You can be totally self-identified with that part and you think that it is you making the threat evaluation and deciding what to do.

You can be totally not self-identified with that part and be helplessly watching it do what it does.

If you want to change your relationship to that triggered part and how the two of you dance, it's going to take some work. And it's probably not going to be very pleasant work.

If you want long-lasting, significant change, where it seems that your old patterns get smaller and smaller, more and more distant, more and more quiet, then you are going to have to put something in their place.

You are going to have to create a new meaning-makings and dances with the signifiers.

“Holy fucking shit!!! I can have an opinion, a response to any fucking thing.”

“Holy fucking shit!!!! I do have have an opinion, a response to any fucking thing.”

“Holy fucking shit!!!!! There are no fucking answers.”

Laughing maniacally.

“It’s all just fucking opinions.”

One of the great things about first coming to Hang, for most, is that you see a bunch of different types of people doing relational things with each other that MOST CERTAINLY do not fit into your box of normal.

As Hang is a subset of Dojo, and the stated objective of Dojo is for you to have the life you want to have, an assumption is that you're going to want to practice those things which you believe are going to get you the life you want.

The purpose of using the soccer cards is to interrupt a relational dance that going somewhere that one of the parties doesn’t want to go to.

These are those heavily-concentrated, foundational definitions-of-self that we internalized as children. No-one told us that we didn’t have to internalize as part of our self-definition, the strong opinions of others.

Well, the ballsy reason is because you’ve been talking about taking your relationship to another level about sooooo many things for soooo long and you’re pretty sure that, if nothing else, since it’s a Dojo ride and Kraye is going to be playing ringmaster, it’s going to be wild and wooly and you’ll definitely be engaging with stuff that your BOS isn’t going to be comfortable with.

It’s one thing to dance on the edge with a bunch of people who are not in your “normal sexual circles”.
It’s one thing to let your furry freak flag fly when there is no-one that your Primal Character doesn’t want around.
It’s quite another thing to let your furry freak flag fly when there are people in the room that your Primal Character def has issues with.

It used to be that either fear or moth were significant prompts in making decisions.
She would hold up her sail, when it was time to move, to make a choice, and the winds of fear/moth would fill that sail and off she would go.

She raises her sail now and it doesn’t work.
Something has shifted so that fear/moth doesn’t have the density-of-fuel.
They went from having high octane to having almost no octane at all.

Just because, in your history, you have had people react a certain way to your fire doesn’t meant that that is the only way that people, even these same people, can react to your fire.

White Belt is typically seen as the “What-is” part of the Dojo experience.

You spend time playing with the PC and un-PC parts of your Primal Character.

We experiment with making common things uncommon and uncommon things common.

Hopefully to demonstrate the ability to have a different experience using what you have with your Primal Character.

Hopefully to give you a bit more range with both.

And now, we’re going to pretend that there is something real going on over there with Cynthia.
Alton tastes the tannins.
Michaela tastes the tannins and flavors.
I’m tasting tannins, flavors, and minerals.

From a Dojo POV, being with a bunch of people who you are pretty sure aren’t crazy, and having your BOS be so clear that what is happening is leading to such a very, very, very bad place that to eject is the only option, is a great moment.

Operationally, what you are going to be dancing with is the thickness, the opacity/transparency of your labels.
You can’t get out of the labeling.

It’s a human thing.

Not only are you interesting in changing things up for yourself, you’re interested in changing things up for the other.

You want to be able to give them something new to dance with.

Which means that, chances are, if you’re dancing with their Public Face with your Primal Character, it’s old news.

When you agree to attend a Hang, you are agreeing to step onto the mats for two hours.

It is two hours of practice.

It is two hours of sparring, trying out new moves, on both sides of the relational equation.

This is not about bringing out your Primal Character and having it prance about, showing us what it is that it can do. This is not Show and Tell about what you already have. We all know you can do that. What is it that you want to step into that your Primal Character cannot do? What can you identify as something you want to have that you currently don’t have and are willing to practice getting?

“Wait a minute. You’re saying that everything that I want, everything that I don’t want, isn’t really about the it-of-it? It’s not really about what I as an Adult want? It’s what me as a single-digitally aged child wants? And it’s not about the it-of-it? It’s about what that it means to the me-as-child?”

As I was doing my PT stuff yesterday, “We are gasoline.” popped into my head.

“Huh?”

“We are gasoline.”

“Uh, ok. We are gasoline.”

And to myself, “What the fuck does that mean?”