Me Too And All Of Us

So much is happening socially and politically in our country right now. Add in natural forces like hurricanes, and life can feel daunting and out of control.

This past month, the "Me Too" campaign that went viral on Facebook gave me lots to reflect on. Though not entirely surprising, it was powerful and deeply troubling to see just how many of my female friends and colleagues had experienced sexual violence.

And though my experience as a 16 year old surviving an attempted rape and murder has always been front and center, contributing to the body of work I evolved as a heart-centered body psychotherapist, until the "Me Too" campaign, I did not really focus on all the other experiences of inappropriate advances that I have experienced from my childhood through teenage years, through college and into my professional years. As I started to tally all the experiences, it was truly daunting not only that so many incidents happened, but also that I had put them aside, even dismissed them because none was as life threatening or significant as the incident that happened when I was 16.

It also seemed important to note that male friends and colleagues had experienced inappropriate sexual advances in addition to my female friends and colleagues. And that underlying this whole epidemic is a misuse of power and a lack of understanding of the sacredness of sexuality in our lives.

Sexuality is primal, a creative force and a drive that allows human life to continue. Conception, pregnancy and birth result from this primal sexual drive. Sexuality is also naked, raw and vulnerable. Love, safety and consciousness allow it to be sacred, where the body is the literal temple of the soul. To express our sexuality can be a form of worship in this temple.

And yet, in a culture that is so disconnected from the body, both our own human bodies and the body of the earth we live on, sexuality can be "reduced" or dissociated into just a "force" or "drive" that is powerful and can dominate, control and violate other human beings.

When I look at my own experiences of sexual violence, sometimes the perpetrator was driven by fear (my own father's reaction to the fact that his 16 year old daughter might no longer be "pure.") Sometimes the perpetrator was driven by a desire to conquer or overpower that which was vulnerable (namely me--a child, a student, an up and coming professional...). One time the perpetrator was driven by pain (the man who violently assaulted me when I was 16 was in deep and dire pain). And one time the perpetrator was on drugs and not in his right mind. In my case the perpetrators were all men. But, it could have just as well been possible that I could have been assaulted by another woman.

What I find incredibly sad, even tragic, is that each of the people who harmed or tried to harm me lacked grounding, heart, and consciousness of the impact of his actions. Did these men feel so insecure at a core level that they needed to act out in order to feel better about themselves? Were these men so wounded that they needed to "pass on the wound?" We all know the saying "hurt people hurt people."

I saw first hand that the man who violently assaulted me when I was 16 was in psychic agony and he did not really want to be hurting me. He could not help himself. His pain was too great. And I went from crime statistic to sacred intimate when I somehow tuned in to this truth and connected with him in the midst of the assault.

How can be bring more healing to one another? How can we bring more heart? How can we create safe spaces where people not only can come out of the darkness and say "me too," but also get to the heart of the matter so that we can change a culture where sexual violence is so prevalent, even if it lurks powerfully in the shadows?

When we are wounded, it is only natural to develop a shield or defense mechanism protecting the wound. We don't want to be hurt again. But if our hurts are sublimated and remain unconscious, they come out the sides or the back. The energy of the wound does not go away.

Better to create safe and respectful ways to appropriately work through layers of defenses and reach the heart of the matter where healing can take place. It needs to be safe to feel. We need to feel safe to reveal our deeper and too often darker experiences. And we need the emotional intelligence and compassion to great these deeper and darker experiences with love, compassion and appropriate contact.

Until we bring more consciousness and compassion to ourselves and one another, and until we become more aware of the spirituality in our sexuality, too many of us at all stages of our lives will continue to experience assault, intimidation or violence from other human beings.

Somehow we need to learn that heart power is more fruitful than the power of domination. And because we are all interconnected, when one person is hurt, we all feel the pain one way or the other. When one person heals, it opens the door for the rest of us.

May we be courageous enough to find ways to open our hearts to ourselves and one another and create more safety and healing, and less trauma and pain.

Embodying Compassion

"The more you listen, the more you will hear. The more you hear, the more and more deeply You will understand." --Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

What keeps us separate from self and others? What leads us to put up shields or walls to defend ourselves from the deeper experiences of life, including not only pain but also joy? Yes, we have lost, we have suffered, we have been betrayed, we have been abandoned....but is not the price we pay for closing our hearts even greater than the other pain and loss we feel when our hearts are open to both our own struggles and the struggles of others in this world?

Embodying compassion means finding the internal strength and courage to hold ourselves and others with love and sacred respect, and to create the safety within and without to take down our masks. When we take down our masks we can see heart to heart, soul to soul. When we take down our masks we can both see others and be seen for who we truly are.

Authors Joel and Michelle Levey believe, "It takes courage to wake up, to open our wisdom eyes, look more deeply, see more clearly, and feel deeply into the subtle, complex, and profound interrelationships that weave the fabric of our lives and world."

They continue, "To the fainthearted, it may superficially seem easier to live in denial, mindless of the intensity of beauty, joy, and wonder, numbed to the sorrow, suffering, and pain in our lives and world. Aloof and semi-disembodied, we distance ourselves from the raw, vivid, intensity, and intimacy of our feelings and our visceral responses to the suffering of the world within and around us. Such self-protective strategies keep us distanced from our heart, our feelings, our loved, ones, yet sooner or later, most of us get cracked open, one way or another, by the raw intensity of the nature of our lives and world."

Joel and Michelle suggest that when we eat each day we have a perfect opportunity to bring together some of the qualities involved in embodying compassion: "gratitude, wisdom and dedication." If we eat three meals a day, then we can take a moment out of our busy lives three times each day to focus on embodying compassion.

They suggest four levels of awareness to focus on:

1. Set the intention to be mindful and compassionate as you eat. When we set an intention, we focus on mind, our energy and our heart. When we are conscious of bringing compassion to our meals, to our food, to each bite we take and to each moment, our energy flows accordingly. Compassion helps nourish us as we digest our food, and compassion emanates from us as the food becomes part of us.

2. From a place of compassion, think about where your food came from and what that means. The Leveys invite you to consider where your food came from, how wholesome that environment might be, how the food got to you from its place of origin and how those involved in getting the food to you were treated--be they plants, animals or people involved in farming or food production. The more consciousness involved in the created, harvesting and distribution of food, the more compassionate energy accompanies the food we bring to our table.

3. Consider your own food choices if compassion were a screen through which you would make choices. Is the food you are eating now the food you would choose if you looked at your choices through the eyes of compassion? Would you consider more vegetables and grains? Do you know how humanely any fish or animals you eat were treated? How pure are the foods you eat? Processed? Organic? GMO free? Does reflecting on these questions inspire you to take an action step today?

4. If you were to eat in a way that truly embodies compassion, what would that mean? Would you make more choices that are life sustaining and health promoting? Would you share this consciousness with friends, family and loved ones? Would this consciousness move beyond food alone and into other products you purchase or create?

Since we literally become what we eat, food becomes a great laboratory for embodying compassion!