“Wholeness comes from not condemning any aspect of yourself, but inviting those aspects to merge with your Heart. Wholeness comes from being open to expand into all that you are and facing your own shadow. Healing comes through not fearing your own power or the power of others. Healing comes from using your power wisely…”
This is not a post about polyamory per se.
This is about the power of music, dance, community, healing, and something deeply personal that has taken me years to come to terms with and admit even to myself. And it is about how I am beginning to move through and beyond it.
A short while ago, I went to a night of electronic dance music called “Dance Out Your Demons”. Everyone was encouraged to take a piece of duct tape (provided) and write out a ‘demon’ they want to dance out. This could be a fear you want to be rid of, something you have been holding shame about- anything. You stick the tape to your shoe, and are then symbolically dancing on your demons, stomping them out. Simple to execute; profound to contemplate.
So, in the two days before this event, I had gone through one of the darkest times in several years. I found myself crossing busy roads without even thinking to look or stop for oncoming traffic. I was taken over by a feeling of total emptiness inside. It wasn’t just one single thing- there have been many things layering one on top of the other through the past six months or so. But a few small, seemingly insignificant things triggered an explosion, and all the feels that I had been bottling up, hiding because there just wasn’t the time to process them- they came up. They reared their angry heads, and they roared. Loud. Months of hurt and sadness that I hadn’t allowed myself to feel. Maybe it was years, even. And it was triggered by the fact that I don’t feel like I can spontaneously and safely move in to intimate space with someone, a belief that has become a significant barrier within my intimate life.
Dance out your demons, they said.
I consider the dance floor to be a sacred space. For as long as humans have been together on this planet, we have joined together to dance. The dance has been the vessel for healing, for union, for celebration, for discovering ourselves, and for reveling in our very being-ness. The dance floor can be an honest and compassionate space, and when there’s a certain kind of magic- to the music, the people around you, the very environment you are in- you sometimes find yourself dancing with transformative grace, and meeting a potential in yourself much more than you ever dreamed of.
Dance out your demons, they said.
Terrified as I was to write the word out- to say it to myself, let alone to others- I grabbed a piece of red tape, stuck it to my shoe, and ferociously wrote the word:
Rapist.
That is my deepest fear. That’s the demon I wanted to dance out and exorcise.
She’s that demonic potential that looks at people at parties who are intoxicated or passed out and realizes she could do anything she wanted and they wouldn’t be able to say no. She’s the repressed sadist who wants to tease and play and doesn’t care whether the other person is in to it, cos “Give them long enough and they will start to like it.” That’s how she thinks. That’s how she behaves. She is selfish and aggressive. And I work every day to make sure I don’t give her opportunities to take over.
I get why she is there. She is desperate to feel important, to feel desired, to feel wanted. She comes from a place of feeling small and insignificant, of being told she is undesirable and has been sexually shamed, and she is desperate to fight and prove otherwise. I could give you all the excuses and reasons for how she came in to being. I could tell you about the child in me who watched a model of relationship unfold before her that was emotionally abusive and manipulative. I could talk about being bullied as a child, or about sexual rejection through adolescence and adulthood. I don’t want to go in to that. I don’t want to write a pity story. Why? Because that doesn’t change the fact that she is there.
I have been working to heal this fear, this shadow. I’ve held back so much in so many relationships because I am afraid of her, that she would take over and hurt others. I thought that repressing her, holding her behind walls within myself, was’ being in my authenticity’. But after writing that word out for the piece of tape on my shoe, after dancing out my demons, I realized that there was a deeper level of authenticity I hadn’t reached yet. It was what lies beyond the fear of dominance. The real place of authenticity, the deeper place of truth within me, is that I have a natural desire and incredible longing for connection.
“Healing comes through interactions with people who inspire you and who you can be yourself around and letting go of the people that hold you back… Transformation comes through taking action when you want change and trusting in the guidance of your higher self. Healing comes through not allowing self-doubt to make you stuck, but using it as an opportunity to find yourself.”
~The Return of The Divine Feminine
“Healing comes through interactions with people who inspire you and who you can be yourself around and letting go of the people that hold you back… Transformation comes through taking action when you want change and trusting in the guidance of your higher self. Healing comes through not allowing self-doubt to make you stuck, but using it as an opportunity to find yourself.”When the dance was over, when there was nothing but stillness and silence, when the ink was all but gone from beneath my shoes, what remained was a tired human body yearning for the means to express herself physically with other human bodies.
And so, rather than trying to rid myself of the rapist by self control born out of a fear- I realized I needed to do a much more daunting thing, and have compassion for myself.
It has felt nerve-wracking and exhilarating to dare to trust myself with this. To trust that I have learned enough, have learned to really listen to the body and respect where it is at, what it is willing to do, and where it can go from there. To trust that I am not a rapist.
My dear friend Phoebe firmly reminded me that no human being is born evil or bad, that we are all innately good, and that we have the ability to control our actions and reactions. She looked me directly in the eyes as I sobbed out my ‘confessions’ to her and told me, “I refuse to believe that this is who you are. I know you better than that.” Many amazing conversations between Miranda and I in the last few weeks since that night of dancing out my demons have helped me to process, and to realize that acknowledging one’s own potential to abuse and go beyond the scope of consent is far preferable to not realizing it is there. Miranda has reminded me that we all have the ability to commit rape, to abuse- and that it is healthier to know this and interact within our relationships with full awareness of it. That knowledge encourages more communication around consent, and that can be very empowering.
So, in the spirit of ‘being authentic with myself’, I’ve been exploring what to do with this. How do I shake off this idea that as a woman, I can’t be assertive, I’m not allowed to take control, that I’m dangerous if I’m in charge? The answer: by trusting myself and creating spaces wherein I can safely explore the dominant role within intimacy.
I’ve already been doing this a little with Gerard. We have a playful, dynamic chemistry where we can tussle over who is taking the lead, and who is following- if you catch my drift. It’s fun, and in the last few months has helped to give me more confidence in letting my assertive side come out through playfulness. As a result, I’m daring to let myself flirt more outrageously with others, to trust myself that I can pull back if I sense it’s too much, to trust that others will be able to express themselves if it is too much, and to vocally empower them to tell me to pause or stop if they want me to pause or stop. I’m noticing that in dynamics where the other person is reticent to vocalize what they want or don’t want, I hold back and am reluctant to let the dominant side in me lead.
“You’re fucking beautiful,” said one man to me recently, “And so unlike other women I’ve known.”
“How so?” I asked, my legs wrapped around him, having pounced myself in to his lap shortly before we moved to my bedroom.
“You’re so assertive. It’s a really attractive quality. I’ve never had a woman leap on to my lap like that before.”
It was an amazing experience to be in an intimate situation with someone, and have two way communication about “More of this please,” and “Actually I’m not there yet,” and “How about we do this thing?” It’s refreshing! The self doubting, the guess work, the fears that I might do something that someone isn’t in to, that all evaporates when I’m with someone who’s willing to communicate their yes, their no, and their maybe.
It’s not just consent that is sexy, it’s communication.
I’m discovering that it’s incredibly powerful to be told by someone where their boundaries (both rigid and flexible) are ahead of time- and still be able to explore together within what’s comfortable for everyone. This is compassionate honesty of a whole new level, one that feels like it comes from the heart, from a strong and positive relationship with one’s self- and that has the potential to translate to stronger intimate relationships founded on the basis of greater integrity, honesty, and connection.
I am not a rapist. But the fear of becoming a rapist held me hostage in relationships. Through focussing on the fear during the dance, I discovered the root of it- profound longing for connection, intimacy, and love. In trying to self monitor myself because of this fear, I ended up locking down within myself some very natural expressions of affections.
And so the dance continues. Now the journey shifts to discovering more about my innate desires to express affection. I am still a work in progress, the dance is still evolving, as always. Instead of meeting people with my fears, I’m embracing meeting them with compassion for myself, and proactive meta-communication.
I am no longer hostage to the demons, and I find myself freed to explore far greater depth and diversity in all my relationships and Relationships. It’s exciting. It’s empowering. It’s liberating.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be? “~Marianne Williamson
