the reason for clean

[Steve Saunders]

"sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me, au contraire" said David ...

So the vet said " you dog has an enlarged heart ... danger ... " - basically intruding a medical model belief that this is anything other than "big-hearted" reflecting the loving nature of the dog.

So a child gets a school report after working hard all year, and sees grades and comments. Later cold in post-shock response, they start to rationalise and distract.

So a person in authority or within the defences says something and the words intrude and stick.

I've been fascinated in how accidentally and easily we get intruded on, and have gradually been learning how to defend myself and others from intrusions, particularly medical models transferring sickness among people.

The essence of David's Philosophy lies in this very core where no-one has posted until now.
This is the territory of clean philosophy and the real why ...

and what can happen next?

[Corrie van Wijk]

On David's very last retreat last year we did the exercise of the soundscape: e.g. "What words do you wish were never said to you, where did they come in", etc.

[Steve Saunders]

indeed. And sometimes they scar so deeply they are erased from conscious memory, or maybe are repeated to others. So also:

...and what words do you wish you had never said? / regret / would like to unsay
(aggressor trauma)

and what words/sounds did you overhear that you wish you had never heard?
... did you see/feel ...

(sometimes the witness is more traumatised than the victim or aggressor)

So three positions: speaker, receiver, hearer/witness, each with trauma impacts relating to soundscape and feelingscape and visualscape of events.

Also the form of question you pose Corrie addresses only the victim, instead try:
"and what words do you wish were never said?"
because this addresses all three perceptual positions in one question

if there are any other contributors out there maybe we can put together a complete set of questions pertaining to these three different perceptual positions of traumatic events. This is pertinent in my work, as all three are appearing in recent retreats.

Thanks

PS Josie says this might be a "pandora's box" and lots of deep stuff might come out fast, so we trust that anyone who does so will use this thread wisely and carefully!

[Steve Saunders]

ok female intuition - yes. I started on a test example using "inging" (testing on myself as usual). And one event leads to another, a veritable pandora's box ... the inging is working beatifully to emerge them one after the other - like they are all connected in a grouping.

very interesting how it moves around the "to another, by another, from, in front of another , from behind, ..." - interesting prepositions sets

not surprisingly the wounds get hidden in a wound-scape and heavily protected until a question like one of these comes along. do use with caution.

I'm still playing and investigating:

and what do you wish [had never been done/said]?
... [that you had never done to someone/something else]?
... [that you had not done that someone else saw/witnessed/heard]?
... that you had done or said or felt, that you did not do or say or feel? (wow, a whole new scape in here!)
... [that someone else did/said to you/another person]?
... that someone else had done or said or felt? (another aspect of the complementary scape of the "wish someone had done scape"
... [that you had never seen/heard/experienced]?

so scapes of wounds, guilt, shame, bravery/cowardice, victim-persecutor-rescuer,

more anon, a days exploration beckons!

[Corrie van Wijk]

[Notes from the Normandy ‘salon’ with David (!) in November 2007]

SOUNDSCAPE

1. What is the most common thing you say? (Somebody who knew would know you say this all the time, common sayings.)
2. The things you say you wish you didn’t ; to whom you did it (you like to take those words back).
3. What are things you haven’t said to someone you wish you had; who is it to?
4. Someone says to you/or noise/tick/sound etc. commonly that drives you nuts/annoys you each time they say something like that.
5. What would you like somebody else to say to you that they haven’t? (exact phrase).
6. What has somebody said to you that hurt you deeply/wounded you? (went to the heart): person; exact words.

Where does it come (may not be yours) from (within you)?: source (place in the body; origin).

How does it come out?

How does it travel through the space of C?: transmitted (What is its shape, its form, as it travels through the air)

Where does it land?: receiver.

What does it do?

How do you think it affects them? (B1, B2, B3)

TO
What words do you want to take back?
Where did they come from? (source/origin)
How did they travel through space? (silent, sigh, breath)
Where are those words located in you that not have been said?
Which word, how would you say them?
What stops you from saying them? (obstacle)
What mechanism stopped you from saying it?

FROM
What did others say that annoys you?
Where is it coming from them?
How does it come out from them and travels through the air?
What are the words I’d like to hear from others?
Where would you like them to come from?
How would they travel through the air?
Where would you want them to land?
What words have wounded you?
Who said that to you?
How did it travel through the air?
Where did it land?

[Steve Saunders]

as usual, well thought through (me judging), and covering much of the direct person-to-person experience in terms of locating the starting points for emergence. What it does not cover is the witness trauma and the associated kinaesthetic and visual scapes, and also the actions (did do, did not do), and when things were heard but not seen (also witness trauma), and gustatory trauma ("you will eat that/those ...").

There's also a bit of NLP there: "what stops you?" being a classic NLP question.

There are ways perhaps to clean up the questions, including reducing the pronoun usage.

Also I wonder as to the mind's equivalent of body metaphor: wounded/scratched/grazed/cut/gashed/gored/broken/amputated/..., bleeding, scabbing, scarring, healing over, protecting, weak spots, sore points, .

I feel that a person does not always know where the words first came from (layers of protection) and so going for the source (come from) too soon is a step too far.

also no references in the list to "what other words go with those words/sayings"


Thanks Corrie.

[webmaven]

[Notes from the Normandy ‘salon’ with David (!) in November 2007]

SOUNDSCAPE

1. What is the most common thing you say? (Somebody who knew would know you say this all the time, common sayings.)
2. The things you say you wish you didn’t ; to whom you did it (you like to take those words back).
3. What are things you haven’t said to someone you wish you had; who is it to?
4. Someone says to you/or noise/tick/sound etc. commonly that drives you nuts/annoys you each time they say something like that.
5. What would you like somebody else to say to you that they haven’t? (exact phrase).
6. What has somebody said to you that hurt you deeply/wounded you? (went to the heart): person; exact words.

Where does it come (may not be yours) from (within you)?: source (place in the body; origin).

How does it come out?

How does it travel through the space of C?: transmitted (What is its shape, its form, as it travels through the air)

Where does it land?: receiver.

What does it do?

How do you think it affects them? (B1, B2, B3)

TO
What words do you want to take back?
Where did they come from? (source/origin)
How did they travel through space? (silent, sigh, breath)
Where are those words located in you that not have been said?
Which word, how would you say them?
What stops you from saying them? (obstacle)
What mechanism stopped you from saying it?

FROM
What did others say that annoys you?
Where is it coming from them?
How does it come out from them and travels through the air?
What are the words I’d like to hear from others?
Where would you like them to come from?
How would they travel through the air?
Where would you want them to land?
What words have wounded you?
Who said that to you?
How did it travel through the air?
Where did it land?

Corrie,

Thank you very much for sharing these notes. It is like having David speak to me again. These sentences are probably some of his last words, in a way. I cannot express how much it means for me to be able to read these (and now I have some questions to ask myself). Beautiful and graceful and full of the human experience.

webmaven