Tasting much sweeter than wine

Liverpool, Manchester Utd and Chelsea are all through to the final stages of the Champions league. Arsenal, thankfully, are not.

I have missed both nights of European football this week. Last night, I was working with eight angry men who abuse women both emotionally and physically. During the mid-time break, we all listened to the half-time scores.

It is an interesting dynamic.

Firstly, I have a proper programme to deliver. It’s not nampy pampy and it’s well serious. I aim to be a positive role model that tries to manage the delicate balance of Care and Control, with these men.

Think about it, if one wanted to evoke the idea of change in a person, the first thing one needs to do is enable them to understand what’s in it for them. Secondly, there’s the whole issue of domestic abuse by men on women being a massive example of self-defeating behaviour. And, they need a bloody good talking too as well. Skills required are obvious and a very thick skin is also called for.

We all want Mazlo in our lives, don’t we? So to control, bully and intimidate the woman you live with to try, somehow, to make her behave in a way you want is not only shit behaviour, but also it simply does not work. Or, at least, you don’t actually get what you want from these sorts of actions.

Love, trust, intimacy, respect……all gone in a puff of smoke.

When a man bully’s a woman, the first thing to disappear in that relationship is trust. With trust gone, Mazlo et al departs on the 5.30 to Paddington shortly after.
Football scores at half time, therefore, seek to lighten the moment for a brief few seconds before we return to the working room, the atmosphere of which is always charged with that same old secondary emotion Anger; closely backed up “Justice for me”, humiliation, frustration, anxiety, worry, fear and a sense of being trapped.

I say to them “Think about this idea? There are two head states we can proceed with from here”

Head state one
“Her feelings-my behaviour”
Head state two
“My feelings-her behaviour”

Head state one is likely to lesson the chances of abuse.
Head state two is likely to increase significantly the chances of abuse.

The men look at me with varying degrees of understanding and try to decide if they can possibly open up to a 56 year-old hippy with a ponytail who invariably challenges them as they’ve never been challenged before.

The night before last, Chelsea and Liverpool went through on the nod; my evening was taken over by an altogether more attractive and serious encounter with Pip.

We talked, we played music, we ate pizza, we drank wine, we smoked a pipe of peace and we made love beautifully. And then, we did it all again. I am filled up by her.

On such variations, contrasts and symphonies are a life made.

Head state one is everything.

JVIP