Legends of Healing and Transformation

An Ode to the Last 6 Weeks

I can’t believe I have been at the Women of the Earth Bridge-House for 6 weeks.

At the end of every week I think the exact same thing: that was a big one! 

So after 6 big ones we are getting ready to move from the magical island of Florianópolis and head to the ETB and the Women Or Earth Lab in the state of São Paulo.

The closing energy I sense in the house as this chapter nears its end inspires me to look back over the time I have spent at the Bridge-House thus far and attempt the herculean task of trying to sum some of it up here.

I want to celebrate myself and the women for doing it, for creating another culture. It is possible, I know it because that is my life right now and I want to celebrate it by sharing with the world some of the legendary possibility stories that unfolded here.

Spontaneous Emotional Healing Processes (EHPs)

I live with 8 dangerous witches who feel and sense, who are deeply rooting for each other and hold each other with Love through the messes and the celebrations.

Emotional Healing Processes can and do happen everywhere, at every moment. Whilst we are washing up, on a stroll, in the middle of the night, during a workout, at breakfast, in a restaurant, on the beach.

Spontaneous, in the moment, real-time healing pulls us into the now and into vulnerable and ecstatic realness. Shouting and crying, shaking and weeping, vomiting together looking into each other's eyes, doing a silent interpretative dance about what is for us, singing in the middle of a restaurant standing on a chair and role-playing each other so the other woman gets to see herself.

What is happening at the Bridge-house is revolutionary, it is immediate emotional hygiene in the moment, as the reactivity comes up, and in connection with each other.

Emotions are created in connection so it makes sense for them to be healed in connection too, especially in connection with someone who triggered that particular wound, so you get to write a new story in their loving presence. A historical do-over, with eyes open, laying bare our inner world as the other women witness and hold space.

Yes we have gone batshit crazy and we love it. We are taking what we have learnt and we are applying the shit out of it and we are applying it in the most feminine way, through collaborative feeling and sensing, through being with, through love and connection and going with the flow. 

This is my group legend about one of the many things we have created together.

I also want to tell you a few of my transformational highlights since being here.

Being Myself

Soon after arriving at the Bridge-House it landed in my experiential reality that pretending to be something I am not is extremely counterproductive in terms of transformation. In trying to be less reactive than I am, trying to feel less than I do, trying to be different than I am to hide or to impress others, all I am doing is taking myself out of reality, which is the only place I can do anything from, the only place I can move from.

The only place I can actually be is where I am right now. From there, from what is, I can move towards what I want. It sounds simple, yet I have needed some time to really get it. It is so tempting and many times automatic to hide being a mess, put on a brave face, repress what I am feeling, not be too demanding, etc.

But what if all those things I have been pushing down are actually exactly what needs to be happening in that moment, simply because they are happening, because that is what is and denying that what is denying the fullness of life? Is it not in fact the denial of reality that creates low drama? The should haves and could haves that make for victim stories.

Well, it is not what I fancy using my time doing. My Being that is.

What an incredibly relaxing experience, what a sigh of relief, to give myself permission to be myself, whatever that looks like in each moment. So much energy is required to try and be something I am not, trying to prove something and keep up the facade. All that energy can be put towards moving towards being who I want to be and creating what I want to create instead. And so it is, so I am, slowly and surely taking back and owning who I am right now, and now, and now.

All I can say is that I highly recommend it to anyone!

Fantasy Worlds

This whole experience led me into a new discovery about my Fantasy Worlds and how they are blocking me from creating in my small here and now. 

I told myself the story that I was suffering from creator's block, because I had this big fantasy about what Creation looks like. It looks a bit like Mickey Mouse in Fantasia, before it goes tits up. Mickey just waves his hands and everything moves like he wants it to. My fantasy was that creating my life is having what I want, when I want, how I want and also how I have known it before. My fantasy comes largely from the best moments in my life and wanting to recreate those.

But here's the thing, creating is not about recapturing or even recreating something, it is by definition something which does not yet exist.

Grieving the fantasies and letting them die, being in reality, moving from what is, going crazy and stretching my edges so that Non-Linear possibilities can emerge are just some of the things I have tried and tested on this alive exploration here. And I can say that the notion of having creator’s block quickly dissolved, how could it not? Everything I do is creation. That is also a fantasy just as the Mickey Mouse one is. 

I have been spotting a lot more Fantasies since then. They. are even more pervasive than I would have imagined and I can see it is a strong survival strategy that I use so as not to live full-out and let life be as dangerous and alive as I long for it to be.

As these fantasies die I find myself spending more and more time in Reality, a story-less existence in the Small Here and Small Now where, with my Being at the helm, I can ecstatically create whatever my heart desires.

Zoning Out

I was so mind-numbingly bored of what was offered at school and being forced to sit still and ignore all of my impulses, it was so dreadfully painful for my being, that I developed the Survival Strategy of zoning out and leaving my body. Here too is when I started to develop my other survival strategy which was daydreaming, another word for fantasizing. I hadn’t made that connection until just now writing it, it’s all falling into place.

This was a great technique which helped me to survive school.

I am no longer in school anymore and I am still using these strategies. I am being a victim of my circumstances, instead of creating what I want, where I want. I have been noticing even here in group conversations, events and gatherings that I have been zoning out.

I started to observe what was happening in me and shared it with the other women who gave me very useful hints about what they saw. What we have found is that when I have an impulse — which comes from my conscious anger — and I cut it off, it feels too painful for my Being to bear so I leave my body. This happens because I give my authority away to create the space that I want, like I did when I was at school. I am still doing it now a the age of 36 and I am so incredibly bored of it.

Now I am practicing taking a stand for every space I am in being MY space.

I have full authority over my life in each and every situation I am in, unless I choose to give it away, which is also my choice, but now that is not my only option. Now with the support of my sisters, I have started to speak up when I notice I am zoning out. Even before I know what I want to say. I just connect to my anger and go.

And guess what - IT WORKS!

Boom! I am brought back to the space. Sometimes it's messy, sometimes it doesn’t make sense, and all the time I love sensing how I come back to life after expressing my impulses. It is humbling to know that it is not about me, it is about letting what wants to come through me come through. It is about creating the spaciousness so that life can happen.

Not Smiling

This week I did the experiment of not smiling. This was really expanding for my Box, deeply uncomfortable and sad for me. I realised that the smiling was hiding a lot of anger and clarity which I had cut off by being nice and smiling.

Yes, are you joining the dots too? I can see something repeating itself.

During the experiment I was given the feedback that I am using my anger to not smile instead of using it to stay centered. This was an amazing distinction given to me by Anne-Chloé over burgers. Life-changing stuff, happening in every moment, even in a burger joint.

A Being’s Dance

During an evening of non-linear processes, I somehow ended up doing a silent interpretative dance in front of five of the women.

Something happened in me and all my thoughts and stories melted away. I forgot who I was for an instant and let my being move me.

I felt huge amounts of fear, sadness, anger and joy, and it was the most delicious and rich feeling of being moved, of the most intense aliveness and of my being being witnessed and loved by the women.

It shifted something big in me. I realised I have been hiding this part of me for a very long time. (I know, again right!) I hid it away after teachers and parents told me I always wanted to be the centre of attention, that I distracted the others, that I was a clown, that I wouldn’t make anything of my life. I was laughed and sniggered at by my classmates too for being too much, embarrassing, annoying.

I stuffed this part of me down so I could fit in and not feel the pain of living in a sterile compressed modern culture mould.

I let off steam and deadened the pain by taking drugs, getting drunk, having casual sex and all the other numbing bullshit I did until I finally woke up to the pain of it and started my quest that lead me here.

My Being’s curiosity and unquenchable thirst for life led me here to this moment, to this cocoon of pure love in our living room, where she was able to show herself in all her glory once more.

And now I have a taste. I want more, all the time, I am falling in love with life all over again.

The end

Thank you for reading my messy legendary possibility stories of healing and transformation. Thank you for somehow being with me on this journey.

Stay tuned for more adventures of the Women of the Earth.

To be continued…

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