Every Quarter ex-clients and contacts upon my interested list receive an E-Journal entitled Renewal. This circulates humanistic and Gestalt informed articles – many of which were submitted for the Certificate or Diploma in Gestalt. The articles below are extracted from some 5 years of this journal. Go to the contact page to join.

                            Ali’s Story  -  Journey of a Self Through Gestalt

                     (Account of Gestalt Workshops with Paul 2008)

 After attendance at 'Inquiring in a Gestalt Way', 'Resolving Conflict & Healing Communities', 'Gestalt Inquiry into Spirituality', 'Facilitating Groups & Leading Teams' & 'Gestalt Informed Coaching & Counselling' with Paul in 2008 I wrote this account. It feels like I have no words or thoughts to describe the Gestalt experience I’ve had in the last year. It may be that I’m just afraid of letting my usual torrent of analysis drown out the delicate new ways of being that were just starting – on rare occasion - to emerge. But in counterpoint to my dominant style, this ‘other’ way seems almost completely wordless. There are only two other places I have felt it emerge. One is in my psychotherapy sessions, manifested by my complete silence for 20-40 minutes of each session. The other is in music. Neither facilitates writing this account, so this will be a good practice of some kind of integration of the two.

In attempting to do this new thing, to speak with a different voice and allow it to speak at all, I get a sense of relief from contemplating the many helpful structures for our thinking/experience that Paul has provided to us. Whenever he proposes a series of levels, or ways of experiencing, it makes me think simultaneously of the body, of music, and the structures present there which can represent order, and yet at the same time allow completely unique moment-on-moment expression and the possibility of harmony. So it subverts the way the purely logical side of my mind would use it – at least a little.

 This idea of levels is useful when thinking about why I attended the Gestalt workshops at all – there seem to be a number of answers. The starting point is apparently related to ‘work’ – I had asked an experienced consultant who I regularly work for as a project assistant how I could develop myself to a higher professional level, and this is what he heartily recommended. However because it was something I had proactively sought out, the sense of reassurance of a natural flow towards this path i.e. that I ‘should be here’ and that I had really chosen it was never quite there. I found it easy to dissociate myself in fantasy from the rest of the groups as ‘I wasn’t a consultant or coach like them’ and hence dissociate myself from any work ambitions – consulting or otherwise – that I may harbour. Nonetheless there were many moments over the course of the year’s workshops which found this notion challenged – and indeed brought to light that this is the way I generally live my life i.e. ‘I’m not really meant to be here’. This included brusque rebuttals by other participants of my claim that I was the only non-consultant present, warm glowing feedback at times on my coaching efforts, and the chance to lead a group exercise in a way I wanted to and finding that it pretty much worked. If anything this has increased my hunger to be operating in life ‘for real’, actually out there, actually with something to say and my frustration at not having the opportunity – but perhaps I’m looking in the wrong place?

 There is a huge attraction for me of organisational life – the chance to be involved in articulated theories and strategies that shape the conditions we’re in – or are meant to – and the practice of acting them out. This was something I could not find in the musical realm – I could get lost in it, but no-one provided a guide map at the verbal-intellectual level and I was too afraid or shy or angry or lonely to keep wandering out there on my own.

 However the soulful wasteland of the corporate environment (in my reality) – a giant colourful cartoon landscape painted on a plastic sheet, the stench of rotting corpses underneath – or my practice of diving deeply without almost all limits so that balance becomes impossible, have made it also a deathly experience. I never ‘made it’ in the corporate sphere even though to a certain degree I tried hard. ‘Managed out’ from one large corporate, and sacked from a small consultancy - the track record seems in fact to favour failure.

 But perhaps I forgot what I was doing there, and that I had never meant to stay? These moments were certainly painful reminders to move on. The intellectual brilliance of the people at times, the chance to work actively together, the sense of working community coexisting at the same time with an utter lack of human-benefiting vision, or worse a self-engorging systemic machine that is sophisticated enough to create a slippery reality that is in fact the direct opposite of what it really is. It’s such a paradox. What I felt – once I became more conscious of it – seemed to run against the flow of much corporate life. But I was not enough, not big or strong or brave enough to ‘change’ it and so I would move on to try to learn more.

 Now, with my love/hate relationship with business and lack of any prolonged experience, I don’t fit the classic consultant shape. And perhaps that isn’t what I want. And yet my curriculum vitae does not look promising to the schools I apply to fill their music teacher posts. Perhaps what I was really looking for was myself.

 I was taken by the O’Donoghue quote in Paul’s article referring to what people can do with their selves in the face of others. In the quote and article he talks of a work identity, but in my case I would extend it more broadly to a public identity. He says ‘they become seduced by the practice of self-absence’, and this starts to move beyond the territory of work alone and into other aspects of my life.

 What I like about this quote is the acknowledgement of the seductive aspect of self-absence, and just the acknowledgement of self-absence at all as something that exists and is practised. Something that has always surprised me is how I could be running the show this way (with nobody home), yet unable to help myself dropping little clues and hints and cries for attention – and yet apparently nobody would notice. And yet why would they? Not many of us have the time and space for insight, the courage, the skill and even perhaps the right to penetrate someone else’s self-inflicted prison – and of course if you try you will be fought to the death. If I think of it in reverse, I often meet people (they probably remind me of myself) where it feels like there is an impenetrable wall around them, and when have I had the bravery to lob something over the parapet and shout ‘what are you DOING in there’? I sometimes whisper it softly and a nose peeks out – but nothing more. This relates to the ‘personal/private/home’ level of why I think I attended the Gestalt workshops. The fact that Paul was able to see me behind the parapet, and voice it, was a source of constant delight and freedom. It was if one had always wanted to be seen, but dared not proclaim it.

 In terms of surfacing this self in the workshops or groups there was I think a limited degree of success – largely my two available modes seemed to be silence or analysis. I enjoyed responding to Paul’s call for us to be more challenging, but quickly retreated back behind fortified walls as the sharpness of the projections felt too much. But I was left intrigued, and confused at how few steps I seemed to have walked and having no idea how to go forward, but having to do it anyway – and now without even the live Gestalt structure as a guide in the moment. We could wonder how ‘self-absence’ even works. My experience is of something constantly dying, or on the verge of doing so – so how is anything sustained? This is how I think it links back to the seduction aspect – I call it ‘snacking’. By way of explanation, I can look at my bodily practices, my eating habits - they are generally the best guide to my soul state at the time. Currently – and this has been the case for the last year or two – I can’t seem to bring myself to eat meals. I have no time is one excuse – I’ve been doing numerous jobs and am never at home, certainly not at meal times, or near anywhere I could cook. So that means that I can only eat on the run, and when I’m hungry and its a choice between an apple and a packet of chocolate digestives I’ll go for the latter every time. In fact I’m almost convinced that I’ve created the whole situation, just to give myself the chance to ‘snack’. The benefit of snacking is a sharp penetrating stimulation of the senses to wake up the dying ‘absent’ self and keep it on life support long enough until the next round. Because snacking itself is seductive – you never have enough and that’s the point. In the same way occasional meaningful connections with sharp-minded people in corporate environments gave me a heightened version of the human contact I craved but was unable to create by truly remaining in an ongoing family or friendship community. These connections were intermittent and demanded no commitment – but it was easy to be seduced, and forget that these relationships are not even friendships, as chocolate will never nourish like a meal – and yet at the same time it does feel like the hunger that needs to be answered now.

 The third level of enquiry during my attendance at the Gestalt workshops was around ‘relationship/ sexuality’. I started the Gestalt work while in the last throes of a painful connection with someone, one that had been characterised by giving up on ourselves, seeing what we could get from the other, burgeoning new sexuality (mine), alcoholism (hers) and acutely blissful and torturous mergence as we fought to the death to save ourselves enough airspace in the claustrophobic and unnatural cocoon we had created. Halfway through the year we finally managed to stop the relationship part, but it was only at the end of the year that I finally submitted to the idea that I should leave my work and the ongoing emotional dependency I had. Another ‘forced departure’ that was no doubt for the best. I imagine that I was a nightmare to be with, and my starting in-authenticity of ‘seeing what it would be like’ to be with her was a cruel decision that cost us both – although I think we were both deluding ourselves. She also gave as good as she got – it was like being faced by my most feared demon, in the flesh, and it felt worse than I could have possibly imagined, again and again. And yet I’m still here. During this year and these experiences, I went through the workshops and found that different situations showed up and evoked strong reactions. I discovered with delight that there were two ‘real lesbians’ at one workshop I participated in – ‘they do exist, even amongst ‘consultants’, it is possible’ – were thoughts I had.

 I fell in love with a man two workshops later – the next one I attended after the relationship ending – or at least I thought I did. We conducted what felt for me like a whirlwind phone romance for a week until we finally tried to bring it into reality by meeting and I felt my soul straining at the leash as the train edged closer and closer, finally snapping and flying as far out of my body as I could imagine, leaving my empty shell to play the old familiar role and die another mini-death. Another level which I connected to the Gestalt workshops was ‘family’. On the one hand my mother paid for me to attend the workshops – so it seems that there is some connection there, initially through the basic trade of money. I am quite rejecting of her advances, so perhaps this is the only way she could get to me these days. However other than this, I feel like I’m returning to the more wordless state again – I can’t think or express what I learned at this level, aside from sharing a rather bleak picture of my family experience, and receiving some warmth and care in the ongoing fortnightly group that I felt in a somewhat familial way. This will undoubtedly come up more in the psychotherapy path that I’m deepening as I leave the active Gestalt space.

 Closely connected to this, and the resulting level of enquiry which is one I am particularly present to now is the level of ‘identity’. While growing up, I was a girl with close-cropped hair who was often mistaken for a boy – but perhaps this was also to a degree how I identified? During one primary school year I started calling myself Alistair, as I didn’t like the direction that things were heading in. When I turned 16 and my body started changing this feeling deepened, and perhaps I never got used to it – my life-modelling and fuzzy-haired body are an ongoing attempt to deal with this, without much noticeable change in response. When I began as a graduate in corporate life and quickly realised that I could never quite make it as the ‘tops’ had, without giving up more than I was prepared to, I felt even more trapped. Years of attempts to be a fulfilled sexual partner with people I mildly liked, but in a physical dynamic I didn’t, deepened the distress.  

 One of the comments Paul made to a female peer and I during one fortnightly group was that that we were ‘two of the most masculine women he knew’. I was hugely touched by this remark, because of the impotence I feel - what always seemed to so obvious in my childhood, as an adult I did my best to hide. When I stack myself up against the others I don’t seem to appear as a masculine woman, but I would like someone to acknowledge me for all I am. In fact this acknowledgement may be necessary for survival, as I can only deduce from the willingness with which I invite others (men and ‘masculine’ women) in, and prostrate my feminine side before them, that this subjugation is what is going on inside me. The lonely young boy who perpetrates these acts needs not only space, but some honesty, if this way of living is going to begin to transform. And after climbing up and down the ladder of the levels of my experience on this journey, I now realise that this – above all - is what I have learned.

 About the Author: Ali Warner works as a freelance project manager and graphic recorder on large-group facilitation events, while teaching beginner piano and music theory privately. She runs the Barnes Primary School Orchestra and is training in the Kodaly Music Education method. She practices meditation and studies within the Shambhala Buddhist lineage, and is trained as a Shambhala meditation guide. ali@aliwarner.com

 

 

                    FEAR – The most Potent of Fantasies?

                                                                                 Paul Barber

 “Is the system going to flatten you out and deny you your humanity, or are you going to be able to make use of the system to the attainment of human purposes?" (Joseph Campbell).

 Fear is a helpful reminder of the territory we inhabit. Being unable to settle into a pattern, for instance my own academic style, writing this piece I’m fearful of not being able to do myself justice, letting myself down, and all those other little dramas that preoccupy my little ego-inflated self. And this interests me, for although I’ve experienced profound fear in my body – physiologically, and felt it emotionally when my identity was threatened, a part of me, beyond my ego I would suggest, even at these times was fearless and untouched.

 So what is fear? I know what physiologists and psychotherapists usually say, something along the lines of an over-agitation of the organism, a reptilian response of the primitive sympathetic nervous system, an experiential state of risk where an individual feels catapulted beyond their social and psychic support systems. And this might well be true, but these signs are not so much causes as symptoms of fear. So how might I glibly define it?  An embodied over-identification with past pain and identity, coupled with a current surrender to imagination.

 Fears are often seen in two broad guises, free-floating or generalized, and focused or targeted upon specific things and events. Fear here is a multidimensional creature with somatic, experiential, and cognitive features, as well as a subjective energy that though felt, cannot be directly observed. At root, it rests in our expectations; in the space before a “happening”; in a limbo zone where the worst is expected but has not yet come. Fear is all the more fearful because of this, its ghost-like quality.

 I remember being fearful when my son was diagnosed with cancer, and being fearless when discussing cancer and breaking the news to him. I remember being fearful when contemplating and imagining the possible manner of his death, but being fearless as I nursed him through his death. So what does this say about the nature of fear? Is it merely a phantom we conjure up to haunt ourselves with? And death, what is this but the most fearful of our dramas, the one we most often buy into.

 Preservation of “self” and all that is “associated with the self” seems to be the prime concern of fear. Note how phobias are produced by high places (acrophobia), open spaces (agoraphobia), closed places (claustrophobia) and darkness (nytophobia), times when we are disorientated from the self; see also how it appears symbolically, in such symbols of death as poisonous animals (zoophobia) or germs and contamination (mysophobia), where death again comes to equal ego extinction. Hold less tightly to the self, and we may possibly find ourselves letting go of a good deal of fear!

 Physically, our fears show themselves in increased heart rate and palpitations; high blood pressure and muscular tension; difficulty in breathing and deep sighs; diluted pupils and dry mouth; facial pallor and a cold clammy skin. When fear is prolonged, there may be slow heartbeat and low blood pressure; nausea and lack of sleep; restlessness and tremor; rapid speech and rapid movement and withdrawal.   

Psychologically, fear shows itself in impaired concentration and attention, forgetfulness and errors of judgement; thought blocking and confusion. There is a close tie between fear and anger, fear and depression, fear and guilt, fear and suspiciousness. When our ego or self image is threatened and our mental defences are all but overcome – we experience fear. Consider the commonest time for heat-attacks, 9 am on Monday mornings. Do you now get a feel for the territory “fear” occupies?

On a continuum from moderate fear to panic, fear moves from the healthy to the disabling:

  * Mild fear is associated with the anxiety that accompanies the daily task of living, and serves to heighten sensory alertness.

* Moderate fear causes tunnel vision and a loss of peripheral perception, but is nevertheless necessary, for stimulation and increased metabolism at times of crisis.

* Severe fear blots out everything - but that which is feared, and has little positive effect.

* Panic results when we are overwhelmed and controlled by fear alone, and if left unabated, can in extreme cases lead to exhaustion and death.

When I list my more common fears they tend to fall into fears of losing control or being controlled by others; being rejected and becoming trapped; being punished or meeting pain. Yet life is all of these things - all the more exciting because of them – and indeed all the sweeter for when they stop. And if they were not there at all - how would I know contentment?

Some people get accustomed to “fearful anxiety” as a constant in life, and become quite upset when fear isn’t there to motivate them. Fear gives them a purpose, something to avoid, to fight or to plan against. In this way they become addicted to and dependent upon their fears. After all, doesn’t an enemy who comes to life on the outside allow us a temporary escape from the real enemy within? And what is the nature of this inner enemy? Our inability to detach ourselves from the part of us that fears?

 

Some years back I conducted a study into the core fears that people expressed in group settings:

* At a sensory or physical level I found individuals were fearful of: misperceiving evidence; being overwhelmed by stimuli; or drifting out of sensory contact.

* At the social or cultural level I found such fears as: offending others; being seen to be different; receiving ridicule or rejection.

* At the emotional or transferential level of engagement individuals expressed fears of: being powerless; punished; overwhelmed by the emotional demands of others.

* At the imaginative or fantasy level individuals haunted themselves with: being made worse by exposure to others distress; losing self control; hurting others.

* At the symbolic or transpersonal level over and beyond the self, individuals expressed fears of: being extinguished; going mad; meeting with the unknown and unknowable.

And when I questioned myself and my subjects further, did we want to move beyond our fears? No? Our fears awoke us, motivated us, occasioned much change; in short, they were both a spur and a growing pain. Jeffers (1991) makes a similar point when she suggests that:

* Fear will never go away as long as you continue to grow (fear is a natural consequence of facing change);

* The only way to get rid of the fear about doing something is to go out and do it (you can not go round fear - only through it);

* The only way to feel better about yourself is to do what you are afraid of (face the fear);

* Not only am I going to experience fear whenever I am on unfamiliar territory, but so is every one else (essentially, fear is part of the human condition);

* Pushing through fear is less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness (working through fear is better than giving in to it).

Personally, I am suggesting in this essay that most of my fear tends to hover between 'where I am now' and 'where I want to be'; that is, it seems to be something I project upon the future, for when I am fully engaged within the real crises of my life, I am oblivious to fear. Fear equals an association with imagined future events. I might feel fear and shock post an event, but when I am really in it – I have no time to indulge in “fearfulness”. Fear is the product of projection. When I catch fear stealing into the moment I attend to my senses; concentrate on my breathing; attune more mindfully to what I am seeing and hearing and physically experiencing – right now. Speaking about my fears dilutes them further; it also bonds me to humankind. 

   “From of old there were not two paths.

  `Those who have arrived’ all walked the same road” (Zanrin).

So what are we to do about it? This informant of ours – fear? Personally, attuning to my sensations and the sensory world seems to support and to ground me. So positioned, I listen very carefully to fear’s message. Sometimes it says “Stop!”, other times it says “Stay aware”, “Proceed cautiously” or “Stay within your support systems”. Fear doesn’t prevent me from progressing – it rather alerts me to proceed cautiously with a little more support. In this way it is a guide and friend.

At heart, I am suggesting here that most fear is fear of fear itself or a remembrance or pre-occupation with earlier pains. With our clients, the more fear they feel on the inside the harder and thicker we may experience their armour becoming on the outside. In this context, an over-authoritarian individual or organization may be suggested to be running away from their inner nature. So what is the alternative to curing them of their fears? Well, alert them to the fact that as there will always be more forces beyond, than under our control, we might as well accept our fears as constant companions and act accordingly.

Fears are a common currency of life. They can be our friends, yet we may make them our enemies. For instance, just when I am beginning to believe the arrogance that I have life sussed, thankfully, fear re-appears to bite me on the rump:

  “The art of a warrior is to balance the terror of being a man  with the wonder of being a man” (Carlos Castaneda).

I'm sometimes afraid I won't achieve my destiny or purpose, but what am I living now – if not these things?