inner aggression and the OST facilitator

John Rapp john.rapp at peithene.com
Tue Apr 19 14:10:56 PDT 2005


And remember the most common moniker (previously) for the new Pope: "The
Enforcer" ... J.

-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of John
Rapp
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2005 8:19 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: inner aggression and the OST facilitator

F***ing awesome question, Raffi.  As a former/aggressive trial lawyer --
now a teacher -- I wrestle with this issue quite frequently.  The world
currently rewards, even admires, a serious degree of aggression.  And
the new and mounting "evo devo" (evolutionary biology) research is not
encouraging.  For example, hungry apes prefer a glimpse of a picture of
their leader over food.  The primate/animal fixation on power is most
worrisome indeed.

The/a bigger question: Does expressing aggression release it, or
increase it?  My best, J

-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Raffi
Aftandelian
Sent: Sunday, April 17, 2005 10:31 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: inner aggression and the OST facilitator

Hi all!

In the process of my ongoing innerwork, I am realizing the amount of
pent-up aggression I have within me. And that I need to learn ways of
giving expression to that aggression regularly (new daily recommended
practices?). I am realizing that the more this aggression sits within me
it can eat up the inside of me and result in serious illness.

I am starting to experiment with being more aggressive in day to day
life. To increase my own threshold for my own aggression. It is
confusing to figure out how best to do this! Right now I am in the way
of the teacher on the medicine wheel (for those not familiar with the
medicine wheel, Harrison cites one colleague in his user guide, Angeles
Arrien; she is an anthropologist with Basque roots and author of the
Fourfold Way; simply put, a medicine wheel is a tool for looking at
wholeness), working with objectivity and discernment. I imagine there is
a much deeper meaning to these two words than how I understand them.
Because as I weigh how to act in day to day life, those two words lead
me to hesitate with my aggression at the time when someone inside is now
telling me, "get the fucking aggression out of you, dammit!"

Might people share some practices that have helped you or others in:

a) accepting, embracing, loving one's personal aggression/violence,
recognizing its positive and creative force (the negative is obvious,
no?)

b) how I might give space and voice to the aggression while in the way
of the teacher?

This brings me to the second part of my question-- What space is there,
if any, for the facilitator's expression of (verbal) aggression/violence
in the context of an OST meeting? If there is, what might that
aggression/violence look like?

If I am at my best when I can bring all of me as a facilitator into the
room, how can I best make use of my shadow aggressor (the murderer, the
sadist, the victim, the masochist) when I notice it?
Obviously, they all rear their head all the time in life and in
facilitated meetings and I have (probably) never noticed it (!!).

Another way of framing this question is that I am a very expressive
person and I don't want to feel like I have to stifle my expression as
an OST facilitator. Can words like "fuck", "shit", "bitch" be used to
create a climate of Open Space? Has anyone had experience in using such
words in opening and holding an OST climate? I know the "oh shit"
story, are there any "oh, fuck" stories?

One thought that comes to me is to acknowledge it and then use one of my
personal strengths-- a love of play-- to just play with the aggression,
thereby creating a much more creative field around me while in OS.

When I have fallen off my rocker (American English for "I have gone
crazy; rocker-- is a rocking chair), shit, let me know!

Warmly and blessings (dammit),
Raffi

                          mailto:raffi at bk.ru


                          mailto:raffi at bk.ru

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