BOXINESS
I want to share about something that is quite uncomfortable to me, for many reasons. One of the first big discomforts about it is that I don’t know what language is ‘correct’ or ‘appropriate’ to use, so I’m just going to say it in the way I know to say it while taking great care for the humans of whom this speaks.
This is also where the conversation about the edges of our box (belief systems, identities, psychology, ego) starts to emerge, and what happens when we meet those edges whether by our own curiosity or the invitation from others.
Over this past week in the mountains of Costa Rica, I have been spending a lot of time at a community that is centered on providing a new space/voice to queer humans. The Gayborhood started to rub on the edge of my box well before I arrived here. Just from hearing the name I had thoughts like ’Why do they need to segregate/identify themselves like this?’, ‘this must be a great excuse to have orgies all the time’, ‘gay men have a lot of trauma’, ‘this is going to be a messy space’, among others.
Beyond that, I thought that those thoughts were authentically mine and truly something I had to look out for. This is the beautiful way that we create a second layer of beliefs around our beliefs - the second layer of security.
The way it has gone has had no bearing on this fantasy that my box had created, causing it to go completely and gracefully liquid.
Not only was I received with so much love and curiosity, I was offered a brave space to notice how much my deep, mechanical strategies hold me back from going farther than the safety of what I know to be safe/known (yes, that was intentionally written that way and I welcome you to read it again).
During a day of connection, I was faced clearly with the realization that throughout my childhood I created a wall that only allows me to connect with men in certain ways. As I moved through the space and came close to another man, I felt the point where my body would start vibrating to the tune of ‘this is too much’. It was like being a doll with a pull string reaching it’s maximum length and then getting yanked back. This wall arbitrarily limits my ability to go any deeper and take risks in order to experience what else is possible. It’s like I have a flat-earth map where if I were to venture too far off, I would fall off the end of the Earth and die. It really feels that way and I’m only able to see it now.
What would happen if I allowed my sexual energy to get activated with another man?
Surely, I’d die. The connection is not so obvious. It goes something like this: if I do this then I will be classified as [blank], and if I’m classified this way then my tribe will abandon me, and if I’m abandoned then I will be eaten by a bear or a wolf or another tribe.
There are layers of this that are from this life. Yet, this “I’ll die” thing is a story that clearly goes back further than this lifetime.
And it can end today. Right now.
It ends when I declare that these parts of me are not me. It ends when I take that step off the edge into the unknown even though these parts think I will die. It ends when I decide that this map I’ve been carrying is not the only map.
And the words don’t substitute the action of challenging the edges. The next step is to take the next step - to create the experiment.
So, I took that next step and entered into the void. I said ‘YES’ to an invitation into a temple evening.
What I discovered was that I have created such a solid foundation within my center that I can sit in the groundlessness of the unknown with a beautiful grasp of my experience. I learned about these men in a way I was not able to before. I connected to some of the deep pain of being a queer man in this age and the connection to my own pain. I saw that my pleasure and presence are not dependent on the outer circumstance - they never have been. I watched my walls dissolve with such ease and grace - that after several years and hundreds of hours of practice, the liquid state can come more smoothly.
Because I entered a space with a different context; because I was able to notice what was going on within me; because I could create a gap between my beliefs and reality; because I had the courage to take the next step; because I’ve cultivated the power to consciously use my feelings, this new territory of love, connection, brotherhood, and fun is now available to me.
The purpose of doing this and documenting it is less about my own liberation and more about carving a new path of deep presence for us all to walk together, together.
My proposal to you is to take time to discover what flat-earth map you’re living in. What is something that you believe that if you do it, you’ll die. It is where a piece of your authentic/true self has been hiding. It is a territory rich with gold waiting to be mined. It is where the healing of this planet begins (HINT: your fear has a message for you).
