I love how the English language has words and ways of expressing things that bring so much precision and simplicity in communication.

I especially remember when the expression “hold onto” came to my awareness and opened up a new understanding of the way I was living in my body. I was superficially aware of words and experiences of ‘tension’ and ‘stress’, but I wasn’t fully aware of the fact that we can “hold onto” things both in our body and in our mind, which may lead to states of stress and illness.

This revolution came about when I started participating in Universal Medicine events and began to hear this expression and its close friends, “hardening”, “becoming hard”, “bracing” and “holding tight”.

Since 2008, I´ve been unfolding and deepening my understanding of all these terms and the extent to which I am governed by them. Thanks to many different tools presented during Universal Medicine events, and through experiencing some Esoteric Healing Therapies and modalities, I got to feel and accept that holding onto had been a very normal, consistent and debilitating way of living in my body. I had lived with a very tangible feeling of hardness and tension, with an unbearable anxiousness underneath, that I hadn´t truly acknowledged. I remember bringing this holding onto to my sleep, with the bracing of my arms and tightening of my jaw.

I traced it all back to an event that was outstanding in my personal history of holding tight. When I was two years old, I went with my family on a trip by boat to some islands in the Caribbean. There were nine people altogether, the boat was small and we hadn’t brought life vests or oars with us. On our way back to the continent´s coast we ran out of petrol, were nearly shipwrecked, yet managed to arrive on a desert island later in the evening and spent the night there. It might sound like an adventure, but it was actually pretty scary. I especially remember how cold the night was and the out of control feelings of desperation and despair from my parents and adults involved. Today I still have vivid feelings of the bracing and holding onto the boat, each other and to life by everybody, including me. This experience, at such a young age, marked me deeply and left a trauma in my body that I have been carrying and that has been influencing many of my responses and reactions to situations throughout my life.

This was just a one-off event that represents the beginning of a life of control, feeling unsafe and defenceless, having needy attachments to people and things, and holding tight in order to defend and protect against threats and unknown dangers, people and situations.

The mechanism of holding onto can be easily felt in our bodies in the form of pain, stiffness of muscles and body parts, tension, illness, shallow breath, weakened body systems, anxiety and so on. It not only has a visible impact on the way we live and move in our human bodies, but also is discernible in many of our behaviours and ways of being.

For instance, when we feel threatened in any way, shape or form, we react by holding onto something, whether that be a relationship, a job, a position, a role, a house, a habit, a place, a group of people, a certain food, a drug, negativity, isolation, a wish, a belief, an idea or a project. It is like an automatic reaction in our attempt to feel safe, protected, and comfortable, and to have control over the outcomes and investments of the situation in which we find ourselves.

When something bothers us or when we feel uncomfortable in a situation, encounter or conversation, we tend to close off, hold our chest up, breath more shallowly, hold tight and harden in our body so as not to go there, nor feel and deal with whatever issue or truth is surfacing.

When we fall into self-doubt, feel rejected or have trouble in relationships, we tend to hold stuff, criticism and even little resentments against others. If we get obsessed with a plan, goal or aim, we hold onto an image, expectation, method or strategy. We become fixated and easily lose perspective.

We could extend the list, but what is interesting is to see the variety of things we can hold onto, ranging from muscles, limbs, ideas, beliefs, patterns of behaviour, places, wishes, objects, people, `buts,´ issues against ourselves and others, and so on.

It feels as if all of human life is about `holding onto´ something so we can keep our existence valid through productions, creations, designs, dramas and struggles. All of this is lived through our bodies, which at some point become ill and die. No matter how tenacious our attempt to hold onto life is, matter gets transformed because in the end, matter is energy and follows energetic laws.

Is it not then an illusion to pretend we can hold onto things, have control over outcomes and keep living comfortably aloof from the astonishing order and mystery of the universe?

What sort of energy or what quality of energy are we using to keep our existence going? Could it be that by `holding onto´ we are not controlling anything?

When we go into control or try to hold onto something, we make our bodies feel dense and heavy, our particles move more slowly and their vibration declines.

Could it be that we find assurance and comfort in this density, compression and seemingly rock-solidness, because at the root of our human psyche we feel deeply insecure and empty? Could it be that what we are “holding onto” is “holding onto denseness”?

This concept of holding onto denseness may seem challenging to our everyday concrete experience, but what if such reflections have the potential to awaken us to a greater and deeper understanding of why we are currently living on this planet and choosing to be much less than who we truly are?

Thanks to the Teachings of the Ageless Wisdom and amazing presentations given by Serge Benhayon in the Living Sutras of the Hierarchy, I have been awakened to another reality that can be actually lived in this plane of life, that is completely applicable to our reality and THAT is truly evolutionary.

By Luz Helena Hincapie, Bogotá, Colombia

Further reading:
Holding onto denseness
Harden Up Wuss, What Are You Made Of! Real Men & Putting On The Tough Act
Letting Go of An Old Way Of Protecting Myself
Goodbye Hardness – Hello Spaciousness