CONVERSATION 6

in a 46 nr. bus today.
[a girl about 5 years old and a woman, unknown]

GIRL: i've been a good girl today, haven't i...!? haven't i?!?
WOMAN: yes, you have, you have, you've been extremely good!
GIRL: i've been extremely good.
WOMAN: yes.
GIRL: yes.
WOMAN: yes, a good girl!
GIRL: but i've also been tiny bit naughty, tiny bit!
WOMAN: no, you've been quite a good girl.
GIRL: no...i've been tiny bit naughty too! tiny bit ... tiny bit naughty...tiny bit naughty i've been today

CONVERSATION 5

Spencer: this is how i see myself - when I’m angry I don’t feel lovable. when you’re angry I don’t feel loved.And this is how i see you - when you’re angry, I’m lovable. when I’m angry I’m lovable.

Raisa: so you don’t believe that last thing?

Spencer: no, I don’t believe I’m lovable because I’m the top bit.

Raisa: does it mean that you are being your dad, the one that used to beat you? does you being angry mean that you are being that dad?

Spencer: yeah

Raisa: but do you see how you could love yourself in it?

Spencer: not yet. When I see you in your anger I don’t understand it, I ask myself: where’s the compassion?! That’s my default. That's what i would look for as the kid. I keep asking: who are you? I call you a cold bitch. So that’s the place I could start loving myself in. And in the provocation that I receive, I've got to stop it, I've got to stop being provoked because my conditioning is that I know I can’t win. Because when I was a child I was never strong enough. But now when I get provoked I know that I’m physically strong enough and that’s even scarier. Like I could hurt.

Raisa: so I say: go ahead! I give you the permission. i want your anger.

Spencer: yeah, but in a way you’re saying that you want responsibility.

Raisa: so therefore you are not going ahead with it at all?

Spencer: yeah.

Raisa: I want you to see the distinction – the responsibility to the messiness. Then I can say yes, I can hold your messiness, as long as you see the difference. But my concern is: can you be with your own messiness and with my anger. Because your mess will trigger my anger.

Spencer: yes, I actually feel that you’re anger empowers me. it makes me more angry. when we’re in this dynamic I can see that you’re very much at home in your anger even though sometimes you’re not owning it. You’re so at home that I can’t work out that it’s anger. I feel disempowered in it. So when I say: I don’t want to fight, I actually do, because I want to get back the power that I’ve lost.

Raisa: that feels good! ‘give me my power back, let’s fight!

Spencer: not only do I feel messy, but I feel stupid

Raisa: in the wanting to fight?

Spencer: no, before that. I feel defeated. Like, you’ve won. But even though I’m defeated, I’ll fight. Like... I’m stuck. I want to get to that place where you are, but I just don’t know how to get there.

Raisa: what feels good is... for you... instead of complaining, saying: ’you want to fight.’ Turn it into ‘I want to fight!’

Spencer: when I accuse you, when I say: where’s the compassion?!? That’s really me fighting to get my power back, that’s me being sneaky to do it.

Raisa: yesss! that feels good. This will shift something.

Spencer: if I remember them.

Raisa: I think you should take some time to be with that. can you forgive your dad and accept his anger, can you accept the dad within you?

CONVERSATION 4

SPENCER: there's different strands of time...going on at the same time.

RAISA: within time.

SPENCER: So when it's outside of us it feels like it's passing, and inside of us it feels like it's stopped.

RAISA: Has it stopped or is it just because we're just in it? we're in it and we're moving and we're moving with it, so there's no... like when you're in this river it's carrying you, there's no: 'this river is flowing 5mph...', no. i'm just flowing in the river.

SPENCER: mmm....yeah, but in the flowing there's no perception of...the time continuum, it's as if... umm... everything is alive and vibrant outside of time. time has no...umm...effect on...aliveness.

RAISA: yeah...i mean,time, it's a stupid word. it doesn't really exist unless there's a human who's...

SPENCER: so i think that's really juicy, do we make time up?

CONVERSATION 3

RAISA: I like that. Something about seeing the person for the last time... It's almost like saying: 'what if i don't see you again... what do you want to tell me?' You know.

JAMIE: Yeah, it's like how real can we be? and there's nothing...

RAISA: ...wait, but what am i trying to get out of reality by...?

JAMIE: honesty. more truth. because it's your last chance to say it. Or from some people you might get more drama, more... because that's how they want to leave it. You might not get more truth.

RAISA: exactly.

JAMIE: but when i think of myself in that situation... i think it brings out a particular kind of love that i would want to make sure that i get across to you. i would know this is it. i would try to...

RAISA: yeah, but it's silly because it isn't really happening.

CONVERSATION 2

SPENCER: So Maybe this is about where you... where you are editing yourself in your life?

RAISA: Oh, this is juicy. I find that probably the answer why I edited the gaps... was that... was fear of rejection really. Like, who's going to stay with five minutes of silence? They are going to be done; they're not going to listen further, or they... they are going to try to skip to the next. Like, they will find a more interesting bit, you know. Ummmm... and maybe giving them that freedom to be bored and giving them the freedom to skip, you know. Like...

SPENCER: What's wrong with that?

RAISA: Yeah. Yeah. Well that's when the control comes in, that's me being like, I want them to listen to it chronologically from A to B because the conversation has a flow and one sentence leads to the next and the magic of how it transforms and... but after they... after they hear that gap and they don't stay with it, they might want to switch it off and... and that's their freedom to do so.

SPENCER: Yeah, so why bother controlling that?

RAISA: I don't know, there's a dilemma, because I feel that there's a part of me that really believes that they would have a more powerful, juicy experience, they would gain more, the gift would be more if they would stay with it.

SPENCER: So that's your truth?

RAISA: So that's why I take out the pauses.

SPENCER: No, that's why you compromise.

RAISA: That's why I compromise, yeah. The present moment... well the present moment can be just as it is... I think it's unrelated to whether that person edited those gaps or not, you know. Once I've taken that footage and given it to you, it's up to you, it's up to you to experience whatever you want to experience or skip or whatever, or not even listen to it. Maybe you just don't want to listen to it, so it's up to you. Once... once it's given to you. And whether I've changed something or not is... is also irrelevant in a way, you know. Again, it just depends on you what you want to take, what you want to... what you want to be open to.

SPENCER: Yeah, i think what you're saying is is it OK to be me?

CONVERSATION 1

DAN: Yeah, yeah, yeah...what you can do is ummmmmm...make a flower. So this is like all the different 'You's'. There's many different You's, right, so many, yeah. So I...I...I...I'll choose a businessman. This is the...this entrepreneurial business type. And I like to wear nice shoes and I like...sometimes i go and sit in meetings and talk to MP's and stuff like that. Oh and then there's another bit of me, the Elfman, see, I was talking about it before - this little kid who wants to be a pixie, who's running around in the playground...or...or...or...ummmmm, I don't know, which one do you want to know about?

RAISA: They are all quite juicy.

DAN: The Underwater Baby.

RAISA: Yeah

DAN: Well I told you, that's my first memory.

RAISA: Did you?

DAN: The first memory of ummmm...falling into the pond, falling into the water. And I toppled into this pond and I was under the water and I have a really strong memory...a feeling of...wonderment feeling of...of not that there isn't any danger there, but it doesn't bother me, it's more like 'Wow! I'm floating and I'm under the water and I can see the things in the water and I can like...I don't know like a silverfish...like...and I can see a lot of tadpoles that are swimming around me and I'm just floating under the water and I'm really young, I'm two years old and I don't have any feeling of danger. And it's a very quiet place because you can't really speak because you're under the water, you have to hold your breath. And then I got rescued but I think that that experience has kept with me and I was born into water.

RAISA: Ok, ok, great.

DAN: My mother...

RAISA: That kind of makes...

DAN: But then you know you can take all these different selves and use them. They are kind of like masks. At least that thing that I did during this course, that I did on mask work, and he compared that each of your different selves is like a mask, that you can put on or take off, quite liberating in a way to think of it that way - it's just another aspect of yourself that you can use, you know what I mean? Rather than it being like you're a slave to it, that you are stuck in it, you're never stuck in life, so there's like so many faces to you and if you just maybe start to get to know them.