Weaving The Void
I'm standing in front of the computer not knowing what to write about the Women Of Earth Lab. What used to be so easy and fluid for me — writing about legends — is now just emptiness and silence. Maybe because the Lab isn't over for me yet. The processes I started there are still open within me. It's all empty and without references.
This Laboratory started for me when I found out about the first Women of the Earth Lab in Portugal. When I saw the announcement of the Lab I was sure that I would go, I didn't care if I didn't speak English. Even without having done the Lab in Portugal yet, I already wanted the second edition to take place. When Vera Franco and Anne-Chloé Destremau said yes to doing it in Brazil I went into a Liquid State.
The months of preparation and organization of the Lab were for me part of the Training. In December last year, as soon as the Expand The Box in São Paulo ended, I had a crying fit. I realized how much pressure I was putting on myself to make that Training happen and I didn't want to do that to myself again. A few weeks later I was already living at Women Of Earth Bridge-House and then a new chapter began.
Sónia joined the Lab creation team and together we began to learn how to build a Village. In this process I came across my unconscious incompetences, and while living with the other women in the house I remained in a Liquid State every day. Inside the house, a lot of my past and unhealed Parts came to the surface, especially the part of being terrified of feeling lost, lost in life. My Unconscious Fear levels became increasingly high after not Negotiating Intimacy, or not noticing what my boundaries were. Although it was very painful for me to be in this state, it was important to see my X on the map.
With the Women of the Earth I also learned how to deliver my Nonmaterial Value. Together we went on many adventures. I held two Possibility Teams in person, starting a new circle of Women in Florianópolis. We delivered the Transformational Menu together and met many Edgeworkers. We also did the Fear Club as a group with Anne-Chloé Destremau and practiced being in Reality and letting our hearts speak.
These were two very intense months of learning. I will share my learnings about being on the training organization team, what I learned about myself, the context and about working as a team, in another text. Here I want to specifically share my experience during the Women Of Earth Lab.
On the very first day of training, at breakfast, I had a conversation with Vera Franco and Anne-Chloé Destremau that broke my heart. They told me about my Energetic Body being in a constant stress, and that I copied part of that behaviour from my mother. My mother is a woman who has many psychiatric problems. My childhood and especially my youth were marked by great uncertainty. I felt afraid all the time. I left home very young because it was unbearable for me to stay there, and my biggest fear was being like her. When I heard that I copied this part from my mother my heart broke. I wanted to leave the Lab, go to a place where I would be alone, but I found Jennifer Paixão instead and asked her to hold my hand. I cried almost the whole day. I also felt relieved because I no longer needed to pretend that everything was fine. The show was over. Anne-Chloé and Vera asked me to drop any work in the organization to focus on this process during the five days of the Lab, and I felt very sad about that too.
I went through a lot of Processes and Initiations in the Lab. On the last day I did an Emotional Healing Process with Vera during which I gave back to my mother everything that I copied from her. It was very special to me that Vera held this space, because during the whole time we lived together at the Bridge-House I projected my mother onto her. She even played my own mother at the end of the process so I could set boundaries with the Rage Stick. And on the last day, when I went through the process of unfolding my Being, I left the Women’s Lab with more space to discover what I am.
After the training ended, I returned to the Women of Earth Bridge-House. Some of the Women from the Lab are here too, and my process is continuing. I've been here for a week and I'm paying attention to my Energetic Body, doing everything slower. I feel sadness almost all the time. I'm mourning the death of a part of me that I thought was me, and learning how to be in this void without knowing yet what I am.