My role in groups Where does my alienated position in relation to groups come from? For the longest time, the story I told myself is that I am an outsider who stands utterly alone. ’If you lean on mountains, mountains fall.
If you lean on people, people fall.
So better rely on yourself, that is the best way to lean on’ these words are one of the lessons my parents would often repeat to me.
My relationship with my parents is, simply put, complicated. My parents had an extramarital affair. My mother was my father’s partner in public and in private. That is to say, my father remained legally married but lived with my mother. Once a month on Sundays, he visited his ‘real’ family. I knew these people existed but had never met. My father’s oldest son is 22 years older than I am. And my mother is nine years older than that son. In my homeland, my father, mother and I were an odd combination. I saw the looks from strangers when they saw us: what is that older man doing with that younger woman? Acquaintances who knew there was more to it never asked the burning question: why didn’t my father live with his own family, but with us?
From a young age I understood the status of our family. My mother said to me: ‘Your daddy and I are not married, but you mustn’t tell anyone’. I was probably five or six years old. I nodded gravely. While growing up I asked my mother time and time again, but in vain: ‘You two fight every day. Why don’t you leave daddy? You aren’t married, after all’.
Our family lived in isolation. The family on my father’s side never visited. My mother was the black sheep of her family. My maternal grandfather was so angry and disappointed that mama had chosen my father that he broke contact with her. His wife, my grandmother, continued to stay connected with mama, but in secret. Finally, at age six, I became acquainted with my mother’s side of the family. My grandpa would tolerate my mother in his home, on the condition that my father was never mentioned. I was told that I must never bring up my father while visiting my grandparents. Through lived experience, without knowing what it was, I learned what it meant to have low rank. What it means to be at the margins in one context, and gain status and power in another.
This forced order of ‘how things should be’ is the consensus reality of my family and from this consensus reality level my primary identity is formed and shaped. What I understood as a child to be the reality of this community in the given time and culture. I learned to act according to the agreed-upon verbal and nonverbal communication.
SOUR in life I have learned to appreciate the consensus reality with its rank, power dynamic and agreed measurable components as a sour taste. Like biting into a ripe and juicy lime. How the acidity in the lime juice makes your month cringe and your face scrunch. Demonstrated here by my kiddo when she was tasting her first mandarin fruit.
Sour according to the traditional Chinese medicine astringes. It tightens things up and stops the leakage of both fluids and energy. I recognize and appreciate this taste when working with groups in the role of a facilitator. Bringing in the sour taste and hence working with the awareness of consensus reality can bring momentary relief in the sense of clarity. The slight tigenting binds, constricts and compresses the group. Depending on the power dynamic in the group, sometimes new flow of information appears, like a flood of saliva after one eats something sour. I believe this is similar to the hotspots in group processes, where moments of tension can create opportunities for growth and development. With every bite of something sour, saliva begins to flow, just like information that is asking to unfold. The sourness as the edge or the threshold between the primary and the secondary processes and identities. The place of possibilities, if one is willing to engage and discover unknown or mystic grounds.
<aside> 💭 A story from the memory archive
Summer 2020, June, As the murder of George Floyd went viral while the whole world was in lockdown, #blm demonstrations arose. I felt torn. The social activist in me wanted to be on the streets, do my part, let my voice be heard, and join the movement. The scared part of me hesitated, what about social distancing? What about the safety of the ones around me? I frantically checked with my friends, going through my Whatsapp to check if anyone is going to a demonstration, and what are their thoughts when it comes to social distancing and being in a crowd for a good cause.
Somehow, none of my friends in the Netherlands shared my frantic and restless unease. They felt that #blm was something far from their world, not something they would participate in. One friend did go to the demonstration in Rotterdam with her family. I had no idea what my place should be, what is mine to do now?
Then it hit me, I am a facilitator so the least I can do is to facilitate. And I can do that virtually while maintaining social distancing. Knowing that, if something is bothering me, there must be others like me. What if I could organize an online dialogue with others like me? I shared this idea with all of my Whatsapp contacts, and one brave soul answered. Agnes immediately took care of the marketing and used her network to invite participants. Off we went. A series of four dialogues online, every Wednesday evening in June, open invitation.
I was nervous before every session. Second-guessing myself and wondering if I have chosen the right method to meet what it seems an immense task. Then I remembered what Ellen Schupbach, my main coach once said to me ‘The facilitator is not there to solve anything, the task of a facilitator is to raise awareness’. So each session started with a clear structure, using the Lewis Method as a tool and container to process the swirling and raging thoughts, emotions and sensations that many were experiencing then.
Like every dish, there should be a balance of flavors to bring the taste to life that one wants to highlight. So even though my intention is to use the agreed-upon linear way of working in the global north (structured with clear agenda points, as shown in the slide below) as a construct, a vehicle for us to move through the dialogue, I also added visual elements (colors and pictures) to bring out the dreamlike experiences within me and in the group.
</aside>
🍋 KEY LIME PIE (recipe adapted from Mangiare, an Italian deli restaurant in Rotterdam)
*My kiddo and I started with this recipe during the summer of lockdown. It has given us many joyful moments. She would try to make the curd as tart as possible by squeezing out as much liquid out of the lemons and the limes as her force would enable her. One time, the curd was so tart and sour, we all nearly cried. Luckily, the whipped cream on top helped, a little.
Also, this dish is dear to my heart, as at my first DDI seminar, I was paired up with Simone Brecht for an inner work exercise. The image and taste of this dessert came to my mind. I remember vividly how the texture and taste of a key lime pie, are symbols of the crucial ingredients for me to enjoy life.*
Ingredients • A roll of Maria biscuits • Two cans of condensed milk • 150 grams of butter • 75 grams egg yolk • Seven limes and 2 lemons • 25 milliliters whipped cream
Steps Take the roll with Maria biscuits and grind them finely in the food processor, if you don't have them, crumble them very small. Then weigh 150 grams of butter and put it in cubes in the bowl with the finely ground biscuits. Mix the butter and the ground biscuits together into a whole for the base. Put this mix in the baking tin and press it well against the bottom. Then put the base in the oven at 180 degrees for about twenty minutes.
While the bottom is in the oven, start with the cake batter. Cut the seven limes in half and squeeze them into a glass. Note: do not immediately throw the limes away, but make lime zest from the peel of two limes. Mix the lime zest, lime juice, egg yolk and condensed milk together until nice and thick. In the meantime, your base is ready and you can spread the mix over it, after which you place the cake tin back in the oven for fifteen minutes at 180 degrees.
Pour 250 milliliters of whipped cream into a bowl, add a dash of limoncello and mix until stiff. When the rest of the cake has cooled down well, the whipped cream mix can be spread over the cake and you can possibly sprinkle some lime zest over it. Remove the cake from the baking tin, cut out a nice piece for yourself and enjoy your homemade key lime pie!
<aside> 📖 Back to chapters 🍨SWEET
</aside>