#MeToo: Ending the cycles of abuse

ReflectionsOn #MeToo
MarciaSinger

I’m a “MeToo,” surviving shaming and blaming cycles, suicidal depression, fear of telling, PTSDs. Recovery required years of in-depth psychological counsel (ShadowWork), emotional release bodywork, spiritual healing. The past 30 years, I’ve been helping deliver others from their injurious histories, towards fulfilling,response-able lifestyles –and educating about the roots of sexual predation in self-sabotaging societal mores.

Trump’s“grab ‘em” video exposure was excused as typical “alpha male” behavior by his sons, sans moral conscience-ness. While unbridled testosterone, drives for sex/access, power and dominant status may be genetic, we’re also an evolving species, aspiring to humane, loving relations. Fist shaking, name-calling, shocked outrage, punitive reactivity only go so far. Can #MeToo expand, embracing all parties as hostages of abusive events?

Healthy intimacy –like unhealthy predation –is multi-layered, involving many crucial elements. e.g. the roles of gender, child-rearing and adolescent sex education. Examples: the notion that it’s manly to aggressively dominate; womanly to please; or the taboo on feeling, admitting, allowing vulnerability. Many systemic protocols and ‘norms’disconnect and rob us of authentic intimate connections, and maintain a collectively low emotional IQ. Our familiar form of patriarchal education twists us unwittingly into being compliant and controlling counterparts.

Anger, fear, grief are understandable starting places; Will courage, heart, introspection, savvy activism find center stage, too? Activating sufficient gray matter to see beyond black/white, victims/victimizers innocent/guilty? Or will we stay stuck in the muck of knee-jerk reactivity? Smug religiosity, scarlet letter-style shunnings or a string-’im-up-’n- cut-off-his-balls mentality?

Realistically, few MeToos are ready to forgive; Many just want to forget. And exploitive sexual legacies are embedded, easy to excuse, take as givens. But we’re waking, too --getting savvier. We can acknowledge that when a serial perpetrator says “I’m sorry,” (s/)he also needs rehab to change that addictive behavior. --And we have viable skills, ideologies, behavioral sciences, healing modalities, spiritual guidance available to actualize our evolutionary potential for healthy, happy, more equitable, empowered relationships.

Will we intend response over reactivity? Adrenaline rushes are addictive, watching celebrities dramatically fall from towers. But I’m hoping for a wellspring of intent for change, and that #MeToo will be more than another flash in the pan that leaves us exposed to future onslaughts.

Marcia Singer, MSW, offers Love Arts Foundation programs in Santa Rosa, deep release bodywork, grief-relief counsel, mindful meditation training.