The Transformation Game

Yesterday afternoon was all taken up by “The Transformation Game”, some sort of New Age game that my shrink thought would be useful in my therapy. I confess that I wasn’t thrilled at the thought of spending a whole afternoon there, with all the things I should have done. But I was also intrigued. And this is how it went.
(A-hem…Mind you, it’s quite difficult to explain all the rules).
I was playing with this other guy, who should have been some sort of mirror (and I for him), and first of all we were given our unconsciousness in an envelope, which contained a certain number of obstacles, of resources, and of angels, characteristics we own but (of course) we are not aware of.
The first angel drawn became a sort of guiding quality along the way. Mine is faith, as in Trust.
But first we must say what our intention is for the game, as in, what we aim to: me, I have this ambitious goal, to find again the joy of living. It takes a while to understand that it is what I want, hidden behind the need to find a job that I like, or a boyfriend, or a better body, or or or. But this is what I must and want to find: my vanished joy of living.
So, we position our little stones (mine blue, his green) in the main source from where we have to be born when we are ready. I am first with the dice and I am born straight away: so I am given this large card which represents my physical and material me; everything I do and everything is gain now (obstacles and all) must be considered in the light of my material me. I gain a lot of consciousness, by means of more little cards I draw along the game: what I gain is the idea of me that I already have, but which I have to make clear to myself, and these are my new consciousnesses:
- liveliness
- dance (dance? Me? Then I think about the summer party at the band, when I used to dance with friends, even though we cannot dance, and then I think about country dance and group dances, like the Macarena, which I used to dance too for fun during the Great Event of the Year)
- hug (because I love hugging people, and I restrain so often now)
- abundance (of feelings, I thought, and of things, on the material side, because I have lots of things. Shrink makes me focus on the fact that I always say “I have” rather than “I am”. This will come out later too)
- adventure (because I used to be ad adventurous girl, didn’t I? Pack and go!)
- style (because, no matter what, I have my style, and I had lost that when I was feeling so bad at work, when even my hair, of which I am so proud of, would be neglected in favour of a “barely brushed” look.
- Beauty. Now, would you believe it? But I knew. Deep under, I know I am beautiful, and it is not a matter of boasting, it is somehow like a song (unfortunately it’s Christina Aguilera): I am beautiful, in my own way, and I know it. Only, I suppose that by pretending to think that I am not, I can find a reason for not proposing myself, for not trying to be with people, for not saying that I love people. Because I am so sure that I will hear a “no” in reply, I don’t even start and I blame it on my not being beautiful. Let’s proceed.

Obstacles along the way: my ego is so fragile that a single wrong word makes me close and hide to the world. I put the card on the column of the problems to solve: if I don’t solve this, I won’t pass to the next level of myself. But I have a resource in my unconscious, and the resource is: to change my credo and accelerate the change; and the, to forgive. This is when I get a bit emotional, as we perform a sort of stand-up session (much like a club of anonymous alcoholics), and I have to read my card which goes like this:
I forgive the others; I forgive myself; I forgive my past experiences. I am free.

And I win more consciousnesses, which I don’t remember now. All in all, I have gained 10, when I needed only 6, but I am still on my physical level. And this is when I win what I needed, card of “help” for the other player(s), so I help the others and I help myself through it. The other guy can so get rid of his tears (obstacles) and I can pass to my emotional level.
It is the quickest level I play, because first of all I exchange two of my material consciousnesses for an emotional one, which is, guess what, happiness. I knew I had it. It’s deep down, you know. There is pain and bad memories and chains I have put myself around my wrists and legs, not to move, to feel always this bad and brood over more pain and nostalgia, to look back. But it’s there, here it is on my big card.

The next move is the transformation: we both perform it, and we pass to the mental level. I gain three consciousnesses, my exuberance, the power to visualize (see? All my daydreaming means something!) and…telepathy. I’m sorry, I want to believe and yet I find it hard. But still, it’s interesting.
Now, I have finished all my angels in the physical level (simplicity and peace), I have solved all my obstacles (in the physical level too), and I have one resource left. This resource is interesting, because it says that my personality irradiates trust. So, I am back to the beginning. And my unconscious is empty, I finish the game.
The other guy is not done yet, and I am allowed to play one more round to help him finish too. And guess what, I end on the “help” card, that lets him complete his game by extracting the last angel from his unconscious, and we can draw the last conclusions on the game and what we have found out of ourselves.

For me, it all revolves around the idea I have of myself, built around the fear of being rejected, which paralyses me. The key words are “I don’t have enough”, and the key idea to work on in order to solve it is “trust”. For of all, trust of myself, because I thought that I should gain more confidence and open myself to the world, but apparently first of all I have to open myself to…myself. Because I have to accept myself before being accepted. Or believing that people accept me, for what matters, because people already accept me, only I don’t realise it.
And oh, one more thing: I have to hug people more often. And tell them that I like them, if I do.

A very interesting game, and it showed things I knew already, while it cleared some ideas I had before, and again, I had forgotten or hidden.
So now it’s time to work.