Clarity of Connection

The weekends focus was clarity of connection.

This was understood in terms of coherence, and depth of mutual understanding or resonance.

Reflections of My Thoughts and Experiences of the Free Forming Weekend

3^rd– 4^th October 2011

I wasn’t sure of what to expect from the workshop except perhaps high energy activities and lots of body contact. I was hoping to break through a barrier of stuckness and learn more about how I make contact with other people.

My overall awareness was of how little I fully engaged all my senses in the course of my every day life and in particular in the course of my work with my clients.

I experienced a unique for of contact different levels of awareness, physical sensations and emotions. I am more aware of how limited was my peripheral vision.

On the first day I struggled with the exaggerated use of my breath and sense of smell which took me into personal boundaries of other participants. I suppose I also felt invaded and became more aware of my discomfort or avoidance of intensely close contact. I struggled as I attempted to stay with this process hoping for something that was not currently part of my awareness at the time.

I struggled initially with ‘doing’ and not ‘being’ and I suppose this limited the depth of my experiences. I recognise that this is useful information for how I may interrupt contact with my clients and others.

I realise how much ‘leading’ was part of my process and how much I resisted following and staying with the other. This I imagine for me is linked to my sense of mistrust. The weekend facilitated my learning to be with and to engage with the process of staying with the phenomenology of the other without losing sense of my own process.

In this way I became more aware of their emerging phenomenology and my own impulses. I am more aware of how paying attention to small movements physical or otherwise can support attunement in the moment.

The weekend facilitated for me an awareness of yearning for intimate, vibrant contact and a less dull existence. Contact with the group was on so many levels of sensory awareness that I felt met and attuned to how I make or don’t make contact with others. I learned that good contact can come from many unexpected sources and in unconventional ways. I experienced fantastic sense of support for my playfulness and spontaneity arising from the ground.

Some of the exercises enabled me to become more aware of limitation and areas that required attention. I learned that I could become selected with my listening. This I realise is often linked to my sense of shame. I then move away from contact with the other.

I was not aware until now the depth of communication that could be achieved without words and through the use of: synergy and space, movement and forming, sounds and smell, breath, sight and spatial closeness. I felt awakened at the end of the weekend. I expended a great deal of energy and received back lots of body feedback which on occasions were more powerful for me than words.

I took this workshop at a time when I was experiencing low moods, and felt depressed and desensitised. During the weekend I became energised and expelled lots of energy. I used my voice to more powerfully than I can remember ever doing before. The sounds for me were cries for longing and of loss.  As I write this passage. I am becoming tearful as I remember how I was supported by the closeness of the other and felt the support for the expulsion of wailing sounds and primal cries from deep inside my body. On reflection I recognised that I still managed to hold back as I was unsure of the limitations of my body and was also afraid to push myself even further.

I felt I began to learn that I was capable of communicating more vibrantly, by just being more aware of my whole self. I think that at some time in the future that I will want to repeat or do more of this kind of activity.

I found the weekend full of challenges and was not prepared for the highly charged sensory environment. I am glad that I attended. There may have been less useful or vibrant experiences but they have now faded into the background.

I took away new experiences which I know will support me in my personal life and also in the work with my clients.

Y.W.