citrus
Sunday, September 22nd at 6pm UK.
At some point in your journey with relational practice, you might have had the insight that positive feelings in connection isn’t the definition of connection.
We could imagine a clear first moment, in your disciplined intrigue towards the joy of presence with other humans. When you first encountered a sentence that was… not nice. Someone named feeling anger or irritation at someone else. You recoiled, questioning whether the space you sought out was really about connection. Your body electric, you attempted to defuse or defend. Everything neck down in you was fresh green citrus, but you were too busy to notice— busy trying to deal with this clutter. Ready to remind everybody that this is supposed to be a clean and safe space where everyone could be held. What happened? What happened to love?! What happened to commitment to connection?
After it was over, you decided “ah well, maybe no space is perfect.” Or you suffered a mini heartbreak. Or you walked it off. It doesn’t matter; for unknown reasons, in this fictional convenient ordering of events, you found yourself impelled, to return.
It happened, inevitably, again.
And again. Sometimes at you.
You know its woof well, by now.
Well enough, that one day when someone in anger names the gash in their heart, you notice, perhaps for the first time, your own chest. It took one simple look. You recognize them. You name it. They recognize you.
Your understanding of connection changed forever.
Once there is demonstrated commitment to connection, or even if an individual has demonstrated to themselves that they can hold themselves within backlash, it’s possible to explore beyond the stables of sweetness. You don’t want or need to keep affirming “good” feelings. You want to share and receive challenging feelings.
Perhaps two major things can result: both a stage, a ground of support, for wider play– and increased range.
The Stage. If range is restricted to positivity, this reinforces that we are not capable of meeting in “riskier” places. But if we meet in those places, we learn that we can. This is very much a practice. Imagine the far end. What if you could take it for granted that we could meet, in everything that is true? What if you could take connection for granted? Imagine who you would be with that ground beneath you, what risks of honesty you might take.
The Range. On that new stage, more can be discovered. What does it actually allow if you say, “We don’t just need to affirm the positive”? You allow an entire other realm of experience (that is actually already happening) to be explored. You can cease needing things to be positive, to stay in safe zones.
Post-ownership in Stemless invites for affirmations of ownership what growth in circling can invite for affirmations of positivity.
Just as you can venture beyond affirmations of goodwill and express difficult, honest things, gaining confidence that truth and connection are not separate – you can also venture beyond affirmations of ownership and express raw immediacies. You can exude your whole aliveness in our midst, only further revealing the naked, unforced deftness of commitment to connection.
You may have learned to stop saying versions of: “But I like you, I’m a nice person.”
In the same way, you can stop saying, “That’s just my story.” Or even, “I feel like…”
And a new stage appears, peopled with new range.