What Is Going On Inside You that You Would...
A dangerous journey into the Underworld
The table is silent for a minute. I see her there. Something is happening inside her. What she said landed like a “fuck you!” grenade at the lunch table. I check the other women as they are silent. Most are trying to make themselves invisible, their Emotional Fear telling them that this woman is going to behave exactly like their mom, dad, grandpa, teacher, the scary person they had to survive during childhood. They all want to hear her but cannot. They are stuck in the past emotion temporarily, but they don’t say it.
If they would say to another sister “I’m having the emotional fear that she will hurt me like my mom did”, it could break their own spell of sitting silently with their emotions. If they would add “would you give me possibilities right now for being more present?”, maybe they could even shift. With “Would one of you hold space for an Emotional Healing Process right now for me?” then they might be transformed and come back with more presence and clarity about themselves and the present moment. They might even be able to relate.
— “What is going on in you that you would say no when asked to share some of your lunch with your sisters?”
Her Gremlin knows the jig is up. She has gone through this Process before, where someone asking her about a behaviour, an action she did, and if she goes through the process completely, she will go into a Liquid State, and get to a place inside herself where she is completely undefended, relating with others. Immediately a fight breaks out inside her. The Child Ego State cries inside her: “I am being judged. They are coming after me. She’s saying I’ve done something wrong. That I failed. She is going to kick me out. They all hate me.” All the additional emergency responses and Survival Strategies come running: Be calm. Don’t be in Child Ego State. Don’t be Reactive. Pretend. Look like an adult. Say the thing that would get you out of this mess.
I don’t let up with my Sword. But I also don’t let up the heart to heart connection. I make sure that she sees that we are all with her, and not against her.
— “How is it that you would say no to sharing the farofa, what is really going on?”
A short silence ensues. No one dares to do or say anything to break the tension of the space. The tension in the space has a transformational purpose. The Gremlin and Box strategies yearn hopelessly for someone or anything to break the tension, so they can get out of the spotlight, hide, and forget all about this question.
— “I was angry that the women were all energetically in my space, wanting my food.” We listen and let the information land without responding and fixing the problem or giving any consolation. More silence. And then it comes the admission. “I was taking Revenge on them.”
The tension of the space relieves a little from the purpose being revealed. There is less defensiveness in the air.
— “Will you put it on the table and apologize to the Women?”
Again a hard energetic closing. More silence, this time for longer. The women and I can feel her rage boiling up and then being kept under control. Time passes. The birds keep chirping, an occasional car passes by. This is clearly a no. We do not let up nor break the space nor Rescue her.
— “Why is it always me to apologise? What about what they were doing?”
There it is. The first Victimization was about the women at lunch. Now it’s about this conversation. The Low Drama Thoughtware running is something like “it’s not fair”, or a Lose-Lose story of “if I go down they need to go down too”. It’s a common Gremlin gimmick that tries to appeal to some Box reasonability or compassion. The purpose is to cause the Spaceholder to get distracted — get hooked — and talk about the other women or land some Context, anything that would bring the conversation away from the dangerous question.
Many spaceholders can get hooked here if they have any hint of expectation that the person in front of them does not have a Gremlin, would not use their Gremlin, or would not get defensive with them. If the spaceholder has the Sword Of Clarity at the neck of the person in front of them, then the only question that matters is the one that the Spaceholder is asking originally. The only purpose that matters is the one that the Spaceholder is holding. This keep the transformational tension going.
We go further, not letting up. I move to sit straight in front of her, eyes in the eyes. My Anger is not being expressed in the eyes, my Anger is being used for the Clarity that I will only ask this question, I will only create this space. My eyes are with Love. I Love this woman. I Love how brave she is sitting there in front of me. I Love how she dares to move into unknown territories expanding, growing into more Love, more Possibility, and more Aliveness.
— “How come you are wanting to keep revenge on the Women Of Earth? How come you are trying to hold on to hatred in relating to your sisters right now? How come you would do what?”
Her anger boils even more. Her numbness bar goes even higher. More silence. My fear tells me to ask — “what is going on right now?” but she says nothing. Another woman encourages her to speak whatever it is happening. I double this encouragement and tell her to say it and to look at me. —“Please say exactly this that is happening in you”. She slowly opens her mouth, tears in her eyes.
— “Why are you doing this to me? I hate you. I hate you!”
There it is, the personal attack. A spaceholder can get hooked here when the person in front of them is directly and personally attacking them. I have been hooked multiple times, and with certain people, especially where it activates an emotional trauma that I did not know I had. But if the Spaceholder is expecting an attack from the Gremlin because 1) they get the anatomy of the Gremlin and Box Survival Strategies; 2) they know their own Buttons, Triggers, Traumas, and Hooks and are actively working on them, and 3) they keep their Sword Of Clarity straight at their ‘client’s’ neck; even a direct personal attack does not stick.
She stops looking at me. I can see there is much more Anger inside her, but this was very vulnerable for her to say to me. There is fear too. I do not get Hooked. The same words have Hooked me in the past. I can see her Gremlin and her Being fighting. It’s kind of 50-50 right now. I use my Anger to stay on course, and now to move my Being energetically forward towards her a little bit more. I do not try to look loving, that would be manipulating. But I love her. I love her and and my heart breaks seeing her struggle with this, letting her Gremlin hold on to her heart like this.
— “And I am still here, I have not gone away after you said that. Can you look at me and see it?”
She slowly and reluctantly moves her eyes up. I remember when I couldn’t even do this because of my own Gremlin’s hold of me. She starts crying. Crying and looking at me. One other women asks her about what the tears are about and she says there are no words. After some minutes of looking at me she says:
— “I am stuck. I don’t know how to pull the rug from under me. Everything I have done before is not working.”
An opening of the heart. What a miracle! In the middle of this struggle and Gremlin choke-hold she is choosing to trust us. She chose to trust that something completely different is possible right now. She is choosing to take back her authority from the reactivity. She is committed to something bigger than the voices screaming inside her saying “run, shut up, don’t admit, this is all bullshit”. I love her even more, because now I can see her Being in her eyes. I repeat the question with the same heart.
— “Will you tell me how come you are choosing to have hatred with your sisters instead of connection? Instead of what we are offering you right now?”
She does not move. The question does not move her to the pain of that choice. A quick flash and she lets out a big laugh only to be in silence again. Her Gremlin is fighting back. She is still stuck. My heart sinks. This is the Third Door that I opened for her. I feel sad that she does not feel the pain. She is too protected. What goes through my head is that it must be a really tough and thick armour in there that she cannot let our Love in. How she cannot see how we are calling her Being through the armour.
There is a long silence. Outside and inside me.
I feel fear that after all this support and Love and care from the women, when I say what I have to say, she will close, beat herself up, let her Gremlin take over her completely. I say what I have to say anyway.
I tell her that until she can feel the pain of what her Revenge is causing in relating to the women, she cannot transform this part of her. I tell her that I am ending the space. I tell her how it is not easy saying this, because part of me wants to stay and keep opening doors because I love her, but it will just not work. I tell her I’m not giving up on her. That she needs to be with where she is. I tell her that once another sister was holding space for me, and I too could not forfeit the Revenge. That it took me a couple of days until I completely broke down in the realisation of what Revenge creates for me and for others.
She tells me that she is scared that if the space ends she is just going to go to her room and beat herself up. I straighten a bit more and look her straight in the eye and tell her — “please do not use your Gremlin Self-Canibalism as a way to threaten me and the other women so that I do not close the space. The space has too much love for blackmail.” She gets it. She does not collapse under this clarity. Surprisingly this snapped her a bit more out of the Gremlin choke-hold.
We stay like this awhile. no one says anything. We are just being with Reality. Slowly the other women get up one by one. I stay looking at her, being with her. Finally she asks —“will you hug me?”. I say yes. We stand up and I hug her tightly, hugging her so that all her bodies can really feel the hug. She starts sobbing, sobbing. We stay there outside the house hugging while she cries and wails.
One of the women who had not been there for the whole process comes out of the house. She hugs her from the back, and we both squeeze tight enough that she gets it. More sobs. Then she squeezes me back. I can feel her heart relax. She is coming back to herself. She is coming back to life, and to us.