Found some old notes of a workshop i had attended in the September of 2012. thought i ll put them here before i lose them completely.
Body
work with Marijke
Day 1- evening
We stared with a check in of all the 32
participants sitting in a circle with no gaps in between. After a quick welcome
to the program Marijke (M) asked people to pair up with someone and speak
to each other for about 20mins. Due to
lack of time, she asked each person to simply introduce themselves and what
they would like to work on in this workshop.
As the introductions went on she clarified
certain objectives that participants were sharing getting them to be more
specific in terms of situation and context of the pain, grief and anger issues.
.
She invited the group to think about what
specific situations in their life would they like to process and if they don’t
have clarity to speak with someone they trust in the group or wait and watch
others till they have clarity.
We met again for an hour after dinner. Here
M opened the session by talking about the flow of life energy (concept of john bowley) by putting on the board two
circles. One being you and the
second being other.
Life energy flows through four doors:
First- you give energy
Second—the other receives the energy
Third- the other gives energy
Fourth- you receive the energy
And the cycle resumes. So the life energy flows in 8 shape. We also
receive life energy this way.
Energy flow is blocked between two people
when any of these doors are closed. Often when our energies our blocked, we
experience exhaustion, feeling our potential is unutilized etc. Another way of
understanding these doors is to think of
it as opening and the closing of the heart. Are you open to give and
receive? Are others in your life doing that? If not, one can reflect and see
what needs to be done.
The other concept she spoke about was that
of a secure base. Who are the people
or what are the relationships in our life that make us feel secure? It can be a
parent, partner, friend nature, passion etc. Similarly who are we a secure base
for? The loss of a secure base in our life can lead to a sense of loss. When we
have sufficient secure bases our life energy flows freely. When we lose that
base and we don’t deal with the emotions we experience during that loss- what
we do is we use up all our life energy to keep those emotions of loss bottled
up. This makes our energy not fully available for other aspects of our life.
Healthier to have several secure bases.
We then closed our eyes and meditated on
the following questions:
Which energy state am I in?
Which of the doors in me are closed/ open?
Who are my security bases?
Who in my life am I a security base for?
Have I lost a security base in my life?
Based on what we meditated, we share our
experience in small group and reflect on what emotions plus context we would
like to work on over the next two days.
She added- emotions must not be ignored. An
emotion is a signal that you have to do something about it in your life. Anger
tells us that our boundaries are violated. Sadness tells us that we have lost,
something we need to find. Fear – is about getting more information in our
lives etc. Not to see these is about emotions going unexpressed and bottled.
Our old sadness/fear and anger blocks the flow of our life energy and it must
be released and we must find ways of
getting what we need. Meeting our needs.
She
shared with us the Grief-cycle
Process
of grief:
- Denial
- Protest(anger)
- Fear
- Sadness
- Rationalizing
- Acceptance
- Forgiveness
- Gratitude
When coping with a grief we have go through
this entire cycle. Which may take any amount of time, person to person. Many
times we may get stuck at one phase and not come out of it for a long time,
especially if we keep bottling that emotion up. So identify where you are in
the context of your loss secure base? Are you stuck in emotion? Have you
released it?
Day 2 and 3
With this as warm up to the process on day
2 we did a small group sharing of who would like to work on which specific area
and we started work. M used 4 techniques at different points when she picked up
issues of the participants which I have
captured below:
- Bataka work: This is used to process unexpressed anger.
Process-
mattresses are set up. Two people hold them in place. A bataka is used to
thrash at the mattress. M invites the person who wants to process their anger.
She asks them questions about the
situation- the emotion they want to process- get clarity on who is this person
and what is the unexpressed/residual anger. She asks the person to chose
someone from the group who can be that person against whom the anger is to be
expressed. Asks the volunteer to sit in front of the mattress. The protagonist
is asked to try the thrashing a few times… to get a hang of the bataka. She
contracts with the person - when I say stop hitting you stop. Agreed?
The she asks
them to start hitting… increase the speed… once the pace of hitting picks up
and the breathing begins to change, she asks them to start thinking of the
person… and look into the eyes of the volunteer sitting across… then add a
sound/say what you want to say, allowing the voice to really come from the gut.
If not happening
she asks the person to stop, gives feedback and asks the protagonist to start
again allowing the release to happen. All through she encourages by saying-
good for you, that’s it… Rephrasing what the person is saying - yes they were
insensitive etc…
Once the protagonist
stops she asks them what they are feeling. If they feel there is more to
release she asks them to continue. Many times she would bring the process to an
end by asking them to speak to the person they are angry with and say what they
want to. Once done, she asks again how are you feeling.
When done she
asks them, what do they need right now or who in the group who they like to sit
with. Typically this person can hold their hand, embrace them like a child and
in some cases also to talk to this person. M asks the person to remove the face
off the volunteer and release the other volunteer. She then asks the group to
share what gift they received from the process. No critiquing of the process
but sharing of what did the process did to each person or what feelings did they get in touch with..
Some observations-
·
While expressing anger if
someone started crying she would stop them and say- hey you are not angry now,
I hear you whine. So is it anger or sadness you want to express? Anger?... then
you can’t cry. Don’t let crying sabotage your anger... Angry voice is lower
pitch and base as a sound … coming from the guts. A high pitch voice is
generally of fear. So stop, check your voice... try lower pitch.
·
Its okay to express anger even
if the person is sitting in the group. Its an old anger and may not be directly
connected to current situation. Except, that person cant sit in front of the
mattress. It has to be someone else. You can be angry with the person but that
doesn’t mean that you don’t love or respect them.
·
Always keep eyes open and be in
the here and now. No closing eyes and taking off in the past. M would
immediately shake the person out of this kind switching out into another world.
·
Sometimes she would hold the
person like a baby in her arms while she processed others. Almost like
replacing the mothers hold that we may have missed as children.
·
Bataka helps us connect with
our anger at the body tissue level.
·
Breathing is essential and can
help us get in touch with our emotions. When we get emotional we tend to stop
breathing. To stay in the present moment she encourages breathing deeply and
then continuing speaking. We can control our life energy though our breathing.
The more our breathing is stuck, or we hold our breath, we lower our life
energy flow.
·
I have to give myself
permission to ask for what I need.
·
When people are not ready to
express anger, she asks them to sit back and come back if and when they feel
ready. It is always voluntary.
2. Grieving process
This process she used when someone wanted to
grieve about a loss (in this case loss of person in someone’s life) The
protagonist lies down on the mattress and M would lay down next to them and ask
them to start breathing intensely, increasing the intensity gradually. M would
place her hand on the lowermost rib of the chest of the protagonist, ask them
to intensely focus their breathing there and then think of the face of the
person they are grieving. Once the person hits the emotional spot and she
encourages them to weep. She then called out to one person from the group
asking them to lie down half on top of the grieving protagonist. She asks the
protagonist to hold them as they sob and say what they want to say. After the
protagonist has finished she gently asks the other person to withdraw and invited
the grieving person to simply breathe. Through out she makes empathetic
statements rephrasing what the person speaks while the person is sobbing. Then
she asks the grieving person to choose someone they trust and they come and
simply lie down with this person and hold them.
At the end she asks the grieving person to
share how they are feeing and asks the group to share the gift they received.
Two
chair process: she brought in this technique just
about two times. they were unfinished conversations with a person( in one case
when a person had died and in another case where they had closed communication
lines)
She would make the protagonist sit on one
chair and imagine the person they needed to speak to sitting in front of them
and tell them what they want to say. Then protagonist shifts chair and responds
as the person who they were addressing. This way the protagonist can respond a
few times, till they feel they have said what they needed to say. End process
by asking what protagonist is feeling and who would they like to receive some
energy from in the group.
Negotiation process
This was a process she used to help a
couple that was facing challenges in their marriage, which was clearly on the
rocks. When one of the partners starting sharing their issue, M invited the
other partner to respond.. I think what she picked up was that the marriage was
struggling to survive and the communication lines between the couple were
beginning to jam. Both seemed to have baggage from their past( M called them
backpacksJ ) and one seemed to be willing to examine theirs while the other
preferred not to. She suggested that the couple negotiate about what they want
from each other to make this marriage work. She asked the couple to pick one
person each whom they trust in the group and sit separately with their trust
person and make a list of things they want from their partner and come back
after about an hour.
When they came back she made them sit in
front of each other and shared the four steps for a good negotiation:
- Bonding (are u bonded as people. Are you willing to negotiate/do
you have the intent to make this work)
- Express your needs (make it specific – like I would like us to
go on a holiday… no ‘psycho blah blah’ and no bringing ‘old cows’. No
blame , no reliving the miserable past when negotiating)
- Understand the other’s needs (listen with an open mind and
empathize. Don’t argue if you disagree just focus on concretizing details
of how this need can be worked out)
- Arrive at a win win( put time lines and review mechanisms that
work for both)
Other
observations:
- Focus and appreciate whenever you see the positive intent in
your partner. The therapist or mediator can also do that.
- Even though it feels false to fix on actions mechanically to
make the marriage work, do it. If you want to change behavior pattern you
have to do it consciously until it becomes an unconscious habit:
- You can always renegotiate. Not everything has to be etched in
stone.
- No bringing past baggage in while negotiating.
- One person’s problem in the marriage is both persons.
- Both are responsible for one person’s state of affairs within
a marriage. Joint responsibility.
Breaking free
Was a very simple yet powerful
technique for a person to experience at a body tissue level breaking free from
the shackles of a situation or the mind. One the person identifies what the want
to free themselves of, she asks the person to choose a few people to hold him back
and a few people toward who he wants to run and wants encouragement from. Once
the groups position themselves in front of each other at two ends of the hall,
the process begins.
The first group physically holds
the person back repeating the voices this person hears in their mind that holds
them back. The person physically fights out of the grasp and runs towards the
encouraging group- towards freedom. The person celebrates and enjoys the
victory.
Other
messages I picked up during the workshop:
- I have to give myself permission to ask for what I need
- When I shy away from sharing with a group that’s how I isolate
myself
- Body work is a way to come out of the isolation
- Old fear/grief/anger- get rid of it. It’s of no use. Works on
your system like a slow poison
- Reaching out is a way of making your energy flow
- Stay in touch with your grief but don’t suffer( reliving misery
again and again and going into a trance like state) stay connected to the
outside
- When you feel like a victim how do you give power to yourself:
step one pay attention to your needs. Step two set up your boundaries nice
and tough. Don’t mix tears and anger.
- By expressing our anger we don’t hurt the person, by expressing
or sadness or fear we don’t become victims or needy. We empower ourselves
when we do it healthily.
- By keeping our hearts open we can process our issues when we
watch others issues.
- At an essential level- our problems are the same of being
lonely, abandoned and wanting security and assurance.
- There is power in an embrace. Now words are needed.
- I can take responsibility to relieve me of my misery
- I will take responsibility for myself when I stop wanting to
change others or the situation.
- Don’t get caught in psycho blah blah.. and philosophical
pinning. That’s not dealing with issuesJ
- When you have a painful issue you cant be laughing and saying
it.. You are then not giving yourself the due importance
- All our issues in life can be connected to unmet needs as a
child.
Observations about the process-
M has a bag of
techniques and after she warms up the group to help them pick an issue they
would like to work on she would, invite people who are ready to share.
She would ask
them in a few lines to express what they need and accordingly decide which
technique to use.
She is
generous with her humor. Almost teasing but also help everyone see that life is
not only about deep dark burdens. There is always a funny way to look at it. What
glasses do we want to put on?
That humor is
essential for such a heavy process otherwise people will tire out. She does it
with ease and style. Her aura is of a vast expansive heart and personality. The
years of experience do that do her.
