I never want to hurt anyone

What I'm learning inside of Creature den

I’m going to write one thing, and then I’m going to be done.

I was writing something last week about my friends being brilliant, and that it hurts. I will eventually release it, but it’s not ready yet. I want to talk to all of my friends before I share it. I want to share all of it, including why it hurts isn’t just yearning; it’s watching patterns repeat themselves that I know they can see. I know, because I call them out. It’s usually because something they’ve said stings. I am really sensitive to tone. I ask, “Why do you do this?” And they most often have a reason ready, maybe a slight pause, before saying something along the lines of, “It’s what I’ve always done. It’s what I do.” ← To me, this isn’t an answer to harmful behaviour, and that means more conversations. I’m not a therapist; I’m not a dumping ground.

I don’t believe someone’s behaviour is the person. I don’t believe behaviour is excusable, either. Mental health, upbringing, culture, gender, societal norms, etc. don’t excuse it either, but it might explain the root. I don’t blame roots; they’re most often planted in ignorance. I know mine were, and the things I can’t see are too.

That’s what ignorance is: unknowing. You cannot know what you don’t know. It’s impossible. Until someone says something, or teaches you, you cannot know it.

My language cult talks about this consistently. The first thing they draw, on the first day, is a big circle on a whiteboard. They say, “Imagine this is everything you can know in the world. All knowledge.” Which in itself is pretty unfathomable. In fact, it IS unfathomable.

Then they cut out a small pie piece and add, “And let’s say this is what you know. These are things you know. They’re the things you can do well, or just fine; it doesn’t matter, but these are the things you know you know.”

Beside that, they draw a larger pie piece. This represents the things you know you don’t know. This is where they ask for examples, such as:

• I know I don’t know how to perform a colonoscopy on you, dear reader.

• I also know I don’t know how to fly a plane.

These are things I know other people know. I know people who know how to do these things.

Things can move from the I know I don’t know to the I know I know it category through education, learning, being taught. It can also happen through conversation.

Then, here comes the real banger: if your blood pressure is a little high because you’re in a language development cult but you don’t know it (yet), or you do, and you’re amped to be in a hot, corporate-looking, fluorescent room with five hundred other people of all textures, then prepare yourselves.

They drop:

“Who can name something they don’t know they don’t know?”

A few proud hands go up, and the leader just looks balefully at their raised digits until it starts to dawn on them, slowly, and their hands slink back into their chairs with the questionable stain marks. PS. If you’re going to run a language development cult, choose black fabric; it hides the most.

(Fun fact: I got my period on one of them once. Whoops. A byproduct of feeling like an asshole for leaving the room mid-conversation, yet still my responsibility. This is important to note for later.)

The thing is, you cannot know what you don’t know. This is called a blind spot. And this was the first time I’d ever heard of this idea, back in 2016.

Blind spots aren’t only prejudice; what I’ve come to understand in the ten years, seventy-seven days since I learned this distinction is that they’re a lack of exposure. An unknowing. Basically, they’re ignorance.

I don’t blame people for ignorance. Again, it’s what you’re exposed to.

And sometimes exposure feels like a razor blade to self-identity, to fucking SELF.

“I am a good person.” I know that; I’m not doubting it. I have had a lot of people say this to me in my life. Mostly in response to me saying behaviour was harmful. I am clear about my needs, I am clear about what hurts, and I am clear about what I need when harmful behaviour occurs.

To me, behaviour is the number one indicator of whether someone’s words (and therefore their intentions) are true. And truth really fucking matters to me. I am strange; I trust people until proven not to. I trust people and forgive easily. I am very open. Even when people tell me not to trust them. I can’t NOT trust now first.

When I was younger, I struggled with this. I didn’t trust anyone immediately. I was very quiet because my household showed me that my loud led to ridicule, exclusion, and/or abandonment.

The only way to lose trust with me now is to lose it. However, it’s not lost forever.

Intention.

This is where I struggle with trust. This is where I’ve been called naive or dumb in the past. I have been manipulated before, throughout my life. Mostly, I think it’s because my intentions are never to harm anyone, so when I find out someone did, it’s like an invisible knife wound. That’s when trust is lost with me.

Watch my face when someone says that something I’ve said hurt them. That’s never my intent, and yet, it doesn’t matter; it doesn’t matter to the other person what my intention was. That’s fair, of course.

My responsibility is with how my words land, even if my intention is not to hurt.

Now, this is not a one-person show in a conversation or a relationship.

The space between two people creates a room.

Inside my theory, a room is where two Creatures come together to have conversations. Creature den is my public room. I’ll share more about this inside my book, but for now, all you really need to know is that a conversation can really only happen if three things line up:

1. Attention.

2. Presence.

3. Care.

Miss an ingredient? You’ll be talking at someone, or they’ll be talking at you. Or neither will be talking at all.

The greatest gift you can give someone is your presence.

Not your “full presence”, but your presence. There is no such thing as giving someone half of your presence. Your attention, which is a wild thing when it touches Presence, because it feels like a laser beam, and care, combine to create conversation. When one goes out, the conversation wobbles.

You cannot have all three with different people and have it remain the same conversation. I believe that because I’ve experienced it multiple times, and the more I do this work, my work, the more intense it becomes.

What was I talking about again?

Ah, yes, intent. Hmm. See? I get so into this work because it means everything to me. It means freedom, it means vitality, it means aliveness. It means anything is possible in conversation. My head flits from me, and who I’m with, to my friends, my family, and the world. I believe anything is possible in conversation. This feeling is what I was searching for when I started taking programs at the language development cult. I was an entirely different person, swimming inside of that body, waiting to break free.

My Creature was beneath the surface, waiting for experiences and exposures I hadn’t yet had. I could not be here today, sharing this with you or anyone, had I not lived the last thirty-five years or the last few months, in particular.

Now that I’ve felt my Presence alone and in relation to others, again and again, I’ve recognized a few things about this feeling:

1. I have never felt like this in my life

2. This feeling is self-generated

3. It isn’t enlightenment, even when it’s chill or wacky, or wild

4. It is contagious, but cannot be contained in a bottle or package

5. It can’t be learned without being experienced (even this writing isn’t the same thing as sitting in a room together); even my voice (in the voice recording) isn’t the same thing

6. I’m still waiting to be met and understood

Every person who I speak to inside of Creature den opens up new doorways. A couple of my friends have said it reminds them of being on acid or getting high on THC. I can’t speak to the acid comment; I’ve never had it. All I can say is I like to play, but regarding THC, I can feel that. I can watch their bodies shift, their minds slow, their smiles change into something more relaxed. It feels like I’m looking into a mirror, but watching their Presence relax or rest. For some, they get playful or silly. Or it’s a combination.

This is one side of me; this is my care. It often comes out as play that doesn’t leave agitation. I never want to play something that gives someone anxiety. I do my best to honour that while still being me. For example, some of my friends don’t like when I fuck around with filters inside of Creature den, so I try to find a happy medium.

I was asked yesterday if it was necessary for me to use filters, and for a while, yes. I did need an avatar. Then that same friend, in that same first conversation, made me feel comfortable enough to be on camera, and from there it’s been a steady cascade of me-ness exploding outwards. The filters now are just for play.

“What’s wrong?”

Last night I painted a green moustache and pink eyebrows on because we went live on Substack without my Zoom hook-up. One day I’ll figure out how to do my shit properly. That day is today for v.1.0.

*Disclaimer: Listen, if I say you can’t hang, it’s only because I’m creating a space that is safe for anyone to show up as anything that they are. If you’re going to be judgmental, you can literally gtfo.
I don’t care who you are.

Over the last month, I’ve had some really mind-opening conversations, and I think this is where I’m going to leave this article.

There will be so much more to come, and right now, I am organizing how to share more of Creature den and how you can be a part of it.

If you’re curious, subscribe to Creature den, check out my Benders in Review, read my posts, share with your friends or keep it to yourself as a naughty little treat that you’re still trying to figure out.

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The last thing I want to mention is regarding responsibility.

Inside the language and development cult, integrity and responsibility were huge factors in the conversations and programs. Integrity doesn’t have morality attached to it, in their view. I agree. You can’t be in integrity if you’re judging. This is a really fine line, because who determines what judgement is and isn’t?

I didn’t grow up religious in any sense, so for me, morality is mostly self-led based on how I want to treat others and how I want to be treated. I also took a lot of how I treat people from how my dad treated me. He wasn’t perfect, but he was my safe role model and my safe male role model. A lot of people would say he was an asshole. I’d agree.

I never want to harm anyone. I am also not responsible for how someone behaves in reaction to feeling hurt. This is really tricky, because often hurt and harm are braided together, when I see them as being separate.

Hurts can happen unintentionally and can be repaired.

To me, harm is intentional. It’s willingly saying or doing something, or knowing that something said was harmful, and not repairing it or making excuses for it.

Again, I don’t believe mental health, culture, society, gender, societal norms, etc. excuse harmful behaviour. My responsibility is to try and be inside of other people’s worlds even if I don’t have the same exposure or experiences, without making it about myself.

I wasn’t always able to do this, and I protect myself from people who won’t have these conversations. I am not broken. You are not broken. I would never call someone broken. To me, that is harmful behaviour.

My responsibility is to ensure I am safe, that my daughter is safe, that I am not causing harm, and that, if I hurt someone and I know I did, even unintentionally, if they tell me, I apologize and repair. I never want to hurt anyone.

My friends are brilliant, and it hurts.

Much more to come.

xo,
Mel

PS.

Communication is personal. Communication is a point of view, which is usually dictated by experience and exposure, which means there can be blind spots in it. There are.

Conversation is different; conversation must remain curious. As soon as it loses curiosity, it dies. There can be no relation without curiosity, reciprocity, and repair.

Not perfection, just being willing to have conversations.