In reflecting on May’s workshop, I find myself much more interested in my experience of the whole weekend than the content. So, facilitators, take all this with a grain of salt. This is more about me than your facilitation.
The weekend was exhausting, physically. It started on Thursday, with cooking, cleaning, and prepping the spaces at Woodard Lane, and didn’t end until Monday afternoon. I have medical treatments that I do daily and, on the weekends, more so. From Thursday to Monday, I got less than 6 hrs of sleep a night. I won’t sign up for that again.
I was not able to be fully present. I got information, but I wasn’t fully present.
Communicating my ability or state of presence is something I have been personally working on for at least 5 years. It started with my spouse who is an external processor, and has been mostly regarding information. Do I understand? If I stop listening, for whatever reason, I’ve learned to use the time out symbol, to give me a break. My spouse gets it-they don’t want to be talking to someone who can’t listen anymore. We can pause, check to see what I’ve heard so far, and figure out what’s up for me.
What I’ve learned with my time in Connection Practice is that there’s at least two levels of presence: the capacity to take in information from another, and then there’s the capacity to sense my emotional/physical response. In a functional dyad I’ve come to think of it as actually a triad: my conscious self, my subconscious self, and my partner.
My subconscious is far more in control of my overall actions and thoughts than it feels like. I view my conscious mind as really a surfer on the ocean of the subconscious, weaving a story after the fact; trying to make a sense of my actions so I can explain them to others. It’s part of the protocols for communication. I understand this viscerally from my experience in improv. I can start any physical action, and almost instantly verbally justify what and why I’m doing it. We have amazing justification muscles.
I am also coming to the conclusion that this idea, that it’s really the subconscious running the majority of the show, is not a common one.
So far, my subconscious and conscious only seem to communicate with each other through images, sensations and metaphors. One of the things I have been practicing in Connection Practice is paying attention to those sensations, images and metaphors coming from my subconscious while at the same time listening to the information that another person shares. I am good at catching a person’s verbal story and reflecting it back accurately. Now I can frequently also share what part of their story triggered an emotion response in my body. At Connection Practice I get to see others whose gifts of social presence are inspiring, one person in particular has an uncanny ability to bring sensual metaphors to capture a complex social feeling.
Recently, I have begun using the skills as a dancer and actor to embody emotions through movement and voice. Emotions deeply repressed: isolation, helplessness, abandonment, and the rage that protects me from feeling them. All of which, I suspect, were useless in alleviating pain. It seems I learned at a preverbal stage that no one is coming and to self sooth. I don’t know what I am doing and I don’t know what to expect. I do have a somatically trained therapist to work with, but not in the studio. Nor do they know what to expect, despite their wise guidance.
It seems weird that my patience might come from a preverbal belief that no one is coming to care for me.
Perhaps coincidence, but since I started this somatic exploration, I have lost my patience three times. Notable, because I don’t lose my patience. I rarely get angry either. Calm and even keeled. Traits great for community living. Limiting for authentic relationships, and connecting. Honestly, I don’t have a lot of experience in managing impatience or anger.
Forgive me for all this personal process, it’s necessary for me convey in order to unpack and reflect on the weekend. Which I return to now…
Sunday morning the query was, “How do we take care that our spiritual growth is not sacrificed to busyness?” I don’t think I could really answer that question two years ago. For me spiritual growth is engaging intentionally in a dialog with my subconscious, emotional, and bodily (somatic) self. That’s one aspect of spiritual growth, another is bringing that dialog live into relationship with another. I’m sure there’s many more aspects to spiritual growth, but that’s what’s alive for me right now.
I experience my growth in somatic practice, Connection Practice, with my therapist, couple’s councilor, spouse and one friend. So, by Sunday afternoon the workshop had felt like exhausting busyness for me. The juicy, scary, uncomfortable, and glorious experiences I get from relating, were minimal during the weekend. It was in my memory mostly lecture. Good stuff too. But, for me, I have my soul fed on a regular basis; lectures have lost a lot of their appeal.
Toward the end of the workshop, we were closing with a round: each person briefly talking about their experience of the workshop. I don’t actually remember the precise prompt. One by one we heard participants learnings, until one participant stood up and spoke at length, longer than anyone else. It was hard to hear on zoom, but it sounded more like a lecture than a learning. I lost my patience, and even as one of the organizers of the weekend, I turned zoom off. I took care of myself; showered because I stank, ate because I was hungry, rested a bit because I had a dinner to prepare for and a debriefing as well. And it felt good. Simple. Whole.
That was the second time I had lost my patients.
The third was during the debriefing afterward.
After dinner we sat around the table, and each of us had spoken briefly about our experience of the workshop. I shared my thoughts that the workshop felt like busyness for me. As the discussion continued, the topic turned to the person who had stood to spoke at length at the end. One of our facilitators said that we should probably work with them. And that they need help shifting or changing perspectives. The exact wording, I don’t recall. But what I heard essentially was, “X needs to do this and this”.
This is heavy, and damn, I’m going to have to explain something else.
One of the two public agreements in Connection Practice is: No advising, helping, or trying to change anyone in the group. And it isn’t easy at the start. Advising and helping are what I’m supposed to do to be a good person. I’ve slowly learned that I can voice those impulses, “I’m noticing I have a strong impulse to help somehow- or give advice- and I’m going to let those go.” Sometimes the person really knows me, trusts me and will ask for my thoughts. But I’m fine if they don’t, because I’m here as an equal, a fellow seeker-not a helper. Learning to be with, to witness, to be touched, and to find curiosity.
I’ve taken this philosophy against advising and helping into other parts of my life. When my spouse was experiencing a deep transformative sorrow, I was able to simply be with, undistracted from a desire to alleviate her pain. I wonder now how much of my desire to help comes from my own desire not to experience another’s pain. Without the desire to help, I can find a deeper calmer place to be present from.
Fellow seeker. To be with fellow seekers, with no answers for each other, just humble curiosity; that feels like the embodiment of “seeking that of god in everyone”. God is a mystery. I have a mystery in me, that I unfold some of over my life. You have a mystery in you, that only you can explore because you are the only expert on you.
Because I have witnessed how seekers transform when held in a container structured to be confidential, where listening is verifier, where empathy and curiosity are encouraged, and advice is unwelcome, I have come to almost a worshipful relationship to “seeker fellowship”. As a Quaker, I have pondered what “speaking to that of god” in another means. I believe I have witnessed it in reflection, empathy and curiosity. I have seen how it touches people.
I return to the debriefing now.
To hear not just one but several voices chiming in on what “X” needs to realize, change, understand…
Well, it felt deeply disrespectful of the mystery that is this person. To be so prideful as to say I understand this person’s mystery better than they. And to proscribe.
I became angry. I said, you wouldn’t talk about this person this way if they were here to hear it. Several voices said, yes they would- and have.
By this time my body was in control. I pointed at the voices and said … that is a dynamic that you are playing a part in. Again, it’s hard to remember exactly what I said.
I was dysregulated by this point; meaning no information coming in.
I’m missing a piece in here, I said something trying to explain myself.
A facilitator started explain something regarding their statement about X. I couldn’t hear. I asked for what I needed, “would you be willing to reflect back to me what you heard?”
A very short and incorrect reflection was what I heard as a response, and then immediately back into explanation.
I said, “no, that’s not what I said.”
Could you tell me again what you said, they replied.
I wasn’t getting what I needed. So, I needed to care of myself and said so, and left the meeting.
And I felt glorious. Like something had broken free in me. The world was clearer. No, the world was just as unfathomable as ever – I was clearer. I was being true to myself, I was caring for myself and my truth, regardless of others- because of my love for others. Paradox (always a good sign for me). For my love of being in intentional relationship with others. For my love of connection.
Perhaps if I wasn’t so tired, I could have stayed present. Perhaps if connection wasn’t a newfound passion, I wouldn’t have been so passionate.
Perhaps if others could have read what I needed, asked about it, knew how to provide careful listening, empathy, and curiosity, we could have co-regulated.
This brings me back to my perennial question to the meeting as a whole, “how do we care for each other when we are dysregulated, when we can no longer hear each other?” I think the first part of getting to some answer is admitting that we all get dysregulated. We all lose the ability to be fully present, at times. I know for me it takes actual intention to be fully present, that it’s not my default in any way. I suspect that I’m not alone in this. To have some compassion for ourselves and other. Not to fix them- but to have those tender conversations about what we need when our presence slips. I’d wager that dysregulation isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. It’s how our subconscious speaks through our bodies.
P.S.
It’s been a week since I wrote this. I wanted to give me time to integrate. It comes at a time when I had already planned to step back from responsibilities to our meeting, and I’m afraid some might see my stepping back as a result of the rupture at the debriefing.
I have processed parts of this in at least four social sessions. I do believe there might be a difference in perspective between myself and several at the debriefing. I would like to explore that difference to understand if it is significant. I am sad that I don’t fully trust our facilitators to establish and hold a relational container. I haven’t seen it done yet. I’ve seen a firm container established, and I had hoped it would only be the first step toward deeper and deeper care, but I’ve seen no evidence of that.
I’m not sure where to go to explore this difference. I suspect if I don’t bring it up, it will silently disappear. And I wonder about that. I can see how another difference on top of all the historic conflicts and pain might be too much. I can see a deference to my own process. Embarrassment? My own? Others? Will it be an elephant or a gold fish in the room?