Learning to be in Groups Again

1 Comment » // July 23rd, 2009

I met with my writing group last night for a wonderful dinner (and a surprise wedding shower for one of our members) at Kit’s Beach here in Vancouver. This writing group that I belong to now is new to me – we began meeting in January of this year. But getting together with these ladies reminded me of the first writing group I joined back in 2001, which was very early on in my cult recovery.

I was asked to join that first group by a woman I knew through my home-based business. She knew I loved to write and she wanted to gather a group of like-minded women together to talk about writing and to support one another with whatever writing projects we were working on. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

I was a nervous wreck at every meeting for probably the first 18 months. These women were kind and generous and thoughtful and authentic and beautiful in every way. Yet I was scared out of my wits just being in a room with five other people. My cult experience had embedded in me a deep fear of and reaction to any sized group that was gathered to talk about a topic. I had been indoctrinated in the cult I was involved in to believe that I had to agree with whatever everyone else said and had to respond favorably to every idea and every suggestion and couldn’t have thoughts or ideas of my own. I expected that these writing women would take over my life and insist I do things I didn’t want to do.

Of course they didn’t. And they may not even have been aware of my discomfort. Gradually, as I healed, I began to feel comfortable in this small group that gathered in living rooms once a month. By being involved with what turned out to be a very safe and nurturing group of women I was able to begin to get a sense of who I was and how I might express my own thoughts and ideas, even when they disagreed with those of others in the room.

Fast forward to 2009 and my experience with my new writing group. I am a different person than I was back in 2001. I have learned so much about who I am and what it means to be healthy and whole and much of that discovery has been made through writing (I also recommend lots of therapy). I am confident and relaxed when I meet with my new writing group now, and that is thanks to those early days with what we called The Author’s Circle. I am very grateful to all the women writers I’ve had the pleasure to know and for their unwitting contribution to my healing.