An experience of working with Gary
Rachel Castagne offers her experience of working with Gary.
I went because I often wonder what ‘integral practice’ actually means in practice: I hear so much theory coming out of ‘integral world’ that I am over full, stuffed full of theory- got it coming out of my eyes, ears, nose and anus in fact, but I don’t often hear of days happening which support the embodiment of theory; to my mind and from my experience of living, we all need more space to practice embodying integral principles.
Hell I’m not even sure I am integral, I just seem to keep attracting friends and colleagues who are in my orbit who are integral and they assert that I am too, so I thought Gary’s offering of a day of ILP was a fantastic opportunity to check it out ‘in practice’.
Now (a bit of context for you), whilst I have been on a spiritual path and into personal development for as long as I can remember (20 years or so), it took me some time to realise that I have a high need for physical exercise; that understanding came to me after years of ‘processing’ emotional garbage or ‘stuff’ and trying loads of different methods and tools from rebirthing to Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT); from Jonathan Kay’s Fooling’ method to Community Building (work of Scott Peck- Road less travelled and the different drum); from Five Rhythms to the Journey through the Seven Levels (esoteric journey) to Dancing the Divine.
So much as I have been on this developmental path consciously for some time (1/4 of a century) it seems I am still ‘getting to know myself’ and learning how to embody the various practices that have come my way and how to ‘action’ the theories that seem to be useful in my head, yet they don’t always marry up with ‘real life’ so easily.
The first thing I noticed when I arrived at East Chinnock Village hall was the great welcome (thanks Ralph) followed immediately by my awareness once we were all gathered in the room that a huge part of me really didn’t want to open up and connect with these people! This is/was ironic considering that ‘connectedness’, learning, empathy and adaptability are my top talents (see strengthsfinder 2.0).
What I had to deal with/acknowledge, accept and embrace within me is the fear of opening up and connecting and maybe it not really being a safe space, or of not being understood or received. My biggest fear in groups, my ultimate ‘dread’ is sharing authentically what’s going on for me and having people try and ‘fix’ me. It doesn’t help that I often seem to be crying when I am in groups-which can easily lead to the thought form in myself or others that ‘there’s something wrong’.
I know myself better than to buy that, but others often don’t, and out of the best of intentions but somewhat misguided there have in the past been attempts to fix.
From Community Building days (and from Marshall Rosenburgs Non Violent Communication, Byron Katie’s Loving What Is and Constellation work) I know from experience that ‘fixing’ is not the answer.
We are perfectly imperfect as we are, though we often need to be heard, seen or acknowledged and that can be enough. Emotions (energy in motion) change by and of itself once it is no longer resisted; embracing the feeling of what is and accepting it leads to the reception of hitherto tacit information that has been stored in the body, psyche or Spirit.
Since I did the Reiss Profile (another assessment tool for self knowledge: Dr Steven Reiss has researched and found that we all have some kind of relationship to 16 different desires- high, average or low and it is the unique combination of different desires that makes us uniquely who we are: see http://www.reissdesireprofile.com/) I now ‘get’ that I have a high need for physical exercise and that I am what Reiss terms ‘low social contact’ meaning I don’t have a high need for social contact- these are two things I wasn’t consciously aware of before but it was obvious to my daughter who knows me well.
Being low social contact means sitting in a room full of 20 odd people I don’t know yet whom I am bound by the agreement of the day to being authentic with is a tad nerve-wracking. I am also high acceptance which means I have a high need to be accepted and approved of! Uggh!
I have to say at this point that Gary holds an truly ‘safe space’ to engage with integral life practices such as ‘soft eyes’ and enacting our shadow selves, sharing our separate self stories and embodying our connectedness through dancing with massive rubber bands.
What was truly fascinating for me was the synchronicity of the inquiry we were asked to engage with on the day: what is my unique contribution? Synchronous indeed because earlier that week I had been to ‘Satsang with Kishori’ and she had asked us to reflect on our ‘unique offering’ from our heartspace, that space where we are deeply connected to our soul or the Divinity within.
This inquiry is continuing to reverberate fruitfully within me; I find myself asking myself questions such as what is integral sexuality? What are integral relationships? What is integral spirituality? How can I create spaces for us to engage in conversations that matter about the pivotal issues we are facing both individually and collectively? How can I create spaces which enable and facilitate collaboration at the core level so that we can each bring our unique offering to the table so that all may benefit?
Something else I truly appreciated was the total commitment of everyone on the day to genuinely exploring, sharing and engaging in the process together, with sensitivity and awareness.
Given that this was my first ‘taste’ of an Integral Life Practice day, I feel that by being present I got a really good idea AND experience of what embodying integral ideals looks, feels and sounds like.
Gary is an amazing facilitator, he gave of himself 150%: I felt safe enough to explore my own edges in the presence of others, most of whom I had never met before. I noticed the difference between the way we each held ourselves when we spoke to the group at the beginning of the day and then again at the end- each of us had grown to fill more of ourselves it seemed to me, both the way people held themselves in their bodies and how they projected their voices: we had shifted. We had grown both individually and as a group.
Of course, the potential for me to dive so deeply into this inquiry was largely due to the quality and calibre and intent of everyone who attended the day: someone who was on the day and had been in Boulder shared that he had been wondering if he had to go back to Boulder to get that experience again; apparently we don’t have to go to Boulder because Gary is bringing the experience of Boulder Integral alive here in the UK.
Gary is one of those rare teachers who actually models what he teaching: he comes from his experience- personally I don’t care what certificates someone has or who has sanctioned them to teach: I care whether the teacher/facilitator is authentic, creates a space safe enough for me to be authentically all of who I am; calls me forth to become who I am becoming and enables individuals within the group to engage in a process of discovery of both self and other and the space in between.
I tip my hat and bow my head: profound gratitude to Gary Hawke.