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This is the center of the universe at this moment unless you’re looking in another direction, or are thinking about something from a long time ago, in which case it will wait quietly right here until you return.
~StoryPeople
“Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training.”
~Anna Freud
Survive - I’m a survivor and I’m surviving once again.
Confession – It’s been almost a year already since I crossed a line that shouldn’t have been crossed.
Rephrased - It’s only been a year since a line was crossed that shouldn’t have been crossed.
To clarify - It’s only been a year since I had a sexual encounter with my therapist/spiritual teacher.
It still hurts in this really deep-deep-down-heart-aching way.
For the longest time I thought that the whole affair really only affected me. Lately I can see how it’s had a profound effect on nearly everyone in my life, in one way or another; my husband and daughter being the most noteable.
I’ve withdrawn from my family and many of my friends. I’ve been mindful of keeping and recruiting a support network and I know I am not alone, but somedays I’m much better at reaching out than others and lately I’ve been holing up again.
I still have a lot of anger and grief. I don’t subscribe to “everything happens for a reason” so please don’t go quoting some idealistic “you’ll be stronger for it” peptalk. I learned a valuable lesson for certain…but that doesn’t mean ‘I asked for it’. I didn’t ask for this and had boundaries been created and proper therapy/teaching been in place I could have learned what I needed without so much pain.
It’s got me to thinking a lot about what can be done to help prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future. The man I had been seeing isn’t actually a licensed therapist, though he led us to believe he was, telling us to have him added to our provider list but then never calling my husband back after repeated requests (the insurance company couldn’t find any record of ”Michael Dean Goodman” being licensed in the State of Florida). Such was the state of our marriage (and hence my seeking out couples counseling) that I believed the therapist rather than my own husband. I thought my husband was just being difficult and was not open to therapy. When I asked the therapist about it I was told to “stay out of it”.
I had sought out this man because he was said to be alternative lifestyle/kink friendly. I was (and still am in certain ways) attracted to a very strong polarity dynamic in a relationship (also known as Dominance/submission) and was also seeking out ways to have pain inflicted upon my body. I wanted to better understand the reasons for these urges and I wanted help for my marriage which was nearly shattered at that time. It wasn’t long before I was placing my therapist in that empty masculine position in my life. It’s completely natural…they even have a name for it called “transference”. And yes, I became quite infatuated with him.
I read back over our corresondence and I remember bits of conversations that we had. I told him how I felt. He lives several states away and the counseling sessions were done via phone. Perhaps he felt safe because of the distance…
It escalated. He would tell me what to do during therapy and I would turn into a gooey mess. He knew. I told him. I wrote hundreds of emails. He knew. Perhaps he thought he was doing some great thing by using his dominant nature to get me to open up…
I started to feel like I belonged to him.
I started to believe that he could show me the white light.
I started to believe that only he could show me the white light…
Forgetting…forgetting….
We started talking of spiritual things - experiences that I was having; levels of consciousness; meditation; ayurvedic living. I started thinking of him as “Guru”. I was so hungry for Guru that I didn’t listen to my Self.
It is no good to see the light if you can’t see the dark – no good to embrace the brilliance if you can’t dance with the shadow.
Now, there are medical boards and state licensure requirements for all who practice medicine; people you can call if there is a malpractice; consequences for crossing ethical boundaries. There are no such measures in place for those who practice spiritual teaching as their trade. Who do you call? Outside of having the money to hire an attorney (because you’re unlikely to get one to take the case without a big retainer unless your teacher is effluent) you’re on your own.
Yet, so many teachings urge us to find a guru and follow them implicitly. How is it that this tradition has been handed down for so many lifetimes? It works of course, when all goes well but the risk is so high.
Well, one must have good powers of discernment (which is something I think is sorely lacking here in the western world and is something that I’m still working on myself) but also and perhaps more so I think it comes down to community. We are so isolated, even in our big cities with millions of people. We are so alone and transplanted and lacking the safety of community. Community knows. You can’t get away with much in Community without being found out.
They aren’t kidding with that whole Six Degrees of Separation thing. It’s often even less than that.
And then of course, we need to speak up for ourselves. The only thing worse than crossing those ethical boundaries is keeping quiet about it so that they can be crossed again.
I’m not quite sure what my voice is going to sound like or the ripple effect it may or may not have, but I know the answer for me and the future is community. If we can make the time to build and maintain supportive spiritual communities then there won’t be so many that will suffer harm at the feet of an unethical guru and likewise, such a teacher would have the opportunity to correct his or her behavior (possibly even before great harm was done) and they could look into their dark side more completely to work on their own attachments.
After all, we’re all human…
And that’s not something I’m likely to go forgetting ever again…
…but if I look at the bigger picture, I’m probably doing pretty darn well.
…all things considered.
…and all.
:)
Sometimes I wonder if it is the safety of a three minute dance that lets me feel free enough to express/expose myself…
It wasn’t always this way…
I can remember a life when I wasn’t so afraid…
But in the dance at least…I’m learning to let go.
At times it’s still difficult but when those moments of paralyzation hit me I know that it will be over soon enough no matter how frightening it seems…
And so I find a way to keep moving my feet, even if I lose the rhythm for a step or two or three…
Mabye the trick is to dance our life in three minute increments…
Then it wouldn’t be quite so scary…
And you could avoid eating half a box of chocolates just because you’re afraid to look someone in the eyes.
Because eye contact is not a necessary evil when dancing tango…unless you want it to be.
And no, I don’t dance anything like the girl in this video…but I can dream.
Oh, and I do have a pair of red shoes…
Really.
Though it does explain all those Star Trek fantasies…
You know, the kind where you make Mr. Spock laugh…
And you get Commander Data to fall in love with you.
After all…you’re special remember?
Aerodynamic even…
But frogs can’t fly.
Not really.
And it’s always a mess when you cut Samson’s hair.
“But she tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, she cut your hair,
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah!”
~L.C.
Hello 31…it’s gonna be a better year, I promise.
drifting on a word – long crop, originally uploaded by _anjolie_.
i went
she spoke
i’m still listening
“Look here,” he says, pointing at his left shoulder, the one furthest from me. “Look here rather than at the inside of the embrace. When you look inside your head goes crooked and you’re pulling away from your axis. Look here and it will make all the difference in the world.”
“But I can’t hide when I do that.” I replied.
“Hiding? There’s no hiding in tango. Why would you go out to dance in a public place and try to hide?”
I bit my tongue for a moment and then let it loose (and no I was not drinking the wine), “But it’s not the public that I’m hiding from.” I said.
I felt a moment’s hesistation in his step and then he understood. Or I think he did.
Later that evening I finally got brave enough to ask him, though my question was still a bit vague as I was embarrassed to be asking it in front of others. I asked him if he ever had that happen, when the connection hits so strongly that you feel dizzy and forget that you’re dancing and you completely lose track of everything but the buzzing that seems to be flooding all your senses. He said that as the man/leader in the dance it would be quite a bad thing indeed if that happened and that was one of the biggest responsibilities as the leader, to stay present. He also said that on the rare occasion he had experienced something that seemed like what I was describing. I further clarified my question by asking what one did when the connection seemed to be interfering with the connection (Tango is all about the connection). He said that was a good question as he stood up to dance with someone.
The woman that was sitting there with us asked me if I was talking about the chemistry between people or if it was something else. I told her I thought it was more than just chemistry as it didn’t have to mean that I was attracted to that person outside of that moment of dance. It’s just a huge surge of energy/connectiveness that overwhelmes me. I still didn’t feel brave enough to say just exactly how it affected me. I didn’t say that the reason I lose my place in the dance and can not spare a single thought for collecting my ankles is because I’m saying a mantra to myself about not kissing the man’s lips that are ever so close to my face. I didn’t tell her how I breathe in his breath. I didn’t tell her how even if it’s someone whom I’d not want to kiss that I still feel this urge to wrap myself around them and crawl inside their skin. And, no….I didn’t quite tell him exactly why I had opted for looking at the inside shoulder when I danced with him. Life has taught me that that feeling of connection does not mean that one needs to act on it. It sure is hard for me not to though and I wanted to know if anyone else had trouble with that too and what I could do (if anything) to not let it affect my dancing.
The next time he danced with me he told me to pay more attention to my connection with the music than my connection with him. This was exactly what I needed to do.
I still smelt his breath. I still felt the heat of his lips. I still felt the energy vibrating between us but I didn’t get lost in it. I listened to the music. I let my body move to the music rather than just to his lead. I let my own expression and interpretation (however novice still) come out of me instead of relying solely on him for each step. I still ”followed” but he (and the connection between us) wasn’t the single focus point….I was also dancing to the music. We were dancing to the music. And the music led us around the dance floor.
Tango is a very sensual dance. There are many that would argue that it’s not sexual but when you really connect with someone you connect all the way through and the more-than-occasional feelings of arousal and desire are just one part of that connection. I close my eyes and feel and I see the connection between each chakra in his body and mine (depending on who I’m dancing with of course but irregardless of my skills as a dancer). That energy doesn’t care what they look like or what their age is. That energy doesn’t care if I can hold a conversation with that person or if we have anything more in common than dancing a tango together. That energy is why I don’t close my eyes like so many suggest. I close my eyes and I lose all concept of reality…and I get so dizzy that I’m truly afraid of falling down.
My physical response to connection has been a problem for me all along in this past year of learning tango. Actually, it’s been a problem for me most of my adult life, it’s just that I’ve been facing it head on (slight pun intended) of late. It is very hard for me not to act when I feel a strong connection with someone. It’s hard not to want to run full on after it and immerse myself in that wash of bliss. I’m realizing more and more that’s what it’s all about. Wanting to connect. Wanting to unify, whether in spirit or flesh. Wanting to be One.
There’s a way of being One on the dance floor. That’s what tango is all about. I’d just been using the wrong equation. It’s not 1 + 1 = 1 it’s 1 + 1 + 1 = 1. And when you listen to the music, when you follow the red notes, you don’t ever get lost. Not really lost. Not ever. Not even when you can’t hear the notes….
Because without the spaces between the notes, you’d not have any music at all.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
~Marianne Williamson
Only I believe we do not just manifest the God that is within us…I believe that we are all God…not just children of.
The Truth is: I am so afraid of being powerful that I would rather take on the blame than my own responsibility…. How can God be afraid of God?
No wonder I get exasperated with my little girl. I think at times we have about the same emotional maturity level.
Now, if I could just fly like she does…
I asked him if there was anything I could do to give him some happy.
He replied, “Find your happiness.”
I know, I know, I know…
I just gotta’ quit looking ‘out there’.
“When you gonna make up your mind?
When you gonna love you as much as I do?
When you gonna make up your mind…
‘Coz things are gonna change so fast.”
You’re not kidding me….
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