A View of Co-Counseling and the RC Community
I have been thinking about some issues that can come up for Co-Counselors after having learned the basics of RC. I wrote the following after teaching a fundamentals class. It was written for RCers of Chinese and Southeast Asian heritage (I am the RC International Liberation Reference Person for Chinese-Heritage People).
“Aren’t you done with counseling yet? Do you still have those problems?” These are questions some of your friends or family may ask you. You may wonder if you should continue Co-Counseling, for example, by joining your local RC Community. A widely believed version of “mental health” says that we are “fixed” after we have had “treatment” or counseling. First, there is nothing “wrong” with us; and second, as we Co-Counsel we get to reclaim more and more of our full potential. One way I’ve thought of Co-Counseling is as a practice, like exercise, tai qi (tai chi), meditation, writing, playing a musical instrument. We do some work on our own [by ourselves], and we also have a community. After I learn my basic tai qi form, I still need my sifu (teacher). My sifu and my tai qi community give me a way to keep improving and gaining the long-term benefits of practicing tai qi.
“Things are getting worse”: After we have been counseling for a while, things sometimes seem to get “worse.” A relationship doesn’t go well. We may feel physically or emotionally worse. What to do? Internalized oppression and chronic distresses are now showing themselves. We have discharged some major hurts and created the safety for more hurts to surface. Perhaps these are hurts that we do not remember well—they got buried, and we became used to living with them (that is what “chronic distress” means). Perhaps we became numb. We can use this opportunity to discharge more and to get more sessions, not fewer. As we discharge distress, we learn how to handle bigger distresses. If we quit counseling at this point, we may be stuck with the buried hurts that tried to surface.
If someone you used to like now annoys you, try counseling on what their behavior reminds you of, or who they remind you of. In sessions, mentally bring your counselor with you to help you fight for yourself in the old historical place where you got hurt and stuck. Assume that if you had been able to discharge when the hurt happened, you would have healed the hurt. Discharge now to heal it. Do not assume that your present-day difficulty is with actual present-day events. More often something about the present has “triggered” (restimulated) some old hurt, which is now presenting itself to you for discharge and healing. Without discharge, that old hurt will prevent you from being able to think as clearly as you would like and to act in a way that handles the present situation.
When I first started RC, I had the sweatiest hands I knew; the palms of my hands just sweated and sweated. I also used to get motion sickness (become nauseated) frequently. Sweating is one form of discharging terror, and nausea can be caused by terror.
I discharged on all the times I could remember that I had been nauseated. After about six months of working on it, it got a lot better. (I had focused my sessions on nausea and motion sickness because I had just met a man I liked, who liked me and who liked to sail small boats—and who later became my husband.) The nausea got so much better that for more than thirty years I did not get motion sickness. Also, after my second year of Co-Counseling, my hands no longer sweated.
Then, in 2020, I led more than a dozen Zoom calls, including workshops for Chinese-heritage and Southeast Asian-heritage Co-Counselors. I also attended the Asian and Pacific Islander Workshops for North America. One day we worked on the connections between language domination, land domination, war, and terror. After these workshops, I went out with my husband on a small boat and spent two days feeling nauseated and horrible. I realized that I had stirred up old terror—from having been physically attacked and threatened beginning when I was eleven. The safety of leading on video (no one could attack me physically through the video) and the topics of the workshops had allowed old, chronic hurts to come to the surface for discharge. I had not been aware that I still carried them. I am not yet finished discharging them, but naming them was a major victory.
Now I can also discharge on how I had to pretend that “nothing happened,” how I was so scared I could not realize that anything unusual was happening when I was attacked. Now I can remember many things in the past to be terrified about. These include the frightening events in my own life and in the lives of my family, as well as terrible events that are part of the oppression of our people during our long historical and cultural legacy.
Obligation, duty, and expectations: In addition to the almost universal distress of terror carried by our people (Chinese-heritage and Southeast Asian-heritage people), many of us feel obligated to do our “duty” or to meet others’ “expectations.” When I thought about joining the RC Community, I feared I would incur more social obligations. It was an enormous relief to understand the implications of the “no-socializing” policy and our policy on confidentiality. I could counsel with other Co-Counselors without incurring an obligation to solve their problems for them.
Many people in my life see me (as they see a lot of us from our constituency) as competent, confident, and capable. In my non-RC life, many people I love have small and big expectations of me. So, how do we counsel on feelings of obligation?
How about saying “no”? For many of us, it’s not so easy. It does not seem like we have any choice. Often it is easier to behave as we are expected and fulfill the expectations other people have of us, even at a cost to ourselves. Or we try to stand up for our choice, but it’s a rigid “no,” a “f— you” [profane expression] no. But we need to be able to say no. Otherwise we get buried in obligations and expectations and are miserable. Or we go “underground,” where we do what we want but without telling anyone, so we are alone. Or we use addictions to make ourselves numb enough to tolerate our miserable compromise (and the addictions bring their own set of problems). We need to be able to say “no” before we can fully say “yes,” before we can fully embrace someone or some idea.
Notice where you “go quiet.” (Note to allies: Silence does not mean agreement. If your Chinese or Southeast Asian Co-Counselor becomes quiet, immediately stop whatever you are saying or doing. And listen!)
It’s okay not to have an answer right away. It’s okay to say, “I’m not ready to give you an answer yet.” It’s okay to complete your sentences and finish your thought. It’s okay to take up space and say to someone, “Please walk me through this (explanation),” or “Please let me walk you through this (explanation).”
We need to stay with our Co-Counselors while not going “underground,” not enduring being miserable or resentful. For those of us with recent immigrant heritage (who are immigrants or children of immigrants), it’s often useful to stand up for ourselves in a language from our childhoods. Everything is more vivid in our childhood language.
The RC Community: Our RC Community is organized around local geography-based Areas and Regions (several Areas comprise a Region). We have Areas and Regions in many countries, including mainland China and Taiwan. We have Pioneer Communities in Thailand and Vietnam. You will be invited to join a local Community and a class taught by an RC teacher in that Community. Your Area and Region will hold classes, workshops, support groups, and similar events where you can meet other Co-Counselors and in which you may eventually take leadership if you choose to do that.
In addition, we have liberation constituencies that organize RCers from the many geography-based Communities according to heritage, class, and other criteria. I serve as the International Liberation Reference Person (ILRP) for Chinese-Heritage People. I also serve as a Reference Person for people of Southeast Asian heritage and for the RC Communities in Thailand and Vietnam.
What does this mean? In my case—except for the Pioneer Communities in Thailand and Vietnam—it means that I think about Co-Counselors who call themselves “overseas Chinese,” or the equivalent for Southeast Asian countries. Organizationally, it means you will have a geography-based Reference Person and also one or more Liberation Reference Persons for constituencies you are a member of (based on heritage, gender, sexuality, class, and so on).
In our constituency, we hold workshops and support groups for people of our heritage. We connect people who want to counsel in the language of their childhood (we are now beginning to organize people who speak Vietnamese and Mandarin). We support Co-Counselors in Pioneer Communities who have fewer people to Co-Counsel with. We teach online classes in Pioneer Communities. As ILRP, I consult and cooperate with the Area and Regional leaders in mainland China and Taiwan. But I am responsible only when their constituents want to counsel about their Chinese and/or Southeast Asian heritages (not for the many other issues that may affect their lives). As you may imagine, this is a more important concern among Co-Counselors who have emigrated from mainland China, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia to many other places in the world.
It is likely you know the RC “one-point program.” As Co-Counselors, we assist each other to discharge and re-emerge, and we participate in activities to advance these in our Community. However, we also discharge on the hurts that the current system inflicts on all of us. And many RCers find that it makes sense to participate in projects of the RC Community to change our society and the conditions of oppression. United to End Racism and Sustaining All Life are projects of the RC Community specifically designed to bring listening and discharge to activists working to end racism and climate change. These projects of the RC Community are separate from the Co-Counseling activities of our Community. They represent one way to be active and bring change to the world.
Co-Counseling relationships: Your most lasting contribution to the RC Community is the Co-Counseling relationships you make. These often last for years or decades, and we often know many intimate details of our Co-Counselors’ lives. We do not socialize with our Co-Counselors, do business with them, or recruit them into our social or business dealings, but the relationships are real. They are precious relationships. When I was very ill in the late 1990s, and when my father was ill and later died, I was supported by my Co-Counselors. I have supported many Co-Counselors through important life events—birth, death, illness, divorce. Never underestimate the value of a Co-Counseling relationship. Show up [be present]. Be honest. Show yourself. Don’t hide things from your Co-Counselor. Show them how much you like them.
Leading in RC: If you choose it, leading in RC or in the projects of the RC Community will help you grow. For most of us of Chinese or Southeast Asian heritage, when asked to lead the question is not, “Can I do this?” Most of us are high-functioning people. We are capable and competent. Our question needs to be, “Do I want to do this?”
Leading will bring up chronic distresses and old hurts that have interfered with your ability to think clearly and effectively, to make decisions with integrity, to interrupt oppressive actions by others. Leading therefore offers a great opportunity to liberate yourself from the old hurts. You will find yourself able to think more clearly about a great many people and things. And as an RC leader, you will have good company and support, including from your group or constituency. You will not lead alone.
After nearly three decades of leading in RC, I can assure you it is one of the most demanding and most rewarding things I have ever done. It has also made possible some of the most rewarding personal projects I’ve ever done outside of RC.
Somerville, Massachusetts, USA
(Present Time 202, January 2021)