What is Giving Birth to Your Truth?
It starts with me being a twin. You see I am an identical twin sister. For most of my life I thought the word “twin” was written on my forehead. In high school, my sister Laura and I were known as the “twins”. I am not complaining. I liked the celebrity-like treatment. My twin sister Laura felt like a freak. After high school, Laura and I went to different colleges in different states. This was Laura’s idea.
It was the best thing for us with twenty years hindsight. At eighteen, we went through an intense separation-individuation period. We yelled at the top of our lungs at each other in an effort to define our own identities. “I am not you!...I am me!!!” At the time, I had no idea who I was and I wasn’t sure I could make it without Laura, and I was damn pissed at her for abandoning me!
It was in graduate school at Lesley College in Cambridge Mass, that I began more concretely to define myself. It was a fun and intensively creative experience being a part of the Inter-modal Expressive Arts Therapies Program. I had great friends who didn’t see “twin” on my forehead but something beautiful in me. More importantly I saw something beautiful in me.
I wrote my Masters Thesis about being a twin and how it affects my relationship with me and others. I learned not only that was I afraid of being abandoned but that I was afraid of being consumed by the Other (Laura or a boyfriend). Being silenced. I have been silenced in relationships. I choose to speak up now.
Fourteen years ago, as I finished my thesis, I created a white spandex bag. I called it my “birthing bag”. Inside it, I would get an idea of what it was like to be born alone and not in relationship. Being a twin you come into this world “born in a relationship”. It started out as a performance piece. I would go into the bag and birth myself to music. I’ve been told my performance was beautiful and intense.
It was fun coming out of the bag, all sweaty and being greeted by others. I thought to myself, maybe other people could benefit from this rebirthing experience. Other people may learn how to feel more welcomed into the world in new empowering ways. So I created the Giving Birth to Your Truth Workshop. Participants may use the birthing bag or not. The imporant thing is to create your intention for change.
This safe group environment can be an incubator for making changes in your life. Through role-play, movement, music and group process participants rehearse roles that they have always wanted to play such as: a singer at Carnegie Hall, a mother or President of the United States. By rehearsing these roles, participants help themselves move towards creating the kind of lives they really want.
I don’t have all the answers. I know my twin and I get along much better now that we live own lives. I like to see myself as a Dullah, encouraging and steady. I am the one who wipes the brow and whispers “You can do this…watch you go.”
Saturday March 17, 2007 from 10am-3pm, I will be hosting another Giving Birth to Your Truth Workshop at 1227 W. Jarvis in Chicago.The fee is $150.00.
For registration and more information you can phone me at 773-859-1276 or send me an email to brownstonetherapeutics@gmail.com. Or visit me at http://brownstonetherapeutics.blogspot.com/
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