The First Conscious Indications

The most wonderful compliment I’ve ever received came from a college professor. I was 21, and had just moved into a tiny apartment with my new cat, Prana, after the dissolution of a three year live-in relationship. Though surrounded and loved by good friends, the break-up had severely rocked my confidence, my perception of who I was. I elected to hide out over the Winter Break, traveling home to my family for only Christmas Eve and Day and then returning back to my apartment. I’d enrolled in an intense graduate level course held during the recess to justify my choice of such a short visit home. It was just…easier than answering their questions.

The class was Group Facilitation, and, despite the intensity of the shortened, and therefore jam-packed demand of its curriculum, it was the best course I ever took, and, I discovered later, just what I needed to heal the wounds of my broken spirit and move on with my life. The coursework, surprisingly, wasn’t difficult, there wasn’t even a text. Our professor, Dr. Gold, clad most days in scrubby jeans, a worn flannel shirt and work boots, sat at a student desk and delivered lectures that seemed more like open dialogue. Articles and worksheets became the focus of our attention, and dynamic group discussion occupied the bulk of our time. I never took one note. More than a decade later I still have every one of my text and notebooks from every class I attended in college. Yet there is no trace of this course.

Except what’s been imprinted upon my memory.

I can’t even tell you what we learned about group facilitation. It wasn’t a How-To course. At the time, I wasn’t sure that I was even learning anything valuable at all. We read articles, discussed topics, role played scenarios. The final project was to successfully lead the class in an involved, organized activity in which most participants would find themselves on unfamiliar ground. I still don’t know how he got us there, to the end of that course. But Dr. Gold wasn’t teaching a class. I realize now that he was doing what we were supposed to be learning. He was facilitating a group. And, somehow, it worked. Each of us left the three weeks completely confident in our ability to lead a group, any group, through almost any processed event. The final projects were incredible. The group participated in all manner of activities, ranging from creatively solving economic problems to corporate trust building through personal risk taking. Most of my classmates were graduate students, majoring in Business or Human Resource Management, and so the projects reflected their studies and interests. I was the only undergrad, the only Psychology major. My final project led the group through a guided meditation and visualization. Something I had never done, and would never have been brave enough to do had it not been for that one compliment.

It came during the second week of class. We were role-playing. One half the class, the “warm-fuzzy” group was to represent members of corporations from cultures that are accustomed to less personal space between bodies, to physical contact even amongst strangers. The other half, the “cold prickly” group, was to represent a culture more like our own in the United States, keeping a distance from others, offering only brief handshakes. In the scenario, the two groups were to meet, as though for the first time, and make introductions according to the assigned cultures. Each member of both groups was to try to make contact with everyone in the other before the end of the activity, in about 30 minutes, when we were to return to our seats to discuss the experience. How was it for the members of the warm fuzzy group to break away from their Americanized mannerisms and step into such a foreign role? How difficult was it to keep the cold prickly group holding hands for longer than 5 seconds during a handshake? How did the cold prickly group maintain a level of comfort in such a situation?

I had been placed in the warm fuzzy group. For much of the course thus far, I had been a quiet student. Atypical of my personality in general, but, at the time, I was still battling with my personal demons, fighting to recover my sense of self worth and confidence. So that day I sat at my desk and listened as my peers shared their experiences and noticed, almost subconsciously, a marked difference in the mood of the group. Everyone was more…relaxed, I suppose you could say. There was a calm that permeated the circle of desks, where usually there was an air of intense and serious debate. Again it was a subtle awareness, and it would have completely passed me by if the conversation hadn’t taken the turn it did. About the fourth student to comment on the experience was John, a tall, husky, normally outspoken and tightly wound individual who seemed to love arguing for its own sake. He raised his hand, more hesitantly, I noticed, than he had done in previous discussions, and paused before speaking. He looked quickly in my direction, and then looked at his hands as he said, “I don’t like people touching me. I hate to even shake hands with people. Having to participate in the cold prickly group was not a stretch for me. I use personal space as a defense to keep people at a distance. It’s one of the reasons my relationships never last, I’m sure.” The class watched as John seemed to force himself to go on, still staring at his hands. John, as I said, loved to argue and debate, but opening himself up to the judgment and critique of others was obviously not comfortable. We waited patiently for him to continue. After a brief moment and a big preparatory sigh, he said, “I shook hands with four people before meeting Kathleen. In all honestly I don’t think I even realized she was in this class. She’s so small, and rarely speaks. So when I turned around and almost trampled over her I wasn’t prepared for what happened. She smiled, stuck out her hand and said, “Hi, I’m Kathleen and it’s really nice to meet you”. She kept her eyes locked on mine, and I didn’t even notice that my hand had reached out to shake hers, and by the time I’d told her my name and apologized for almost knocking her down I realized that my hand was still in both her hers. We were no longer shaking them, just, standing there, together, inches apart with Kathleen cradling my hand in hers. She just kept smiling and looking into my eyes, and standing there like that with her seemed like the most natural thing in the world.”

The rest class was now no longer looking at John as he spoke, but rather their gazes were fixed upon me. Suddenly self-conscious I forced a shy smile and tried to find something to say in response. Before either John or I could break the silence of the room another voice sounded. It was Marlena’s. Marlena was a lovely young woman who I’d often wished to speak with. Beautiful, intelligent, an eloquent speaker, but somewhat aloof from the rest of the group. I’d noticed several times that whenever she spoke to the group as a whole she avoided eye contact with everyone, but instead scanned the space just above our heads. This time, though, as she addressed us, her eyes were locked onto mine.

“I felt it too,” she said. “Kathleen was the first person I met with, and when we shook hands she had to sort of bend forward to catch my eye. It sounds weird, but making eye contact with people is something I’m not comfortable with. Windows to the soul and all that. But she did make contact, and when it happened everything I ever feared would happen in that case happened. She smiled, introduced herself and I felt her stare…it was like she was looking past my eyes and deep inside me. I felt a little naked, exposed, and for just a second I was petrified at what she might see.” Everyone else continued to watch me, and I felt my face beginning to warm. I was so sad, so sorry that I’d made Marlena feel uncomfortable. But she went on. “But it only lasted a brief moment. She held her gaze and suddenly I knew that she could see me, the real me, and she was so sweet, so warm, and all my fears melted away. I found myself looking back into her eyes, and holding her hand and laughing as though we were long lost friends reconnecting. It was…” Marlena smiled at me, searching for the adjective to describe her experience, when another student finished her sentence.

“Powerful,” said Andy, an Economics major who typically sat across from me during lectures. “I’m a pretty friendly guy, and don’t have any issues with personal space or eye contact. But when Kathleen looked into my eyes and grasped my hand with both of hers I felt…like a surge of energy. I came to class today tired with the beginnings of a migraine headache. When Kathleen and I met and shook hands there was this…I don’t know, an electric rush that went through me, like my spine was suddenly charged and it radiated out through the rest of me…it was only maybe 20 seconds that we were talking, but when she walked away my headache was gone and I felt awake and energized”.

At this point I think nothing would have made me happier than to disappear, fade away into nothingness. I was slightly mortified, as one after another the rest of the cold prickly group began relating some strange but good experience when interacting with me. By the time the last student finished speaking I was sure my face would burn right off the front of my head, and I’d sat on my hands to hide their shaking. Which didn’t really work, it just transferred the motion to the rest of my body. All eyes were on me, and I had no other place to look but the floor. I was sure I was going to cry. The silence and the stares seemed to last hours. Days. My brain worked furiously to find some witty, self effacing way to respond. Some comment that would make everyone more comfortable. But…they were comfortable. It was only me in the hot seat.

Finally Dr. Gold broke in. Leaning back in his chair and pointing his pen at me, smiling that smile of someone who knows something no one else does and is about to share the happy secret, “Yeah”, he said, as though he were about to comment on the weather forecast for later that afternoon, “Kathleen is powerful. If she were a massage therapist she’d have to work really hard to channel her energy or her patients would spontaneously combust under her touch”. The class laughed. I laughed and continued to blush. “So, Kathleen,” Dr. Gold said, “What were your experiences in the exercise?” Everyone looked at me with expectation, waiting for me to say that I’d felt the same things they’d felt, say something full of a wisdom they didn’t have. But I had nothing. I’d been perfectly comfortable playing my part in the warm fuzzy group. I smiled, shook hands, exchanged brief, friendly words, and completed the activity. Embarrassed, afraid to disappoint anyone, I said just that, and apologized. “Sorry for what?”, asked Dr. Gold, “for being special?” Immediately I shook my head, waving my hands frantically in opposition and starting to argue that I wasn’t anything special. But he went on. “Yes you are, Kathleen, and you don’t even know it. You have a gift. Your energy is contagious and healing. You made everyone in the cold prickly group comfortable and relaxed where before they were anxious and tense. Your mere touch, just your glance, brought them peace. It’s no surprise that you didn’t feel it, they don’t have the power. You do, and it works one way. Didn’t you know you were a healer?”