My clients reflect parts of me. lethargy. Parts, I do not want to admit. disenfrancisement. For every Bodyscapes session, a client arrives with three words. The first word lists her/his physical or emotional diagnosis. The second word lists where this illness/ feeling resides in her body. The third word describes how he/she feels about living with the first two words. In session, working the Bodyscapes Process, I read the definitions to the first word out loud.
I read the definition to the word, lethargy. I groaned, thinking, “The story of my life.” My client asked me to read the definition for a new word. Apathy lead to impassiveness, spiritless, stoic and destitute of emotion. I had to hide my uncomfortability. I read more definitions. I groaned more. All the words, torrid, slow to respond, and slow to heal, had personal meaning to both my client and me.
My client’s second word, adrenal glands was a relief. (The liver is still my organ of choice. ) But, the next word made me curious. I was not sure I even knew the exact meaning. My client chose the word, disenfranchisement, to describe her feelings of living with lethargy in her adrenal glands. Disenfrancisment produced a flurry of other words and definitions, tumbling out of the dictionary onto my client’s list. She passed into a deeper ability to do this work when her paper filled with words. She could not write down all the definitions fast enough. Everyone had meaning. Disenfrancised brought deprived of a legal right or privilege. Deprived = to remove, to take something away, to withhold. Privilege = a right granted as a particular benefit attached to a specific position. Daughter = a specific belonging to a group greif=deep and poignant distress.
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