The Awakening, Part 2
So this workshop I keep alluding to was all about eating for pleasure, to discover a deeper sense of passion for food, in that we tend to shovel food down without regard for truly appreciating the quality and quantity we are eating. In essence, it was a Conscious Eating workshop, combined with meditation, visualization, semi-Shamanic journeying, primal therapy, and as we were to find out, fasting.
This all sounds lovely, and it would have been, had there been some respect for individuality. Because it wasn’t just the issue of not fasting that was setting me apart from the herd; it was a spoken commitment we had to make in front of the group. One by one we had to get up in front of the class and say we were totally committed to…what were we committed to? I can’t remember. Anyway, we had to say we were committed and then everyone else judged us using a number scale on how much conviction we had.
Like I was really going to speak my vulnerable truth and have people grade me on it. Again, I protested, and this time some of the women in the class started needling me with, “Why are you here?” “What did you come for if you’re not going to give 150%?”
Ah, sisterhood.
I defended myself by saying I had already learned a lot and had already begun to change, but it felt like one of those dream sequences where I am screaming and no one can hear me. “No,” I kept saying. “No! I don’t feel safe. I’m not going to do it!” The pressure did not let up until we broke for “lunch” and I went to the refrigerator, scanning for either a hangman’s noose or chicken salad. I found the latter.
One of the maestro’s assistants came up to me and tried to draw me out a little. She said she understood where I was coming from, and that she had perfected a crusty exterior before taking his courses, too. I said that the fear of getting up in front of people was too immobilizing, that it would take time away from the group until I was ready and able to get up there, and the world may have ended by that point. She asked what had happened that made me so terrified, and I shrugged my shoulders. “Just a lot of people shaming me,” I said. And then I burst into tears.
I flashed upon a memory of my mother, turning around in synagogue one Saturday morning to yell at me for being shy. “Your face turns beet red when I introduce you to people, you don’t look anyone in the eye…What’s wrong with you?” she cried. And then, “You know how it makes me feel to see you up there on the bima (stage) with your friends? Galey, Marca, Lynnie…they’re all so much thinner than you!”
Ah, motherhood. So good at making you feel as tall as a fetus.
The assistant said, “You know, the maestro would do anything for you. He cares about everyone here.”
“Anything?” I said, searching for a Kleenex.
“Yes,” she replied. “If you want him to do some pushups in order for you to get up in front of the class, he’ll do it!”
A slow grin crept over my face at the thought, and felt a sense of power coming back into my hands. I actually had a say here. “Okay,” I smiled. “I’ll do it.”
The class reassembled and the assistant announced that I had something to say. Gulp. I didn’t think it was going to be so soon. But I stood up and facing the maestro, said, “I will agree to getting up there and having my say if you will do 30 pushups for us…with your shirt off!”
And as people exploded with laughter and cheers, he glared at me in the way someone would if they were thinking, “I AM TRYING TO TEACH YOU DEEP SPIRITUAL TRUTHS ABOUT YOURSELF AND YOU JUST WANT TO SEE MY BODY???”
To which I smiled back, “YOU ARE TALKING ALL ABOUT FOOD AND PASSION IN THE PRESENCE OF TWENTY SEXUALLY REPRESSED WOMEN AND YOU’RE NOT GOING TO PUT OUT??? ON THE GROUND, BEEFCAKES!”
He took off his shirt (and undershirt), faced the floor and started pumping. The class started counting off and one of the massage therapists in the room silently marveled at the nice muscle definition she was seeing. Hoots and whistles accompanied the countoff.
He completed his task and stood up, having hardly broken a sweat. The class burst into cheers and applause. Then I had to put out. Well, the energy of the room was entirely changed after that brief but important display of skin and submission. I reiterated my insights about breaking through some prehistoric shame I’d been carrying around, and that I was now ready to go forward with the group. I was given a similar round of applause.
The good feeling lasted for a good few hours, until I had to pretend I was a Divine Slut, and I froze up all over again. I thought, I need waaay more than 30 shirtless pushups to do this in front of people.
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