Today’s session was mostly about unpacking the two triggering events that happened whilst R was away. She seemed to have a sense that I needed to borrow her calm.

‘Right…I’m going to need you to move.’

‘From that “Right” I sense you know what you need.’

‘Maybe that much,’ I said, parting my fingers slightly.

‘A couple of things have happened, I may as well tell you about them in the order they occurred.’

‘OK.’

‘The theme for David’s current series is Reimagining Shame. That’s a topic I was very keen to hear him speak about.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘He said in January that he’d not spoken on the topic before, despite being asked. When he was leading an event in Costa Rica he passed a question about shame to his colleague who is a teacher in the Zen tradition.’

I explained that during the hour-long seminar David had mentioned shame and sexuality twice. The first time I flinched, the second time I swore.

TW for mention of suicide



‘Oh.’
‘I left after that, and I’ve decided that I can’t go back to that particular series.’

‘It’s good that you know what you need.’

‘The day after that happened, I had a board meeting, so I couldn’t respond in the way I really needed.’

‘What would you have wanted to do?’

‘I needed a day to just be, but instead I had a board meeting and then work on Tuesday. Since Steve died, that’s where I’ve found a lot of my spiritual and theological insight…not that David talks about it in those terms.’

‘It’s a form of…solace. It reminds me of the time you were watching that programme….A British version of something, and there was a trigger.’

‘Oh, Jeopardy.’
‘That was it.’

‘It’s difficult when you’ve found something good in there, and then you feel you have to stop. What are you left with?’

‘I left the session and felt physically unwell.’

‘Can you explain more about that? Was it your stomach?’

‘I felt it in my chest. Mum asked me how the session was, and I explained that it was hard.’

I continued ‘Then Monday happened.’

‘Monday?’

‘Monday was a training day with our outgoing Artistic Director. She’s supposed to be retiring, but I think she’s erring towards semi-retirement. Beforehand she’d asked us to think about a recommendation that we’d seen, read, heard or been to that we’d found inspiring.’

‘OK.’

‘There was another facilitator there who does interesting work getting kids to write about music. I was keen to have a proper conversation with him, until he made his book recommendation. He began to talk about a memoir in a graphic novel format, written by a comic book artist…I’ll say it like that, whose father was a closeted gay man, who ended up killing himself.’

‘What happened for you in that moment?’

‘I was stuck between the man who’d made the recommendation and a colleague who knows enough to know that would impact me but didn’t say anything. I think Anna twigged something was up with me because she then called a tea break. I wanted to talk to Jen about something, so I asked whether we could walk and talk. I then told her about something called playback theatre where participants can watch their experiences being acted out and then reflect on them.’

‘That sounds really interesting.’

‘Jen then began to talk about a book that was made into a musical, where the main character’s father was a gay man who killed himself by stepping in front of a bus.’

‘The same book? Surely there can’t be two.’

‘Exactly. I took a deep breath, and then Jen asked me whether I was OK.’
‘What did you say?’

‘I lost a friend to suicide in June 2021, two weeks after he came out as queer.’

I remarked that I didn’t think Jen knew what to say in that moment.

‘She said that we can never know when what we say is in the exact shape of a wound someone else is carrying.’

‘I like that.’

‘So do I – and she said that if I ever want to read the book and talk about it, she’d be open to that.’

‘No!’ R did a pretty good impression of my instinctive reaction.

‘The thing is, it’s made me feel awkward about interacting with Jen. I might have told her eventually, but not yet.’

‘Why not yet?’

‘I wanted to give her a chance to settle into her role.’

‘Did you tell her for her sake, or for you?’

‘For me.’

I explained that my Young Writers colleague had floated the idea of emailing when there’s a big trigger, to make other people aware.

‘You don’t like that.’

‘No, I don’t. I kind of feel like I should apologise to Jen.’

‘For telling her?’

‘Yes.’

R and I discussed the possibility of working out where that need comes from, and how I can potentially shift that.

Our breathing focused on releasing tension in my chest.

‘There’s no need to panic about your chest feeling tight, because we know that we can use the breath to loosen that.’

When we’d finished breathing, R asked how I felt.

‘You look really relaxed – I wondered whether you were going to fall asleep.’

‘I feel more relaxed than I have in the last couple of weeks.’

R reassured me that she doesn’t plan to take time off over Easter.