How to root yourself in your own experience and not identify so much with “identity” and the clothes which society places upon you ?
I once attended a powerful dance class. The teacher had all these large brusque men be cradled by each other on the floor and to weep like babies. It was one of the most terrifyingly beautiful things I’ve ever watched. To ask people to be completely outside of themselves and just be what they need, and feel what they haven’t felt in a long time.
In hindsight, I realized that the exercise wasn’t just powerful because it dealt with the subconscious in an embodied manner – but because it also dealt with our masks.
What do we not allow ourselves to be ?
I thought about this for a while, meditated and prayed on it. The roles of gender, boy, girl, him/her being one of the most potent dualities we sponge in from an early age. What is a mother ? A father ? What is it to become a Man or to be a Woman ?
I invite you in any of the following exercises and meditations to explore gender in a different way – in a very personal, embodied and ritualistic way. With the full intent of healing and understanding more of yourself as a soul. And to remind yourself of the wisdom that you could find inside of yourself when you care to look.
This is a guide. An invitation.
01.
I would like you to first think about your parents. How the seed of you was created by two different things that are also the same. I want you to recall the role, the sound, and the meaning for you of mother and father. Who were you closer with ? Who did you relate to more and why ?
I’d like you to choose a parent. The one where you see the cord connecting you of him and her as frayed. It could be a guardian it could be the one who raised you. A motherly or fatherly figure. The youngest archetype for you of what a man or a woman meant and how well – unupdated that could be.
Look kindly at this figure. See him or her in your mind’s eye as vividly as you can with the kindest heart you can muster. With wisdom that is currently beyond yourself.
See how, how some of the ideas they embodied hurt you. Frayed your relationship. For the last time, maybe, bring up all the hurt they caused you. See it as a ball forming around the other end of the cord. See them hurting themselves as much as they hurt you. Learn from their lesson. Their weaknesses. Acknowledge that you don’t have to be like that, that you’re grateful for that.
That maybe you’re not over it now, but you will be. You swear it and that you allow yourself to be more than what they see you, and how you see them. Let go of that. Forgive yourself for holding to so much of that. Cry and rage if you have to.
Flashback to all the memories where you were expected to be this way and that and just watch that tension trickle away. See the cord glow gold as you acknowledge where they were and what they’ve taught you and how you’ve moved on from that.
Feel you body release and become a new being.
02.
Next I’d like you to list down the gender you identify with, and list , exhaust 25-100 traits you believe to be a phenomenal version of that.
Man, woman, whatever you’d like.
I want you to keep writing until there’s nothing left you can think of. Then. Forget about this list for a day, a shower, a meal and come back at it again with fresh eyes.
Look at the themes and group together your words. Look at your patterns. What do you not allow yourself to be because of your role ? Look at the gaps, squint and see the words as a painted picture and find that negative space. What, what do you tell yourself not to aspire to be – what do you run away from ? See it as a person, see it like a character. for this exercise, a guide.
An example.
I believed that woman couldn’t be old, dirty, disgusting and unloved. The radical, crazy koo koo type that won’t be approved by her brood or larger society. The kind who really doesn’t give a shit, who’s kind of a witch and gets your hairs standing on it’s ends. Watch her it, this ANTI-ideal you.
Watch it talk.
Mine told me: So who gives a fuck ?? You scared of garbage , of trash ?
I LIVE IN IT. I recycle other people’s bull and what people throw away because I don’t need my sustenance to come from only one pretty nice sounding thing. I need no decoration. I DON’t feel bad about being bad, being bad feels good. I can be bad when I’m bad, when I’m disobedient and a little intimidating – who honestly gives a shit – ye scared of bein CREEPY BUT HONESTLY – WHO GIVES A FUCK???
She was some raven filth queen and she scared me into being brave. Of giving less fucks, of being more radical and unapologetic. Things outside of my definition of what I thought was ideal and good for me.
Talk to this anti-YOU. This dark-link. Understand him/her. Be it’s friend.
You will learn.
03.
Last.
Visit an older stupider, teenager version of you that was going on the cusp of adulthood. Heck it could be 30 year old you, just visit that energy of when you were stupid about your conceptions of how the world works, and how you hurt yourself with what you believed. All the narratives of what boys being men meant and what girls being women meant and all of you lying in everything out of it and in between. That entire journey.
This may be the time you thought you couldn’t love again, or that you didn’t deserve it.
This could be the time where you blamed ALL MEN, the church, your mother for this and so and so and so and so and so and they’ve all been dead for years now and you’re this angry child, who can’t see and won’t realize.
Maybe, it’s the time you looked for validation in all the wrong places, and declared yourself unlovable, and wanted to throw physical chairs at god if that was possible.
Those emotions can get you drunk. You see that now, you see that now visiting yourself from a different space and time.
See yourself thrash and cling and lose yourself. Lose the connection to the greatest power within yourself.
Try to joke, slap and shake that you down. Grasp him/her from your new place of wisdom or at least your relative calm. Yeah hey, you. Talk to you. We’ve been through a lot. You’ll get over this. Look at me. Because of all that crap you got this, i learned.
This:
This:
and
This:
I’ve learned to love first myself above all other things. I learned that soon enough you’ll run out of people and excuses to blame for and you’ll realize it was all fear. All of it just fear. I learned that it’s okay to not be okay and that all storms come to pass.
Rub the shoulder of this younger you. And say what you can now, especially in regards with this hoo haa of being man/woman/human in this day and age.
Yea it’s okay that you don’t have a boyfriend. Yeah you, sir need to stop using women as your only way to understand your own feelings. Babe, it’s okay to be bisexual, gay and whatever you’d like. Tell your younger you all that. Remind you of all that.
Those are all important. Even if you think you know, old you needs to hear it.
Hug that you.
Coddle it. Then say you’re a good kid.
See a door in the corner of your eye. And wave goodbye.
You did good. Go out the door.
Welcome back.
–
–
–
M
Maria Mison 