Finding the Courage to Grow By Kimberly Ruggiero, MA
“Wholeness for humans depends on their ability to own their own shadow.” -Carl Jung
I
have always been serious minded and practical. People who know me might say I’m conservative, conventional or
downright square. Growing up in Catholic school, studying science in college, and working a corporate job prepared me for a stable course, and I didn’t stray far from it. That’s why it shocked my family a few months ago when I announced I was going to a festival in the Nevada desert called “Burning Man”.
“You are a 54-year-old suburban mom for God’s sake!”
“There will be drugs and sex.” “People are naked!” “That’s not who you are!”
It’s all true. There are drugs and sex at
this crazy festival of radical inclusion and self-expression. Some people are naked but most wear costumes. There is also a leave no trace policy, no consumerism and a ma- jor emphasis on community participation including gifting without expectation.
Burning Man is an experiment in human consciousness; a pop-up city of 70,000 representing all ages and all coun- tries. People respect and care for each other like family, but they have to be self-reliant. Burning Man is like going to the moon for a week and bringing everything you need to survive in sweltering heat or freezing cold temperatures. It offers the good, bad and ugly things in life, right there for the taking. Being the sturdy New Englander I am, I almost didn’t go. It turned out to be both terrifying and the most mind-expanding experience of my life.
But let’s be real. I’m not a big fan of sleeping in a tent or using a Port-a-Potty. Af- ter two and a half decades of marriage and child rearing, trust me, I had built a pretty comfortable zone. But several years ago, after turning 50, I couldn’t deny the part of me that needed to grow and challenge hardened beliefs about the way the world worked. I began a mission to do things outside my comfort zone. I went back to school, trained in Consciousness Studies and started asking the Big Question: Who am I really? I had to push to my edges and experiment.
I’d like to say it was easy; that trying
new things was effortless, but the fact was I had serious work to do. A painful chronic illness in my early forties had taken a toll on my confidence. I eventually conquered the disease but I was always worried about my limitations. One thing I took away from that time was a little tool I found to handle disabling pain; mindfulness meditation.
If I had not learned to work with my fear and deal with my insides all those years ago, I might still be that serious minded, practical (and afraid) person. I’d just be older. Certainly, I would NEVER have considered going to “Burning Man”.
Admittedly, I did stay in a sober camp and did not take drugs or go naked, but I was able to overcome my resistance to being in such a harsh, foreign environment, with people seemingly out of the Star Wars Cantina Bar and I even pulled together some weird costumes to participate. I al- lowed myself to be the kind of woman who would go to “Burning Man”.
So, what did I learn about myself? In
working with a recent mindfulness medi- tation class, I had my first-time students remain silent for two minutes and then give feedback on the experience. Here are some comments:
“Uncomfortable.” “Couldn’t sit still.” “Coming out of my skin.”
There is clearly difficulty in simply being. Our minds are conditioned to follow predetermined pathways and if we try to alter that momentum the discomfort can be
32 Natural Nutmeg - November/December 2017
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