I was lying on a mat at a workshop allowing the content of the course to move through all of me. As I lay there breathing and feeling everything that my heart, mind, body and spirit had to say I looked up and noticed him sitting on the couch not far from me. My focus shifted from myself to him as I watched him, at first gently and then intensely.
I had met him less than a year ago and had been in multiple workshops with him. At first, he came into the space hesitant and hopeful and as he relaxed into the workshops and his own personal healing he began to enter the space with confidence, stability and pride. The shift was palpable and even people who were new to the space could recognize his comfort in the space. Healing had always been important to him, he was raised in an environment that created a lot of trauma and he had been relentless about healing despite that he didn’t have structure or tools for the healing. His shift from independent healing to healing in community had created huge personal growth and an explosion of healing. Despite the magnitude of the healing that he had been through in the past year, he was quiet about his progress. He didn’t flaunt it. He didn’t shout about it from the rooftop. He didn’t beg for attention or praise for the work that he was doing. He silently and confidently moved through his process. He wasn’t seeking validation from the community that he had learned to love and trust. His own growth and healing was enough for him, he didn’t need people to tell him about what they saw in him. It was one of the unique ways that he moved through this human experience that I simply adored.
I watched him for what felt like an hour. He was lost in thought, processing his own experience. He would roll his neck around and around, side to side and then sit silently and still again. Occasionally, he would shift his body as he worked through something, allowing his body to release. The lights were dim and candles flickered all around the studio that we were in. Music played softly in the background. As I watched him and slipped in and out of my own energy. I appreciated him so much. Not only the way that he moved through this human experience but that as a man in our society he was able to created and hold safe space; that he was safe space. That his energy was safe. That his humanness was safe and how so many of us need that. Women need that. Men need that. People need that. Animals need that. Trees need that. We need that.
The candle lights flickered and their shadows danced on the walls. He looked up and realized that I was looking at him. He locked eyes with me and gently smiled. I smiled back and while I never said a word, I know that he heard everything that I was thinking.