I had written and performed three solo shows when I decided to
offer a workshop for woman who
wanted to write and perform 10 minute mini-solo shows. From there I began to
develop curriculum to offer to people living with cancer, both patients, and
their family members. After the Cancer Monologues I realized that this process
was actually Universal. Every person has a story. No one escapes the experience
of humanity which brings with it pain, loss, grief as well as opportunities to
meet the challenges and overcome the obstacles. In this human movement of being
presented with a challenge and meeting it fully, we come to be more and more
comfortable with the process of living. We learn to embrace the present moment
more fully, slow down and savor the moments of our life and trust that all will
be well, no matter what obstacle we are facing either internally or externally.
We come to know that there is something bigger than any challenge we are faced
with. That is the human spirit. We move from the human obstacle into an
awareness of the larger playground of Soul. When we claim the gifts held in the
realm of Soul we are able to re-frame our experience as a necessary movement
away from the temporal to the unmoving, unchanging domain of the eternal. Our
stories have deep meaning as we examine them and share them through this lens.
This is where we are able to see ourselves and the pain and gifts from our
lives as compost to claim ourselves as Hero’s headed home “trailing clouds of
glory from which we came”. The process, as a Universal one has been used
effectively with people living with cancer, Hospice caregivers, The HIV and
AIDS community, veterans suffering from PTSD, Palestinian and Israel
communities of teen-agers who live in fear and have experienced varying degrees
of trauma, people experiencing divorce, new mothers sharing their birth
stories, mothers who experienced the death of a child, people who have been
adopted, members of the National Alliance of Mental Illness…both those
suffering mental illness and family members, sexual abuse survivors. The only
necessary component for the
process to work is for the participants stay through the entire experience and
work with-in the structure. There are important reasons for the structure and
the way it is laid out from start to finish. There are tools for the
facilitators to utilize for participants experiencing resistance. We will get
into these later because resistance will arise for some people as they write
about their often painful or traumatic experiences. It is actually very
important that they be led through the entire process with the necessary facilitator support once it is embarked
upon. Otherwise, it has the potential to do harm which must be avoided at all
cost. If the deeper issues get
activated in the writing without the experience of re-framing that happens when
one shares the monologue onstage, it can be psychologically damaging. The
facilitator needs to have strong boundaries and inner strength to guide people
through even when their resistance or even anger arises and gets projected onto
the facilitator.
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