Blog #20 - Accountability Process is Complete (Charity & Cliff letters)
From Charity:
I have been invited to write my own completion letter to accompany the formal completion letter written by Kamela Love, our accountability supervisor. I want to begin this letter by expressing profound gratitude to anyone reading it, however you came by the link. For anyone who has been harmed by myself or Cliff, I hope that this letter affirms choosing to be authentic about our pain can open doors to healing. If anyone reading this has been invited into an accountability process, I hope this letter supports you in delving deeply into that journey and provides hope that walking the path of accountability can result in the new-found zest for life that can come from courageously looking at your shadows and facing those you have harmed, regardless of how the initial call for accountability unfolded.
I have deep gratitude to all who have followed this journey in part or in full, whether you are a survivor, former community member, friend, lover, student, fellow explorer of sex positive and sacred sexuality spaces, colleague, mentor, supervisor, or simply a person curious about how transformative justice and accountability processes unfold. Thank you for witnessing this journey.
Since my accountability journey began from a “call out” on Facebook in February 2023, I have embodied all points of the drama triangle, meaning I have played the roles of victim, rescuer, and perpetrator. I have discovered that I am all of those roles and none of those, sometimes simultaneously and sometimes trading one for another. The gift of sinking more deeply into all that I am, and all that we are as human beings, has resulted in a view of myself that is vastly more integrated than it could have been without the journey of accountability. These gifts were given by the courageous people who invited me to stop and look at what I was doing and how I was showing up in the world as a facilitator and human being.
When I began teaching workshops in sex positive spaces, I wanted to change the world by being a beacon of “yes”, a woman empowered in and unashamed of my eros nature. I believed that simply “showing up” in my eros without reservation could bring about empowerment and healing for those watching. Those who shared their stories of harm helped me recognize more fully the impact I actually had rather than the impact I wanted to have. I have been given the opportunity to better align my actions with my intentions. That process has been clumsy at times and I have not always felt grateful for it.
Some have told me in private that the fact that Empowered Pleasure was “called out” was unfair, overly critical, hostile, and harmful. Early in the journey, I relished these moments to lick my wounds. Now, I respectfully disagree with those who cling to that perspective. It was necessarily intense. Otherwise, I would not have agreed to take the “sacred pause” that was needed to truly look at the impact of how I was showing up as a teacher and facilitator. I do not believe that a gentler “calling out” would have been the same portal into deeper Awareness, although that is impossible to know. Sadly, because of my arrogance and contraction, a full derailing was required.
In the months following the original invitation into accountability, I rebelled against the possibility that I would ever feel genuine gratitude for being called out, or that I would ever see it was necessary. But it was. My ego blinded me to the many ways I misused the power that came along with leadership.
Writing this letter has provided another opportunity for me to pause and reflect on the journey as a whole, and on this moment in time, which is the only one that I have. In doing so, I see countless ways that my personal life has blossomed-not in spite of this derailing-but because of it. I have become a better partner, parent, friend, and professional because of this accountability journey. To my great surprise, I have also become more joyful, at ease in my body and life, and waking with a default mode of joy and contentment in a regulated nervous system. Before the EP pause, I was often in a state of overwhelm, resentment, exhaustion, and frustration.
This may sound like spiritual bypassing or performance, and I may discover months or years down the road that it was. While I am expressing gratitude for the journey, I am not pretending to love, like, or trust all of those who shared their stories of harm. I am not pretending to believe that all who shared their stories did so with pure intent. What I am sharing is that the intent versus impact paradigm goes in all directions. Even if those who called us out did so with egoic or harmful intent, the impact has been profoundly positive. Release from the formal accountability process does not mean I have somehow reached a destination. I have only started on the path of awakened accountability.
I have come to see the dismantling of Empowered Pleasure as a “shaktipat.” For anyone unfamiliar with the word, it is a Sanskrit term that describes a transmission of truth (usually from an enlightened master) that begins one on a path of true Awakening. Survivors, you were the conduit for that transmission. Your “calling out” served as an initiation facilitating growth and transformation.
To all those harmed by my actions or inactions, to all those harmed by the dissolution of the Empowered Pleasure community, to any disillusioned by the revelations of harm, and especially to those who were further harmed because you openly shared your stories, I deeply regret the role I played in your pain. That regret is woven into the tapestry of awe and wonder at the journey of this life, which has included the dissolution of old ideas that felt entirely true at the time, those ideas dissolving to form new perspectives and ideas-which will certainly be dissolved and recreated many times as I surrender to future lessons revealing themselves in each moment. Sometimes the most powerful revelations come in costumes that I label as “unpleasant”, but serve as powerful portals to continued expansion.
To all who have followed this journey in part or in full, thank you. May you find healing.
And may all beings benefit.
Charity Joy
Our Accountability Supervisor, Kamela Love, suggested I write something on my perspective now that Charity and I have completed our 2.5 year accountability process.
It took something that jarring to get me to look at my shadows. Going through the process of having many of my actions over the past 15 years publicly announced and commented upon was alternately painful, frustrating, annoying, saddening, and ultimately quite illuminating. It was also necessary for me to take significant steps for further personal growth as a partner, friend, and teacher. Accountability is, of course, something that is ongoing for us all.
Initially I was quite reluctant to delve into the realm of shadow uncovering, but more and more acceptance grew as I began to understand and explore some of my life-long patterns of behavior and areas of blindness. As I’ve mentioned in a number of previous blogs, the two most pivotal areas of growth for me were: 1) me gaining an understanding of the reality and centrality of my power and privilege, a concept I (foolishly) didn’t think applied to personal relationships, and 2) my autism diagnosis. The continuing ripples from my growth work in those two areas have been enormous and truly life-changing.
These new understandings helped explain thousands of interactions with people I’ve had over my life, particularly with loved ones, that were previously confusing or even incomprehensible to me. Just a few months ago I realized that I use many words quite differently than most allistic (non-autistic) folk do. The literal meaning of a word is primary for me, and emotional content is usually far in the background, whereas emotional associations appear to often be primary for allistics while the actual meaning plays a lesser role in their interpretation or response.
As an example, when I’ve said, “Please let the words go” during meditative or deep-dive touch events, I’m simply asking for people to turn their attention inwards which is where true learning and deep connection can happen. Until recently, I never understood why some people interpreted that as me saying, “Shut up! I’m the boss.” I didn’t understand that many people have a very negative emotional connection with words requesting less speech, particularly when coming from an older, white, up-power man. I do understand now, and I apologize to those who were hurt by my ignorance and literalness.
A result of the accountability process is that I went from an initial response primarily of denial and anger at the specific complaints in the RJ Report to one of greater understanding and empathy. While some of the stories were confusing to me at first, I now read through them with a deeper understanding of how the person experienced me. The process of learning to hear feedback as a deeply felt expression of a person’s experience, rather than something to defend against, has resulted in much greater curiosity and deep compassion. When presented with other’s perspectives that don’t make sense to me, I now almost always experience a thread of understanding of how that individual with their past history was hurt by my speech or actions even if they said, “Hell Yes!” in the moment.
I’ve had more than a few people respond to this last point by saying, “But that’s not fair!” That statement is WAY too complex for a simple answer, so I was very glad when I learned RUPI’s maxim about personal power, which is “The down-power person holds 100% responsibility for the wellbeing of the relationship, but the up-power person holds 150% responsibility.” I didn’t take into consideration that I have been in up-power positions for almost 100% of my adult life. I do now.
I’ve come to recognize that any request from me to a down-power person or from them to me potentially holds far more risk and vulnerability for the down-power person than I previously knew. I had no idea they might fear repercussions if they said “no” to me, or that their trauma triggers related to past interactions with those in power might lead them to an inauthentic, fawning “yes”, or that they might feel resentment or jealousy about me paying attention to others and not to them. This is even true with minor requests such as passing out coconut oil or being a demo model, but was significantly more fraught in any situation which included erotic exchange and sexuality. The intersection of power dynamics and erotic exchange created far more intensity and made giving feedback to me very difficult. My resistance to gracefully receiving feedback resulted in the unfortunate situation that demanded something as drastic as the accountability process to break up that logjam inside me and to open me to significant personal and professional development.
I’m deeply grateful to all those who contributed to this journey, and I’m deeply saddened that some of those contributions came from pain, harm, and confusion that my ignorance and willfulness triggered. Even though some of my most powerful insights have come in costumes that felt remarkably unpleasant, I am grateful for how they served as necessary portals to my unexpected expansion.
Cliff
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