| PERSONAL GROWTH... through PLAY  Lori MacKinder, M.A. 2006 One warm Sunday afternoon in September, I found myself in the living room of a newer downtown Sacramento home. I was barefoot and laughing. So were the 12 other men and women in the room. We were of varying ages and socio-economic backgrounds. Looking at us, it would not be easy to see what thread we held in common to bring us all together on this cozy autumn day. I was the facilitator of this seemingly good-humored group for the day and clearly a decade or more, younger than everyone in attendance. The group’s name is “Get Real” and it is a monthly inner work group that meets for 4 hours once per month with the intention of getting to know each other on a more profound level and allowing themselves to be seen deeply. It is a great idea, I think, getting together with a group of 12-20 like-minded folks on a monthly basis working commonly towards the goal of speaking truthfully and being genuine. Each month has a new topic with a fresh leader, all with the intention of honing their ability to being fully and truly authentic with themselves and with each other.It was not a paid gig for me and I did not care. I love to play and share games, especially when dealing with a theme of inner growth. Not long before that moment, the people had arrived at the home, introducing themselves and offering hugs. I shared my name with each of them and informed them that I had been invited to be their facilitator for the day and our topic today was “Fun and Game”. This brought up varying negative responses. One woman, very boldly told me the she was hoping it was the “other Lori” who was going to lead today. I had no idea who this “other Lori” was but it was clear that, in that moment, “other Lori” was preferred to me. I giggled inside about this, knowing what was in store for her in just a few more minutes. Others said their hellos and then retreated to another part of the home, away from our meeting space, showing visible signs of emotional contraction after hearing the three lettered “f” word and the four lettered “g” word. When 2:10 p.m. finally rolled around, I announced our beginning and invited all join me in the big living room where the host and I had cleared out the furniture and were waiting to begin. Although I was told that the group usually begins with a “check-in”, sharing briefly what has happened for them since their last meeting and how they are feeling in this new moment, I decided, that based on the mood of the initial introductions, warming things up first, would be a more beneficial thing to start with. So, I asked everyone to get into a circle, standing. I gave quick and brief instructions and we began our first game. We all began to move and play. Soon, within seconds, the first laugh came. Then another giggle was heard, then another. Then finally, the circle erupted into laughter, complete with hand clapping, leg slapping and arching backs. “Perfect!” I thought to myself, “now, we are truly ready to begin”. Here, I invited everyone to sit down, and we shared in a check-in form, only the topic was not open ended, as they were accustomed to. The check in consisted of: - How were games for you as a kid?
- What is something that about you that the group could hold tenderly for you during our gaming today to help you be fully alive and present here.
- What part of your higher self would you like to grow today? Perhaps something that is a part of your true essential nature but that has been challenging to manifest in every moment. Write your name and this added quality to your nametag. (For example, my name tag read Inclusive Lori, meaning I chose to grow being fully inclusive)
The room continued to shift and relax. Realness and openness showed up in such a beautiful way. Hearts connected and we all were seen and heard in our unique individuality, our own flavor of being human. Rudolf Steiner’s path of initiation encourages us to ponder the question: "What is a human being?” It is through this inquiry that Steiner believed authentic creativity and a deep reverence for all life could be fostered. All of us present in the Get Real room felt a hint of the aliveness and varying colors getting us closer to the answer of that question. Only moments before, being human was contracted, afraid and judgmental. Now, being human was tender, open, loving, silly, playful, excited and anticipatory. In the next moment, being human was laughing and moving again in a childlike way that worked to weave and connect each of us, soul to soul. We shared breath, touch, eye contact and a few hours of our day. We all learned something new about this group and about group dynamics in general and most importantly, about ourselves. It was not painful or grueling. Could it then still be inner work? Could we still be “striving” when we are laughing?I too realize that striving is serious work. Holding the responsibility to evolve the human race in the little time we have on the planet, this round, is an important and heavy load. It is big business to be a conscious adults in our day and age. And… sometimes, I think we “try” to hard. What about simply “being”? What about spending this moment doing nothing more than listening from the heart, playing a silly game, laughing with a fellow traveler of life? What if our lessons of life could come with giggling? What if our most profound life shift and awakening came through noticing ourselves move and play a childish game?We spent the last three quarters of an hour at the Get Real group that Sunday, sitting in a circle, talking about how the day was for us and what we learned about each other and about ourselves. Many owned their earlier inner criticisms around the idea of playing games as a form of inner work and personal growth and gave deep heart felt words of gratitude for their sense of aliveness and group connectedness in that new moment, seeing the day in hindsight. Some express words of feeling accepted by the group in a way that they had not experienced before. Others shared experiences of new self-insights and areas of individual expansion and new inner developments. Last, they all wanted to know when we could all get together and “play” again. What I have noticed in my time of facilitating groups over the years is that where movement is coupled with laughter, inner expansion happens. Where expansion happens, openness is created. Where openness is created, the Spirit has the opportunity to drop in and Touch, be heard or Heal.What if our striving, evolving and healing looked like play? What if…
| |
Transforming the
"Victim/Perpetrator/Healer"
Role-Play Exchange
Lori MacKinder, M.A. 2005-2008 It has been a very interesting journey writing this article. The ideas began in 2005 when I was in relationship with a wonderful older man. We noticed that not only could we create deep love with each other, we could also create deep hurt. This led us to explore more. Of course, in relationship, the desire is for more love and no hurt or upset. Although a lofty and humanly unreachable goal, it sets us on a journey of exploration through curiosity and discussion. We found that there was a cycle that we were playing out with each other. At that time, we called it the Victim/Perpetrator Cycle. We took turns with each other creating and perpetuating the cycle. At one time, I would unconsciously play the victim role to my partner and he would unconsciously play the perpetrator role. We often swapped roles, unknowingly or played both at the same time for each other. It was a painful and fruitful learning curve for us both. The doorway of emotional pain is a curious entry into the feeling realm. It is a doorway that many of us avoid in various ways both in ourselves and in others. Somewhere along our early path of development, we are presented with the idea that pain is bad and joy is good. Additionally, not many of us are taught in childhood how to share pain with ourselves or with others in a helpful or productive manner. I recall over the years, being asked by my loved ones and asking them as well, for some sort of formula about how support can best be given and be received when emotional pain occurs. Sometimes, finding others or ourselves in emotional pain is nearly unbearable if nothing can be done to make it better or “fix” the feelings. In this case, we want to think and react our way through the emotional pain with something useful or some “doing” or action. So that begs a list of questions: Is listening to the pain enough? Is the right thing to do to offer a hug or some other form of comfort? What about advise? Do we attempt to distract them away from their pain with humor or activities? When do we step in and when is it best not to? What about our own pain? Should we share our pain or keep it private? How do you “be” with another’s pain? Pain is somewhat uncomfortable in our adult world to express. In the childhood world, pain is often still expressed and accepted freely. I noticed this by coincidence during a short visit to the aftercare room at a school where I work at the time. It was dismissal time for the kindergarten children. Those little ones that did not get pick up to go home, came single file into the aftercare room while I was there. Each one came, one by one, to the teacher in the room with their hellos and handshakes. All except two, that is. These two were crying. They leaned into the teacher with their hellos and were hugged and held warmly for a time before, they, like the rest, went to the circle area where their snack would be eaten. This floor snack circle was, in the end, made up of about 12 little cuties. Blessings were said and snack boxes open and contents consumed. All the while, a few kids chatted quietly, some giggled and those two who came in crying, continued to cry while they ate. A bite of sandwich, a little sob, an apple slice, a bit of boo-hoo, and on it went. I was amazed and stunned as well. To the children ( and the teacher) there was nothing wrong or out of place about the chatting, giggling or crying. None received any more attention than the other and all were welcome and fine, even without any words of encouragement or guidance. In those moments, nothing needed fixing or changing. Everyone was being perfectly who they were in those moments and it was all fine. My imagination now fast-forwards to a boardroom lunch meeting with 12 executives all sitting around the table eating lunch, two of them crying…
 For the model above, the arrows indicate an exchange of roles. Note that victims and perpetrators exchange roles, as do victims and healers, and also healers and perpetrators. Without understanding the whole cycle, we run the risk of being caught up in it and thus miss out on living our full potential. Each of the phases contains a limitation to living a fully passionate life.
The easiest role-play exchange to understand and most common is the victim/perpetrator exchange. This phase commonly begins with someone feeling victimized and then over compensating to regain a sense of safety, dignity or self-worth. This could anywhere in the range of dramatic life situations such as physical abuse or the quieter everyday life of simple misunderstandings. Take for example the following from a pre-teen girl named Natalie (reprinted here with permission). “On Friday I was playing around with Sarah and tapping her with a broken hula-hoop as a game. Later, after we stopped playing I went to hang with some of my other friends. As I was standing there talking with them, suddenly I felt a whack of pain. As I turned around I saw it was Sarah who was holding the broken hula-hoop and laughing. Tears filled my eyes and seeing this she then started calling me names, “Cry baby! Faker!”, and saying that the hit was not that hard. The truth is though, it was a hard hit. After she hit me and saw that I was crying, she huddled with a group of her other friends. I had had it with her at that point, this had happened too many times, where clearly our game was over and she came at me with a sneak attack. I went to her and unfortunately started calling her names and then walked away. I thought about this with Sarah the whole weekend. On Monday, in violin class, as we were setting up the chairs for other students, I said playfully to Sarah hoping to lighten things up between us, 'You know they go in a circle' and giggled. She looked at me harshly and said, 'You always want it your way and only that.' I went to the back of the line to get some space. Some how she was there too and said, 'You know what you should do? You and your dad and everybody should go back to the foreign country you came from!' I then began to cry again." In this example, we can see how both girls go back and forth from feeling like a victim at the other’s hand or words and perceiving the other as a perpetrator. They perpetuate the aggression and ill feelings between them by not stepping out of the exchange. Both stay emotionally defended instead of apologizing. Both justify their further attacks based on previous perceived attacks from the other. Neither is willing to surrender to the greater love in the friendship and see the situation from the other’s point of view… and so their struggle continues on. The same issues and struggles manifest in adult relationships also in office buildings around making coffee or meeting schedules, in roommate situations about cleaning up or storages spaces, in love relationships about timeliness or child raising beliefs. Next, with the victims and healers, sometimes this is a more difficult to understand fully or rise above. Many people love to "help" and find their life's meaning from "helping". How many "Healers" started out as victims? Most people in the healing profession are drawn to that career out of wanting to make a change, to make sure things are not the way for others as it was for them. It may be that a sexually abused child grows up to become a sex therapist or a child from a divorce family becomes a Marriage and Family Counselor or someone with chronic back pain becomes a massage therapist or the troubled teen becomes the High School teacher. The list goes on and on. From their own experience of being victimized, they desire to heal and choose a career accordingly. If the healing or helping does not transform into selfless giving that is prompted by another person's request, the seeming good deeds can further the Victim cycle. The major dilemma here is that healers require victims to heal. If there were no more victims, whom would the healers have to heal? Would they feel lost and without an identity of a healer if there were no more victims? If the helping becomes an identity, "I am a healer", the ego is involved. The way to rise above this section of the cycle is two fold: 1- wait to help until asked for and 2 - check in with yourself on a deep level to see where your motivation to help or heal comes from. For example, do you wish to help so that you will be noticed or accepted or appreciated? Are you a healer so that you will feel worthy or good when you otherwise feel poorly about yourself? Do you heal so that you will "save others from bad experiences"? When you are not helping or healing, do you still feel centered and good about yourself? It can be challenging to be a healer when the helping feels so good or claming or inflating to the ego. However, if the desire is to rise above creating or perpetuating a victim / perpetrator cycle, then staying in the present moment and ruthlessly inquiring about our individual motivations behind our impulse to help or heal is paramount. An egoic motivation to heal or help will only perpetuate the cycle . To be continued...
“You will find there are fleeting moments in our experiences with others when they appear suffused and illumined by the archetype of their own spirit. And then other periods come, perhaps quite long ones, during which their beings are as if clouded over. You can learn to say at such times: The spirit makes me strong. I think of my friend's archetype which I once glimpsed. No deception, no outer appearance can ever tear this picture from me. Struggle ceaselessly to keep this vision. The struggle itself is loyalty. In the effort to be loyal in this sense, man comes close to his fellowman with the strength and in the attitude of a Guardian Angel." Rudolf Steiner |
