Something My Brain Made:

A closed-eye exercise for my Paper Storms students.

The thing is I never saw myself in this position: standing bare-faced in front of a group of teenage girls spilling my guts, standing transparent in my life so far and how I got here. It’s brutally honest the looks you get. Some of confusion. Fear. Some of understanding. Most of the realization that they aren’t alone. Adults were teenagers once and here’s proof.

Last year marked our flagship course in June 2015 after months, well, years of second guessing. Worries about whether it would catch on. Whether I’m the person to lead this mission. When trying to deliver content for the ever-changing curriculum, I wrote something for the 4th “storm”, what we call our sessions.

A closed eye exercise takes from the concept of an empty chair dialogue wherein you pour out all you need to say into an empty space, be it a chair, bench, room, etc. This exercise entails listening to instructions and visualizing everything being heard. It’s used as a therapeutic tool to help ease the leftover and/or fresh thoughts that crash in after trauma.

Here’s what came to me:

What’s the saddest thing to ever happen to you? Write it out - get it out of your system. That ugly, sucky, tragic, painful, embarrassing, unfair, awful thing that happened to you. Place no blame. We are looking at what happened; not what or who caused it.

Now, close your eyes.
Imagine that event standing right in front of you, eye to eye. Notice the colors it radiates, the smell, temperature of the room, what you’re wearing, the look on your face. Are you hot? Cold? How does your hair look? What are you doing with your hands? Are they balled into fists in fight-or-flight mode or do they lay flat at your sides?

Come back on your eyes. Do they stare down the beast or look away in fear?

Right now in this moment, gather all of your strength to stare it down. Feel your face tighten, the muscles in your neck and forehead tense, your ears grow hot. With all the strength you possess, crack it with your eyes. Watch it shatter, piece by piece. Holes begin to fill this event - light starts to break through.

Then suddenly…. it’s decimated. Destroyed, leaving nothing but fire and rubble at your feet.

Now you’re met with the brightest light you’ve even seen. Brighter than the sun, even. So bright, you begin to shield your eyes but somehow they adjust to the light’s strength. Now you see better than you ever have before.

Now realize that that light shining back… is you.

I read it out loud for the first time and watched my students’ eyes dance behind their lids. They fought things during those moments. When they opened their eyes, they saw differently. They looked around the room at every other girl and smiled, laughed, wondering what she saw. It’s really something to witness and from the fear comes honor. Honored to teach this course. Honored to be a transparent lightning rod of sorts. Honestly, just honored to be in their presence. Because they fight just as much and oftentimes more than we could imagine.

Find out more about Paper Storms at joiunspeakable.com/paper-storms