I participate in a game world called Possibility Management - an experiential experimental space offering adult initiation tools and practices to support radical responsibility, thought-ware upgrades and transformation. In this context, Gremlin is the part of each person that offers non-linear possibilities. It is part of us, and, left unnoticed and unattended, it will act in every way possible to protect all the survival strategies we’ve put in place throughout our lives. I consider Gremlin my underworld guide, a part of me that is quite creative and, yes, hidden. As I continue to research some of the programs (survival strategies) I picked up in my insular family unit, in church, in school, I keep finding a plethora of unconscious, sometimes slightly conscious ways, I’ve been creating repetitive experiences in my life. All the while defaulting to the “idea” that they are simply happening TO me, as if I was put on the planet to be a passive participant.
Five years ago, I discovered I had cancer. The diagnosis was one of the catalysts for this exploration.
I was already on a spiritual path of some sort, but after I finished chemotherapy and radiation treatment, I decided to start traveling, seeking and studying things outside my normal framework. I became an herbalism apprentice and doula, to name two. I started practicing Qi gong. I started therapy for the first time in my life, with hopes I’d get to the root of “something” that seemed on the other side of a blind spot.
I’d had a number of long-term relationships fail due to my inability to commit and really reveal my internal world. I associated commitment with control, and did not want anyone to expect anything of me. My parents didn’t accept that I dated women. I was (and still am) financially unstable and relying on the generosity of friends and my sister to be living my life. I was in an abusive relationship in which I felt insecure, and like my entire existence was focused on appeasing and pleasing, that, in my fantasy world, would work to avoid her anger. I desired clarity about how to create my life as an artist, writer, and nature lover.
The problem was that talking to someone once a week was not shifting anything inside of me. It was crazy to me. How could I think I was going to die, face this, get through it and come out the other side, and still not be going full on into this incredible second chance? Still not be taking responsibility for living my life. There was a resignation, a residue, a regret, as well as this popcorn-style of trying things, thinking they were my path, abandoning them when they took more dedication, and then moving on to the next thing.
Why didn’t I know what I was meant to be doing? Why was I so resentful of other people for where I was at in my life? Why didn’t it feel like I had ever grown up?
When a friend suggested this thing called Rage Club I had huge resistance.
I thought of anger as the thing I was trying to get away from, something I didn’t really identify with, except of course when I did. Occasionally, and usually while driving, something would get to me and I would flip out, to myself, in my car. I also had dated someone who had called me a ticking time bomb because I’d be sweet and not speak and not say anything for long periods of time. I was a master at avoiding conflict. Then, one thing would set me off and I’d unleash.
Despite the resistance that told me enacting anger was going to open up a Pandora’s box, I tried Rage club because I couldn’t stop thinking about my relationship to anger and how I’d ‘othered’ people who were angry, felt superior to them because I was mostly “at peace”, and how I’d been sad most of my life with a bit of anger buried way below. Crying, I knew well, and could go there at any time. Anger, I avoided and thought was wrong.
What became clear once I started learning about detecting low level feelings was that I was very numb a lot of the time. I had a lot I wasn’t looking directly at and many experiences that were pressed down and unprocessed. I had no idea I wasn’t living my life through my feelings. I had no idea that it was a supportive thing to feel and express feelings. Even big emotions have so much information, and I was going around mostly hiding and unconsciously believing that sadness was the only feeling I really had. I started getting feedback from people saying, “yes, I’m the only one who feels anger in our contact”, or “I feel anger for both of us since you won’t”. I’m learning that denying anger (and any other feelings) denies my experience. I'm learning that I’ve denied and hidden a lot.
I’ve acted many ways to get many outcomes, while Me, my being, who and what I really am, were not coming forth. And now, I’m in exploration of Gremlin so that I can transform how I operate, from hidden to exposed.
Instead of trying to act like I’m perfect and nothing is going on with me, I now see I have faults.
Not in the way of “it’s your/my fault.” I’m seeing it more in the way as the earth has fault lines. It is my “from where is this coming”, and to find this often times undetected fault line, the earth, aka my life, quakes in an obvious way, showing me the unconscious place from which my moment-to-moment experiences are being created.
Cancer was one of those big moments, not in the way that I caused cancer on myself at all, but in the way that I was not taking care of myself and was living in a fantasy that everything was “ok.” I was not in touch with my body, and I was not living in honesty about what was going on with me. All I have to do is look at what happens “to,” around, within me, and trace backwards to the purpose; not the reason, not the surface “facts” about ”why,” but the real Purpose.
A major fault line I’m now seeing out in this light is rescuing, and how it is (a bit unexpectedly) connected to my tendency to be a lone wolf. How is being a lone wolf connected to being a rescuer? The two behaviors may not seem related at all, and yet, when I slow down and watch the my mechanism at play, there is this story way down below the surface that I have to do everything by myself to save others the “trouble.” A story that says other’s time is more precious than my own, other’s needs are on top of my own needs, in fact, sometimes I am not even aware of my own needs. This relates to trying to appease, to figure it all out, to be heroic and seen as someone who is capable not only for myself, but will hold another’s experience too. This is built on a house of cards, pull one and the whole things starts to tumble. I can’t say that one specific card has been pulled for me, many now for months, revealing all these micro ways I both enmesh myself with others, and isolate inside my own mind what’s really going on with me. It’s a killer combination, in that, it kills any possibility for connection.
When I operate on automatic from that place, I actually see the opposite results of what I would claim be seeking. I say, “claim to be”, because it’s getting more clear that unless I am functioning from a conscious purpose, something else is at work. As I observe my Gremlin’s operations, I come to see that through making decisions and moves based on pleasing and appeasing, which I’ve been doing since I was a very young, I cut the possibility for building intimacy, togetherness, and collaboration.
This has especially shown up in partnership.
I want to be seen as someone who has my life together.
I repress and hide from myself and others when feelings arise, to override them, and operate from a simultaneously numb place, and the place of wanting my partner (and others) to see me in a certain light: as someone capable and bright and caring. Someone who can figure it all out. Instead of being authentic, I go rogue to avoid feedback. I make plans alone, making assumptions, in a fantasy, that my plans will be perfect. I deny my feelings to push through and fix or make everything “ok.”
On one level, I’m rescuing the other from something they didn’t even know was happening.
Gremlin says, do it all on your own, swoop in with a plan that will make them happy, all the while, "saving” in this way is actually at the fault line. I have a story that people do not want to work with me. If I can figure it all out, I save the other person from having to spend time configuring our time together, alongside me. Something that they would actually want to do. I’m avoiding my feelings and doing my best to avoid theirs. Teamwork, Gremlin says, is too hard and dangerous even. I try and take the other person’s chances of responsibility away from them, and the ultimate result is often that the things I create “for” them/us do not pan out. This is simply because the place from which I’m creating is a crack, and the under-worldly purpose is seeping. It cannot help but leak out.
It may seem like a sweet angelic gesture to take pressure off someone by doing it all or doing more, but it’s not only an illusion, it’s also a trap. When the thing doesn’t go as intended, and the other person has feelings about it (or doesn’t appreciate the scenario we find ourselves in), I have ammunition to say, “I was just trying to make you happy.” Then, I get to frame them as ungrateful or high maintenance, or unable to be easeful and go with the flow. Making decisions that involve us both, on my own, is also opposite of what my current companion shared that they desire. It’s not what they ask for and even if it was, if I do this it would still be with underworld purpose to act out the low drama position of rescuer. Acting this way means I believe that the other person isn’t ok, and I am. Or at the very least, I am pretending to be.
Most recently this behavior was exemplified in the act of setting up a house for us to stay where the floors were getting redone. I didn’t express my fears about what it could mean to have the house be undergoing construction. I simply numbed my concern, my fears, said I found us a place, and as a result we were living in a disruptive space.
When conflict arises, I dissociate, which for me looks like a robot quietly malfunctioning. My ability to speak dissipates. I jump backwards as far away from the situation as possible without moving my body an inch. I am unable to mastermind or collaborate on new possibilities, because I’m so afraid of having made a “mistake.”
I get defensive internally, sometimes externally, and it’s as if there are no options. Then, to fix it quickly, I started looking for other options, alone. I committed us to dog sit at another place, without inviting my partner into the planning of a resolution to provide “us” with a peaceful option.
What I learn about Gremlin as I watched another plan I made, in order to try and make things better for “us”, actually create more chaos than ease, is that Gremlin isn’t a team player, and gets ecstasy from feeling unappreciated. It’s the cocktail of disappointment and disgust that trying to rescue creates - that keeps the lone wolf low-drama game intact.
This seemingly mundane experience with the houses was an opportunity to see this isolation technique, with a side of rescuing, play out. It led me backwards to find this crack, this fault line, of trying to be a savior.
Until this “from where” of saving is adjusted, which often get’s sparked by hiding feelings, and hoping others hide their feelings too, these energetic drains will haunt and halt any chance at true depth and intimacy. The possibility of building and collaboration between myself and others cannot exist. I am sad about how I’ve been operating as such an individual in life. I am also angry that underneath there has been this story that I’m helping people by not involving them.
To not include others, and assume they’d prefer it this way, is a story that is hurting everyone involved. To act this way creates heart break, a necessary kind of cracking that is now moving me to shift my orientation from lone wolf to teammate.
I desire to be close to others. It’s my new necessity to collaborate on creating a new culture, to be together in this life.
How can I be on a team? What does that look like in partnership, and beyond? I am figuring this out moment by moment. More on this research topic coming soon!