The Contemporary Women’s Issues Workshop in Poland
The Contemporary Women’s Issues Workshop in Poland—led by Diane Balser, the International Liberation Reference Person for Women, in March 2019—was my first contact with the wider RC Community. I had been learning and practicing RC for three years, but my teacher and I were quite isolated. In reading the RC literature and listening to stories of my teacher, I was always thinking that if I could have an RC Community around me, there would be nothing I couldn’t do. I dreamed of it.
The workshop was like coming home. The first thing that made a huge impression on me was the ever-present closeness and affection. Everyone was smiling and looking straight into each other’s eyes, enjoying each other’s presence. When women were standing, sitting, or lying down next to each other, they were embracing, holding hands, or touching in any way they could. Being close was a default, and it was the most casual and at the same time cherished thing to do. I spend a lot of my time craving that kind of connection in my life and not achieving it. Liberation is a lot about being connected to each other—finding the connection and deepening and cultivating it. It is already there; it just needs to be rediscovered so that we can feel loved and safe and remember what the reality is.
The workshop also felt like home because I could finally speak my mind exactly in the way in which I think, using RC terms. I talked about the roots of the oppressions and discussed with people our individual experiences with them and our practice of eliminating them. I finally had more than one person to talk to in a way that was inspiring, exciting, and stimulating, as well as comfortable and relaxing.
The workshop gave me hope, as I could see how many women were actively opposing the oppressions and supporting other women to do that. The amount of attention, appreciation, and confidence in me I received helped me feel like an important part of a great revolutionary movement rather than an individual who is just hoping to feel better. That side of RC, its potential to change the world (and the actual changing it already does), is what brings me into it.
I met a group of young women who were kind to me. Just that is incredible—considering my experience of competitive relationships with women. Not only were they kind to me but they also really wanted to be with me; they were not giving up on me. And in hearing about their struggles, I realized that I am not alone. (I hear that phrase a lot—it’s kind of worn out—but with truisms, it’s only after you experience their truth that you understand why they are repeated so often.) I met young women who have embraced leadership, and that gave me faith that I can do it, too, and that the future is in good hands.
I loved the directions we were given to work on during the sessions. I think the biggest revelation for me was that while working on racism as a white person, it is very useful to work on early defeats. That is true also for sexism. From those early defeats come hopelessness, powerlessness, and quite often (if not always) loneliness. Wouldn’t it be great to get rid of all of them at once? I always knew there must be some huge underlying issue that most of our patterns sprout from and feed on. I wanted to find it and commit to working on it, to speed up the whole process. Now I am committed to working on early defeats.
I appreciate greatly the opportunity I had to watch others in the role of client and counsellor. I learned some techniques. I also admired the commitment and determination of many women. Despite being very tired from short nights and tough distress, they were going straight into the painful darkness, using the directions and attention of their counsellors. The same darkness that often has me paralyzed and backing off into my isolation and hopelessness, they were facing straight on, with fierce strength.
When I was a child and was falling into isolation, I used to run away; it seemed soothing to be away from people. At the workshop when I wanted to do that, and I was sure that I would, Matilde and Mare, young adults from Denmark, didn’t let me. They didn’t leave me, which, even though infuriating at the time, was the greatest contradiction to the early defeat. I am forever grateful for that simple yet difficult act of love.
The deep love and connection that the women at the workshop were sharing, their fierce celebration of every bit of love they could find in each other, was the most beautiful thing for me. For the first day, I was discharging just because of that.
Of course, we still have a long way to go, but look at how far we have already gotten. We are turning into reality our dreams of building a new culture, and we are proud of ourselves.
Warsaw, Poland
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