When I signed up to study with Judy Christensen, twenty-four years ago, what I wanted was power. She was teaching a 4-year-long class, so cutting edge it didn’t even have a name. I knew, going in, that the tools I’d be learning were magic, because I’d seen Phrin and a few other people go through the first round of the class. I’d witnessed them change. I wanted what they had.
It was like what a friend, Gina, described, recently, after seeing Chief Sealth’s x-times-great-grandson at a concert. “He was so…uhn,“ she said, holding herself in a strong posture. “Like….power.” Her hands slid down to show power going into the earth. “Dignified,” she said, pushing her hands out like a grounded, open heart. “You know what I mean?” she said. “He had it going on.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sounds like he’s done his work.”
Gina looked at me like that wasn’t at all what she’d meant. But Gina, also, has it going on. She’s done her work, too. Decades of study, basically her whole life. “Yeah,” she said. “Huh.”
I had a tiny bit of that power and presence before I studied with Judy, mostly from studying shamanism, healing and theater. But I wanted so much more. Like Carlos Castaneda, I was following the path of the Warrior. The path of Power.
A year or so into Judy’s class, mid-way through a Saturday, she said, “You all came into this class hoping for power. You didn’t know that meant you had to be vulnerable.” She laughed. “Well, guess what?”
You can’t become as grounded as Chief Sealth’s x-times-great-grandson, and have that much power running through you, without doing your work, without being vulnerable, without knowing yourself. I mean, you can gain that much power, but if you haven’t done your work it becomes twisted by vanity or corruption or greed.
I thought I’d learned what it meant to be vulnerable by the time Judy said “Well, guess what?” But she kept pushing for more. That was the version of ‘doing the work’ she taught. Looking under the rocks, finding what we judged so much it had to hide. Slowing down and feeling the judgments, feeling the emotions. Working to know and embody the totality of who we are.
It’s been a long time since I’ve felt that kind of vulnerability. I mean, I feel vulnerable all the time, like, for instance, every time I post one of these stories. But this vulnerability is familiar. I’m comfortable with it.
What I mean is it’s been a long time since I’ve come up against something which has felt so emotionally threatening that my first response is, “uh, NO.” It’s been a long time since I’ve had to talk myself into slowing down.
I was thinking about this the other day, wondering if I even remembered what it felt like to be afraid of feeling an emotion. Of going through an exposure. What would it take to make me feel that again?
As soon as the question crossed my mind, I tried to backtrack. “Just kidding!” I said. “Not really looking for an exposure here! I’ll get what I need by looking at my notes!”
Of course, once you ask a question like that, it’s only a matter of time.
The answer came a few days later, a body slam that took away my breath. It came as a sucker-punch to the liver. It came and almost immediately I thought, “Life is no longer worth living, if this is what is true.”
I need to tell you that what happened was not tragic. It just felt tragic to me. I cannot tell you the story. It isn’t mine to tell, except for my reaction. But you don’t need the story. Something happened and it knocked the legs right out from under me. Maybe you can relate.
I’m told that Astrologers have been saying for a while now that the story of June, 2024, would be “Change Overwhelm.” Yep.
We’ve been in “Hold onto your hats!” zone for quite a while now, so when Astrologers, or Psychics, or whoever, point to a particular day or month, and say, no, really, this is going to be big, I both quiver and shrug. I think, hopefully, “Maybe we’ll see a change in the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. Maybe the felony conviction will finally wake up the MAGA hordes. Maybe this insane heat-wave-and-hurricane season will get us to pony up more resources to address climate change.”
As for the impact of these moments on myself, I figure it’s going to be a boost, right? And I’m ready for it. Right? I mean, I have tools. I’m a warrior. I know how to negotiate uncomfortable emotions and find the path through.
But there I was, so blasted with trauma, all I could access was fight or flight. And I did both.
About sixteen years ago I was raging on the phone with a friend about a fight I’d had, completely blaming the other party for everything. My friend asked the seemingly benign question, “What do you think is underneath your rage?”
“I’m angry.”
“Yes, you feel rage and anger. But your reaction is so huge, don’t you think there might be something in there for you to see?”
“There’s nothing for me to see. This is all their fault.”
“Really?” She sounded delighted to find me being so obstinate. “So you have nothing to feel here?”
“If I do, I don’t want to know what it is.”
“Really?” she asked. “You don’t even want to know?”
“I would rather die,” I said, “than see what’s underneath this.”
“Wow,” she said. “That’s a pretty big reaction. Doesn’t that make you curious?”
Which pissed me off, because of course I was curious. But being curious would ruin the drama. If I looked at what was under what I was feeling, I’d have to let go of my righteousness. If I looked under, chances are I was going to have to rearrange my understanding of who I was. Nope. No way. Not going there.
Except that ‘who I was,’ was someone who looked.
It took a few hours, that time. There were many layers. What I found underneath my righteous anger was so fundamental to my being, recognizing it changed the trajectory of my life. I can honestly say I wouldn’t be the same person I am today if I had never gone there.
So last week, when I found myself saying, “Nope. No, no, no. If that’s how this world is, I’m out of here,” I knew I was reacting more to the challenge to my own identities than to what was in front of me. I had to slow down to see what it was. But it was hard. So. Hard.
What a thing it is, to feel that life has lost all meaning. That nothing is important. To feel such a huge ‘NO’ that the only thing I wanted was to walk away from everything I love, because I couldn’t feel my connection to it anymore. Forget looking under rocks. I wanted to hide under a rock.
The more pivotal a vulnerable identity is, the bigger the protection it gets. The knives come out. The ego proves its willingness to throw everything else under the bus, even the self. It makes compelling arguments, like, “Look over there, at the thing! You must pay attention to how very bad and wrong it is! You are righteous! You are right!” It floods your body with adrenaline to keep you anxious. It floods your mind with cortisol to keep you focused on fixing the problem.
I stayed up until the dawn chorus, in fact, trying to fix the problem. In the morning, rather than a solution, all I had was a severe lack of sleep.
The whole time I was trying to feel, feel, feel. To seek out and resonate with what I was feeling, so I could heal it and it could let go. All that work might have gotten me somewhere if I had first remembered to Slow Down.
I don’t think of Slowing Down as the same thing as self-regulating, but they have a lot in common, in that they both start with getting out of a reactive state. Slowing Down is more like mindfulness (though I want to call it bodyfulness), in that the goal, once out of reactivity, is presence, rather than emotional control. Either way, I was so far out of regulation, so discombobulated, becoming present was out of my reach.
I needed help, but I never wanted to see anyone ever again. I needed to put my hands in the dirt and move my body, but I was too depressed. I had to go outside to take care of the chickens, and I stood in the middle of the beauty I’m surrounded with here, and it left me totally cold.
Saturday I inadvertently did all the things that regulate me, and it made a huge difference. I spent five hours doing manual labor with about a dozen neighbors, making connections with friends, putting my hands in the earth, accomplishing something. I felt so much better afterwards.
Then I slipped into denial. I felt so much better, surely the problem was solved.
But it wasn’t. When it reasserted itself, I almost slipped all the way back under.
The thing is I still hadn’t slowed down. I was still trying to fix the problem, rather than know myself. I still hadn’t let myself feel the engine of my reactivity.
Which, now, after more than a week of work, I can tell you was how completely vulnerable I felt. How vulnerable I feel. I am not in control here. What a thing.
I am moved by how honest and vulnerable you are in sharing your story.
I love --‘who I was,’ was someone who looked
Words to live by
What beautiful work you’re doing Kim.. this month is massive change it feels like.. and Goddess is getting Her planet back🥰💚❤️🌹🌹