Hot Seat: It’s Like Heart Circle, But Also a Gangbang By May
I
given me the most healing, most loving gift that we can sometimes give each other. He’d given me his skepticism.
I should know. When it comes to telling stories, I’m the ultimate showman. A year ago I had dinner with some Faerie friends, including Robin Hood and Kirk. Kirk, you should know, speaks with the bluntness of a Vulcan. Most of my relationship with Kirk is me trying to get his begrudging approval. Choose me! Choose me! And since Kirk and I hadn’t seen each other in some time, I pounced on the chance when he asked casually, “So, how are you doing?” I cleared my throat. “Well,” I intoned, and told him My Story, which involved me being severely suicidal and psychotic after a series of horrific and surreal events. When I was finished, trembling with sweat and ready for my Daytime Emmy, Kirk looked at me with an expression that can only be described as unimpressed. “How many times have you told that story?” he asked finally. I felt my asshole pucker, as though I’d sat in a vat of lemon juice. “It just feels,” Kirk said, in that inscrutable Kirk way. “It feels like you’ve told that story a lot.” “He has,” said Robin Hood from the couch. “So,” Kirk said. “What are you still getting out of telling that story?” I had no answer. Since that night, I have never told that story again. In the face of my regurgitated self myth, Kirk had
I know, skepticism is pretty much the opposite of what you’re supposed to do in Heart Circle. As a good Faerie, you’re supposed to listen with your heart. Without judgment. Or rolling your eyes. Or sticking a needle repeatedly into your leg to keep from falling asleep. So here’s a modest proposal. For a new ritual, a new kind of Circle--a game, if you will--to build on the work of Heart Circle. I call it Hot Seat. How does it work? Simple. You sit in a Circle, and people can ask you whatever they want. Nothing, and I mean nothing is off limits. Some of the questions are dumb. “How many testicles have you had in your mouth in the last week? When was the last time you shit your pants?” But often the questions dig into some place that hurts, or feels confused. “What keeps you up at night? What is the worst thing that your mind tells you?” And if you’re the one hurling questions, you “win” when you ask a question that the person in the Hot Seat has no ready answer for. This is when we are past the script. When discovery can happen. One of the key questions we ask is, “Are we getting any new information here? Or are we still in the same old story?” For example? You come in with a story that you were traumatized by childhood events, and this has caused you to become paranoid and anxious in social situations. “What happened when you were a kid?” the Circle will ask. They might then say, “Well, that sounds like a common experience,” or “Actually, that doesn’t sound so bad.” Or, “That sounds fuck up. I’m sorry that happened to you. Is there another way to look at this? Does it really merit building a whole life story around?” It’s a practice in taking risks. It’s a practice in Radical Honesty. Loving Skepticism. Or, as Robin Hood calls it, Loving Ruthlessness. Then come the hard questions. “What are you
recently attended an afternoon of auditions on Broadway, where I watched a dozen aspiring actors pour their hearts out in wrenching monologues they’d obviously spent weeks preparing—only to realize later that I’d actually been at a Heart Circle at Breitenbush. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good Heart Circle. Over and over again, it’s shown me that people are always more, more wet and glistening inside, and broken, and alive, than what I can see. It’s a kind of emotional peep show. But there is, is there not, an aspect of Heart Circle that is, can we say, a touch showbiz? A bit razzmatazz?
RFD 180 Winter 2019 23
