The inspiration for this came from the hot spot that arose in the group process when someone mentioned the word ‘invade.’ We didn’t unfold it in the group, so I would unfold it a little here instead…
Invade. The word rang out like gunshot. A thick silence settled over us. A tightening in the chest. A knot in the throat.
That word holds us hostage - countries, histories, bodies - all frozen or fighting or crumpled in grief. The marching forward of armies, the rolling in of tanks, the trampling of cities, houses, people. These people, who once were children, who cry and dream and bleed when cut - following the orders of other people, who smile at puppies and feed their wives chocolates in bed. Where do all those parts of them - of us - go when their boots hit the ground, when the gunshots ring out?
I want to keep exploring the 'wall-builders' role. There is a wall I build inside myself when I'm up against someone/ or a belief I strongly disagree with. It has a lot of power. My ordinary identity doesn't like to identify with this aspect of myself / my behaviour. When I amplify it I can feel how it serves to disconnect me from my humanity (even just a bit). This allows me to be righteous in my use of power. I don't even have to justify myself. I want to obliterate everything in my path that doesn't fit with my view of reality.
When the other side reaches out to me, asking me what it is I care about, my wall cracks. I could keep blocking you out but there is so much power in your question. I am mesmerised by your power. I thought I was the all powerful one, but yet you still ask me what I care about, this shakes me. It forces me to acknowledge your humanity, and connects me with my own. It is hard to stay polarised when we are both just humans trying to negotiate our shared existence....
yes, i also know this part and that in this very moment I disconnect, standing and being with my truth. Although I want to add that as a quite sensitive and empathic child, I was not always able to make a difference in what of my feeling/sensing was mine and what others. It was crucially important for me to learn to build walls and to own my truth. One year ago in a conflict, a friend of mine said, you don’t think you are empathic, do you? That was a little shoc, and I think she was right I am not only/always an empath anymore, but hopefully still able to reconnect.
Thank you Steph for sharing your reflection about empathy. As part of my own process these last months I started to explore empathy in more depth. What was a shock for me was to gain a better understanding of its shadow side. Interestingly for me, now that I read your article about the group process and the comments, I find words to something I have perceived during my inner process, working on trans-generational family trauma lately. Empathy and Invasion share common ground. If I allow myself to enter creative writing mode ... then Empathy says something like this: „I rather feel you than feel myself. I need to catch all your signals over there because then I survive. I always need to be a step ahead. Feeling you instead of feeling me.“ ... and I realize that whenever I invade someone else‘s space / feelings, I also loose my own - I disconnect. Yes, I think I can even say, I disassociate from my own body - and when I do that, I reinforce trauma. ----- Grateful for being able to loop myself in into the space you and the group have created .... Love, Barbara
wow, Barbara, thank you for stepping in and deepening the empath role. It resonates deeply and finds word for sth I had none for yet. Yes, I know this from myself (and others of this kind ) too empaths can loose any sense for boundaries.
I am very touched by what I read here. Invasion, empathy, tiny voice that says gentle things....
I am also triggered by the question - who deicdes what is right and wrong.... somehow that is a sore issue for me - the one who says - something is wrong only when you feel it otherwise it is ok....not sure I make sense but I wonder what is the foundation of life? What is life enhancing - what is life depleting? Lots of thoughts - but a voice in me says you are getting serious and not being playful :D... See you all soon.
I like your seriousness about this Suneetha, and the direction of your questioning. I have just gone down a long worm hole thinking about it. It’s a deeply philosophical question. It strikes me that the human-centric view of things has a lot to answer for. Love to explore more!
Thanks for an amazing group process and holding this space to share :)
These were my thoughts on paper:
I would love to deepen the role that wanted to connect with the person who was behind the wall. The voice saying "please can I connect with you, I want to know how I can get past this wall to connect with you". Would the role be persistent, pushy, strong, patient, containing ... would boundaries be crossed with or without consent, and would they maintain love, hope and help?
My personal experience of the group process was of observing the role jump from one person to another, expressing itself in a myriad of ways, from long check-ins and life-stories being shared, strongly stating personal identity. Then leading to a question of what it would be like to feel right all the time by being identified by something, to wanting to connect through walls and wars, and no longer having an identity ... yet being open and strongly identified with an experience.
I love this! There is a name for this form: it's called a cento - prose or poems made up of a collection of multiple people's texts. I used them a lot in my PhD :) I love how this weaves between exploring PW theory and also personal poetry and reflections - it captures the different levels we are always moving between in PW. I wonder what it might be if we 'revised' each piece down to just one or two sentences, to really capture the essence of it, and then put those lines together into a group poem. I wonder how that would be, since in PW we are often trying to get at the essence of something. Nice job bringing it together!
Dear Laura, so great to read, I will start to further investigate on cento-prose/poems !!! And love the idea of a group poem. Do you want to give it a try?
Thank you, dear Iina, for sharing this deep reflection, it makes me directly thinking of what ar my non-negortiables, where am I not ready to make ANY compromise? I will come back on this ...
Last night I was speaking to a teenager. He said one student was transferred from another section to his and everyone calls him a refugee. I was left thinking of the impact of the word on the student and the other students being so unaware of what they are doing- ofcourse they are bullying.... but do they even know the meaning and the importance of that word... I doubt it..... The conversation came up as we were speaking of how one of the group members of a play was feeling out of place and how we need to integrate him, and how to make him feel comfortable. The truth is even I do not know how to break this chasm.... makes me feel sad - and am staring at my own failure/inability to do so as I get caught in my own dynamics of divisions. Thanks for this space for sharing.
I experienced the process as a pleasure, because I don’t get to see and talk to many people.
I also experienced it as mind opening due to the way participants communicated with each other and arrived at topics up for discussion. It was also challenging, because contributing to the discussion made me very self conscious and this stopped to speak my mind more openly.
I really would like to explore the role of self consciousness more and understand more and it.
It isn’t anything new to me to feel self conscious and by understanding more about it, I am hoping to put it aside. Often I felt like I missed the moment to contribute to a discussion.
I know that feeling self conscious is part of being human and quite natural but this doesn’t help me feel better about it. The role of the person who is just right irritated me a lot, so who doesn’t want to or has not the ability to even consider another person’s view point does disturb me. At the same time I believe I might need to be a little more like the person who is just right.
Being able to speak my mind without feeling self conscious will help me to contribute to discussions a lot more and stop me feeling disappointed with myself for not continuing as much as I would like to.
The inspiration for this came from the hot spot that arose in the group process when someone mentioned the word ‘invade.’ We didn’t unfold it in the group, so I would unfold it a little here instead…
Invade. The word rang out like gunshot. A thick silence settled over us. A tightening in the chest. A knot in the throat.
That word holds us hostage - countries, histories, bodies - all frozen or fighting or crumpled in grief. The marching forward of armies, the rolling in of tanks, the trampling of cities, houses, people. These people, who once were children, who cry and dream and bleed when cut - following the orders of other people, who smile at puppies and feed their wives chocolates in bed. Where do all those parts of them - of us - go when their boots hit the ground, when the gunshots ring out?
I want to keep exploring the 'wall-builders' role. There is a wall I build inside myself when I'm up against someone/ or a belief I strongly disagree with. It has a lot of power. My ordinary identity doesn't like to identify with this aspect of myself / my behaviour. When I amplify it I can feel how it serves to disconnect me from my humanity (even just a bit). This allows me to be righteous in my use of power. I don't even have to justify myself. I want to obliterate everything in my path that doesn't fit with my view of reality.
When the other side reaches out to me, asking me what it is I care about, my wall cracks. I could keep blocking you out but there is so much power in your question. I am mesmerised by your power. I thought I was the all powerful one, but yet you still ask me what I care about, this shakes me. It forces me to acknowledge your humanity, and connects me with my own. It is hard to stay polarised when we are both just humans trying to negotiate our shared existence....
yes, i also know this part and that in this very moment I disconnect, standing and being with my truth. Although I want to add that as a quite sensitive and empathic child, I was not always able to make a difference in what of my feeling/sensing was mine and what others. It was crucially important for me to learn to build walls and to own my truth. One year ago in a conflict, a friend of mine said, you don’t think you are empathic, do you? That was a little shoc, and I think she was right I am not only/always an empath anymore, but hopefully still able to reconnect.
Thank you Steph for sharing your reflection about empathy. As part of my own process these last months I started to explore empathy in more depth. What was a shock for me was to gain a better understanding of its shadow side. Interestingly for me, now that I read your article about the group process and the comments, I find words to something I have perceived during my inner process, working on trans-generational family trauma lately. Empathy and Invasion share common ground. If I allow myself to enter creative writing mode ... then Empathy says something like this: „I rather feel you than feel myself. I need to catch all your signals over there because then I survive. I always need to be a step ahead. Feeling you instead of feeling me.“ ... and I realize that whenever I invade someone else‘s space / feelings, I also loose my own - I disconnect. Yes, I think I can even say, I disassociate from my own body - and when I do that, I reinforce trauma. ----- Grateful for being able to loop myself in into the space you and the group have created .... Love, Barbara
wow, Barbara, thank you for stepping in and deepening the empath role. It resonates deeply and finds word for sth I had none for yet. Yes, I know this from myself (and others of this kind ) too empaths can loose any sense for boundaries.
I am very touched by what I read here. Invasion, empathy, tiny voice that says gentle things....
I am also triggered by the question - who deicdes what is right and wrong.... somehow that is a sore issue for me - the one who says - something is wrong only when you feel it otherwise it is ok....not sure I make sense but I wonder what is the foundation of life? What is life enhancing - what is life depleting? Lots of thoughts - but a voice in me says you are getting serious and not being playful :D... See you all soon.
I like your seriousness about this Suneetha, and the direction of your questioning. I have just gone down a long worm hole thinking about it. It’s a deeply philosophical question. It strikes me that the human-centric view of things has a lot to answer for. Love to explore more!
Serious and playful are both important. I love your serious questions, Suneetha, and your playful side :)
Thanks for an amazing group process and holding this space to share :)
These were my thoughts on paper:
I would love to deepen the role that wanted to connect with the person who was behind the wall. The voice saying "please can I connect with you, I want to know how I can get past this wall to connect with you". Would the role be persistent, pushy, strong, patient, containing ... would boundaries be crossed with or without consent, and would they maintain love, hope and help?
My personal experience of the group process was of observing the role jump from one person to another, expressing itself in a myriad of ways, from long check-ins and life-stories being shared, strongly stating personal identity. Then leading to a question of what it would be like to feel right all the time by being identified by something, to wanting to connect through walls and wars, and no longer having an identity ... yet being open and strongly identified with an experience.
I love this! There is a name for this form: it's called a cento - prose or poems made up of a collection of multiple people's texts. I used them a lot in my PhD :) I love how this weaves between exploring PW theory and also personal poetry and reflections - it captures the different levels we are always moving between in PW. I wonder what it might be if we 'revised' each piece down to just one or two sentences, to really capture the essence of it, and then put those lines together into a group poem. I wonder how that would be, since in PW we are often trying to get at the essence of something. Nice job bringing it together!
Dear Laura, so great to read, I will start to further investigate on cento-prose/poems !!! And love the idea of a group poem. Do you want to give it a try?
Hi Laura, feel free to start us off! Already I feel more liberated as poetry mind engages...
Feeling deep gratitude for this space. Here´s what came out for me in writing:
Who decides what is right and wrong?
Based on who´s moral?
What are the things we can agree on?
Please tell me you believe in human rights (even the tiniest part in your heart)
Please tell me you believe in nature’s rights (do you hear your heart whispering?)
If all of that is gone, what is it we have left?
If all of that is gone, what is it worth being “right”?
Thank you, dear Iina, for sharing this deep reflection, it makes me directly thinking of what ar my non-negortiables, where am I not ready to make ANY compromise? I will come back on this ...
Last night I was speaking to a teenager. He said one student was transferred from another section to his and everyone calls him a refugee. I was left thinking of the impact of the word on the student and the other students being so unaware of what they are doing- ofcourse they are bullying.... but do they even know the meaning and the importance of that word... I doubt it..... The conversation came up as we were speaking of how one of the group members of a play was feeling out of place and how we need to integrate him, and how to make him feel comfortable. The truth is even I do not know how to break this chasm.... makes me feel sad - and am staring at my own failure/inability to do so as I get caught in my own dynamics of divisions. Thanks for this space for sharing.
On Judith's behalf :
I experienced the process as a pleasure, because I don’t get to see and talk to many people.
I also experienced it as mind opening due to the way participants communicated with each other and arrived at topics up for discussion. It was also challenging, because contributing to the discussion made me very self conscious and this stopped to speak my mind more openly.
I really would like to explore the role of self consciousness more and understand more and it.
It isn’t anything new to me to feel self conscious and by understanding more about it, I am hoping to put it aside. Often I felt like I missed the moment to contribute to a discussion.
I know that feeling self conscious is part of being human and quite natural but this doesn’t help me feel better about it. The role of the person who is just right irritated me a lot, so who doesn’t want to or has not the ability to even consider another person’s view point does disturb me. At the same time I believe I might need to be a little more like the person who is just right.
Being able to speak my mind without feeling self conscious will help me to contribute to discussions a lot more and stop me feeling disappointed with myself for not continuing as much as I would like to.
Interesting thought Eileen. Thanks for sharing