Thank you. As always your wisdom and your deep held compassion and love and sanity brings me comfort. Even my own social media page which I have cultivated with great care for over a decade is, to my surprise, shockingly toxic when it comes to discussion about the patriarchy and misogyny. Personally, I know firsthand how dangerous men are, but it's not about just my experiences which have been consistent and brutal until such time as I came to a new understanding of myself, my responsibility and my value. I could go all the way back to the very beginning of my sexual life, and it was always violent. The same women on my page who are saying "not all men" champion me when I wrote about the me too movement and being raped. Honestly I expect pushback from men but I don't write for men. I never have. I have, however champion women From my entire career, many of whom were seeking their power within which was of course… Surprise surprise… Often hidden under some framework of violence. I feel enraged because I realize not very long ago that my entire life, people have been trying to erase me. Erase my experiences. Erase my wisdom. Erasethe validity of my existence. And I'm not standing for that anymore. As a voice, love you David. Your work is so powerful and I'm so glad I've had the pleasure of meeting you.
Erasure, that's the work of shame - dismissal, denial, bypassing, dis-believing, qualifying, reducing, suppressing. I believe that's the most powerful violence of all.
This is a beautiful and important piece. The case for witnessing over correcting lands, and I don’t want to rush past it.
But I keep coming back to a timeline question.
A prisoner of war emerging from a camp saying ‘Germans are cold and heartless’ - you don’t correct that on day one. You witness it. You hold it. Full stop. But if that same person, years later, still moved through the world with that as their operative framework, the people who loved them most would eventually, gently, say: that’s not quite right anymore. Not to protect the Germans in the room. Because they believed the person was ready to be accompanied somewhere more useful.
I know the obvious response: women aren’t emerging from the camp. They’re still in it. The violence is ongoing, not historical. And if that’s true - and in many ways it is - then the timeline question looks very different.
But I think it still matters. Because even inside ongoing trauma, at some point the framework has to serve the person carrying it. ‘Always a man’ as a permanent conclusion might feel like clarity, but if it forecloses the harder question of which men, under what conditions, it isn’t moving anyone toward safety. It’s just a wound that found a shape.
That’s not asking her to fact-check her pain. It’s believing the wound deserves a better answer than the one it has settled for.
Precision, at the right moment, is its own form of compassion
That's quite beautiful, highly sensitive and intelligent.
There are some things that need to be identified. When it is one person, like the prisoner of war in your example, versus a social condition, role or caste system, the dialogue changes its shape. There is an 'order of business' - usually power differences, as you know, the essence of the caste system, needs to be outed. Enough people need to get it - understand power differences and how they are fundamental to abuse and trauma and therefore the long term outcomes.
Second, when does that framework change - as you imply? With an individual ,there are cues that they are already changing it, at least in very small ways. When I work with people, I can tell via their minimal somatic cues, their dreams, or the way the signal a subtle kind of consent to move in a different direction. So the issue of consent is key because that is same place where the abuse and trauma live, heal, or re-traumatize.
With groups, there is something similar. Enough people at a certain moment are already moving to the next place.
Ok, I want to say more but my eyes are so tired that the words are a blur. My framework is asking to be changed LOL.
thanks for sharing your light and heart.
Ps- if you consent, I'd be happy to know your name.
“That is the power dynamic - not a commentary on it.” Yes! I wish more people would see this 🙏🏼
so clear when one sees it; so invisible to those who remain blind and often choose to remain that way.
The willful ignorance is a whole other injury 💔
a more powerful and insidious injury
Thank you. As always your wisdom and your deep held compassion and love and sanity brings me comfort. Even my own social media page which I have cultivated with great care for over a decade is, to my surprise, shockingly toxic when it comes to discussion about the patriarchy and misogyny. Personally, I know firsthand how dangerous men are, but it's not about just my experiences which have been consistent and brutal until such time as I came to a new understanding of myself, my responsibility and my value. I could go all the way back to the very beginning of my sexual life, and it was always violent. The same women on my page who are saying "not all men" champion me when I wrote about the me too movement and being raped. Honestly I expect pushback from men but I don't write for men. I never have. I have, however champion women From my entire career, many of whom were seeking their power within which was of course… Surprise surprise… Often hidden under some framework of violence. I feel enraged because I realize not very long ago that my entire life, people have been trying to erase me. Erase my experiences. Erase my wisdom. Erasethe validity of my existence. And I'm not standing for that anymore. As a voice, love you David. Your work is so powerful and I'm so glad I've had the pleasure of meeting you.
Erasure, that's the work of shame - dismissal, denial, bypassing, dis-believing, qualifying, reducing, suppressing. I believe that's the most powerful violence of all.
This is a beautiful and important piece. The case for witnessing over correcting lands, and I don’t want to rush past it.
But I keep coming back to a timeline question.
A prisoner of war emerging from a camp saying ‘Germans are cold and heartless’ - you don’t correct that on day one. You witness it. You hold it. Full stop. But if that same person, years later, still moved through the world with that as their operative framework, the people who loved them most would eventually, gently, say: that’s not quite right anymore. Not to protect the Germans in the room. Because they believed the person was ready to be accompanied somewhere more useful.
I know the obvious response: women aren’t emerging from the camp. They’re still in it. The violence is ongoing, not historical. And if that’s true - and in many ways it is - then the timeline question looks very different.
But I think it still matters. Because even inside ongoing trauma, at some point the framework has to serve the person carrying it. ‘Always a man’ as a permanent conclusion might feel like clarity, but if it forecloses the harder question of which men, under what conditions, it isn’t moving anyone toward safety. It’s just a wound that found a shape.
That’s not asking her to fact-check her pain. It’s believing the wound deserves a better answer than the one it has settled for.
Precision, at the right moment, is its own form of compassion
That's quite beautiful, highly sensitive and intelligent.
There are some things that need to be identified. When it is one person, like the prisoner of war in your example, versus a social condition, role or caste system, the dialogue changes its shape. There is an 'order of business' - usually power differences, as you know, the essence of the caste system, needs to be outed. Enough people need to get it - understand power differences and how they are fundamental to abuse and trauma and therefore the long term outcomes.
Second, when does that framework change - as you imply? With an individual ,there are cues that they are already changing it, at least in very small ways. When I work with people, I can tell via their minimal somatic cues, their dreams, or the way the signal a subtle kind of consent to move in a different direction. So the issue of consent is key because that is same place where the abuse and trauma live, heal, or re-traumatize.
With groups, there is something similar. Enough people at a certain moment are already moving to the next place.
Ok, I want to say more but my eyes are so tired that the words are a blur. My framework is asking to be changed LOL.
thanks for sharing your light and heart.
Ps- if you consent, I'd be happy to know your name.
Thank you.
Yes! 1000% this. Thank you 🙏🏽