Escaping the enmeshed relationship

My mother did not allow me to develop a personality independent from hers. My attitudes, opinions and desires matched hers. I rarely had any idea what I was feeling. Though we had moved several times, and local people spoke with a different accent, I spoke with hers, and still do. She died when I was 29, and years after that I decided it was time to rebel against my parents. I last voted the way they voted in 2010, though my politics had been diverging for years.

Do not resent the world.
Respect it.
Dance with it.

I still do not know who I am, but I am learning. I do not fit the mask my mother clamped on me. I am fey and feminine, and my mother brought me up to make a man of myself. The enmeshed relationship makes boundaries difficult. I was allowed no boundaries. Even now I have difficulty understanding the concept, leave alone- I understand the phrase is “creating healthy boundaries,” but have the foggiest idea what that might mean.

I have conflicting desires that I do not understand. My friend said, “It’s as if you want to merge into the background in the most eyecatching way possible”. I want to hide away, and I do. And I want to be seen: three times I spoke to hundreds of people last weekend.

The inner critic is quieter. It still says, “’enmeshed relationship’ is a diagnosis, you have no qualification to say that”. Well, I have no qualification in psychology, and I know what I experienced. It says, “Why are you still on about that? Why go round in circles?” And I reply, I still go on about that because you resist. I will stop dwelling on this when I have cleansed it, when I am merely myself. And, “I want to cultivate flowers as well as pull up weeds”.

I went to the Yearly Meeting, and looked forward to it for months, and Friends there noticed how tense I was. I played a part in our discernment, and am pleased with my ministry, recorded in The Friend. I like the idea of “Caste” rather than privilege: it is to whom you defer, and whom you expect to defer to you, unconsciously.

I stayed with Friends on Saturday night, and walking from Hammersmith tube to the bus station we passed three beggars. My friends gave them a few coins. I do not use cash any more, and gave nothing. One used a loud desperate pleading, almost a scream, which I find disturbing thinking of it days later. Returning, I looked out the window of the bus then the tube at the passing city, delighting in the rapidly changing impressions. My feelings flow better. I see them more clearly.

On Tuesday I went to the supermarket, and rather than merely put off going I felt the anxiety. Feeling it is so much better than being affected by it unconsciously. So I did what I had to do. And my inner critic says, “How trivial”. Well, I am where I am. I feel this is progress.

Someone ministered that the Way is not a straight road. Surrounded by darkness, having no idea where we are, we wait, pray, listen, and God shows the next risky footstep.

I love “Inside No. 9”, and this week’s episode is particularly good. You see the man with his ridiculous haircut and his pursed lips turned downwards, in the dark, old-fashioned house, and think, “Who is this weirdo?” At the end, he takes his first steps towards freedom, and I was moved to tears because it is a road I am walking too.

I would love it to be easy. Is it that, hiding away is my mother’s way, wanting to be seen is mine? That is an attractively simple view, and I am not sure of it yet. Even if I were wholly my own woman, there might still be paradoxes and inner conflict. The way to freedom is through accepting my own feelings, however challenging, threatening or incomprehensible I find them.

And I can. At any moment, I can step into the presence of my inner light. I do it when talking- sometimes I wear a mask, sometimes I speak from the heart. So, why do I not speak from the heart, all the time? What frightens me about it? What does- the other way of being- do for me?

My sexuality is completely different from what I was taught was right and acceptable. I want to be sexually overwhelmed, I want to be taken by a strong woman, and that was such a challenge to my fragile sense of self that I could only admit it within the last twelve years, though I had hints of it in the 1980s. So I have never really had a satisfying sexual relationship. Bound so tightly, I would have been a dreadful parent, though my true self, soft, gentle, peaceful, loving, creative, graceful, would make a wonderful parent. I feel such terrible loss, and waste of potential.

With that woman, I wanted a relationship, I wanted romantic involvement, and it appears she just wanted sex. I am complaining about “Of course I’ll still love you in the morning,” which as a cliché may be outdated. It activates so many of my insecurities. Yes. I am claiming to be a woman, with a woman’s reactions. Not all women, maybe. Not how women ought to be, necessarily. Yes I was born with testicles. And I am a woman, reacting as women so often do.

This is who I am.
I am Clare.
I am a woman.

Wrist chakra

I have chakras on my wrists. I know they are there, because I feel them. At my most confident and energetic, I walk with my wrists turned out, feeling the energy and beauty in them. When I am feeling particularly sensitive, I sense it in my wrists.

What have others to say?

Wrist Chakra sells pendants, bracelets and ornaments to help with your spiritual growth. Wearing a Buddha bracelet brings awareness of the divine power of the Universe, it tells me, but also that there are seven chakras, all along the spine, none of them in the arms.

Searching for wrist chakra gives references to the seven, which mostly sell such jewellery. You wear crystal bracelets on your left wrist to absorb the crystal’s energy into your aura, and on your right wrist to remove negative energies or manifest positive energies in the world.

Your Body Has the Answer explains that each finger represents a different chakra of the seven. The palm is the crown chakra, and the wrist is the root chakra. YBHA teaches Kinesiology, which finds energy imbalances in the body through muscle monitoring.

Healthline, a proper scientific website about health whose articles are medically reviewed, tells me of the seven main chakras- root, sacral, solar plexus, heart, throat, third eye and crown. These spinning discs of energy should stay open, and if they are blocked there will be imbalances in our lives. Fortunately there are yoga poses- some of which I could not begin to attempt- to clear such blockages.

The root chakra, which YBHA tells me is echoed by the wrist, is located in the coccyx or perineum, and means physical identity, stability and grounding. I could relate that to my Vulnerability being located in my wrists: Grounding and vulnerability are linked. The illusion of being strong and invulnerable, which took more and more work to sustain until it became impossible, required me to be unaware of my own feelings and what was really going on in my world. Grounding, being centred and aware, means being in my vulnerability.

Or, wanting to be invulnerable, fearing so much, if I am grounded in reality and in my body I will feel vulnerable.

Chakras info tells me of hand chakras, but not one in the wrist. It is mostly interested in the chakras in the palms of the hands, which energy healers may use to scan, or to transmit healing energy. “Supercharge your chakras now,” an advertisement commands us. Well and Good relates the ring finger to the root chakra, and sells rings to tap into creative energy and abundance.

The yoga center heals wrist problems such as carpal tunnel syndrome through the heart chakra.

Healthline says some say there are 114 chakras, so that is my next search. The results tell me of the flow of energy, or prana, through the body but not of wrist chakras.

You may not have a chakra on your wrist, but the idea has meaning and value to me. I sought out paintings to illustrate this post, and it is difficult: where wrists are bare, normally the back is shown. Adelina Patti, by James Sant, shows the delicious vulnerability of the inner wrist.

Sant, James; Adelina Patti; National Portrait Gallery, London; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/adelina-patti-157866

Talking to the vax-hesitant

I know people willing to listen to anti-vaxxers. I support vaccination. How should I argue? Well, whom do you trust?

I trust us spiritual types, people who are on a spiritual journey, or who take our personal growth seriously, to understand what it means to be human. We’re in touch with the Ineffable. We’re the guys! But, generally I trust people to mean well. We’re all doing our best under difficult circumstances, which can mean doing some pretty shoddy things if we don’t know better or are in trouble, but generally we do our best. So I trust people unless shown I should not.

I trust the scientific method. People imagine what might be going on, then test their hypotheses. With new information they understand better. Sometimes they get things badly wrong, but generally knowledge improves. Generally, I trust scientists attached to universities to seek the truth because they are competitive, and it is a huge risk for someone to say something provably wrong.

These researchers are human. They proclaim their successes as loudly as they can and minimise their mistakes. But there are others around who will point it out when they are too full of themselves.

There is misinformation about. On climate change, all the misinformation is by “climate sceptics”. There is no-one spreading myths that climate change is worse than it actually is. On 29 June, Lytton in British Columbia, a village of 250 people, reached 49.6 °C. On 30 June most of it was destroyed by wildfire. Now, British Columbia is suffering catastrophic floods. I don’t think there’s a conspiracy, just people know they can make money by casting doubt on global warming, or by minimising it, or saying it is too costly to do anything about it. So they lie and twist.

There is misinformation about vaccines generally. There is the claim that vaccines cause autism. Autism is a gift. I have autistic friends. Any disability they suffer is because of society not meeting their needs properly. Like most people, if their needs are met they will flourish and contribute to society.

There is misinformation about covid. The idea that 5G phone masts cause covid, for example, leading people to attack masts. Well, viruses and bacteria cause illnesses. I knew that in primary school. It comes back to trust. Generally I trust primary school teachers to mean well. It’s a job you go into to improve children’s lives. Now it’s personal for me, as my father was a primary schoolteacher.

Some of the false information about covid is unintentional. People who mean well get things wrong. Part of the problem is politicians and journalists wanting immediate answers because this disease is serious. It killed a thousand people a day in England in January. But often there are no answers, because it is a new disease. So scientists give their best guesses.

Vaccines are not a perfect solution. They might only have a 60% efficacy against symptomatic infection. Variants come along, and the vaccine becomes less effective. But I understand how they are supposed to work- by injecting bits of the virus, which cannot infect you, but which the immune system will recognise. I am glad of my TB jab because my grandfather died of TB, and I have spent time with a TB sufferer. I understand vaccines make infecting others, or needing hospital treatment, less likely, and I trust the sources that tell me that.

There is wrongdoing around vaccines. The CIA used a vaccine campaign in Pakistan to try and find Osama bin Laden, setting back the fight against polio. But I know that Bill Gates is not injecting trackers into people, because a tracker would have to be much larger.

I don’t trust Big Pharma to act in the interests of all of humanity. It may charge too much when it has a monopoly on a drug. It ignores medical problems where it can’t make a profit. But I do trust it to try to reduce suffering and prolong life, because that is where it makes its money. It is not wholly trustworthy. Vioxx was introduced in 1999 as a painkiller for arthritis, but increased the risk of heart disease. Eventually the risks were found, the drug was withdrawn, thanks to researchers independent of the drug companies. Victims are suing.

But that doesn’t mean that I take on trust the word of every independent researcher who proclaims covid a hoax. In my view the preponderance of the evidence I can assess is in favour of vaccination generally, including against covid. I don’t trust social media because I know it amplifies climate sceptics, Donald Trump’s big election lie, anti-trans campaigners, and all sorts of falsehood. I know the Guardian, the BBC and the New York Times get things wrong. Whenever you know about a subject and a journalist introduces it you hear all they get wrong. But I trust them generally to mean well.

The question is the balance of trust, when people can make mistakes (including us, oh wise ones. You’ve made mistakes, haven’t you?) On balance, I trust universities and their researchers.  I do reiki, I trust my immune system, and I trust the vaccine improves my chances against covid.

We are human beings. We see in a riddle, dimly: sole judge of truth in endless error hurled. We aren’t capable of full knowledge. But we are social animals who generally mean well, because that is the way to get on in societies that prosper. I trust my primary schoolteachers who told me viruses cause disease. I trust those clever [people] at Oxford. I trust vaccines to give me and my society some protection from covid.

The Anti-maskers

I wear a face mask, because mask-wearing protects people from covid. I could not evaluate it for myself, I have to take that on trust, and here are two articles which persuade me to wear one. Cloth masks are imperfect but make a difference, I say, even if I could not explain perfectly what that difference was. It’s also the law, and public expectation, to wear a mask. I see a few face shields, and I imagine they are useless, as aerosol droplets small enough to float in air will go past them. I am aware of reasons not to wear a mask including lip reading, or the fear some will have with something covering their face. Masks are not perfect protection, but I think it’s on balance better to wear one.

It would help if we had a decent government. In the US, Trump is more concerned to stir division and win on 3 November than to save lives. In Britain, the government seems too concerned with image, its testing never matching its boasting, its rules seeming careless and arbitrary, also too concerned with appearance, not concerned enough to keep people’s livelihoods, sometimes too concerned with preserving capital values, intent on a damaging Brexit and turning Kent into a lorry park.

Ach, I am concerned with appearances too. I think we have an unpatriotic government, not concerned with the good of the British people, wanting to tear down regulation protecting us, damaging the bonds that bring society together, and I want to persuade others of that.

I need to trust, and the hard Right works against that. The febrile atmosphere they and social media create makes trust hard. And mask wearing is nuanced, as not seeing faces is sadness, even if you smile with your eyes, and they are not perfect protection.

In my spiritual, wisdom seeking, milieu, anti-vaxxers predate, and opponents of “Big Pharma”. I have given reiki myself, and it does people good. It’s OK to take a bit of reiki along with your chemotherapy, not OK to take reiki instead, and though again there is nuance- chemo may merely slow the growth of a cancer rather than shrinking it- I would prefer an oncologist’s advice to an aromatherapist’s.

So there we were, sharing feelings and wisdom, sharing ourselves, and in comes an anti-masker. She says she has a relevant degree, and resents being told she does not know what she’s talking about by people who have just read a few magazine articles (like me). Zoom chat lets her spread her arguments. She said mask wearing is a “Pantomime”, and that’s a wonderful word to dismiss it. Five say they agree. Two make comments which could be read either way. Three of us strongly challenge her.

for those who have been silenced or had anything held over their mouth then masks are about death

anyone who has ever been assaulted will know what it feels like to have masked strangers all around them and be unable to see their intent in the facial expressions

Er, um. I have been silenced, and assaulted. I get by, walking in the street, by not noticing others much. This makes sense, but she puts it too strongly. I would rather accept that some people are mask exempt. I don’t know if that person without one is exempt or an anti-masker- or has just forgotten to bring one.

one of the best things we can do for ourself and each other and the whole population is to support our own immune system.  Masks do not do that, mainly because they block our ability to expel infective agents.  All of us have Staph aureus in our systems – if that gets over grown, then it will make us very ill.  Many of us carry Streptococcus and if anyone has ever experienced what folks call ‘Strep throat’ you will know that it’s no fun.  If we interrupt these balances then we have problems – these are naturally occurring bacteria that will cause problems if we push them out of balance

I don’t believe, on balance, that bacteria I would usually expel will multiply on my mask and then be much stronger in my airways. If anyone can refer me to something authoritative on this, please do. I don’t want to dismiss it out of hand-

Even the woman who writes “We can’t let misinformation undermine science” takes herbal tea and ginger root for her immune system.

Yeats, again. The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Anti-maskers can rile each other up in their web enclaves, and try to persuade others.

Also in that group an Indian woman talked of the poetry of Mirza Ghalib, “To Urdu what Shakespeare is to English”. I was sad that she felt the need to ask our permission, white people don’t. I found some, translated or interpreted by Michael R. Burch. He is really good:

On the subject of mystic philosophy, Ghalib,
your words might have struck us as deeply profound
and we might have pronounced you a saint …
Yes, if only we hadn’t found
you drunk
as a skunk!

—

Not the blossomings of songs nor the adornments of music:
I am the voice of my own heart breaking.

You toy with your long, dark curls
while I remain captive to my dark, pensive thoughts.

We congratulate ourselves that we two are different:
that this weakness has not burdened us both with inchoate grief.

Now you are here, and I find myself bowing—
as if sadness is a blessing, and longing a sacrament.

I am a fragment of sound rebounding;
you are the walls impounding my echoes.

—

All your life, O Ghalib,
You kept repeating the same mistake:
Your face was dirty
But you were obsessed with cleaning the mirror!

I want a nice, safe consensus on mask wearing, and that appears not to be available, though I heard of people shouting angrily at maskless strangers when I last went to the Swanston supermarket. Some of the propaganda sheets in the UK seem to be pro-mask for now. In Meeting, I had my wayward and disturbing thoughts, and they merged and mingled with my Awareness, stretching it, because it is not “My God”, but ours. Strange and disturbing things are part of how the world is.

1929.6.68 002

Alchemy of Breath

The heart of this spiritual experience is an hour’s meditation, concentrating on the breath. We breathe in and out through the mouth, from filling the lungs to emptying them as far as avoids discomfort, with no pause at the top of the breath or at the bottom. We lie down on our backs, perhaps with a cushion under the knees to keep the tailbone comfy. Here is a video on the technique.

However on this Zoom taster we start with a lecture on the Drama Triangle. It has three characters, Hero, Villain, and Victim. We can bounce round these three characters in our relationships, or escape the triangle into Presence. Adopt the posture you would have as Hero. Here we are expressing ourselves physically, rather than intellectually. It is a useful exercise. I learn something from it. Consciously embody each. Use your body not your intellect. Stop relying on an intellectual analysis. Be gentle with yourself and others.

The drama triangle is a trap. To move on from it, you have to enter Presence. As Abraham Hicks says, don’t slide into the ditch to rescue someone from it. In presence, you take your space. It is a state of perceiving your own feelings, and the world around you, of wonder, curiosity, and non-commitment. If you enact this with your body, with the sound Hmmm indicating curiosity, that can create a boundary to protect you from fast-thinking reaction, sucking you back into the triangle. Or you might enter presence by deliberately moving your body in a new spontanous way.

Be aware of your empathy: don’t be indulgent, or interfere with the other’s creativity. The victim does not know where their power of choice is. Ask a question, to get them to think, or see things differently. Don’t be a hero, be the Encourager. Remember they, and all of us, are

Complete.
Resourceful.
Whole.

You could suggest what their options are, or ask them to state options. Providing solutions is not true friendship.

When you find yourself in the Victim role, ask “What are my options?” Do something, anything, to end the sense of powerlessness, and accept responsibility for where you are.

Then we move into the breathwork. Notice your physical sensations, and let your mind be what it is. Inhaling, allow the Universe, or supporting Love, to enter. Exhaling, let go. Notice the feelings in your body. Under anger is fear, under fear is sadness, and under sadness is unconditional Love. We are conscious, adult people becoming our own inner leader.

During the exercise, alas, listening to the music of Raphael Shastro, I fell asleep. I was also uncomfortable with the breathing technique. Reminding myself that I had chosen to start, and had a choice whether to practice the whole hour, I turned off my zoom camera and went to cook my dinner, while still listening. My mind and intellect were at work. However, doing the practice I was more conscious of being an animal, with a physical body, than I might be in Quaker worship.

The people attending comment on how they found it, and they found it mindblowing and life-changing. This teacher, Anthony Abbagnano, can bring people to a spiritual experience, which may do lasting good. Charismatic himself, he tells us that the charismatic teacher needs fact-checked, and falsehoods pollute the teaching.

Welcome the resistance you feel to the practice. Feel that resistance: it carries messages. Also welcome the Call you feel.

Nakedness

I cannot help comparing myself to the group. After seventeen years on hormones, I have beautifully shaped small breasts, but I notice on my age group the breast sags enough to hold a pencil underneath. Mine look improbably youthful, though small breasts sag less. My aureoles are small, and the nipples quite flat, flatter even than the men’s. Even if someone only looked at my breasts, they would see I am a trans woman. But then one notices the whole person, and I don’t feel that is some excluding mark here: we are a diverse group, and I am accepted.

These lady-gardens may be better pruned and groomed than mine. I could at least epilate around my navel, there are a lot less hairs there than there used to be, but there are still a few, and I am self-conscious. I go without my wig. One is not supposed to stare, but sadly I do.

We are an educated and mostly spiritually aware lot. I sit in the sun discussing morality and The Trolley Problem. Having compared my body to others’, mostly I lose my self-consciousness and enjoy the company. One has an all-over tan, he does this a lot, but most of us have white bits.

There is a ten yard long, oval swimming pool, slightly more than waist-deep. In the heat, we bob around in it, chatting. I kneel up on the bottom, swaying as the water moves. We can make it into a whirl-pool by all walking round clockwise, pushing the water ahead of us. Once the water is in motion, we float in it, swirling round, fast enough to bang my head on the steps and bumping into each other like soft dodgem cars.

The other exercise is to be held as we float. The water does most of the work, but two to five people stand around us, supporting us behind the head, back, and legs. If only one person supports, we can use a float under the ankles. I feel my trust in the people and the water, open one eye slightly and see the roof-beams move slowly past. It is delicious. I notice a slight tension in my abdominal muscles and want to relax completely.

I think of Carol, who did shoulder massage years ago, and observed I was not relaxed. Rather, I was co-operating, moving my shoulder or arm along with her but simulating surrender rather than making it. She put her arms around my neck as though to break it, and I was not unduly bothered, trusting her- but I could not relax. Now, I am mostly relaxed but for that abdominal muscle.

In this exercise, which is loving and delightful, I am working: I notice my sensations and thoughts and analyse them. I am analysing all the time. Always I am in the words, in my head. I ask to be supported in the small of my back, and relax more. Deliberately I turn my attention to the feeling of the water moving around me, splashing over my legs as I am held higher or lower, wanting to feel it directly rather than analysed and mediated through words. That is, I am working all the time. How should I be, in the world? How may I be like that?

Then I enjoy supporting. I want to give the person the most delightful experience. I feel five supporters on one person floating are too many: six people are probably enough to have two enjoying floating. We feel no need to discuss what we are doing. Next day D supports me, with a float under my ankles: I feel she does it beautifully, varying my sensations.

We have group sharing sessions, lolling in the pool. Things are coming up for me. It is not just a pleasant weekend under canvas, I am noticing how I am with other people. Other people are so strange! As I get to know myself better, getting beyond conventional understandings I picked up of how a person should be to see how I really am, I see them better. The person next to me shared, and I wanted the group share to go the other way round the circle, so I would not be next. I was silent for some time, wanting to honour and voice my negativity, balancing it but not denying it. I said, “I am Abigail. I could run away cursing and screaming. Instead I choose to throw myself into the Love”- and fell forward under the water. We were open and relaxed; and possibly this helped others be even more open as they shared. People said things I will remember, increasing my wish for their good.

We had to get dressed to walk up to the ridge, looking out to sea and on the other side over the valley inland. Walking through mature woodland was lovely, looking downhill from the path through the luminous dark. I talked of that suicide, and one said, “From another point of view it is the greatest gift anyone can give themselves, to stop their suffering. And, if you were my client I would tell you to think what you strive towards rather than flee- you say ‘I will not do that'”. I want to survive. Is there more from life than that?

We were camping inland, but I wanted to see the sea since I was so close to it. Picked up from the station, I asked to go to the beach first before the site. We paddled, and watched people swim in the sea.

Getting to Yes

The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance, but live right in it, under its roof.

– Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

My “No” has been good for me, and it is not enough for a life. Rejecting what is poisonous to me is all very well, but I wish to find and delight in what nourishes me. My No has protected me when I needed to protect myself, but it has also restricted and inhibited me where there is no threat.

So I wish to examine my No, and restrict it to actual threat. Where does it come from? Is it an overreaction? And examine my Yes, and nurture it. I am Yes to life and experience- find where, or where I might be.

In part my No comes from upbringing, the sins of the fathers. It is my oldest habit, older than me. I hide away without any real clue of what I hide from, because that is the default, unthinking mode, and so that is the most useless and damaging part of it, the unexamined reflex no, no to something which I have no reason to suppose is harmful.

Otherwise, No can only come from history. No, trying to be “normal” does not work. Then, finding a way to fit in which seemed sort of acceptable in society also does not work. What is left?

Being completely and uncompromisingly Myself

whatever that might mean
does it not work if it is self-conscious?

comes to mind, and I don’t know what that looks like. That Giacometti quote- the broader I wanted to make them, the narrower they got- could be conscious and unconscious at war, and conscious shellshocked, rather than a “Don’t Question My Art” or a paradox.

Therefore the first part of Yes has to be Yes to unknowing. Plans only look like the past, always include some unknowing as the past does not repeat itself, and, well, make a virtue of that.

I am too beautiful and generous not to share Myself with the world.

Yes to generalising from good experiences. Quakers are mostly, though not all, pleasant people and friendly enough. Then, ooh look, so are the Green Party. And now, the Labour party. Fourteen of us went out for curry on Friday night. The blether was quite fun, though I don’t understand these strange English folk: I think there was a class divide.

Generalise- human beings are mostly OK, not particularly caring about the things I want desperately to hide from them. This goes completely against my Primordial, habitual No, so needs a lot of repetition before it can become habit.

Recognise my Yeses, in the past and as they happen. Every Yes is a win.

My New Age friend said, human consciousness affects ones reality, as shown by the Double Slit experiment. If you imagine a positive future, and experience it with gratitude and joy, you bring it into existence. As you manifest heaven within, you create it without. Well, she was looking for questions, so I took the opportunity of asking.

Bringing to consciousness what I want may be useful too.

In the Moon lodge

Thirty years ago, O said to C., “You look like you would make a good lesbian. Have you tried it?” C had thought herself straight, but they are still together. I met them at the Sacred Arts Camp, where we did Dances of Universal Peace. It was 2010. I was very uptight, but seeking out the hippies.

The Women’s space was the Moon lodge, a teepee in the edge of the camp, and the whole camp took part in the Menarche ceremony, celebrating the onset of menstruation. Girls appeared first in white dresses then in red, whooping and running through the camp. As soon as I heard of the Women’s space I asked F if I could join in. I had thought this a mere courteous formality. The Quaker women’s group had, after my request to one of its members, agreed to admit anyone “who experienced themselves as a woman”. F, however, would need to discuss it with some people.

The next day, she came to me and asked me to meet her in the Moon Lodge the following morning at 9.30. There I found her with her friend W. They talked at me for half an hour, barely allowing me to speak. F explained that she was entirely accepting herself- she lived in Brighton- but some women might not be comfortable with me there. I said that excluding me denied that I am a woman, which offended me, but I would not attend because I did not want to make the women’s activities focus on me and whether I should be admitted. That was not enough for them. They wanted me to admit they were right to exclude me.

Other women got involved. A invited me to dinner in the Welsh circle, and told me it was F, and no other, who was uncomfortable with me in the Moon lodge. B asked me to help decorate the Big Top for the Menarche ceremony, and I went with her into the forest to get foliage. Then F came and got me to help her and a man take down the heavy canvas sides of the Big Top, as it was so hot. I was so hurt by this that I took no part in the Menarche ceremony, even to sit and watch.

Someone told me of D. There had been some difficulty in him attending a men’s group, though we were unsure whether he had been on T at the time, or whether he was binding. I went for a walk with D’s female former partner. The LGBT group was concerned that I had been excluded.

At the final celebration, as we sang

May the road rise with you
May the wind be always at your back
May the Sun shine warm upon your face
May the rain fall soft upon your fields
And till we meet again
May Love hold you
in the hollow of her hand

F came and hugged me. We had both learned from the experience.

Essence Process

Why am I here? Because it gives the illusion of doing something, thereby absolving me from the need to find or do something which would actually be useful. Because it appears good, not to any other person but to the chaotic controlling Parent in my head. That is the blackest way of seeing it. Of course things done for appearance’ sake never even achieve that- on some level I see through myself. So it is utterly pointless, even for such illusory motives, but that part of me grasping at the illusion still blunders on.

Is there a better reason? At the end of the first “process” we settled down to serious mutual affirmation, which feels nice, but is no good even temporarily unless I learn to believe it.

No, I don’t trust these people. The Process has psychological trappings but is an entertainment, manipulating payers through rapidly changing emotions, to extort fees. It has some resemblance to a cult.

Bit scared of it. That’s the kind of phrase where I miss out the words “I am”, and put in the word “bit”. And I am hard on myself: my motives must be bad.

Why be here, really? Can I justify that sort of money? Well, I have the money; it is a few days away from home; the people and the situations we will be placed in could be interesting.

It is ridiculous to hope for a Born-Again experience, and yet I do. This is the kind of thing in which I have previously had such a profound challenge to my world-view that I have changed it.

I fear going into a hiding mode, find the rules and obey them, cringe against the wall, shut down and avoid the challenge, sit it out. Well, I might notice if I did, more quickly than last time.

I hope I will be challenged, and respond to challenge. That I will spontaneously- spontaneity is my desire, yet so rare for me- respond well. I may be outside my comfort zone, and hope I will be open to the experiences, see the people for who they are, hear what they say, notice my feelings at the situations, and come away with greater self-knowledge and self-respect.

Tall order. See what happens. Oops, clipping phrases again: This is a tall order. I will see what happens. No. I know that at every moment from now until Sunday, I will be the best I can be.

Resourcing

I met Laura Fraser once, at a personal growth thing– it was rather good, I contacted my inner wisdom and took away new insight which has made my life better. Here she is on another personal growth technique, called Resourcing.

How do I approach this? First I thought of an NLP technique I learned in the late 90s. Imagine a moment of pure joy and affirmation. Make a physical gesture- mine was putting my right thumb and middle finger tips together; then associate the gesture with the memory. Then, when feeling in need of a boost, make the gesture to recall the memory. This got me thinking of the Joy I chose, and how that particular joy turned to dust for me later.

But that is not it.

Practices of gratitude approach it, perhaps. Every evening, think of three things in that day to be grateful for. Being positive may be part of it, looking for opportunities, seeing all the good there is to see. That is not it either. To try to describe it after one view of the video, it is being aware of all the good in my life and in myself, when I enter any stressful situation. Being aware of my resources. That is not it either, but I don’t want long sessions with this particular guru. Time to watch the video again.

Rupda is unhelpful: “Resourcing regulates our nervous system. When we are in Overwhelm, too much too soon too fast, resourcing is a tool to bring ourselves back into a state of more relaxed, peaceful awareness.” Stop selling, Rupda, “It is brilliant” is not a useful message I think. This is unfair. What I might wish to do with a technique is useful information. I remain suspicious that Rupda has taken bits of others’ Wisdom techniques, and applied her own jargon word to them.

What is the Resource process? What do you do? is the obvious question Laura asks, but Rupda does not answer. I am back to using my own experience to relate to what she says: if I cannot deal with my anxiety and pain from my last stress before the next stress comes, I get more and more stressed. Though that experience was when I was working.

I might ask, what brings you joy? And the person might say I like walking in nature. What is it about nature that you like? What do you notice in your body as you talk about this? … That’s an outer resource.

When stressed, think of Resources- your children, your dog, being in nature. We might also think of people who inspire us… let your mind open to the possibility of being supported by anyone.

Inner resources: where do you feel relaxed and safe in your body? Someone might say their solar plexus feels constricted but their belly feels really warm and expanded or their legs feel strong.

I notice I am deep in my No. My stress is my whole situation, my problem is my own inadequacy, this will be useless. That I can do nothing absolves me from the need to do anything, as trying has been so painful in the past. And- I am seeking to open. I am not merely looking for reasons to reject this.

This post is about me, and not about Resourcing. Watch the video.