to inquire into what we are wanting to know more about i.e. challenges in our role as practitioners. We use arts-based inquiry to do this… of course! I love the way our professional not only talks the talk, we walk the walk too. I forgot how profound it is to be facilitated and held in spaces of the unknown.

I went into the session feeling like I had limited compressed internal space; exasperated but no space. I came out of it feeling spacious, hopeful and seen. Nourished! Yes, fed.

A process slowly revealed itself to me the more I trusted it. A process that began with a series of gestures, using my whole body, because there were no words yet. I then shifted the gestures to paint and unprimed canvas. Urgent dark black/green mark-making. Discomfort. Urgent red pastel and then into repetitive red and peach arks, looking to self-soothe.

Still no words. Just a feeling of unease and confusion. I turned the canvas over. Noticed the seeping through of the paint to the other side. And onto the protective paper below. Back and forward I flipped the canvas. I was searching for something.

The seeping paint became its own thing. A thing in its own right. The paint had soaked through two pieces of protective layers. Protective took on a different meaning. Around and around the seeping paint, I gave it a soft holding container of pastel lines.

Repetition again. And around and around for the second seeping page: this time a well-defined line after line of pastel. ‘Supported’, I wrote.

I sat with my three works. Something had shifted within. My breath was deeper with a sense of calm. I leant into my newly reclaimed edges on the page and in my body. My supervisor worked her magic of holding this unknown space for me and we both sat in silence with gratitude for the process.