I don’t usually do well with “guided” exercises, but during a workshop exercise whose purpose was to help us experience how we had each been both abused and abuser, I dropped into my gut so quickly I could hardly believe it.

As the exercise continued, I became aware of myself as a young girl maybe 7 or 8 years old standing on a path. I was being asked to continue down this path. I turned to look over my shoulder to tell some people behind me that I didn’t want to do this, that I couldn’t do this. At that point, I felt firm hands on my shoulders and someone saying Yes you can and also gentle arms around me saying I will help you.

As I began walking I saw that at the bottom of the path, there was a large open grave with naked bodies just thrown on top of each other. I approached this mass grave and stood looking at the bodies. For the next few minutes, I alternated between feeling repulsed to the point of being nauseous and a feeling of calmness and strength, back and forth like something was being balanced.

An amazing time has followed the workshop. I left my job with very seductive sweet, sweet logistics (high pay in proportion to short hours) and cleared off a long, long drawn out emotional entanglement which had also once held sweet, sweet logistics (abundant life style and lots of play time). But in each case the price was too high, my heart was not in either the job or the relationship.