The Gym and the Church

This posting was to be about yoga with a great quote from Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk about the study he talks about that showed greater progress in healing from trauma with yoga than drugs, for some.  But then pop, pop, two stories jumped out of my NPR app – stories I’ve known about but, seeing one sitting on top of the other in the newsfeed pushed yoga aside, for now. Story #1 is about Attorney Deborah Daniels’ 70 recommendations resulting from her investigation of USA Gymnastics on how they can prevent the sexual abuse of girl gymnasts. And #2 – Cardinal George Pell has been given a leave from his service as finance advisor to the Pope to return to Australia to testify to his innocence for the large number of accusations of the sexual abuse of children dating back to the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s.

Now – we could go down a whole lot of different paths about the parallels of these two stories. The power dynamics between children and their elders – coaches and priests. The similarities of both these cultures being closed as apposed to open and transparent.

I just got stuck. The pen stopped, I laid my head onto the back of my rocking chair and the voice of my inner critic, Pacasandra, rose to the surface, chortling, “Blah, Blah, Blah. There you go again – same rant as always. You are boring me to pieces and you’re only going to upset people with this constant complaining. Can’t you think of anything nice or funny or positive to say for a change? This dead horse of yours has been beaten enough, Jenson.”

Well, actually that’s the problem, the horse isn’t dead. It’s not even lame or starving or half blind or looking like it’s so old it may die out any day now.

No, this horse is alive and kicking. And what keeps gnawing at me is the spot-on certainty I carry that it’s all still happening right this very minute. Two things are for sure – these crimes don’t get looked at unless a victim speaks. And, by and large, if victims speak it’s not until long after the fact. Take me for example – my abuse stopped when I was 12 years old but I didn’t speak of it until I was 32. Not surprising – I needed those twenty years to gain enough steam to take the plunge into the deep waters of truth telling. I needed to build a life jacket from hours of therapeutic relationships with both personal and professional healers.

Let’s get back to USA Gymnastics. The CEO resigned and one molester is up on charges. Yay! Over 100 girls have slammed through the closet doors they’ve been protecting their sanity with. One guy did harm all those girls. But I don't believe there is only one person harming girls in this organization. And there isn’t just one administrator in one town’s gym that fired one guy so he could go to a new gym and start all over again.

Attorney Daniels was right to say in her report that they’ve got a culture of non-protection, which is exactly what the Pope is sitting on top of, too.

I want to say to the board of directors of USA Gymnastics – don’t anybody give a sigh of relief, the worst is not over – it takes a whole lot of time and energy to change a culture.

Now I just want to cry. I HATE getting to this rant and rave place that’s wallpapered with rage and carpeted with hopelessness. I want out of here. I want to take this god-awful heightened consciousness, throw it in a lake and run for the hills. I don’t want to know any of this anymore. I don’t want to feel this anymore. I want all of us to know we are beloved and belong.

Look, that culture change is not going to happen quick enough to stop the crimes of today. Except – there is JFK High in Northampton MA. A group of  students, girls and boys, staged a sit-in in the principles office – YAHOO! – because one of the girls was told, in response to her claim of sexual harassment in her class, “boys will be boys.” And instead of going to that class they’d let her spend that hour in the library for the week till the incident cooled down.

A teen fueled sit-in. NOW you're talkin’!

Deep Secrets

I stood at the podium and said, “My stake in being here is rooted in being a woman who survived the childhood sexual abuse of incest. We in MERGE for Equality believe boys are born naturally loving, life affirming and sustained by connection. Had my father been raised to be his natural authentic self I’m certain I would have had a completely different father, a loving protective father and therefore a completely different childhood.”

As the Board President I got to welcome the participants to our 4th Summit, two hundred souls interested in spending a day riding on our mission of transforming masculinity to advance gender equality; what a dance to be doing to the thump, thump, thump of Trump, Trump, Trump.

And our keynote speaker, the brilliant, sassy, Dr. Niobe Way took us on a journey through her discoveries in studying adolescent boys for the past 30 years. “Listen to the boys,” she said, over and over. No boring power point just quotes from the boys. “Read along with me,” she encouraged, “Here’s what Jessie had to say.” And up would come Jessie’s words as Niobe morphed into a twelve year old; right foot pigeon toeing in, left knee bending, right fist on hip and read aloud:

            “(My best friend) could just tell me anything and I could tell him anything. Like I always know everything about him…. We always chill, like we don’t hide secrets from each other. We tell each other our problems. If I’m having problems at home, they’ll like counsel me, I just trust them with anything, like deep secrets, anything.”

In fifty-five minutes she showed us the big damage done to all our boys as they get robbed of these close friendships on their way to becoming a man, a “real” man. To “man up” - to get independent and competitive and oh so isolated. Homophobia is one big cultural bulldozer over close friendships between adolescent boys as they age. Here’s a typical quote from an older boy:

“Like my friendship with my best friend is fading, but I’m saying it’s still there but… So I mean, it’s still there ‘cause we still do stuff together, but only once in a while. It’s sad ‘cause he lives only one block away from me and I get to do stuff with him less than I get to do stuff with people who are way further so I’m like, yo. …. It’s like a DJ used his cross fader and started fading it slowly and slowly and now I’m like halfway through the cross fade.”

She showed a clip of the film: The Mask You Live In. Check out the trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc45-ptHMxo or watch the whole film free on Netflix.

Niobe’s work is so important, so instructive, in understanding what’s got to change to bring up boys to be loving, non-misogynist, non-violent males. It’s radical – let them keep making close friendships where they can share their “deep secrets.”

Women Making a Difference

Recently I met with twelve brave women and their leader, Dr. Elaine Westerlund. Thirty-seven years ago Elaine co-founded Incest Resources. Think about it – almost four decades ago a group of survivors had the brass ovaries to put the word INCEST in the name of their organization. 

Since 1980 IR has been affiliated with the Women’s Center in Cambridge, MA.  The IR Group for Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, based on their own group model, has been running at the Center for 34 years! Meetings take place in the 3rd floor room at the Center, the only room large enough to accommodate the number of survivors who participate in the group and in the arts-based and body-based workshops offered for survivors.

Given that the one room large enough wasn't always available for survivor activities, Helen and Cynthia, two members of the IR survivor community, began investigating possible studio spaces for an additional option.  When they expressed their discouragement to Elaine about the inaccessibility and poor condition and high cost of what they had seen, Elaine sarcastically joked, "Well, there's always the Women's Center garage."  To her surprise, Helen and Cynthia enthusiastically responded, "There's a garage?!!"  And so a dream began.

In fairly short order they got busy.  Helen and Cynthia proceeded to start clearing out the garage, which was a cross between a storage unit and a site for a cable show called “Happily Hoarding Since 1970,” while Elaine began the process of working with the Women Center's Board on an agreement and fundraising plans. After construction guys, demolition guys, an architect, and an inspector walked through the back yard and garage, renovation plans evolved by necessity into a plan to tear down the old structure and build a new one. 

What’s also going is Elaine – perfect timing for her retirement strategy.  At the end of 2020 she’ll walk out the door (at age 75), hand over the shiny new keys to the leaders of the survivor community, and blow kisses from the window of her 1999 Toyota Corolla as she drives off into the sunset.

Where I come into the picture is first as a favor to Elaine – dear friend and sister survivor – second, for a chance to support a group of women as they move along on strategic planning and leadership development.  Our first get together I spent part of the time getting them to talk about the prospect of Elaine leaving. After the tears and teeth gnashing had subsided I told them how exciting it is that they are poised to create a space – a safe space – solely for survivors of childhood sexual abuse. This, dear reader, is no small thing. As children we didn’t have safe space – and we grew up believing, since we started out not being safe in the primary place where we lived, there was probably no safe space anywhere. For us, when safety is provided, the possibilities for healing are infinite. And, as far as I know, there is no place in the world that is solely for survivors. I hope I’m wrong about that but it was a real mood lifter for the twelve women in our circle.

Cynthia took a moment to talk about the name of the studio. “We are choosing to call the survivor studio The bIRch House as a way to honor Elaine.  She once mentioned that a grove of birch trees was her sanctuary as a child.  And when you understand the meaning of a birch tree, it's no wonder. The birch tree symbolizes new beginnings, regeneration and hope. According to the book The Healing Power of Trees, birch is for 'overcoming difficulties; pliability; re-establishing boundaries; purification and renewal; releasing old patterns and shedding unhelpful influences; [and] resolution of conflicts.'  One of the first trees to grow after a fire or some other devastation, birch paves the way for the gradual return of life.  This is what we want to give survivors - life after devastation. The bIRch House will be the sanctuary for survivors of incest and childhood sexual abuse as we heal and live more fully." The spelling of the name, highlighting IR in the center of the word bIRch, will honor the legacy of Incest Resources as a source of healing and community for survivors and as the predecessor of The bIRch House.

I’m delighted to report that what happened next was the compiling of a formidable list of the next steps the group wants to take to raise the $100K they’ll need for The bIRch House to open its sparkling new door. Should you be so inclined – you can make a donation to this marvelous project by sending a check made payable to Women's Center, with I.R. in the memo section to earmark your gift, to: The Women's Center, 46 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, MA 02139.