Staying Quiet in (Spiritual) Community

First published on my now defunct private Patreon community on June 29, 2019.

The inspiration for this essay was birthed from a 6 month movement training I signed up for and then dropped out of after one month. I left the program shortly after writing this essay: it helped me come to the conclusion that giving up my voice wasn’t my path. My intention is to tease out complicated issues around what it means to exist in (spiritual) community, spiritual bypassing, (un)healthy group dynamics, performative allyship, and positivity culture. The intention here is not to start drama, but to reflect on a challenging experience that taught me a lot.

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The movement training I’m taking will last six months. I’ve wanted to do some kind of movement/yoga/pilates/whatever training for about a decade - since I stepped into my first yoga class. At the time, I worked as a model, and was living off of large quantities of Advil in order to be in constant back pain due to all of the contortions I had to put myself in for my work. My digestion was also weird, likely trauma related, and yoga helped both my back and my belly. I’ve loved it – and pilates – ever since, despite not practicing regularly all the time. At my peak, I was practicing about fifteen hours per week. 

I’m recently recovered from a two-year foot injury which made it hard to walk let alone work out – and excited to dive into movement again; the research on movement as a healing modality for trauma is well documented.

Why this training in particular? I was invited to read tarot for each of the graduating teacher trainees from this program back in March, and was deeply touched by the communal energy of the group, how close it seemed like everyone had become, how spirited, how transformed, how in touch with themselves and each other. Some said it was the best thing they had ever done for themselves, a few cried. It was really beautiful and I felt so blessed to even be there, to be invited into a space that seemed so sacred and special. I felt like I just had to sign up for the next round. The training was also billed as explicitly anti-oppressive, which, since you know me, you know I am into. It seemed to have some kind of spirit and cohesion, but maybe I was simply fooled by my own desires.

Maybe I was led here for some very difficult learnings that I’ve otherwise been trying to avoid. 

I have a lot of feelings about all of this, one month in.

And I am – interestingly and unexpectedly – mourning what I thought this experience would be.

Why?

How did I get here?

Am I just bad at playing with others, am I one of those people just destined to be (a)lone (wolf) forever, who can’t coexist in community? Am I one of those people who has to take on an accidental leadership role because I have a lot of ideas and a lot of things to say and don’t really like authority?

In our opening circle on the first weekend, I remember, at one point, I shared that I have been burned by community before, and was looking to try again. Which was and is completely true; queer and activist communities are full of traumatized folks doing their best and yet still hurting each other. And now I am feeling like maybe I shouldn’t have shared that, this will all be seen as my fault, the result of my sharing will be seen to be: you said you have problems in community, now you have a problem in community, what’s the common denominator here? (You, Sabrina, they will probably say.)

And now, I’m thinking about how – to keep myself safe and protected, and able to finish this thing, I will probably begin to keep my mouth shut much more.

That’s something I don’t really want to do – as my voice has been something so hard-won and so fought for – and yet I wonder if it’s a necessity, right now, to do, so I am able to get the most I can out of this thing, whatever it is.

I feel this funny sense of irony about it all – to feel that a part of this training is about learning to build community spaces, to hold space for and in community, to engage with group spirit, and all of that – and now I am learning more about what not to do, rather than what to do; I am learning the importance of my solitude in increasing my discernment.

I am learning to remember that not everything is as it seems, I am learning to remember that the grass is not always greener.

I give credit where it is due, I give accolades where it is due. It is not due automatically.

I am trying to live softly with both claws out and an open heart; I can see them coexist in myself. Whenever I have had readings from others – bone readings, usually – they actually don’t tell me that I am arrogant - they say instead that I could actually grow more into my own confidence, that I am being too small a little bit, even still, even now. I’m not taking as much space as I could.

I believe them.

I think it’s true.

But, and – the reactions I get can be so interesting.

I think in some cases I am written off as too sensitive, too much an academic, too critical, too mean. I gently told this person running the training about some of what she has tried to do around queer community.

“I don’t think what you are doing would fly in Toronto,” I said, among other things - a straight cis person doing and saying what she was doing, loudly proclaiming allyship despite any gentle protestations to the contrary (from a queer and nonbinary person, no less). Her response was, “Yes, that’s because everyone here is actually nice and everyone in Toronto is not.”

And so there was revealed to me – by the universe, by this human – a big problem, something I see as such an enormous impediment to anything, to growth, to movement, to thought, to mature spirituality, this idea that being ‘nice’ has anything whatsoever to do with it.

It doesn’t. It never has.

And I felt a deep sadness that this person who I at one point had unquestioned undying respect for could be this way, and the sad feeling still lingers, and I am not so sure what to do with it, like a hot potato burning my hands because I dig my fingers into it in disbelief, like a freeze response instead of f(l)ight. I hold it and hold it. In the end, I let it go.

There were straight cis people spearheading some efforts around making a ‘queer podcast’ to showcase queer stories. I gently offered a few words about why that may not be something that feels good to a lot of community members for a lot of reasons (it was too excited about tokenizing queerness; no queer people involved in its creation; who does this benefit and who does it exploit; who is this for; who wants this and who does not want it; upon whose backs does the labour rest upon; who puts in the work and who gets capital from it financial or otherwise; whose business does it benefit, etc.

The response I received was: I am an excellent ally and doing the work; I am doing my best and it is hard; etc; full of fragility, over-explaining, self-centredness, etc, etc, etc.

A veneer of leadership. 

When a business – a training – a community space – is dependent on acquiescence, there is a problem.

There needs to be room for heterogeneity, for difference, for empathy and ethics across difference. The idea that causing a stir is something that is not spiritual is a huge problem in and of itself. 

My words of challenge – gentle challenge, sharing feelings, theory, and expertise – met with more words, opposed to silence, understanding, acceptance, ingestion, swallowing, digestion, processing, met with no, I don’t accept what you’re saying, no, I will not accept your truth into this space, spiritual, communal. 

The training is a ritual.

We meet and meet and meet, the form stays similar, consistent; we sit in a circle, we open we close, we feel feelings. In ritual, we need a container, a space that is not necessarily ‘safe’ in the way that people usually think about, but safe in that it is a container where it is okay to question, to fuss, to fight, to exist, to be. 

To me, it is not enough, does not go deep enough.

I see the sugar veneer over the garbage and wonder why it’s there, why we can’t just let garbage be garbage and find the inherent spiritual value in it. I wonder if I should drag this person (privately, on email) and if so, how hard, how far. I have the knowledge, the skill; what would be the point, if she seems to be so deeply committed to not listening? I said I don’t wish to engage unless it’s consulting; what would be the point, to put in the work to do a call out, to educate; to devote my time, precious, minimal, to building someone else’s business, contributing to someone else’s absolution and awareness which they then monetize off my back and without care, without credit, without financial contribution?

Why do I have to work to educate my instructor, this so-called self-proclaimed safe-space-privilege expert, in order to gain access to this space, in order to feel held enough to learn how to guide movements of others?

Is this how this always goes, or is it just me? 

When I offer gentle suggestions of why things may not land well for queer and trans folks, I am so open to collaboration, to working together. I am not open to being blamed for someone’s feelings of guilt or shame as a response to my share.

After a lot of this exchange occurred on email, I stated I didn’t wish to discuss this stuff (queer, trans, etc) unless compensated, the person in question kept me an extra hour on the third full day, despite me saying multiple times in writing I had a boundary. I don’t want to talk about it. The boundary was violated, the person made it about herself, again and again and again. 

My boundary was ignored, disrespected, met with fragile cis het tears.

I gathered my things to leave on my 90 minute journey home back into the city, more brisk than I wanted to be but felt I needed to be to communicate my discomfort, that my boundaries were being violated, when words didn’t seem to be working - written or verbal. I left that interaction upset and shaken, that someone I had trusted and respected didn’t respect my boundaries as I had stated them, again and again and again. I hated that she with her tears forcefully thrust me into this role of comfort provider - both educator, and soother, of this community leader to whom I had hoped would become a friend and teacher.

The fourth full day of training, I didn’t go.

Sunday. I didn’t go because of feelings about all of this crap, the inattention to queerness, to gender, the inability to see one’s own straightness, cisness, assumptions, fragility, normativity; lack of forethought and foresight. Lack of knowing how to shut up when questioned, when told, no, you are not an ally, this does not feel good to me, no, I do not want that from you ever. I retreat. Flight. 

I feel the need/desire to make myself small, to speak less.

To be less of a rabble-rouser, in order to maintain the comfort and self-concept of the person running the training, who seems to think of herself as doing her best, as an ‘ally’ (self-given title, of course) advocating for marginalized identities, etc, etc. She has done such great work around other things - race, body size - why can she not see herself clearly with this?

Part of this lesson is respecting my own time and energy.

I would like to experience this community, the learning, the growth; the experience of making a new home. I think the implicit curriculum here is something I have always thought to be true – that home ultimately is something we only find in ourselves, and that’s it, really.

Community, communal vibes, communal energies, kinship. I am not finding that, other than in my complaint.

I risked sharing some of this with other queer non binary folks – and have thankfully been met with support and understanding and witnessing, and sharing of similar feelings and experiences.

The risk to be witnessed in complaint and struggle, a gift that that is, a gift. 

The risk of sharing in group space, the risk of ruining the experience for everyone, the awareness of not wanting to make it all about me, refusing to make it all about me.

Will it be about me if I share? Does anyone else feel this way too? Will I ruin everyone’s chill community lovey dovey vibes – or will that sharing of my own feeling be a part of the journey those folks need to take on their own anyway, maybe they need that disillusionment about what these places of community are and can be, maybe they need a little less love and light, and again, why do I care what they need? Why am I pre-emptively caretaking the group?

For once I am student not instructor; it is not my job to keep the peace, it is not my responsibility. For once.

Maybe this is an opportunity for me too to be wild, to finally not caretake others; this is something I am always aware of, something I care about deeply, but perhaps I am being overly responsible for the feelings and emotions of others when it is actually not my responsibility.

I am used to teaching, I am used to holding space, being aware, vigilant, alert, these are things I am good at – I am used to creating a container that feels difficult but safe; I hear people out, move the energy, channel it, challenge it.

I am being silent to protect whose ego? The teacher’s ego?

The identity and self concept of the teacher, and the identity and self concept and ‘sacred experience’ many others seem to be having? Do I simply wish to be silent to save myself the headache? But she just keeps going, over email, nonstop, and I have five. Months. Left.

What does it mean to be feeling like shit in a self-proclaimed ‘safe space’ when others are exalted, feeling happy and pure?

In a context where spiritual bypassing runs rampant, I wonder if my protestations will be seen as too much, too heavy, too negative, not nice, too whatever-the-fuck.

A spiritual experience scaffolded on denial, refusal to see, hands over ears; the willful ignorance of my alienation. And I wonder too if this is my lesson, if it is my lesson here to learn to not caretake others so much, to actually step into my own voice (more, again) and to stir shit up even if that means breaking a porcelain vase, so to speak. 

There are some people whose voices I never hear. 

So, as with all things, there is an explicit curricula and an implicit curricula. What is explicit is what I signed up to learn here – the anatomical shit, the movement moves, the spinal twists, how to cue up a class, how to choose a playlist, how to avoid injury, etc, etc.

The implicit curricula is what is between the lines. 

At first I thought my implicit curricula here was learning to feel at home, learning that I am safe and can be safe, learning not to apologize for myself and my knowledge, my challenging words I bring to the table. The first weekend, I was thanked for what I brought into the space.

Since then, I have been turned away, been told, you are wrong, other queer people disagree with you and so we are listening to them instead of you.

Do you welcome me only when I say things that are in alignment with you?

I wonder if part of my implicit curriculum is to speak my truth and not be worried if everyone else’s world burns around me because of what I have said.

I do not mean callous, I simply mean truth.  

Instead of taking ownership over everyone else’s reactions to the point that I ignore my own journey, sidestep my own process/progress, too busy caretaking.

So maybe I should throw a match, let it burn, let everyone else come to the slow realization that their house is made of sticks, tinder, not stone. And if they never realize - or feel differently - that’s fine.

Either way, I can remove myself from the blaze.

And I did.