“I am not crazy; my reality is just different from yours.”
Cheshire Cat - Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
I live by this book. And I actually identify a lot with the Cheshire Cat character - talking nonsensically, thinking kaleidoscopically, grinning whole-bodily, disappearing regularly, and staring piercingly 😏
Let me explain why and what it has to do with Somatics 👇
My vocation is a vocation of a trickster. (If you are not familiar with this archetype just google “trickster archetype“.)
In my core (and from the very beginning, even before my parents were born) I always was a trickster, a challenger, a button-pusher, a boundary-poker. Ever since I can remember, I was always the one to question the authority (the authority never liked it tho, can you imagine?), the one to rub against the rigid boundaries of individuals and collective systems, the one with a “steady and unwavering presence so there is no way to hide“.
Taking something stuck and animating it is in my blood.
Breaking architecture of rigid systems is in my breath.
Rubbing against the boundary of one side and then switching sides is in my nature.
How are you in relation to the other side?
Whatever that “side” might be. Maybe the other side of that boundary? Or the backside of your physical body? Or a different point of view on that specific topic that drives you nuts? Or that self-diagnosis with developmental trauma? Or a big collective political thing that is happening right now and that leaves you feeling angry and choice-less?
Do you feel how much tension is in there? Right there, at the meeting point of the sides. Right there, in the kaleidoscopic ecotone. How much electrical charge is in between? Ready to crack open and burst.
So let’s take this into the “Healing”-scene (includes therapy, coaching, teaching etc):
In current context it seems to me like “Healing“ itself got ill. Like “Healing“ is trying to resolve and release our tensions and intensities as fast as possible into a stable, neat, singular, sterile, straight, regulated mental normotypical abstraction of a human.
But what if instead of going on a quest for simple answers and quick resolution, we would hold the contraries of resistance and resilience in creative tension? Without any agenda. What would want to happen then?
“Never let anyone drive you crazy; it is nearby anyway and the walk is good for you.”
We are currently in a period of significant change and questioning.
In an era where quick fixes and techniques are often inadequate at best and often even harmful. Traditional methods of holding spaces for humans sometimes feel like they only scratch the surface, if not make things worse. And so we must do something radically different.
Our current challenges are not purely human, nor are they straightforward, nor are they binary, nor are they categorical. Your body has never been separate and isolated from the climatic, geological, political, technological tensions. So how are we expecting from one human organism to “heal“ it all and be “well and regulated“ while at it?
“The proper order of things is often a mystery to me.”
And so lately I sit with these big questions:
-What do we do when healing itself becomes ill and when systems of harm masquerade as systems of health?
-What if the way how we approach solving the problem IS the actual problem?
-How do we do liberatory work inside the systems of oppression without playing too much into those systems?
-How do we build profitable businesses inside capitalistic systems without extracting and exploiting self and others?
-How do we address the complex, interconnected issues of our times at the root without getting lost in the gazillion of available modalities and techniques?
-What does it mean to be “well” in a sick pandemic-inducing society?
I don’t have any answers or solutions for this. The only thing I can do in this current environment is holding space just like the Cheshire Cat - challenging the status quo of normalcy and orienting to the previously unknown possibilities.
“Imagination is the only weapon in the war with reality.”
Old ways and approaches simply don’t work anymore. We must challenge the notion of what “healing“ and “health“ is.
So here are some “what-if’s” to challenge your reality a bit:
1) What if “Healing“ is not about safety, or comfort, or embracing the love&light life, or resolving all that trauma? What if it’s a felt imaginal architectural construction of the whole wide range of your humanity? What if it’s about inhabiting all the edges, ecotones, and liminal spaces of it? Becoming as wilde, prolific, and anti-fragile as Nature itself? Confirmed by Cheshire Cat 👇
“You are too naïve if you do believe life is innocent laughter and fun.”
2) What if we don’t have to resolve our tensions as fast as possible? What if there was so much medicine and intelligence to harness even in between tensions (aka trauma, dysregulation etc)? What if the thing we actually need is deepening awareness and accountability to other forces, other tensions in the room that are always a part of the equation? Confirmed by Cheshire Cat 👇
Meta-Essence is the life-force of Wonderland. That of your enemies is especially potent. Collect what you can. Use it wisely.
3) What if the rules of normalcy don’t apply anymore? What if we can literally bend time and travel through space? What if we get to call in ancient forces and ancestral support? What if we get to navigate our trauma and healing fields and receive support at every threshold? What if our bodies were very contextual, territorial, and ecological but never singular and isolated? Confirmed by Cheshire Cat 👇
When the day becomes the night, and the sky becomes the sea when the clock strikes heavy, and there’s no time for tea, and in our darkest hour, before my final rhyme, she will come back home to Wonderland and turn back the hands of time.
4) What if conventional concepts of orientation and direction are not effective anymore? What if human experience goes beyond the linearity of this or that, good or bad, regulated or dysregulated? What if it is always both-and, always plural, crossbred, chimeric, shapeshifting, kaleidoscopic? Confirmed by Cheshire Cat 👇
This way? That way? Does it matter? Left, right, up, down! All mixed up thanks to the shadows! Step deeper into the forest to the deserted garden. You might find shadows in the upside-down room!
So let me ask you again: How are you in relation to the other side?
P.S.: Everything I talk about here is not a matter of mental conceptualising but rather a matter of felt experience. Come to my free masterclass this Thursday, 24 October at 7.30 pm CET! Recording is yours forever.