Purpose & Needs
  • There's the option of doing nothing. Purpose makes the difference of doing something.
  • A purpose can be to transform the consciousness of people in the group, regardless of this person. The purpose can be to test out your liberation edges.
  • Safety: contracting energy. Respect: hard edge. --> Put my heart focus on the needs that  feel both true, authentic, and the most heart opening possible. 
  • a need to be connected to what's familiar to you
  • a vision of what it would be like to live with like minded people
  • wonder what they're getting from this group, like how is it feeding them or is it supporting them in some way? something restorative?
  • an ongoing purpose of expanding the range of what is seen as human within any group that you're in?
baby step by definition, thinks about where people are and what is possible for them to do as a one step
  • Example: James Gilligan said that he had never met up prisoner who, no matter how horrific his act had not been acting from need to right or wrong. 
  • I'm wondering what he is so angry about that leads him to want to act against others. ===> judging terrorist ==> judging anger (reframe)
  • QUESTIONS THAT DON'T HAVE A RIGHT ANSWER
    • Do you trust me, which has a right answer
    • I have an inkling that you may have lost your trust of me, is that true? I made room for a no
  • Example: Could you tell us about your childhood what your childhood was like? I wonder if we could imagine what his childhood was like? -->> Forcing compassion on me
  • What made this person angry: I can still go there and stay in the story that A is bad
  • Example: Do you think this person is born that way?
  • Example Sage: asking the participants in the field of mourning like I what I'm wanting to ask them what their experience is in themselves in that moment, as they see that person as a terrorist or as a hear them call themselves a terrorist. What are you longing for?
=I'm experiencing now more of your essential self and there is a wide field of curiosity and desire to learn and spacious orientation towards understanding others. 
  • criteria and considerations and limiting conditions and when does it make sense and how far to do mutual analysis that is still in the service of the person who is coming to the therapist 
  • I'll do whatever it takes to support this group in liberation. Share my story, sit here & absorb a lot of pain (within capacity), nothing I put out IN PRINCIPLE, everything within purpose & capacity, moment-by-moment
We start a journey with lots of internal limitations. If we persist, transmuting and liberating, then the ratio shifted to external limitations.

Why don't people care?
  • Experiment: Ministers writing a sermon on the Samaritans for presentation.
  • 50% Hurry up, you're running late. 
  • 50% Take your time. --> more likely to help
  • The stress is so much, that it takes unusual capacity to care.
  • If they cut into my way, I trained myself to think: "they need to go more than I need to go where I need to go"
  • First exercise I did while driving: See yellow light to slow down instead of speed up. Took 2 years. This simple thing is so difficult for me to change, what about addiction, patterns of violent speech, how hard it can be for people to change. Bring tenderness to my own lack of capacity, then I'll relax, and have a tiny bit more capacity.
  • Mutuality/ Equality/ Fairness: inventions of patriarchy. Based on SCARCITY, not enough. If there's enough, you'll get what you need, I'll get what I need, and we'll work it out. Those concepts are recipes for suffering.
= I'd invite you to zoom out from this moment to what is more connected to moving you towards your actual purpose in being here or in living as a human person at this time? 
=What is your purpose?
  • Feeling the relationship with this person
  • Support the group not to be stuck, not blame this person
  • Are you judging this person? No.
  • If you express grief about how the group is judging, you want to find a way to support this other person in you and having a conversation that will help you reconnect. If you're both impacted and are the one not judging, then no one is supporting me.
  • Is there anyone in the group that you trust, and you can talk with that person, and we can talk through that person.
  • Not accept the limits the person placed on the relationship. But you can insist on being in relationship with them.
Equity
  • Need equity: resources to be distributed based on needs & willingness
  • Input equity: Paid by the hour. That takes care of competition, but if you have aging parents & children, I still have lots more disposable income than you.
  • Output equity: If you sell 200 shoes and I sell 100, you get paid doubled.
Rights are adversarial. I have a claim against you or against the state.

You talk bad things about xyz.
humanize the person doing the dehumanizing
curiosity 
mirror receptors firing together, feeling together
Notice how much I'm comfortable at giving. Then give just a little bit more. In the act of giving, I know I have enough.




If somebody doesn't have the capacity to be transparent and authentic then what? And when I'm honest, it supports my own liberation, how does it support theirs?

1. Choose where I put my energy
2. Put in loving kindness
  • I'm going to the fullest vision, fullest intimacy, with everyone for the fullest everything with everyone, whoever they are. I will do that and I will go with each person as far as they will go with me. And if they don't go with me beyond a certain point, then then it no longer makes sense, but I don't need to decide on my own ahead. of time. 
3. =Do you see the power of this question? Refusing to accept the separating logic.
  • what I can imagine saying is, that makes perfect sense to me why you wouldn't do it if it's not in the contract. And I'm aware that people change contracts and all kinds of things can happen and maybe nothing can happen here. It would be satisfying for me if you could tell me whether or not it's in the contract and whether or not you can do it. Do you actually see my point? And would you agree with me that the work would go better if there was more transparency? 
  • Pushing the powerful into a moral corner. Speak to the highest self of the people who're oppressing me.
  • Ex: Barefoot college: Clandestine puppet shows --> asking gov to live with its own value, align with the laws already present
  • https://thefearlessheart.org/pushing-the-powerful-into-a-moral-corner-at-indias-barefoot-college/

Meg - Sister who said "you always bring up the past"

  • You know I'd like them if you no longer want them (grounded in the present) VS What do you remember when I wanted those? 
  • = Take it apart with real gentleness
  • there's something unresolved and the something unresolved may not be about the classes. It may be about the deeper wound of wanting connection with your sister.
  • I gave it a lot of thought, I said it the way I said it, because it's less vulnerable than sharing my deep longing to have much more closeness and intimacy with you
  • We cannot support others' liberation when we're in reaction to them, when the channel from me to you in not clean. My intention to support you is distorted through my reaction to you. The best I can do: UNPROTECT myself, express my vulnerability. It's ME who shift, instead of waiting for the other to shift.
  • @You're a beautiful thing that crossed my path. I no longer care about debts, or the future payments, I do just so want to nourish you and nourish the beauty that would bloom through you to uplift the world.
  • when it's my family, it's harder. Don't say when it's my family, because you are reinforcing a narrative.
  • I want to say something vulnerable and make it about me, I don't want to blame you at all and I'm not sure I can do that. The moment you feel I'm blaming you, just stop me.
  • Marshall story: I asked something. Son asked is this a demand or a request. Marshall took a deep breath and say "Now it is".

Glenn: Conflict-avoidant brother

  • Above all else, if we can do enough inner work and get enough support, I'll be spacious and relaxed enough not to be triggered.
  • We're brought up in conflict-avoidant culture, and the norm of speech that we live in and the avoidance sustains status quo.
  • If I want to support others' liberation, where they're not already going for it on their own, I cannot be conflict-avoidant.
  • Pathways to Transformation: I do the assessment for my partner --> Can do when there is high trust.
    • Challenges you might have with this pathway if you're in a position of privilege or non-privilege

  • You do this too. --> Yes, I do, is that what you want to talk about now, or can we talk about what, how it is for me to be near you, when you do it?
  • Put the focus on the pattern and not the individual. Can we talk about what this pattern looks like and feels like when we're around it? (Not just when you or I do it?) 
  • When the person says this is too much, you talking talking nonsense is too much ---> What would you like me to do? Right now? What would you like me to do when this snag/ pattern/pain between us comes up? 
  • Are you ever willing to talk with me about it? I get that not right now, but when? If not right now and not ever, do you want me to just absorb the impact on me without talking with you about it ever? Is that what you would really want?
  • Why are you still in this relationship? Why are they still in this relationship?
  • I'm not hearing that what you're focusing on is this person's liberation rather than relief for you from how they interact.
Danni - breaking the cycle of my family
  • Requesting my father to speak to my scared daughter
  • Little boys have to wear the jacket with the spikes turned inwards
  • @I’m sending my deepest support to you dear Danni. Your tears were balm for me too, I wished my mom could have been there for me the way you were, protecting me and at the same time not demonizing the aggressor. I believe you're breaking the cycle for yourself, your child, your mom, all breakages are somehow linked and even a tiny closing of the wound shifts the whole field. Thank you so much for being here and sharing.
Sage - loving confrontation
  • loving confrontation, which could look like challenging their narratives, which could look like showing the impact of their actions, ...
  • And we need them to be able to hear it, make the space, offer love, empathy
  • My mom asked me how I was, then pulled examples from her self. I challenged her by saying: Mom, I heard a question about me and now our attention is on you. Is that what you intended? Is that what you want? Because we can do that if you like? 
  • And with my doctor, I used humor: When I'm naked in a room with a man, even if he's my doctor, I'd like to know his name.
  • Dancing: between impact and intention
Ability to just check, be vulnerable with whatever is going on inside me
Give them the freedom to say no
The love afterwards is cleaner
Little notes to track impact --> Talk every Tuesday night, don't have to address it if out of capacity in the moment

- Sep 30

=Thank you for making visible what often is invisible.
Mahsa Amini
  • Occidentalism - Egyptian anthropologist Loren Eiseley: National pride complex, set up nations & women against each other: Arab women you don't want to be objectified like Western women, so be grateful for what you have.
  • Women, Life, Liberty. Global sisters solidarity. What happens to one happens to all.
  • =I want to sense and magnify the togetherness.
  • Complete ban of abortion in Poland. Somebody came and took a part of my body.
  • =I want to pause first and then I have something to say. To receive you.
  • Even in the moment of fighting for your life, we go for vision.
  • If someone tries to kill me, would I call Rama's name? We die in the vision. 1mm in the 50km journey.
  • We don't have the time to sink these news down. I practice letting the news come through my body.
  • This pain helps me to slow down and imagine others' pain.
Privilege = access to resources. Automatic assumption that my access to resources equals ownership. I own it, I'm entitled to it. --> Through some stroke of luck, market, state, etc. I have access to this. What can I do with the resources I have access to?
  • The existence of private property & state: we don't have direct access to resources in life.
  • Giving it away saying it's not mine doesn't help. What can I do with the resources?
  • While maintaining & caring for my wellbeing, what is the most efficient way for me to direct the resources I have access to (health, etc.) in order to support the vision, from where I am? Just the needs that come to me that I'm aware of, outstrips my capacity. What is the most precise, efficient invest?
  • Efficiency = least amount of waste. Reclaim this word, not tied to money or time.
  • Money is a flawed representation of reality. When we measure things using this poor measure, we waste more resources.
  • I don't use the word "property" anymore, I use "land", "land" cannot be owned.
  • Before Jains go bed, these things are not mine: all material things, body, all experiences/ memories. The next morning we claim it again for the day. Re-discover it like unearned grace in the morning.
  • Material - Soul split = we're in a moment of separation.
1. Tonglen - When I say I'm an incest survivor, people say too bad, feel separated from it. But no, so many people have it this bad.
2. Understanding the system, we understand that the abusers are impacted to. Different from forgiveness - still in right-wrong paradigm.
=Within the choice to leave, is there still capacity for you to hold tenderness for their lack of capacity?
=We walk towards them with solidarity & sisterhood, NOT oh that happens to her not to me. It happens to her and in that same breath it happens to me.
= Moving towards, NOT swiping left, it's the most significant thing to do. It doesn't matter how much privilege I have or don't have, I speak and do on behalf of the whole from where I am, which is always a mixture of grace and horror.

Truth Mandala - Joanna Macy
A staff for the anger and the rage, said this will be loud: I was 4 years old.
= We have 9 mins, 4 people. Succinct & potent, invite everyone into that. I don't want to time, just ask everyone to hold it with sacredness.
  • It's frightening to be a woman, weaker in strength. In societies where care isn't held, then only it's scary.
  • Violation.
  • Hunter Doherty 'Patch' Adams doctor activist who stare of pictures of starving children around the walls until he cries, using that energy to fuel the work. Also lots of partying, dancing, clowning.
=I'm conscious of how we're in the session and I want to move on the next person.
=One of these weeks, start earlier. I can't stand it that you come with all that you bring and I need to close. I want to hang out with you for awhile.

















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