Sparked by a passage in Reclaiming the Wild Soul by Mary Reynolds Thompson (Reclaiming the Wild Soul, p.42.):
Dominator Energy — It is destructive, pushy, indiscriminate. When I feel this Dominator Energy coming at me, I respond with fear, anger and/or resentment. Or I shut down. I have felt parts of myself going numb, going dead under the force of that relentless energy.
There are a few people in my life who frequently give off this type of energy, and I am working hard to learn better ways to cope with it. I want to unplug from this cycle of reaction entirely. I want to be able to allow that energy to slide off my surface and dissipate harmlessly in the universe. I do not want it to touch me.
I am imagining a layer of energy around me that will deflect dominator energy before it can reach any part of me. Maybe this is what “detaching with love” means for me. I do not want to engage at any level.
I know that my own growth, my own work is only solid and true when I allow it to emerge in its own time from the “untamed, tangled terrain of my soul”. When I work with a group, the way I hold space and witness comes from a deep space within me, one that honors the experience and perception of those around me as well as my own experience and perception. It is not based in theory or logic or expediency. What works for me is to be fully present, standing in my own truth and allowing others to do the same. What I bring to my art, my writing, my relationships and my work is a deep knowing, forged in the fires of my own bad decisions, my own mistakes and calamities and my own hard-earned resilience in the face of all that. I reject expediency, efficiency, strategy. I want to navigate on deeper currents.
I believe our human souls and all sentient beings – the winged, finned, hoofed, crawlers and burrowers, the swimmers and climbers – are all connected in a web of souls. The Hindu’s (I think) refer to this soul web as “Indra’s net” -my “community” is the planet and all the life that inhabits earth and the four elements that act upon the surface and below. I live in the houses of light and shadow – both are home to me and each has lessons for me. The lessons will go on for as long as I inhabit this body—and maybe beyond—but I have no way of knowing that until I get there.
I am solidly planted in these truths. They are my map and my operating instructions. One of my life lessons, apparently, is to have relationships with people who are driven by this energy. This has, over a very long time, allowed me to better discern what energies I need around me for my own growth and peace of mind.
~ Judith Prest, September 15, 2017