It's extremely difficult to get to your true and deep feelings if you don't feel safe.
In writing about the work I did in Israel, I've tried to be very sensitive to those people who sometimes had to overcome great obstacles and even put themselves in danger to meet with me and do our group process. In the case of the day I'm about to describe, I cannot name the small town I went to, nor name the Arab women from Beyond Words who invited me. It is such a small town that everyone who lives there is related in some way or another, either by blood or by marriage. With the villagers, our work would raise suspicions.
Following my three-day break, I went next to this small Arab village, where I met with a group that was mostly Muslim Arab women, with one or two Jewish women. These were all kindergarten teachers who had been working with two Beyond Words leaders for about six months.
The challenge with this particular group was that they all worked together at the grade school, and as mentioned, were closely related, which is not conducive to creating a safe setting for revealing and unleashing deep feelings. Imagine wanting and needing very badly to talk about a traumatic experience, or reveal a secret fear, or just unleash a raw emotion in such a setting. All of these women feared judgment, and they did not feel certain that everything that happened in the room would stay there. And of course, some of their secrets or stories would likely betray the confidence of another woman in the room.
I always learn from these kinds of challenges, but that doesn't make them easier! It was clear from the beginning that most of the women in the group felt unsure and unsafe. I finally ended up getting them in the flow and feeling their emotions by helping them move their energy in a way that felt less threatening and less personally charged to them. "Babies are completely free," I told them. "Be babies, and be wild." They were able to do that. With every group you have to find a way "in," and this exercise worked, more or less.
Although letting go like this was healing for many of them, the modest progress I was able to make with this particular group reminded me of the challenge we all face: It's extremely difficult to get to your true and deep feelings if you don't feel safe. In a way, the work the Beyond Words women and I are doing with all of these courageous people is helping them learn how to create safe spaces where they can release anger, fear, and other emotions. It's all about trusting your fellow man and being in community with others who are doing so too. That's how individual healing begins and spreads out into the community, one group at a time.
