Episode 75: Love, Anxiety & Bees With AK47s
WORSE THAN A LIFETIME MOVE!!! SACRED & INSANE!!! THE DEEP END!!! LOTS OF MUSIC (again...)!!! SO MUCH RAGE AND JOY!!! DO YOU WANT SOLUTIONS OR SUPPORT RIGHT NOW?!?! CONSENT!!! TANTRA!!! ALL MY FAVORITE HUMANS!! DE-CENTERED AWARENESS!!! YOU CREATE YOUR REALITY & my clients are the bravest people I have ever met.
Excerpt from the show:
“So, this week I have a whole lot to talk about. I mean, well, a whole lot happened this week. I don’t know how well I will talk about it all. That remains to be seen. What a freaking week, folks. So many ups and downs, mostly inside of myself. I was both ecstatically happy and terminally anxious, at entirely different points and sometimes at the same time. This week I did my job in earnest. I say with people with intense sexual trauma and held that container open. Held my heart open and regulated my nervous system. I did my first series of intake sessions this week. And, holy mother of all things, is my job going to take everything I’ve got? Not in a bad way. But I am so empathic and open, and I believe that some level of care for our clients creates safety and allows them to feel like they can change. But this work, folks, this work is the bottom of a deep dark well. This work is sitting and listening to something worse than any lifetime movie or story you read in a book. This work is brutal. And beautiful, sacred, and insane. Something said to me this week many times was, “wow, I’ve never told that to anyone before.” Because, really, how often In this culture do we talk about our sexual shame? How often do we dive into the deep end with someone like that who isn’t our partner? But also, how often do we get to be held in that space? Heard, accepted, validated, and valued in a consensual and safe way. This work is epic. And my clients are the bravest people I have ever met.
But I would be lying if I said it didn’t take a toll on my heart, mind, and psyche. To hear my beautiful clients describe some version of violence incarnate. I have my own story, my history, my suffering. And it’s completely natural for that to get activated, for it to affect me. Because I am a survivor, I am a human. If it didn’t, I wouldn’t be as compassionate as I am, as grounded as I am, and as able as I am. And on the other side of it, on the other side of suffering, there is so much. So much rage, joy, love, and life to be felt, held, and lived. And that’s what I am doing here. I am just a witness, a servant, to this great unfolding. I am here to offer suggestions or support. Something that I and my only current partner have been using a lot lately is a really helpful phrase. When one of us is down or having a hard time, the other one, instead of jumping to fix something, will say, “do you want solutions or support right now” this allows the person feeling crummy to take a moment and feel into what they need. And then, if they do want solutions, those suggestions are consensual, and better taken than if it’s feeling forced upon you. It’s a beautiful little sentence, and it’s made all the difference. But all of that to say that this week was a lot, just a whole lot of everything. And luckily, my current lover from Maine was here, and just held me while I cried about the injustices of the world, sat with me while I slogged through my workshop prep, and was honestly the most supportive, helpful, and magical presence I could have hoped for this weekend. Even through all my anxiety, I could let them hold me, and support me. Give me foot massages while I work on my computer. And generally, they just held, how big this work was going to be for me. And how much I would need to carry and then set down every day.
Alright, with that, let’s move on to the music. Because I’m, again, getting this show in just under the wire and it’s going to be a show full of music. This week I’ve needed in moments to remember who I am, what my story is, to remember the beauty of it. The moments that make me who I am. The tenderness of my story. So I’ve been listening to a playlist I made for a friend, called “The Ones,” songs from the last 3 years of my life that are the perfect ones. So what I’m going to do here is this week im going to put that playlist on random, and im just going to play whatever comes up, a lot of it will be repeats that I’ve played on this show at points over the years. But maybe this week it will bring us all a little comfort. A little reminder, that we are evolving, coming back to the same point again but from a different perspective. So here’s ohhhhh hell yes!! inside out by Son Little, I actually got to meet him and see him in a very small intimate concert it was literally like a religious experience. This song live is god.”
