We Need Each Other
I have been giving myself Reiki nearly every day since I was attuned many years ago. I find it to be a rewarding time of self-connection, relaxation, and healing. Over the years I have come to understand much about myself during this loving time each morning. Self-Reiki helps me remember the incredible healing power of the life force energy for my body and mind, and as a spiritual practice where I often melt into a felt sense of Oneness. I have found that a daily Reiki practice has given me a fuller sense of my own worth as I take time for me every day so that I can better serve and play in the ways I do.
AND, there have been many times when I knew that I needed another by my side to meet certain health and trauma-filled challenges. I could set the stage on my own, but I have needed others to help support me during my worst crises, pains, and fears. For a long time, I thought that needing the help of another was a lack within myself; I thought I should be able to take care of anything on my own if I was just open enough to the Reiki energy (and was enlightened enough). I identified myself as a “giver” and not as a “receiver” in the binary, and patently untrue way, we are generally taught about these words.
I remember reading the following quote and the effect it had on me. I was sitting in my bed with so many imaginings of who I “should be” or who I “could be,” all with a sense of subtle (or maybe not so subtle) self-criticism. This quote from Eliot Cowan in his seminal book, Plant Spirit Medicine, shook me out of this dream of “exaggerated independence” forever.
“I find that self-healing with plants is rarely effective. Self-healing does sometimes occur, but it is the exception rather than the rule, because illness takes root in our emotional blind spot. Disease is a call for help, and often the best way to help ourself is to accept the help of others. Exaggerated independence is one of the attitudes that isolates us and makes us ill. Healing can be a celebration of our connectedness and interdependence.”
The ideas in this quote are part of the foundation of Dancing with Dragons (DWD). We are not separate from one another, we need the support of others to help with our illnesses and challenges, and there is great pleasure in this connection. I would add that we have learned through Reiki and DWD that there is no real separation between giver and receiver, though we name ourselves in our roles in order to talk about them.
We are learning more and more about the ways our nervous system works. We are wired to need the felt experience of safety that comes from another trustworthy person. They can help us regulate ourselves and then we co-regulate each other to keep that sense of relaxation, security, curiosity, and pleasure going. When at least one of us is regulated (calm and at ease, yet deeply attentive) the trauma of another can show up for support and healing/integration. The traumatized parts of us (dragons) need to be seen and acknowledged by someone and need to be experienced, just as they are, without anyone trying to get rid of them.
The various sessions I have had this year with you all, with Linda, and with other therapists and helpers I have been seeing for some personal issues, has further deepened this knowing of inter-dependence and the gift it offers each of us, no matter which role we are taking—including the role of witness.
Just recently I was talking to a somatic therapist whose practice is similar to DWD in many ways. She was very present to me and at times I knew that if I were in her place I would have asked her the same things she was asking me. In fact, I had asked myself some of these questions already on my own, but with her, in her presence, new information emerged. Her presence was what mattered. I could touch into truly painful moments more safely with her than without her. The sense of safety was an important factor as well as something more. I’m not sure how to name the “something more,” but it was important. She silently brought her own perspective to our session and was not looking at my experience through the lens of my trauma. She could hold space for my trauma while not being caught in it as I was. She could see my pain, but also see a bigger space around it than I could. And something in me opened up because some part of me could sense what she was sensing. We were feeling into each other. I knew that I needed her and instead of being embarrassed, I was delighted. (And maybe occasionally being embarrassed since we have SO much training in exaggerated independence.)
Another interesting thing that has been happening for me all year is that every time I have a session with someone like this therapist, my nervous system shows me before the session some trauma or some part of my body that wants attention. Often it shows up as a dream-like image or a memory of a time I didn’t have enough agency to care properly for myself. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I could not. Then, for self-protection, the memory or image was pushed under the surface of my conscious awareness. I actually thought I had taken care of something that showed up this morning before my session today. What was clear though was that my body was not fully taken care of, and a certain tension still lingered after all these years. Perhaps now, it can integrate more fully. It’s like our session really starts long before we are actually together.
Have you experienced anything like this? I would love to know and we can share with each other.
I have experienced delight in the sessions I have offered you as well. When you have a moment of noticing something that was a mystery a moment ago, or an aha that shifts the world on its axis, or find tears streaming down your cheeks that have been longing to escape, I feel a thrill and receive a gift from you. Each time, you are teaching me something that I know at one level that goes deeper because we are in relationship. Our own authenticity is powerful and a gift to everyone around us. I learn again that we each have a healing template within us and that we can find our own way when we are with another who can offer the kind of support that DWD can offer. So often it feels like a miracle.
“Presence is the womb of the world, the birthplace of All That Is or will be. The power of shared presence releases our entanglements to the past.” Thomas Hubl, from Healing Collective Trauma
Here are the next info sessions for Dancing with Dragons:
