Workshop, Day One

[bookofmirrors]

I really didn't think I'd end up here at the computer after the workshop. I guess I thought I would process it differently.



I'm going to try to go in chronological order of the way things happened, only because I don't want to forget all that happened. The things that really struck me were towards the end.

First of all, when we were going around introducing ourselves, there was another couple there who were having some similar issues to what blckwngdorcl and I are having, in regards to some of the more mundane aspects of our relationship. The guy in the relationship expressed a lot of feelings that I wondered if blckwngdorcl shared, and either didn't recognize enough to express, or perhaps I was so focused on my own feelings in that situation that I didn't create a supportive environment where he felt he could express those feelings. I'm going to talk about it with him tonight, when I get offline.

The second thing I noticed was at lunchtime. We were given an hour and a half for lunch, which I wasn't expecting. I had gone to Whole Foods yesterday and purchased enough food for blckwngdorcl and I for the whole four days, but it just felt right to go back there and get something to eat. Also, I wanted to get a homeopathic flu remedy for blckwngdorcl, in hopes that he would feel better and also be able to go to the workshop with me for some or all of the other 3 days. Anyway, I went to their salad bar thingy and got food there, but took it back to the Link Center to eat it. I ended up eating outside, 'cause it was pleasantly cool. I didn't have my watch with me, having taken it off so that I wouldn't make what time it was a priority during the workshop. At any rate, I didn't know what time it was, and therefore didn't know how much time I had left. I still felt somewhat unhurried and relaxed, so I ate slowly. It was almost amazing to me how good the food tasted. It literally made my senses dance.

Keep in mind that, being fat, I have all sorts of issues about food. In fact, at last year's workshop, there was a segment where we (blckwngdorcl and I) had to feed each other, without talking, and really experience the sensations of that. It was an extremely positive experience, and not just for the incredible connectedness that we shared during it. It was also because I really allowed myself to feel the pleasure of the food, without guilt. And it was very similar today. It occured to me that our society, rushed as it is, never really takes the time to enjoy pleasurable experiences. Food, at least for me, and I suspect for many others, is enjoyed (if one can call it that) based on time, rather than for its own sake. I tailor my response to food on things completely unrelated to food. How long is my lunch "hour"? Where will I be eating? What am I going to be doing after I eat? So many questions that alter or completely overshadow the act of eating itself. So rarely do I simply enjoy the food. It was nice to do so, and I wish that circumstances permitted me to be able to do so. Frankly, I notice when I take the time to really experience eating, I eat less. I notice when I'm satisfied, and it's not goal-oriented. When one goes out to a restaurant (well, when *I* go out to a restaurant), there's a pressure to eat what's put in front of you. Usually there's a time frame involved, something else to go to afterwards, so I feel a pressure to eat what's in front of me in the "alloted" time. And, since portion size in America is usually grossly exagerrated, I end up stuffing myself before I even have time to notice that I was done a long time ago. I notice that when I have things closer to finger foods that I can snack on, I eat much less. Something to think about...

The last thing that really struck me about the workshop was a meditation we did. It started out in the womb. Now, every other time there's ever been a reference to the womb, it's been touted as a warm, safe, nigh-unto-perfect place. But this time, there was no pre-conceived perception of it injected into the meditation. And I found out something interesting, enlightening, and scary.

The womb is/was not a comfortable place for me. I didn't feel safe there. Perhaps it was simply because I knew I couldn't stay there forever, but I really feel that it was because I knew I wasn't wanted. I had the feeling that I was in a warm, comfortable place, and that it should be an enjoyable experience, but I felt very disconnected from it. I didn't trust it. I was rejected before I started.

This has basis in reality. Nano, my biological mother, has told me that she was "very mean" to me in the womb. It was, in fact, mostly financial and geographical issues that kept me from being aborted. After it was decided that a medical abortion was no longer an option, she did what she could to try to have a miscarriage. Somewhere along the line she resigned herself to having me, but I suppose the resentment was still there. I remember she said that she refused to sign the paperwork to complete the adoption process until the doctors brought me in to her; she wanted to make sure I had all my fingers and toes and whatnot, and that she hadn't damaged me in her effort to lose me.

And, you know, when she told me all this, I understood. How scary to be a single mom in general, especially at that time in society's history. I was the product of a one-night stand and a lost condom, so it's not like she was in love with my biological father, or like precautions hadn't been taken. She didn't want children. Ever. Certainly Marty's (my biological father's) reaction to my existence much later, when I was long gone, wasn't positive, although that had, to the best of my knowledge, no effect on my psyche as a fetus. But I got it. What a horrible position for her to be in. I sympathized, most genuinely. I still do.

And, unlike blckwngdorcl, my adoption went through long before I could reason, or even recognize that I was adopted. I didn't have the fear that social workers could storm through the doors at any minute and take me away. In fact, I found papers regarding my adoption that basically said that my parents were pretty much stuck with me. They can't even write me out of their wills for any reason. My place in my family was assured.

But... I felt rejected in the womb. The meditation moved on, to the process of being born. I was terrified, enraged. I knew I had to go, I knew I was in a place where I wasn't wanted, but it was the only place I knew, and it was, even if I wouldn't let myself feel it, warm and physically comfortable. I recognized this on what, even at that age, must have been an intellectual level - or at least the pre-cursor to that. I fought against it. Even then, better the devil you know.

Then I go into a family. A family who really *wanted* me. Fought hard to get me. My mother, who'd gone through the process of 2 childbirths already, a miscarriage, and a hysterectomy, WANTED me. Unlike many of the people at the workshop, I was not plagued with knowing that my family would have preferred me to be a boy. They chose to get a girl. Jesus, they really WANTED me.

And yet, I didn't trust it. In the meditation, I could see myself being held by my mother. Such joy in her eyes, in her face, dancing around with me in her arms. I could feel myself recognizing the comfort of it, the joy of it. And catching myself just short of trusting it.

"Oh, this feels really nice, I'm really enjoying this...NONONODON'TTRUSTIT!!!!"

My mother, simply by the virtue of being female, had an energy pattern that I associated with my biological mother. I didn't trust her. Ever. From day one. No action or feeling to the contrary, apparently, ever convinced me that I was really wanted.

Hmmph. And I thought all those trust issues stemmed from Fig.

My father, on the other hand, didn't have that same energy pattern. I could relate to him. I didn't have that same sense of distrust revolving around him. But, there wasn't the same sense of connection that I think I would have gotten if I had allowed myself to trust the same-sex relationship with my mother. Connection with the feminine. A connection I've not had my entire life. I've always connected better with men.

And I've never associated that with anything other than a difficult childhood, anything other than my mother's neuroses. And certainly she had them, and certainly they affected me. But she was doomed to failure from the start.

Gods. Poor woman. I wonder if she felt it. I wonder if I was a disappointment to her. For all her faults, my mother has many many of the qualities that I enjoy having and emulating. (Of course, if one were to actually make the mistake of suggesting that I was emulating even my mother's good qualities.....)

So, how does this relate to sexuality? That's what the workshop is about, after all. It has to connect somehow, right.

And it does.

I have a problem being in my body. I exist in my head, or in others, or anywhere but my own body. And all of this stems from feeling rejected in the womb. (Well, that's the current running theory, right?) I recognized, even in the meditation, that, as a fetus, I didn't FEEL anything around me. I recognized, in a very detached way, that I was in a warm soft place, but I refused to let myself feel it. Probably because I knew I couldn't stay there, wasn't really wanted there to begin with. I couldn't physically leave, so I left in other ways. I don't remember a single time of feeling my body as a very young child, except for one instance.

I was very very young. Old enough to bathe myself, but young enough to still have toys in the tub. I had a plastic turtle. I remember one day, for whatever reason, placing the turtle on my genitals. It was a strange, but pleasurable feeling. I think, even then, I'd already somehow gotten the message that to touch myself there was bad, shameful, but I think that was the first time I'd actually done it, and noticed that it was a rather pleasurable sensation. My mother noticed me doing it one day (I don't think I'd done it more than once or twice at that point) and... the turtle went away. I think she yelled at me, or at least made some disparaging remark about it.

The point is, that was the first time I remember FEELING something, physically. Except for times when humans can hardly HELP feeling things (roller coaster rides and the like), I realize now, looking back, that the only time I really FELT something was when it was sexual.

Well, THAT explains much.

No wonder I seek out sex today. It's the only time I feel anything physically. The rest of the time, I'm pretty much cut off from the feelings of my body. I imagine my enjoyment of BDSM, at least to some extent, stems from this as well. The stimuli are much more intense, very hard to ignore. I FEEL it.

What pressure I must place on blckwngdorcl. On any of my lovers. I mean, yeah, I know I pressure him for sex, but now I see that it's not really sex, per se, that I'm pressuring him for. It's FEELING. What a huge weight to place on another person, to make them responsible for your own feelings. I've worked really hard on owning my own mental and emotional feelings, and although I still have a long way to go, I think I've done really well with that. But I'm so disconnected from my body, I had no idea that I was still leaving that up to other people. I simply haven't allowed myself to feel on my own, except on rare ocassions.

*sigh*

The workshop itself ended on a positive note. Dancing, and touching, and being in touch with one's self.

But it has still left me with much to process, even for just the first day.