Excavating Me Out Of The Hole I’ve Been In

The real deal is in the telling of the story and the excavating of the body, mind and spirit that goes with it.

That – and almost only that – can right so much that is wrong! 

Reflecting on my recent progress on my Ethics Complaint, alongside my experiences over the weekend,  today I am like the kintsugi-appearing pot my Spirit Sister Sue brought me on Saturday, filled with fall flowers, to celebrate the very first Truth or Dare GAME, formerly the Discount Derby, I have led since losing my eyesight in 1998.

(If you noticed earlier announcements of our GAME, they did not come off. Now we think we were just ahead of time, as planned.)

We had chosen, carefully, to schedule the event to, also, celebrate the Fall Equinox, the mid-point between the longest and shortest days of the year.

It was a wonderful day for me and, hopefully, for the others, all New Horizons Board Members, who are, now, committing themselves to revitalizing our signature program, the Discount Derby (the DD). 

For our present objectives, we have renamed the program,  titling it the New Horizons Truth or Dare GAME.

This is in order to aid interested others in getting a sense, with this new name, of what the process of our GAME is about, daring to tell and hear the truth in a safe, healing environment. 

So gently, we sometimes refer to it as a love bath!

Refreshing, don't you think?

As New Horizons signature program, Truth or Dare (i.e. the DD) has, over the years, transformed the lives of hundreds, if not thousands of people by teaching people how to do this.

We hold this process in the highest esteem and are forever proud of its history, as we look forward to its future. So badly needed in this era of #MeToo.

Can you imagine yourself, as we did last Saturday, talking honestly and endlessly about male-female relationship obstacles, with both men and women, and ending up with increased intimacy and celebration, especially in this day and age?

We accomplished that on Saturday, if not easily, at least with success, when all was said and done. 

It was only a start, but we will aim to do it again soon, on a Saturday in October, keeping in mind that, as soon as appropriate, we will want to open our Truth or Dare/Discount Derby doors to others, beyond our current GAME players, the New Horizons Board of Directors.

One of the major elements of healthy, transformative relating that our GAME demonstrates is: that if a listener or a group of caring, attentive listeners, open to receiving the stories of one another with caring, consideration, compassion and respect, the outcome can be close to an experience of magic!

We had a touch of that magic on Saturday. 

But only a touch, as we are just getting started at playing our new GAME. 

Yet, as it happened, on and off on Saturday, when our stories were told and listened to, a simple, easy kind of magic occurred; so gentle in its workings as to be almost imperceptible. 

Some, as did one of our board members, on Saturday, identify the experience as “intimacy.” 

At New Horizons we more customarily call it “awe:” that moment when differences and  discussions are set aside, while hearts and minds come together, resonating and resting with one another, at least momentarily.

On the heels of Saturday’s Truth or Dare GAME, my Ethics Complaint healing process, also, made a stride in the direction of progress, yesterday, giving me the sense, as I reflected on it in my evening meditation, that I was, at last, possibly on the road to putting the broken pieces of myself back, wholly, together with gold, as in kintsugi.

A kintsugi-like repair of me, encompassing all my Ethics Complaint has entailed, has always been my objective, since the onset. 

Myself, yourself, any one's self, can put fragmented parts of the self, back together again, when true stories are told and listened to, no matter how broken. 

Even if certain pieces cannot be fully mended in to their original form, still there is a kind of wholeness that transcends the break, bringing back to life something wonderful and beautiful.

I think now, at last, my true mending may have begun!

Oh, there have been fits and starts along the way since I began my Ethics Complaint adventure nine months ago. 

But none seemed able to pan out; mostly due to the excessive legalese and organizational functioning and dysfunctioning I was constantly encountering, at the hands of the Ethics Committee of the International Transactional Analysis Association. 

I still cannot reveal too much of the wretched ordeal just yet. But what lies behind this subject will be something I intend to be addressing here on this blog site for a very long time, in days to come. 

Nonetheless, in fairness to myself, I am trusting I can say this much: 

I have been through a horrific experience with this organization that need not have happened at all, in my way of thinking! 

And, that needs to be thoroughly "excavated" in order for us to get to the bottom of an ordeal that has held me hostage for more than nine months to date!

Especially appalling, in my mind, coming from a psychology-based organization! 

However, this seems to be the way of the world, these days. And, one must not expect much otherwise, as I, apparently, naively, have done in this instance.

But today I want to put that awfulness aside, for the moment, to celebrate the progress I made yesterday, at last, and over the weekend. 

For a moment, in each of these circumstances, I knew the feel of healing, truth and reconciliation. And the liberation of body, mind and soul that can be attained.

Brief as it was, I have every reason, at this point, to believe that the experiences I had in both instances, will be sustainable and grow, leading me out of the hole I’ve been in, now, for months.

Surprisingly, my advancement yesterday was not at all by virtue of anything coming out of the ITAA. Rather it came, unexpectedly from a sub, but related organization about which I will share more when the time feels right.

With these goings on occurring, today I am reminded of the backhoes I watched moving through Ground Zero in New York, when I visited it a few years back. 

I see them in my mind’s eye, now, excavating that ground that was to become hallowed by virtue of the destruction and devastation that had occurred there. As these backhoes lifted the dirt and debris of that site, formerly unseen at this level, since the early ‘70s, up to the light of the healing sunshine, they brought in the hope for a better tomorrow, on that spot that was once the site of the World Trade Center (WTC).

Like the WTC on September 11, 2001, I, too, have been leveled by what has happened to me. However, happily, I can say I have managed quite well, in spite of the challenge, even extraordinarily!

I had been cut down, not by anyone, truly, purposefully, wanting to destroy me, as had happened at the WTC.  

But carelessly intent, so definitively, on ego gratification, power over, dominance and control, so as to throw me off for a bit, costing me almost irretrievably career-wise, including financially.

No, not to hurt me in that mortally lethal way that took down the Twin Towers! 

But willing to damage me in that subtly violent way that is not so subtle when you are the target: the not so subtle violence that is running and ruining our country right now as I write. 

The not unsubtle emotional violence I suffered at the hands of my psychotherapy mentor plagues me now, driving me, up against the inordinate resistance I've experienced by the ITAA Ethics Committee, refusing to do their responsible part to help liberate me from the wounds and collateral damage I sustained.

Today, however, on my own, I am the backhoe excavating the rubble of me, body, mind and spirit, in order to build anew, feeling, at last, that I am progressing.

With that image in mind, I am turning from that darkness, focusing, instead, on the ways of kintsugi, the ancient Japanese art of mending broken fragments with the liquid gold that can bind cracked pieces together again, into a new and enhanced beautified me. 

Today, I am the pile of rubble, accumulated from the excavation down into the deepest levels of earth, representing me, that must be uprooted and replanted, so that a new, sturdy creation can grow here on the soil that is me, that once saw destruction. 

The backhoe and the rubble come together in me, tearing down the old me that used to be, in the service, now, of building a new, earth and sky connected foundation, for me, that will soon be a healthier more whole self. 

I am the backhoe, manned (oops I think I mean “womanned”) in order that the excavation, needing completion, can proceed and someday establish and build the new, more holy structure that yearns inside of me to be born and move forward, unfettered.

Today, the hammering on my head and the banging inside of me, of a week ago, has stopped enough for me to glimpse this possible future for myself – and for many others who have been similarly held back, like myself.

Up against the efforts of the #MeToo movement, this potential is viable. 

Growing numbers of us can achieve this new, liberated way to walk in the world. 

When we can settle down enough to tell our stories, hear those of others and reflect back to one another, the essence of that magical moment we saw in Avatar: that moment when hearts and minds said “I see you” and truly meant it, comes to life to liberate us from the chains we now slough off.

At the Truth or Dare GAME/Discount Derby this is included, by nature, in the name of the GAME. We hope you will want to experience it yourself!

But can that truly happen in a congressional hearing? 

That moment of genuine "I see you," in my heart and mind?

Eric Berne, creator of Transactional Analysis (TA) whose very organization that has seemingly let me down these past months, wrote a book, published posthumously, What Do You Say After You Say Hello." in which he answered the question of his title saying, paraphrased, that the answer to that question is that "we happen to one another."

Can we happen to one another on the internet? 

In a blog or magazine or newspaper article?

I don't know. 

Still, maybe the noise we are producing is the start we need, again and again, in order to launch the processes that affirm that our female voices will be heard, even in the highest of courts.

Or, so it seems.

For myself,  I witnessed  and experienced the power of sharing stories, including our most closely held perceptions at New Horizons Truth or Dare GAME (formerly the Discount Derby) last Saturday at our Harpers Ferry Retreat Center. 

That kick off was so much in keeping with New Horizons pledge to help aid the #MeToo movement with our recently commenced Beyond Gender Tyranny project and programs, soon about to celebrate its one year anniversary.

Today, free of the drama that has followed me, almost every step of the way in my involvement with the ITAA Ethics Committee, the words of Helen Keller come to mind, as I am uplifted by recent events. 

"One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar." 

I have not been willing to creep. 

Today I am soaring, if just a little!