The Contradiction of Benign Closeness
When I started Co-Counseling, I was in my twenties and desperate for benign, rational closeness with the kind of people I found in the RC Community. Workshops were a special contradiction [to distress]—a whole weekend when I didn’t have to be alone. As a young adult, the more I could get of that, the better, and I often stayed up as late as anyone else at the workshop wanted to.
Often a small group of young adults and young people would stay up late together. Staying up late can be a way to get some relief from young people’s oppression. Even at RC workshops, it was a time of freedom, a time to relax and really connect. We also did mini-sessions.
Other times at workshops I struggled to sleep because I was too restimulated. Sometimes I could find someone else who was struggling, and we would do a mini-session or even a full-length session and afterward be able to sleep. Some of those sessions included profound discharge and re-evaluation.
Given people’s hurts about closeness, it makes sense to think critically about physical closeness at workshops and make sure people aren’t acting on their patterns. But it’s also true that the benign physical closeness available at workshops is a great contradiction.
At many workshops, I’ve been able to sleep close to one or more Co-Counselors (with whom I’ve had good relationships) and experience the contradiction of benign closeness throughout the night. Sometimes we’ve had middle-of-the-night mini-sessions if we’ve found ourselves unable to sleep or simply having feelings.
Who knows what rational sleep is, what sleep would look like without distress, but I can’t imagine it would be the isolated, each-person-alone sleep that many of us think of as “normal,” even at Co-Counseling workshops.
As we attempt to think well about sleep at workshops, I suggest we think creatively and flexibly about the wide variety of sleep needs that are likely to exist amongst a diverse group of workshop participants. We can give special attention to setting things up for older folks and also for young people, young adults, and anyone else with an identity outside the dominant ones. Extra sleep may be especially useful and a contradiction for some. Other people may benefit from extra counseling time and closeness—so they don’t find themselves isolated and restimulated for many hours overnight.
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Reprinted from the e-mail discussion list for RC Community members
(Present Time 198, January 2020)