the big room cic
  • the art of living
    • eldership in the community
    • authentic artist
    • screenings
  • about
    • beginnings
    • the space
      • enquire
    • ethos
    • funding
  • blog
  • gallery
  • the art of living
    • eldership in the community
    • authentic artist
    • screenings
  • about
    • beginnings
    • the space
      • enquire
    • ethos
    • funding
  • blog
  • gallery
Search

Communities need thinkers like me...

27/3/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
My son ran into the front room to tell the adults who were looking after him that a helicopter had landed in the garden. He was excited, he wanted them to come and see. He was 6 years old.

Knowing that children are prone to fantasy and that helicopters did not land in gardens - certainly not theirs - they did not share his excitement. Knowing what they knew… meant they didn’t have to look.

At some point in our lives most of us have experienced what it is like not to be believed. Having our experience invalidated and with it a sense of who we are is painful. A moment of excommunication which can only be lifted by denying our experience and falling into line with the mainstream consensus reality. When those moments run into countless moments the result is confusion, doubt and an intolerable sense of pain.


Picture
In her recently published book, the comedian, Hannah Gadsby recounts what it was like growing up in a world that insisted that what she was experiencing wasn’t what she was experiencing. In speaking about her neurodiversity in an article in the Guardian  Gadsby writes, ‘It was difficult to believe that I wasn’t entirely to blame for my life being such a painful struggle, because I was so used to assuming I was a bad person.’

But perhaps the most telling line in the article in reference to her ‘difference,’ is the last, ‘…but I wouldn’t change it for the world, because I believe communities need thinkers like me.’

The adults looking after my son never did see the helicopter in the back garden. Perhaps if they had their world and ours would be the richer for it.

Read Hannah Gadsby's article

0 Comments

    Author

    These posts are written and curated by Hayley and Owen, founding members of the big room cic.

    Archives

    May 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    June 2020
    February 2020
    October 2019

    Categories

    All
    Anger
    Big Room
    Community Building
    Deep Democracy
    Eldership
    Eldership In The Community
    Emergence Foundation
    Followership
    Gaia
    Gary Reiss
    Goddess Ge
    Hannah Gadsby
    Immigration
    Ingrid Rose
    Launch Event
    Laura Shannon
    Leadership
    Letters
    LGBT
    Milan Bijelic
    Neurodiversity
    Opening Event
    Pandora
    Pilot Programme
    Post-war Reconciliation
    Process Oriented Psychology
    Processwork
    Rank And Power
    Seeing The Other In Us
    Sitting In The Fire

    RSS Feed

the big room cic | reg 12009089 | reg in england & wales | registered office:  wood street mill, 45 pickford street, macclesfield, cheshire, sk11 6hb
hello@thebigroom.org
designed by the big room cic © copyright  2019. all rights reserved.
privacy statement
map
  • the art of living
    • eldership in the community
    • authentic artist
    • screenings
  • about
    • beginnings
    • the space
      • enquire
    • ethos
    • funding
  • blog
  • gallery