The Awakening, Part 3
Continuing on with my coverage of the emotional terrain of my weekend workshop, toward the end of it we did an exercise which reminded me of a process group I was in many years ago. Based on the encounter groups of the ’60’s and ’70’s, it was set up to encourage free expression of feelings, but twenty years later, nobody in my group took any of their clothes off.
At the time, it was called New Identity Process, but I believe they now call it bonding therapy or primal therapy. Essentially, its principal tenet was physical closeness combined with emotional openness. The group was wonderful and scary and real. We lay on mattresses and cushions on the floor and hugged and screamed and cried in each others’ arms. We re-experienced our traumas old and new, and in the safety of the group, and in the space of a couple of hours, freed ourselves of emotional gunk it would have taken years to do with traditional talk therapy. Under the guidance of skilled psychotherapists, these groups were and still are scattered along the Eastern seaboard, SoCal and in Europe.
Without a trained therapist handy, primal scream groups can trigger a whole host of inner crap, without a safe way to handle it. Suddenly, there I was, blindfolded and in the midst of 20 other blindfolded people screaming their heads off. There were staff there to make sure that nobody careened into anyone else. And knowing they could see us made me freeze up inside. I stood there amidst the piteous caterwauling of painful childhoods and couldn’t move. Fueled by a CD of frenzied conga drums, the wailing seemed interminable, and I stood there imagining I was somewhere far, far away. When the music changed and people started in with the high piercing screams of fear, I also acted mine out. I pulled off my blindfold and bolted out the door.
Once outside, I thought….I’ll just wait til this whole exercise is over and then I’ll go back in. But one of the assistants came outside and said, “Well, you know, this exercise is to open up your heart, and, well…” She shrugged her shoulders and went back inside, without completing the sentence.
And that’s when I knew. There was no way my heart was going to open up with people screaming, “Daddy, stop it!” around me. If I couldn’t do this exercise, then I couldn’t authentically be part of the group. I’d withstood people judging me, projecting their issues onto me and just plain not listening to me all weekend. I’d said “No” when I needed to say “No,” in the face of pressure, guilt and ostracism. To attempt to continue with them without having had the emotional release they did would have opened up the possibility for questions and more judgments. And I had had enough. When the exercise was over, I went back inside, picked up my things, threw on my invisibility cloak, and left.
Driving off into the night I felt like I was ripping apart the bonds of fragile human tissue. Had I not been so triggered, I would have informed someone of my departure. There were a few people I wanted to say goodbye to, to trade numbers with, to have closure. I prayed they would understand.
Later that evening, when the presence of my absence had sunk into the group, when the sting of abandoning the class had loosened its grip in me just a bit, I began to relax and to feel myself again.
And then the most incredible thing happened. I felt this flood of energy come and wrap itself around me. It was gorgeous and warm…and masculine. It was love - purer than any I have ever felt before. There was no agenda, no words… it was just…wow. It actually took my breath away.
Our lives are bookended by divinity, and in our mortal coils we glimpse it as we can. We reach for the ecstatic or the stillness to coax it to us. In spite of all that I went through, I was open enough to experience a soupçon of the great divine. This is the best thing anyone can teach another. To answer the annoyed “Why are you here?” that still jabs at me when I think about this weekend, this is why. To be wrapped in the arms of divinity.
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