Lesbian Rand AU?

[Send me a potential AU and I'll answer with five things from that story!]

Oh boy, here we go-

A lot depends on the setup. A big part of Rand's character is reckoning with the failures of his past life and the foundation of a lot the interesting ways Jordan interrogates the gender binary is built on the idea that those mistakes are a remix of Paradise Lost/The Fall. LTT is at both at once Eve and Lucifer. Eve in that he acts without the consent or permission of his other half (Latra Posae Decume- the Adam of this version) and runs of on his own in defiance of her will. Lucifier in that in his pride, he believes he can match or surpass the Creator, by attempting to Seal the Bore with only saidin. As a result, paradise is lost- the AoL is destroyed in the breaking by LTT's sin, an entire Age results where all men take the blame to a greater or lesser extent, for the original sin of one man. Of course, Jordan isn't just running with this premise as simple fact- he's interrogating the idea of original sin, salvation, and redemption and raising inherent and complicating questions. Does it make a difference that LTT's intentions where pure and genuine? That he didn't know and couldn't have predicted the consequences of his actions? How does Rand suffering for LTT's do any justice to those who suffered and died in the Breaking? Is chasing the splendor of an Age that could shatter so even a worthwhile endeavor, or should the focus be on building letting go of the past and building something new? Does that mean forgetting and forgiving and is that fair?

All this to say is that, I think for a Lesbian Rand AU to work the story would probably need a reversed gender dynamic to the one that is present in the books- which I don't know that I could ever write both because it would veer very uncomfortably close to the most misogynistic elements of our own historical societies, and probably have to exceed them in brutality to work (something I'm not very good at, since a lot of my world building energy is usually directed at reshaping and re interpenetrating those historical societies through more queer and equitable lenses), and because a lot of what I connect to in Rand's story has a lot to do with the specifically queer male reading of it. That said if I could or would do that, I think it could also work very effectively as a queer female reading in the same thematic ways.

Rand and male channelers in general in the WoT verse already full fill a lot of the tropes commonly associated with medieval witches- individuals tainted by otherworldly power that is poorly understood and inherently transgressive to the gender roles of their society, as well as threat to the established social order (to put it mildly). It's not hard to translate that to a theoretically tainted saidar and the feelings of a resulting broken world onto a theoretical female Dragon. Rand in this context fulfills a pretty familiar role- Joan of Arc, Himiko of Yamatai, Elizabeth Woodvile, etc- savior and hero to some, witch and monster to others.

My brain of course goes to female Mat to be Rand's love interest in this AU- trickster and guile heroine. Mat's specific brand is easy to imagine transcending into a female character in a strict patriarchy, both because Mat's role in the series is already pretty gender transgressive (as befits a trickster shapeshifting archetype), and because it's easy to imagine again that simmering homoerotic temptation Mat and Rand's relationship inherently invokes, but gender flipped: Mat representing a liberation a refusal of the traditional gender roles that Rand can't quite decide if she truly wants or only wants because she was raised to want them. Rand specifically being homosexual rather then my bisexual head canon means that, I would probably air on the side of it being compulsory heterosexuality/heteronormativity- and genuinely wanting the life of adventure and liberty offered by Mat's promises of running away together.

I could also see Min (again as her Gender Weird makes her surprisingly easy to translate into a traditional patriarchy without loosing core elements of her character) as Rand's love interest- again in largely the same role as the series. Someone who Rand could just be....herself around, who couldn't overawed or terrified or brow beaten into seeing a monster, but rather just a person- a woman sacred and overwhelmed and being crushed by the expectations of a savior, and all the fears of being a monster. Conversely I don't know that either Avihenda or Elayne's relationships would still function the same- not without flipping their genders as well which defeats the idea of the premise. A few extra thoughts (since 1 and 2 are basically just big disclaimers)-

While I find the idea of Lesbian Rand having to learn from Short Gay Ball of Anger Uncle Moiraine very funny conceptually (Moiraine is already a pretty strong riff of mentor characters like Obi Wan and Gandfalf, but genderflipped, and I find the idea flipping that back but keeping the more unique aspects of Moiraine's character to be interesting), I also can't help but find the idea of Moiraine as an older, slightly rattled/mad, female wilder Moiraine with the same motivation as in the series just as intriguing as a mentor figure to Lesbian Rand. It would give the entire series a very different vibe, but that's just a natural outcome of the premise as well. I once said Moiraine is a woman who, if she had be born into a patriarchy would have easily been burned as a witch- but the truth is, the idea of Moiraine as a witch to clever to burn, a witch who is surviving the curse of her power, and struggling to see the savior who may yet be able to reverse that curse and save their world...their is an Appeal There.

It's scary conversely, how easy it is to fit the Aes Sedai in general into a gender flipped Randland, and I think speaks to how effectively Jordan wrote them and their institutionally flaws. Mired in traditions, secure in their power, comfortable in ordering the world to their will- a mix between the Catholic Church and an order of magi, angry and resistant to reform and change that alters the base of their power, presided over by ancient and yet ageless cabals of entrenched elders. The scene, easily one of my favorites, in the series, in Fal Dara, is almost sickeningly easy to imagine with the genders flipped- a young woman still bright eye and scarred of what she is and what she is capable of, with three thousand years of tales of women going mad from power, declaring themselves the Dragon falsely in greed and lust for power and leaving the world to suffer for it, walking into a a room with three ancient wizards who tell her that this is her fate, to be this messiah and destroyer both, it hits sharply and exactly the right way.

Again, I don't know that I would do it, and I find what Jordan is doing with gender and sexuality already int he Wot Books inherently more interesting and....less....I don't know sticky? But it's a fun thought exercise.

have u ever talked about ur favorite books?? if not, could you?? i feel like ur so informed and articulate about pretty much everything you talk about and i'd like to know what has helped you in this?

thank you! this is an interesting question. tbh i don’t think whatever skill i might have with language was chiefly helped along by my favorite books growing up so much as how my parents taught me to read and the resources available in my home. 

i have the first time i said “fuck” on video: i am two years old. my mom is behind the camera and i’m tucked under my dad’s arm as he holds a beatrix potter book up where i can see and asks me to describe what’s in each illustration. i describe it. he asks clarifying questions about it. it’s only after we talk about the picture that my dad reads the accompanying text aloud to me, pointing out specific words that represent things i noticed in the illustration ( “you said she was holding a little baby*? that word right there says ‘baby’”, etc). 

at some point there is a picture of a frog, but i’m a toddler and don’t enunciate well. so i keep pointing at it and chirping “fuck! fuck?” in an increasingly questioning tone as my parents try not to laugh. 

it wasn’t a test, and in the home movie it’s obvious that i’m having fun. what i appreciate the most about it is that my parents approached teaching me to read from the side of the story itself, rather than as a dry matter of memorizing letters or sounding out words — all that follows, of course. but before getting there it was just: “what’s in the picture? what do you think is happening? does goose look happy or sad?” 

also, since i was very young, my grandfather — who never went to college and tended to covet books not necessarily for their contents but for the status they might afford — would call our house, tell me a single big word, and then hang up. it was my job to find a dictionary, look up the word, then call him back and explain what it meant.

throughout my childhood there was no shortage of not only books, but a widely varied selection of books. my mother was into fiction, her collection populated with classic literature and fantasy (she loves the dune books), whereas my dad’s bookshelves contained virtually all nonfiction with a focus on botany and psychology. 

for as long as i can remember, if i was really curious about a specific topic or concept, or just in need of something new to read, i had hundreds of titles to peruse under my own roof. you’d be as likely to find little me skimming my father’s copy of a case study approach to clinical neuropsychology as my mom’s prized edition of the fellowship of the ring. 

so i appreciated — and i believe that my parents did, too — that even the shit you’re not equipped to fully understand should be dipped into. that diversity of stimulation is always a good thing. 

the first book i remember reading all by myself is hazel’s amazing mother by rosemary wells. i’ve loved tuck everlasting since i first read it in third grade (about the same time i properly read the bible). the first piece of writing i remember finding genuinely frightening was the tell-tale heart by edgar allan poe, in maybe fifth grade (his poem alone is also the first piece of writing i memorized without meaning to, by virtue of how often i read it). i read fight club in sixth grade (without any exposure to the movie or to general cultural interpretation and reception thereof, thank fuck), which was a nice exercise in the mechanics of propaganda and toxic masculinity (also got in trouble for reading it out loud to my classmates, natch). was fucking obsessed with the vampire lestat for a bit in middle school, while blissfully unaware of all of anne rice’s bullshit. fell in love with wuthering heights in high school, largely due to (again) not having been exposed to the scholarship surrounding it. 

i think my upbringing fostered an independent approach to books, and to all media. as in, you should approach things critically and never rely too heavily on someone else’s word. read it for yourself. think for yourself. have conversations continually, and don’t aim to ~solve the text. whatever. 

some of my current favorite books are: the gormenghast novels, l.a. confidential, dream boy, wuthering heights, deathless, winter’s tale, the discworld series. and assorted military nonfiction, which you can find recommendations for here. 

Psssst... >.> *whispers* All the "Character Questionaire ?'s" for Cardinal! *winks*

FULL NAME

Cardinal Emma Connor (soon to be Coleman)

PREFERRED NAME/NICKNAME

Cardi/Cardinal. She doesn’t mind. 

GENERALLY REFERRED TO AS

Cardi. Though she has a few nicknames which differ depending who she’s talking too. ~ Ginger, red and little one are a few of my favourites. She herself loves “little one” the most because her best friend gave it to her :3 

APPEARANCE.

FACECLAIM: tbh, I am having sucha hard time finding a faceclaim for her. But if I find one i’ll update thisSEX: FemaleHEIGHT: 4′11, though she kinda borders between 4′10 and 11WEIGHT: She’s always been around 90lbs/40kg. Though with the baby shes gone up quite a bit. So currently she’s 105lbs/47kgBUILD: ThinHAIR: Currently its long. Its soft though very curly. She straightens her hair almost everyday which as you can imagine damages it alot. So when it loses that ‘softness’ she ends up cutting it. She often leaves her hair loose but she likes putting it in ponies. She has dyed her hair a few times but she prefers her natural hair colour, red.SKIN: She’s really pale due to the fact that she doesn’t go out in the sun much (she burns really easily) she takes really good care of her skin also. Its kinda more of a self-conscious type of thing. She tries to ‘fix’ the fact that she has scars by ensuring that she doesn’t have any other blemishes and by keeping her skin soft. So its more like “they’ll comment on how soft my skin is and not on how many scars I have” EYES: Green. Like a dark foresty kinda green. In some light they appear a lighter green. She has natural bags under her eyes which sometimes make her look tired, added to the face that when she smiles she squints. Also her one eye squints slightly more than the other. Which is something she absolutely hates. She always takes selfies at an angle for that specific reason. MOUTH: Her mouth i’d say is rather small. And her lips are plumpish. It often looks like shes pouting because the bottom lip just sticks a bit. Also she has a short upper lip so her mouth is slightly open at all times. As for her teeth, they’re straight, however she has a few back teeth missing because they got knocked out. NOSE: She has a small button sorta nose. Its about the only thing she likes lol. HANDS: Her hands are really small, just like the rest of her. And her hands are cold about 90% of the time. She keeps her nails short though and every rarely does she put on nail polish. Its more of like a special occasion thing. FEET: Smol, bony feet. Cold all the time. Which is why she just keeps them in socks xD SCARS: She has about 19 visible scars. She had much more at one point but they’ve faded and become smaller over time. CLOTHES: She doesn’t have a specific ‘style’ she often goes for comfort. Like baggy tees. She does love revealing clothing though. So I suppose that can also be considered as part of her ‘style’ OTHER FEATURES: She got her ears pointed when she was 15. So her pointy ears. OTHER NOTEABLE FEATURES: She has her ears and tongue pierced. 

SPEECH.

VOICECLAIM: no voiceclaim either. Again - having a hard time finding one that fits her. ACCENT: She has an Irish accent. Although its been toned down a bit due to having been in America for so long now. VERBAL TICKS: She doesn’t actually talk that much. Shes more of a show than tell type of person. So no verbal ticks. LANGUAGE: She speaks English, Gaelic and a bit of french, though she isn’t very fluent in it. ARTICULATION: Clumsy with words (just like me) EDUCATION: She prefers short simple words. Though she does like throwing in big words when shes trying to prove someone wrong or when shes pissed off.LAUGHTER: Her laugh is more of a giggle. Though she doesn’t laugh often. Jackson is kinda the only person who can really make her laugh at anytime, other than that she will laugh at funny things on TV and the like. GRUMP: She does whine a lot when grumpy. And grunts when annoyed xD  BREATHING: She sighs pretty often 

MANNERISMS.

FACE: Sometimes when she’s worried you can tell because she wears at her lip but other than that she has a ‘resting pout face’ HANDS: She doesn’t do any hand gestures. But she does play with her fingers, or pull at her clothing when talking. She fiddles a lot. LEGS/FEET: She taps her foot when excited or nervous. And she tends to bounce on the soles of her feet when excited. EMOTIONAL OUTBURSTS: Cardi is… very emotional. So this happens… often. Random outbursts throughout the day is common for her HABITS: She fidgets and bites her lip. POSTURE: Her posture is really good most of the time. Mostly just due to years of discipline. Though she slumps if her mood is bad.  WALKING POSTURE: Shes the ‘skip gleefully’ type. Her walk is always energetic. Though if shes grumpy then she purposely slumps and drags her feet till someone asks whats wrong. SITTING POSTURE: She likes to sit cross legged PERSONAL SPACE: She has some problems with personal space. Like hugging people and any physical contact really. However when shes comfortable around people then she’d just affectionately lick their cheek and grab their hand or anything random that’ll make the other person laugh… or shake their head. SPACIAL AWARENESS: She notices everything around her, and will get anxious if something is suddenly out of place. When sleepy all that just goes though. OTHER: She scrunches up her nose when in thought 

HEALTH:

DIET: Her eating habits used to very unhealthy. She’d go days without eating only to later binge on junk food (when sober) otherwise the only thing in her system would be alcohol. However her eating habits have improved a lot since becoming pregnant and of couse because of Jackson’s influence. She does still have days though where she binges on an unhealthy amount of ice-cream. SLEEP: Her sleeping habits aren’t the best. She has very bad nightmares which sorta makes her scared of going to sleep at night. Due to that she’d stay up till she actually passed out from exhaustion. Though, just like her eating habits, this has improved a lot. She does still get nightmares but they are much less now. And (because of bird) she goes to be early and wakes up early. EXERCISE: She loves running and going on walks.ACTIVITY: She can be very lazy xD but if she wants something she’ll work really hard to get it. Then any bit of laziness just evaporates. CLEANLINESS: She loves taking baths and showers. ODOUR: Shes always cold so she doesn’t really sweat that much, but when she does she doesn’t smell particularly bad. Just.. normal person smell xD MEDICINAL DRUGS: She used to take anti-depressants and sleeping pills. She’s stopped since becoming pregnant though.  NARCOTICS: nopeADDICTIONS: Drinking. ILLNESS: noneINJURIES: She does get really bad back pain and other aches due to past abuse that her body went through. She also has some problems with her kidneys so she does get pain from that. PARASITES: nopeeOTHER: She has trouble using her left hand. Like the grip is weakened due to a past suicide attempt. 

PERSONAL.

INTROVERT/EXTROVERT?: She is definitely an extrovert. She does get very shy when first meeting people. OPTIMIST/PESSIMIST: Kinda in between. She switches between the two depending on her mood. GENDER: FemaleSEXUALITY: She is sexually attracted to both males and females. She’s heavily attracted to anyone that takes on the role of a ‘caregiver’ so if they look like they could be her mommy/daddy then she’s definitely interested. However when shes feeling self destructive then shes basically into anyone that looks like they could hurt her. ROMANTIC: Shes super cheesy. Into that whole romantic deal. The cheesier the romance the better. She loves it. MEMORY: She remembers everything that a person tells her. Which in time works for her because she can very easily remind them of things they’ve said. PLANNING: She’s ‘good’ at planning. But she chooses to wing it most of the time. She lives for anything spontaneous and out of the blue. She’s the type that would show up at your doorstep without calling first. PENSIVE: She thinks about everything. Then she rethinks it. Again, and again. Till she has a mental break down and hates herself even more. And repeat. INTUITION: She is the absolute worse at making good decisions. She’s very self-destructive and impulsive. So that never ends well when given a choice between a good and a bad thing. PROBLEM SOLVING: Shes good at solving other peoples problems. GOALS: Her main goal in life is to just live long enough to see her kid grow up. Short term goals would be to actually not chase away Jackson. INSECURITIES: Everything. She is insecure about everything. Literally, name a body part or her personality and she could probably give you at least 10 reasons as to why she hates it. ACHIEVEMENTS: Shes proud of having made bird and for not yet ruining her relationship completely. ANXIETY: thinking about the future causes a lot of anxiety for her. Thinking about raising bird. Anything relating to parents/her parents. When people look at her scars for too long.OVERWHELMED: She gets overwhelmed easily. Sometimes little things are enough to cue a mental breakdown. SELF-HELP: LMAO there is no self help. Shes a self-destructive mass who relies on others to make her feel better about herself. COMFORTS: Giffery. Nothing can comfort her more than that Giraffe canBAD HABITS: She is a bad habit on her own xD but really, her drinking habits are bad. Also she bites her lip and her cheeks till the point where they bleed (when shes nervous/anxious) PHILOSOPHY: she believes that everyone is out to get her. Does that count?TRIGGERS: Parents. That’s it. Just hearing people talk about their moms/dads is enough to bring back things that she would much rather keep buried deep down. 

THE PAST.

PARENTS/GUARDIANS: She has a really really bad relationship with her parents, to the point where their names actually make her sick. Its.. messed up SCHOOL: She was home-schooled, so she didn’t really have a choice to not focus xD but she enjoyed having something to do so she did really well. ADOLESCENCE: This is when he ‘rebellious’ stage kinda kicked in. She also started drinking and just kinda became more apparent that she’s a mess. LEAVING HOME: Leaving home is something she marks as the best decision in her life. She’d been wanting to leave since before she even hit her ‘teen’ years so finally being able to lifted a huge weight off her shoulders. FURTHER EDUCATION: She went to college, shes currently in her third year which she does online.FIRST JOB: Her first job was working as a zoo keeper. She enjoyed it a lot. She loves wild animals so it was a really nice experience for her.LIFE EVENTS: She doesn’t really have one singular life event. More as like a whole bunch just pushed together. I think meeting someone who actually cared for her changed a lot of things for her. And then obviously falling pregnant is a really big and significant life event. However her childhood alone has a lot too do with how she’s ended up. WORST DAY OF THEIR LIFE: [possible suicide trigger] - worst day of her life, and one she still recalls with exact detail, is her first failed attempt. Just the after affects of it all. How she was treated in the hospital. How her parents both changed towards her (becoming harsher) her brother changed around her too. And it made everything ‘worse’ than it was before. To her anyway. BEST DAY OF THEIR LIFE: She doesn’t have one day that she counts the best. It’d be impossible for her too choose just one. However most of the ‘best days’ shes had involve Jackson or bird or both. LESSONS: Most important lessons she’s learned is that you can’t always rely on people to be there for you. And sometimes you have to deal with the most difficult of things alone. LOOKING BACK: [possible suicide trigger] looking back, the one thing she would change is making sure that her ‘attempts’ actually worked. Even with all the good things going on in her life right now, she still carries so much and none of that will ever go away. 

RELATIONSHIPS.

FAMILY: She doesn’t have any grandparents or extended family. So its just her parents and her brother, whom she doesn’t always get alone with. Her parents she just hates and they her. Though, her real dad, is still out there somewhere. She has his number but she’s scared he’ll be as bad as all the rest. FRIENDSHIPS: She loves loves making friends, but she doesn’t have many. She’s not the best at starting up conversations but shes working on it. The friends she does have she loves dearly. FRIENDS IN NEED: She tries to help her friends as much as possible. With anything going on in their life she’ll drop everything she can and be there for them. She’s really supportive, understanding and she doesn’t judge either. So if they ever need her she does what she can. If all else fails she offers tons of hugs and baked goods.NEEDING A FRIEND: She’s still working on actually accepting help from people. She’s so used to doing everything alone that even when she truly needs them she’ll keep quite and try and deal with everything herself.ANNOYANCES: She hates arguing but more often than not she is the one to cause arguments (shes a shit, best to accept it now) she turns small things into something big and it kinda spirals from there. That or she just ignores whoever shes mad at (something she isn’t very good at)ROMANCE: “I’m a mess. First they feel sorry for me, then they fall in-love with me” quoting her twitter lol. But romancing people… she flirts. And she can be kinda good at that. Mostly she just puts it out there that she’d do anything for them and all she wants in turn is to be loved. Its pitiful. That’s why it works so well. MARITAL PROBLEMS: She tries to talk it out. But most of the time her and Jackson will argue, like big very big argument. And when she gets upset shes more likely to speak whats on her mind so then it comes out whats actually going on and they work from there. ADVERSARIES: kinda silly but if the person doesn’t necessary pay ‘attention’ to her then she just pulls away. She hates not feeling needed. ENEMIES: She doesn’t have any enemies. And you’d have to screw up really badly in order to become her enemy. She doesn’t even view her parents as her enemies and they messed up really really badly. STRANGERS: She gets shy around people she doesn’t meet. And it takes her a while to trust them. So with strangers she’ll be very pulled away and short till she gets to know them better. FUN STUFF: She views anything as fun. Going out to any kinda ice cream place is the funnest for her. And well, anything goofy and crazy. DATING: She loves going out. She doesn’t mind staying in occasionally but she gets restless and wants to go out to do stuff. BEST FRIEND: She considers Jeon as her best friend. She trusts him more than everyone else.  LOVE: She loves Jackson. And she literally considers him the love of her life WORST ENEMY: nobody. RESPECT: She respects everyone. Even people she doesn’t like. Though if someone is flat out mean to her then she will be back. Or she’ll just cry… probably that. 

INTERACTIONS.

MINGLING: I think she gets along well with almost everyone. There are some who find her annoying but she tries not to be overbearing or needy. But she really tries to be friends with everyone. COMFORT LEVELS: She gets uncomfortable if people get very touchy-feeley. If she knows them well then she doesn’t mind but otherwise she hates it. PHYSICAL: If she doesn’t know them then she keeps her distance. However when shes comfortable around them she gets very affectionate. Wanting to hug them all the time, poking them, playing with their hands. Patting their heads etc…GROUPS: She doesn’t like groups very much. 4-5 is max for her. OPENNESS: Shes very open about everything thats happened to her. She has no problem explaining in detail. Buuuut, when it comes to feelings/telling people how she felt during all that thennn you’re going to struggle to get it out of her. GENEROSITY: She likes buying things for people and visa versa. She’ll love anyone who buys things for her JEALOUSY: She kinda gets jealous of people that are happy. lmao. Its petty honestly but she just gets more sad than jealous. She gets super protective though and gets jealous easily when her friends are talking to others. TEMPER: She has a very short temper xD EMPATHY: She’s really good at being empathetic. She often tries to relate on how the other person is feeling so that she can know what to say to them. Not always to make them feel better but just so that they know that she gets it. AFFECTION: Often by spamming them with messages. Or just giving out lots of hugs. DISTASTE: She actually makes it really apparent by just flat out telling them. She hates giving off mixed signals or well making them feel disliked so she’d rather just tell them. ETIQUETTE: She tends to be polite. But she sometimes loses that filter and gets a bit TMI without really realizing itRESPONSIBILITY: She is very irresponsible. She can barely look after herself lol. But I mean she does try. She is really good with pets and taking care of them. And she takes good care of Jackson when she’s sick. As for taking responsibility over her actions… she does that.. sometimes. Only when she knows she truly screwed up and needs to fix it. SELF ESTEEM: Shes used to people pushing her around so she takes it. She won’t stand up for herself because shes just… so used to it that she can’t imagine anyone being nice to her without having some kinda gain. CONFIDENCE: She hates herself. So confidence is almost non-existent. But shes working on it. And she gets little spurts where she doesn’t hate herself as much. HONESTY: She worries sometimes about hurting out peoples feelings but she tries to be as honest as possible. She does have her secrets though. LEADER OR FOLLOWER: Shes certainly not a leader but she also hates following xD PARTY TRICKS: she’s very good at making people uncomfortable PRAISE: She tends to praise others. But she’s not used to getting praise in turn. She thinks she’s being lied to then. FAILURES: She considers herself a failure and just assumes that everything thinks the same xDCRITICISM: Her response to someone criticizing her would be “same”INSULTS: insults/compliments. She can’t tell the difference. There’s hardly anything anyone can say to her that she doesn’t already say to herself. EMBARRASSMENT: She gets embarrassed really easily. Her whole face turns red. Its adorable. FLIRTING: Shes flirty in a fun type of way. Its kinda just another way that she shows affection by ‘joke flirting’ ATTENTION SPAN: She gets distracted very easily. Like… very very easilySITUATIONS: social situations going bad… she kinda freaks a little. Often wants to leave/get away. 

LIFE.

CAREER: She doesn’t have a career at the moment. However she is studying to be a pathologist. She does want to get a part time job after the baby is born to get Jackson off her backPROMOTION: read above ^ BOSS: She is her own boss. She hates her boss. DUTY: At the moment, because she stays at home, she mostly just does normal house spouse things. And she studies. TECH: Shes very in the whole social media thing. POLITICS: She kinda just tries to avoid the whole ordeal. COMBAT SKILLS: She can punch and kick but thats about it. Oh and she bites. HOME: She likes everything to be as neat as possible. Jackson’s kinda messy so she lets some things slide just so she doesn’t make herself go crazy. DAILY LIFE: She has a hard time actually getting up in the morning. But she manages. INDEPENDENCE: She depends a lot on others to assure that she does not destroy herself. She CAN do most things on her own. But she needs that extra support and help. COOKING: She’s not the best cook. But she can bake very well. BUILDING: She likes putting things together. Especially if its lego CLEANING: She hates cleaning but she likes when things are neat and in place so she does it more just to keep her sanity up. She loves when Jackson gives her small chores to do though. SHOPPING: She loves online shopping. And spends a great deal buying her baby more clothing than she’d ever wear xD DRIVING: She can but its always a hassle to get the seat right so she can touch the pedals. FINANCES: As someone who never had much growing up is careful as to what she spends it all on. So shes careful. However she does like going on little clothing sprees. MARRIAGE: She never pictured herself getting married. She never even pictures herself as making it past 18 but hey, here she is. Engaged and nearly 21KIDS: She never wanted kids. But accidents happen and well she loves her baby more than anything else in the world. She definitely doesn’t want anymore kids though. PETS: She loves animals, and currently she and Jackson have a cat and a dog.DEPENDANTS: She looks after the animals. And after Jackson when he is sick (which happens more often than you think) LAW: Underage drinking. COURT: She has a few times in her life while trying to get a restraining order against her dad. PRISON: nopeTRAVELLING: She hasn’t traveled much. Her and Jackson did go to Ireland beginning this year and she wants to go again. Shes also going to be visiting New York after bird is born. MEDICAL: She super scared of doctors. She tries everything to avoid them and she just has a fear of needing to go to the doctor/hospital. ILLNESS: She has a few mental illnesses. WORRIES: She worries a lot about people leaving her. Suddenly not being good enough. Something happening to bird. PEACE: She hates the quite. She sleeps better when there are some noises. Like the hum of the fridge or Felix (her dog) snoring. PARTYING: She ‘used’ to go partying a lot. Often went to extremes with her brother and his friends. And she took whatever chance she could get to go partying when she moved away too. Though that ceased when she went to college, she just stopped going out cause she didn’t know the place. HOBBIES: She reads a lot. And she writes. She also likes taking pictures of anything and everything. 

The Club Where You Bare Your Soul to Strangers

It’s a Sunday evening in Austin, Texas, in a calm gray room the perfect size and shape for a circle of around 30 adults. It’s a fairly diverse group, though there are more men than women here. Most of the guests look about 30 or younger, and a majority seem to already know each other. Right now, I know nothing else about the people I will spend the next three hours with, but I’m expecting I will soon—we are all here to “authentically relate” to one another.

We’re gathered here for a game night, a cornerstone of the authentic-relating movement, which aims to give people tools to connect more meaningfully with others. The movement, still grassroots, but growing, began in San Francisco in the late 1990s and now has a presence in 50 communities in 14 different countries throughout the world. Some of the biggest outposts are in Austin, Boulder, Montreal, and Amsterdam, and authentic-relating techniques have been taught and practiced in schools, software companies, and start-ups. Sara Ness, the movement’s unofficial organizer and the founder of Authentic Revolution, the Austin outfit, estimates that 4,000 to 5,000 people go to similar game nights each week around the world. They play games like the “Handshake” game in which partners make nonverbal eye contact to “meet” the other (without shaking hands) and “The Noticing Game,” also known as “intersubjective meditation,” in which a pair goes back and forth sharing their perception of the other’s actions and answers as anxious, argumentative, confident, or guarded and so on. The movement now has a manual, curated by Ness, of around 150 games created by facilitators the world over.

“Authentic relating” is a rather vague term. People I spoke with described it variously as a tool, a technology, and as a kind of magic or Jedi skill (jokingly). Like human relationships themselves, the practice is hard to define and easier to experience.

But in the plainest human language with which I can explain it: Authentic relating uses exercises, or games, to teach and facilitate the skills, like curiosity and empathy, necessary to quickly create deep, meaningful human connection. In a period when loneliness is increasing as our avenues for connecting expand, practitioners tell me they are drawn to a community that makes conversing and relating with one another an intentional activity—one with guidelines and structure designed to elicit intimacy.

“On a basic level, it just gives people a place and excuse to connect with each other, which is most of what we need for wellness,” says Ness. But Ness and other enthusiasts also believe the techniques practiced in authentic-relating exercises help users develop agency and a sense of self as they begin to better relate to others.

The theme for this evening is “owning your experience” and Victor, a first-time head facilitator, longtime practitioner, quiets our casual chatter to give a speech.

“Three-and-a-half years ago I came to authentic relating and the games that I played when I first got here—I started being able to realize that my experiences are my experiences. If you ask me about my past, I’m going to tell you about my trauma, the things that are most nerve-racking, things that years ago I would not have shared with anybody. I want everybody to be able to do that, to go, ‘This is who I am. Everything that has happened to me up to this point is my experience and the reason that I am where I am and am who I am.’”

And we’re off.

Victor, Sara Ness, and one other facilitator named Stephen begin by explaining the only five rules, or “agreements,” governing what happens over the next three hours. All game nights use their own set of rules to create a “safe container” where participants can feel comfortable being vulnerable. (The Austin community recently introduced a “mandatory reporter” at some game nights, whose job is to report to legal authorities if anyone says anything that indicates they may be at risk of harming themselves or others.)

As a group, we agree to be present and focus on the here and now; to respect ourselves and abstain from any game if we feel the need to; to conversely “lean into our edge,” or embrace discomfort that we might feel in sharing; to adhere to confidentiality when requested (by default what is said at a game night may leave the room); and finally, to check our assumptions of others and their intentions. This particular evening’s confidentiality agreement came with a disclaimer that I was reporting on the event.

We warm up with a light exercise that requires us to walk the room aimlessly, pretending to be first our 10-year-old selves playing together on a playground and then our teenaged selves interacting at a school dance. In many ways, the environment feels like a youth camp: Our initial shyness during this exercise gives way to giggles that will settle into a comfort with one another as the night progresses. Everyone here seems open to the experience—it is, after all, a self-selecting group.

After we reconnect with our past selves, we pair up with a partner to share those selves. Most of the games are heavily structured; the length of the exercises and who shares what when (the tallest person or the person with shortest hair goes first, etc.) are dictated by the facilitators. For one minute, a man named Jonathan tells me how his teenage self would be surprised that he hadn’t received a Ph.D. or finished college. “15-year-old me would be surprised to see me in this group, I wasn’t as social back then,” he tells me, though he speaks now with self-assured ease. Then it’s my turn, and I stumble, nervously trying to articulate the complicated view I have of a younger me, unsure of how to externalize feelings that feel so internal. I struggle to maintain eye contact without my usual, people-pleasing song and dance as I describe how harshly I treat the 15-year-old me who wanted so desperately to be liked.

After each game, we regroup to check in with any feelings that came up while playing. “Shares” like this are a constant throughout the night. One man says he’s grateful to shed his “constantly ashamed, constantly wrong, outcast, ostracized” 10-year-old self to return to the present.

The next exercise, “Anyone Else?,” is a sort of take on “Never Have I Ever,” meant to help us find points of connection with each other. Victor chose it, he says, because the game “really set it over the edge” for him when he first started playing by helping him to realize he wasn’t alone in his experiences. To start, a man stands in the center of the circle and says, “In my teenage years, I was a loner and an outcast. Anybody else?” Everyone who relates to that statement stands up and tries to claim another seat, musical chairs style. The last person left standing then offers up their own vulnerability. “In my entire four years of college, I did not date anyone. Anybody else?” “I regret not seeing the positives about myself. Anyone else?” “In the past, I never celebrated a birthday. Anybody else?” When no one stood to relate to the birthday-question poser, a woman asked to give him a hug and a man volunteered to take his place in the center.

At one point, we split into smaller groups of five and six and use “sentence stems”—“One time in high school, I ...” or “One time, when I first started dating, I ...”—as a jumping-off point to share anecdotes as quickly as possible. Then, each member of the small circle is put into the “hot seat” to be questioned about their experiences for three to four minutes. This was the most thrilling exercise of the evening. With a conversation structure already in place and the normal anxieties of social interaction absent, I wasn’t asking questions to people-please or to be polite or to make small talk, and I wasn’t worried that my group members would be bored or turned off by me talking about myself. The one-directional flow of attention toward one individual allowed us to share about ourselves uninhibited by interruption or pretense.

“With attention purely on me [in the hot seat], I had the opportunity to explore deeper into myself than I would have if [my partner] had responded with things like, ‘That reminds me of a story my sister told me once,’” says Amy Silverman of the Connection Movement, an authentic-relating group in New York. “That happens in typical dialogue where we kind of ping-pong: ‘Let me tell you something about me, oh that reminds me of something about me.’”

At the Austin game night, we regroup back into one big circle, and we once again share how the exercise made us feel.

One man notes that a few people in his group bear “pretty intense” anger toward their moms.

“This is my first night and it was both more and less intimate than I expected it to be,” says another man.

“I realized I knew more about people [in my group] that I’d just met than I knew about some of my best friends,” someone else adds.

The group laughs together and Stephen, the facilitator, says “It sounds like there was some resonance in the room.” We break for gluten-free chocolate-chip cookies, chips, salsa, and tea.

Bryan Bayer, one of the original cofounders of the movement, knows just the resonance he means. After moving in his 20s to San Francisco, Bayer and a group of like-minded friends began to challenge one another to be completely honest about their feelings—anything they felt like withholding due to shame or fear had to be said—in an attempt to build intimacy. The practice was so rewarding that they began to think of how they could bring it to the world and eventually developed early games and programming.

“It just created a type of closeness that whenever we went to little parties or types of gatherings, people would be like, ‘Hey, what are you guys on? Can I have some?’ and we were like, ‘No, we’re just high off each other and raw honesty,’” says Bayer. “Just revealing something vulnerable about yourself can be its own rush, it can be its own thrill.”

The thrill—which was described to me by all involved in the practice—helped the movement spread, usually from person to person, each captivated by the joy the already initiated seemed to possess. The facilitators I spoke with all mentioned seeking out deeper connections from their personal relationships after getting involved in authentic relating. One Austin attendee named David, who was at game night for his second time, told me that finding authentic relating was like “bringing fish to water.”

At the event I attended, about three-quarters of participants were repeat guests like him. Regulars who really take to the weekly games nights can become a member of the Austin authentic-relating community. (Each individual game night is $10 without membership, and free for members.)

There are, of course, plenty of ways to meet people and join a community that don’t involve sitting in a “hot seat” while people pepper you with personal questions. Some of those means, though, are on the decline—religion, and even traditional office spaces, for example. But initiates of authentic relating paint a picture of a meaningful, exhilarating connection that’s more difficult to find in the day-to-day.

“For me, the only thing that heals someone is a relationship,” said Sean Grover, a psychotherapist who runs one of the largest group-therapy practices in the country out of New York. “Lack of attunement between people now is the norm. Technologies, cellphones, people are just so out of tune with each other.”

Social media is an obvious and oft-cited culprit. Peter Benjamin, a life coach who helped build the authentic-relating-games community in Boston, thinks that many people have started to fill holes in their lives with technology instead of relationships.

“Ostensibly we’re supposed to go from depending on our parents for support in moments of confusion. A lot of people, instead of transitioning that to their friends and community, it gets transitioned onto technology, and so in times of stress, [feeling] overwhelmed, challenged—where do they go? They go to Netflix or social media, YouTube, whatever,” says Benjamin. “We tend to defer our pain and numb it rather than really facing it. It seems to be filling in a gap.”

No one I spoke to from the authentic-relating movement sold it as a therapy equivalent, but some people have found that these game nights help improve their mood and alleviate anxiety. I certainly felt the game-night high afterward. Jonathan, my partner from earlier in the evening, told me that authentic relating was the only thing that helped stabilize his depression. Sara Ness said that authentic relating improved her confidence after a teenage-hood as a lonely “awkward geek” who hadn’t yet learned social skills.

Grover had no qualms about the authentic-relating movement, though he did warn that not having a trained person on hand to handle any difficult emotions that may come up could be potentially dangerous. He says he does, however, see similarities between the exercises he uses and the techniques deployed in authentic relating. As is, three of the Austin community’s five rules—being present, leaning into your edge, and respecting confidentiality—Grover also uses in his group-therapy practice.

In the process of reporting this story, my psychiatrist suggested I try group therapy to help me recognize I’m not alone in the anxiety career uncertainty brings. When I described authentic relating, she said the practice sounded helpful, and that it might be comforting to interact with a more diverse set of people—as opposed to a more homogeneous group of similar age range, as is often gathered for group therapy—who had made it past this life stage, the 20s. I thought of Jonathan, who hadn’t finished college or received the Ph.D. his younger self expected, but seemed at peace.

Ultimately, Ness said, the goal of the authentic-relating movement is “trying to spiderweb into all new areas” so that one day it might “be the norm to communicate this way.”

Early in the evening, Ness encouraged us to pause. “Take a moment to just actually look at each other, make eye contact, acknowledge that you’ve shared what could be some pretty vulnerable stuff and you’re witnessing each other’s humanity, in a way that maybe we don’t often get to share,” she said. “With your eyes, just let this person know that you see them and that you have a version of them too.”

The very last game of the night is all about sharing these versions of each other that we contain. We split into two large circles. We once again summon younger versions of ourselves. By this point in the evening, I feel completely at ease with the people around me. I’m honestly surprised there’s no voice in the back of my head questioning the hippie-dippie, touchy-feely nature of the exercise. Perhaps I’m genuinely in the moment, suspending assumptions about myself and this exercise. We’re instructed to think of something our younger self really needed to hear in the past, but didn’t. Then we go around the circling, saying that something to the person to our left. We speak to regret, shame, and healing, telling the people in our group and telling ourselves too.

Article source here:The Atlantic

The Club Where You Bare Your Soul to Strangers

It’s a Sunday evening in Austin, Texas, in a calm gray room the perfect size and shape for a circle of around 30 adults. It’s a fairly diverse group, though there are more men than women here. Most of the guests look about 30 or younger, and a majority seem to already know each other. Right now, I know nothing else about the people I will spend the next three hours with, but I’m expecting I will soon—we are all here to “authentically relate” to one another.

We’re gathered here for a game night, a cornerstone of the authentic-relating movement, which aims to give people tools to connect more meaningfully with others. The movement, still grassroots, but growing, began in San Francisco in the late 1990s and now has a presence in 50 communities in 14 different countries throughout the world. Some of the biggest outposts are in Austin, Boulder, Montreal, and Amsterdam, and authentic-relating techniques have been taught and practiced in schools, software companies, and start-ups. Sara Ness, the movement’s unofficial organizer and the founder of Authentic Revolution, the Austin outfit, estimates that 4,000 to 5,000 people go to similar game nights each week around the world. They play games like the “Handshake” game in which partners make nonverbal eye contact to “meet” the other (without shaking hands) and “The Noticing Game,” also known as “intersubjective meditation,” in which a pair goes back and forth sharing their perception of the other’s actions and answers as anxious, argumentative, confident, or guarded and so on. The movement now has a manual, curated by Ness, of around 150 games created by facilitators the world over.

“Authentic relating” is a rather vague term. People I spoke with described it variously as a tool, a technology, and as a kind of magic or Jedi skill (jokingly). Like human relationships themselves, the practice is hard to define and easier to experience.

But in the plainest human language with which I can explain it: Authentic relating uses exercises, or games, to teach and facilitate the skills, like curiosity and empathy, necessary to quickly create deep, meaningful human connection. In a period when loneliness is increasing as our avenues for connecting expand, practitioners tell me they are drawn to a community that makes conversing and relating with one another an intentional activity—one with guidelines and structure designed to elicit intimacy.

“On a basic level, it just gives people a place and excuse to connect with each other, which is most of what we need for wellness,” says Ness. But Ness and other enthusiasts also believe the techniques practiced in authentic-relating exercises help users develop agency and a sense of self as they begin to better relate to others.

The theme for this evening is “owning your experience” and Victor, a first-time head facilitator, longtime practitioner, quiets our casual chatter to give a speech.

“Three-and-a-half years ago I came to authentic relating and the games that I played when I first got here—I started being able to realize that my experiences are my experiences. If you ask me about my past, I’m going to tell you about my trauma, the things that are most nerve-racking, things that years ago I would not have shared with anybody. I want everybody to be able to do that, to go, ‘This is who I am. Everything that has happened to me up to this point is my experience and the reason that I am where I am and am who I am.’”

And we’re off.

Victor, Sara Ness, and one other facilitator named Stephen begin by explaining the only five rules, or “agreements,” governing what happens over the next three hours. All game nights use their own set of rules to create a “safe container” where participants can feel comfortable being vulnerable. (The Austin community recently introduced a “mandatory reporter” at some game nights, whose job is to report to legal authorities if anyone says anything that indicates they may be at risk of harming themselves or others.)

As a group, we agree to be present and focus on the here and now; to respect ourselves and abstain from any game if we feel the need to; to conversely “lean into our edge,” or embrace discomfort that we might feel in sharing; to adhere to confidentiality when requested (by default what is said at a game night may leave the room); and finally, to check our assumptions of others and their intentions. This particular evening’s confidentiality agreement came with a disclaimer that I was reporting on the event.

We warm up with a light exercise that requires us to walk the room aimlessly, pretending to be first our 10-year-old selves playing together on a playground and then our teenaged selves interacting at a school dance. In many ways, the environment feels like a youth camp: Our initial shyness during this exercise gives way to giggles that will settle into a comfort with one another as the night progresses. Everyone here seems open to the experience—it is, after all, a self-selecting group.

After we reconnect with our past selves, we pair up with a partner to share those selves. Most of the games are heavily structured; the length of the exercises and who shares what when (the tallest person or the person with shortest hair goes first, etc.) are dictated by the facilitators. For one minute, a man named Jonathan tells me how his teenage self would be surprised that he hadn’t received a Ph.D. or finished college. “15-year-old me would be surprised to see me in this group, I wasn’t as social back then,” he tells me, though he speaks now with self-assured ease. Then it’s my turn, and I stumble, nervously trying to articulate the complicated view I have of a younger me, unsure of how to externalize feelings that feel so internal. I struggle to maintain eye contact without my usual, people-pleasing song and dance as I describe how harshly I treat the 15-year-old me who wanted so desperately to be liked.

After each game, we regroup to check in with any feelings that came up while playing. “Shares” like this are a constant throughout the night. One man says he’s grateful to shed his “constantly ashamed, constantly wrong, outcast, ostracized” 10-year-old self to return to the present.

The next exercise, “Anyone Else?,” is a sort of take on “Never Have I Ever,” meant to help us find points of connection with each other. Victor chose it, he says, because the game “really set it over the edge” for him when he first started playing by helping him to realize he wasn’t alone in his experiences. To start, a man stands in the center of the circle and says, “In my teenage years, I was a loner and an outcast. Anybody else?” Everyone who relates to that statement stands up and tries to claim another seat, musical chairs style. The last person left standing then offers up their own vulnerability. “In my entire four years of college, I did not date anyone. Anybody else?” “I regret not seeing the positives about myself. Anyone else?” “In the past, I never celebrated a birthday. Anybody else?” When no one stood to relate to the birthday-question poser, a woman asked to give him a hug and a man volunteered to take his place in the center.

At one point, we split into smaller groups of five and six and use “sentence stems”—“One time in high school, I ...” or “One time, when I first started dating, I ...”—as a jumping-off point to share anecdotes as quickly as possible. Then, each member of the small circle is put into the “hot seat” to be questioned about their experiences for three to four minutes. This was the most thrilling exercise of the evening. With a conversation structure already in place and the normal anxieties of social interaction absent, I wasn’t asking questions to people-please or to be polite or to make small talk, and I wasn’t worried that my group members would be bored or turned off by me talking about myself. The one-directional flow of attention toward one individual allowed us to share about ourselves uninhibited by interruption or pretense.

“With attention purely on me [in the hot seat], I had the opportunity to explore deeper into myself than I would have if [my partner] had responded with things like, ‘That reminds me of a story my sister told me once,’” says Amy Silverman of the Connection Movement, an authentic-relating group in New York. “That happens in typical dialogue where we kind of ping-pong: ‘Let me tell you something about me, oh that reminds me of something about me.’”

At the Austin game night, we regroup back into one big circle, and we once again share how the exercise made us feel.

One man notes that a few people in his group bear “pretty intense” anger toward their moms.

“This is my first night and it was both more and less intimate than I expected it to be,” says another man.

“I realized I knew more about people [in my group] that I’d just met than I knew about some of my best friends,” someone else adds.

The group laughs together and Stephen, the facilitator, says “It sounds like there was some resonance in the room.” We break for gluten-free chocolate-chip cookies, chips, salsa, and tea.

Bryan Bayer, one of the original cofounders of the movement, knows just the resonance he means. After moving in his 20s to San Francisco, Bayer and a group of like-minded friends began to challenge one another to be completely honest about their feelings—anything they felt like withholding due to shame or fear had to be said—in an attempt to build intimacy. The practice was so rewarding that they began to think of how they could bring it to the world and eventually developed early games and programming.

“It just created a type of closeness that whenever we went to little parties or types of gatherings, people would be like, ‘Hey, what are you guys on? Can I have some?’ and we were like, ‘No, we’re just high off each other and raw honesty,’” says Bayer. “Just revealing something vulnerable about yourself can be its own rush, it can be its own thrill.”

The thrill—which was described to me by all involved in the practice—helped the movement spread, usually from person to person, each captivated by the joy the already initiated seemed to possess. The facilitators I spoke with all mentioned seeking out deeper connections from their personal relationships after getting involved in authentic relating. One Austin attendee named David, who was at game night for his second time, told me that finding authentic relating was like “bringing fish to water.”

At the event I attended, about three-quarters of participants were repeat guests like him. Regulars who really take to the weekly games nights can become a member of the Austin authentic-relating community. (Each individual game night is $10 without membership, and free for members.)

There are, of course, plenty of ways to meet people and join a community that don’t involve sitting in a “hot seat” while people pepper you with personal questions. Some of those means, though, are on the decline—religion, and even traditional office spaces, for example. But initiates of authentic relating paint a picture of a meaningful, exhilarating connection that’s more difficult to find in the day-to-day.

“For me, the only thing that heals someone is a relationship,” said Sean Grover, a psychotherapist who runs one of the largest group-therapy practices in the country out of New York. “Lack of attunement between people now is the norm. Technologies, cellphones, people are just so out of tune with each other.”

Social media is an obvious and oft-cited culprit. Peter Benjamin, a life coach who helped build the authentic-relating-games community in Boston, thinks that many people have started to fill holes in their lives with technology instead of relationships.

“Ostensibly we’re supposed to go from depending on our parents for support in moments of confusion. A lot of people, instead of transitioning that to their friends and community, it gets transitioned onto technology, and so in times of stress, [feeling] overwhelmed, challenged—where do they go? They go to Netflix or social media, YouTube, whatever,” says Benjamin. “We tend to defer our pain and numb it rather than really facing it. It seems to be filling in a gap.”

No one I spoke to from the authentic-relating movement sold it as a therapy equivalent, but some people have found that these game nights help improve their mood and alleviate anxiety. I certainly felt the game-night high afterward. Jonathan, my partner from earlier in the evening, told me that authentic relating was the only thing that helped stabilize his depression. Sara Ness said that authentic relating improved her confidence after a teenage-hood as a lonely “awkward geek” who hadn’t yet learned social skills.

Grover had no qualms about the authentic-relating movement, though he did warn that not having a trained person on hand to handle any difficult emotions that may come up could be potentially dangerous. He says he does, however, see similarities between the exercises he uses and the techniques deployed in authentic relating. As is, three of the Austin community’s five rules—being present, leaning into your edge, and respecting confidentiality—Grover also uses in his group-therapy practice.

In the process of reporting this story, my psychiatrist suggested I try group therapy to help me recognize I’m not alone in the anxiety career uncertainty brings. When I described authentic relating, she said the practice sounded helpful, and that it might be comforting to interact with a more diverse set of people—as opposed to a more homogeneous group of similar age range, as is often gathered for group therapy—who had made it past this life stage, the 20s. I thought of Jonathan, who hadn’t finished college or received the Ph.D. his younger self expected, but seemed at peace.

Ultimately, Ness said, the goal of the authentic-relating movement is “trying to spiderweb into all new areas” so that one day it might “be the norm to communicate this way.”

Early in the evening, Ness encouraged us to pause. “Take a moment to just actually look at each other, make eye contact, acknowledge that you’ve shared what could be some pretty vulnerable stuff and you’re witnessing each other’s humanity, in a way that maybe we don’t often get to share,” she said. “With your eyes, just let this person know that you see them and that you have a version of them too.”

The very last game of the night is all about sharing these versions of each other that we contain. We split into two large circles. We once again summon younger versions of ourselves. By this point in the evening, I feel completely at ease with the people around me. I’m honestly surprised there’s no voice in the back of my head questioning the hippie-dippie, touchy-feely nature of the exercise. Perhaps I’m genuinely in the moment, suspending assumptions about myself and this exercise. We’re instructed to think of something our younger self really needed to hear in the past, but didn’t. Then we go around the circling, saying that something to the person to our left. We speak to regret, shame, and healing, telling the people in our group and telling ourselves too.

from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/11/the-club-where-you-bare-your-soul-to-strangers/545786/?utm_source=feed