The shadow side, in meeting oneself.
We started the course on Friday and showed up like lit candles, curious and excited about what was to come. A slight feeling of discomfort crept in when I saw that the paper tissues were laid out ready, well yes, this was going to be emotional. But the whole setting felt safe and good, so it was just a matter of rolling up our sleeves. It was Gro Hilseth Adriansdatter, Kyrre Gram Franck and Jim Flatjord who were going to lead us through this weekend. As a group, we made a table of all the shadow sides we could think of, and there turned out to be quite a few, but more would come. Then we were given the task of writing down 5 well-aimed and critical questions that Kyrre posed to us, questions that went straight into the matter, that pulled at sensitive strings buried deep away, that loosened up rigid trains of thought, things that had been repressed or simply forgotten and that touched the seeds of every self-destructive pattern, (bad) habit and behavior, ways of being we do not want to acknowledge in ourselves. They prompted deep reflection and self-examination. We were then given 15 minutes to ponder over this, after which we were taken on a guided drum journey where we met those shadow sides and got rid of them or worked through them so that they became a strength we then used to build ourselves back up. Meanwhile, we were well taken care of by the leaders who kept a careful and watchful eye on us; the whole setting was so warm and safe that all our defenses, if there were any, simply melted away. We repeated this task up to 7 times throughout the weekend, with 5 new questions each time, so it became an intense but focused weekend where we were confronted with the entire emotional register, after which we received good help from the leaders to analyze and release them. There were many drum journeys with deep emotions. On Sunday, Gro, Jim and Kyrre took us to a closing with a long, strong and powerful but wonderful drum journey, where we went through all the emotions from the entire weekend again. It was so uplifting, strengthening and healing that after the course I left there on wings, and it took a few days before I came back down to earth.
Thank you, thank you, thank you everyone for a wonderful weekend, this will stay with me forever
