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Publication
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Conflict Facilitation and Organizational Change at the Process Work Institute, Portland, Oregon, 2012
Local notes
http://www.processwork.org/files/Finalprojects/Shirk_A_December_2012.pdf
Introduction
The dreaming body requires more than wellness; it wants challenge, risk, personal power, and freedom. Even more than this, the body must seek danger in order to become itself.... The body loves terror and darkness and gains personal power from these elements. (Mindell 1993, page 153)
Seven years ago when I found myself on a cold steel table in the hospital’s coronary
care unit, I was confronted by the question: do I choose to live or do I choose to die? That as a literal, consensus reality, no-‐kidding physical confrontation. It shook me to my roots, and had me examine my level of commitment to living a vital and healthy life. In the years since that time I have stabilized my physical health and been proactive in creating an extraordinary personal and professional life that has been fulfilling beyond what I imagined possible. In recent years, the same question has returned on both physical and existential levels. A growing and pervasive restlessness has emerged, along with the question–do I truly want to live? Or, do I want to die?On a personal level I have been confronted by the challenges of sustaining and deepening a marriage that is trusting, intimate, and loving. On a professional level, while my work in the field of human development has expanded beyond what I thought possible, a nagging sense of is this all there is? had left me disillusioned. A thread of despair and disillusionment began to pervade my consensus reality existence alongside a deepening desire for the “freedom” that I sense becomes available in another realm of consciousness, perhaps attainable through death. And so, this project was about dying -‐-‐-‐ about choosing the death of old ways of being and living in the world, and birthing and nurturing the growth of a new ways of being in the world. Although at the outset I had a sense of what I want to accomplish and defined a set of learning objectives... it was an unknown path into unchartered territory. The project has been both personal and professional – it is a personal quest that cannot help but inform who I am as a practitioner.
Introduction
The dreaming body requires more than wellness; it wants challenge, risk, personal power, and freedom. Even more than this, the body must seek danger in order to become itself.... The body loves terror and darkness and gains personal power from these elements. (Mindell 1993, page 153)
Seven years ago when I found myself on a cold steel table in the hospital’s coronary
care unit, I was confronted by the question: do I choose to live or do I choose to die? That as a literal, consensus reality, no-‐kidding physical confrontation. It shook me to my roots, and had me examine my level of commitment to living a vital and healthy life. In the years since that time I have stabilized my physical health and been proactive in creating an extraordinary personal and professional life that has been fulfilling beyond what I imagined possible. In recent years, the same question has returned on both physical and existential levels. A growing and pervasive restlessness has emerged, along with the question–do I truly want to live? Or, do I want to die?On a personal level I have been confronted by the challenges of sustaining and deepening a marriage that is trusting, intimate, and loving. On a professional level, while my work in the field of human development has expanded beyond what I thought possible, a nagging sense of is this all there is? had left me disillusioned. A thread of despair and disillusionment began to pervade my consensus reality existence alongside a deepening desire for the “freedom” that I sense becomes available in another realm of consciousness, perhaps attainable through death. And so, this project was about dying -‐-‐-‐ about choosing the death of old ways of being and living in the world, and birthing and nurturing the growth of a new ways of being in the world. Although at the outset I had a sense of what I want to accomplish and defined a set of learning objectives... it was an unknown path into unchartered territory. The project has been both personal and professional – it is a personal quest that cannot help but inform who I am as a practitioner.