20 People Locked In A Room, No Rules (Pt. 3)

PART 3: The Pulse

The coming days/pulses were a blur. I chewed myself up and spit myself out. This section is going to be a long trauma dump about all the trauma I thought I didn't have. I also want to note that I have chosen to exclude some of my more intense experiences from The Dojo. If your interested in attending or learning more, check our their website.

Pro tip: the experiences become more outlandish the further down you read.

Pulse 1:

In one of the first pulses, I met a man whose physical body, soul and energy matched those of my ex-con uncle (of whom I am close to, and have always loved dearly). Despite our differences, as we held eye contact for an hour, I was able to realize how many opportunities he had to become a different person, yet in his adulthood, he chose to become a person who is generous, kind, funny, and one of my favorite people. In this regard there was no reason for me to hold judgment against him or towards my brother for wanting to be like him (more on this sibling trauma later).

Pulse 2:

As mentioned in Part 2, in using spiral dynamics at a personal level to identify and explore emotions or memories tied to past traumas, the process may lead you to energetically regress to a specific age or even to the womb. In the next pulse, I watched one of the more serious, buttoned up, professional retreat members experience a rebirth, as in, turn into a fetus in the womb and be born again. No, seriously. The birth was traumatizing and hours passed and I watched him grow in age while I shrank. We found each other when I felt around 17 and he felt around 14. The same 3 year age difference as my brother and I. On par with the themes of the last pulse, I saw how I had unknowingly influenced my brother's decisions, and in doing so, had contributed to some of his struggles. And yet, I found myself resenting him for following paths I had once laid out. It was a powerful lesson in accountability and the need to reflect on our own roles in shaping the people around us, and subsequently holding it against them.

Pulse 3:

In the next pulse, the guy who introduced me to the retreat that day I toured his villa had a moment of exploring our sensuality together. What started as an experience full of connection quickly became devoid of feeling on my end. I stayed in the moment to see where it went and so he wouldn't feel rejected, even though I knew something had shifted. Minutes passed beyond this realization and suddenly he expressed that he felt fulfilled and no longer needed the interaction, I realized I had missed an opportunity to speak up for myself. I had stayed silent, neglected my own feelings, and was left feeling rejected because I hadn’t set a boundary when I needed to. This was a pivotal moment for me—learning that the key to healthy relationships lies in expressing our emotions and boundaries in real-time, without fear.

Pulse 4:

The night before, a facilitator brushed me off at dinner. It was small—so small that no one else would’ve noticed—but it sent me spiraling. When the next pulse gave us space to voice our withholdings, I knew exactly who I was going to confront. But just as I was about to, he got up and left for the bathroom.

That set me off even more.

When he returned, I didn’t hesitate. I let it all out—screaming at him, demanding to know why he couldn’t see me, why he didn’t validate me, why he didn’t choose me. But mid-rage, something snapped into focus.

This wasn’t about him. I wasn’t yelling at a facilitator—I was yelling at my grandfather. My grandfather. Someone I had never, not once, thought I had any unresolved issues with.

Memories of childhood summers flooded in. I was always there, but never the best. Not the smartest. Not the most athletic. Not the favorite. And somewhere along the way, I had absorbed a quiet but insidious belief—I am not extraordinary. And if I wasn’t extraordinary, then I wasn’t worth seeing.

With consent, I started pushing against the facilitator. Hard. Over and over, until I physically couldn’t anymore. And as I crumpled, something even deeper surfaced.

This wasn’t just about me. The need to be chosen (by men). The hunger for validation (from men). The feeling that I was somehow in competition with other women—it wasn’t just mine. I had been carrying something far older than myself.

Before I could process that, everything shifted.

The facilitator’s expression changed—his face twisting into something hauntingly familiar. And then, I wasn’t me anymore. I was her. I had regressed, stepping into my mother’s childhood. I wasn’t just feeling my rejection—I was feeling hers.

And it wrecked me. I sobbed uncontrollably, feeling every wave of sadness, longing, frustration, love, anger, and finally, acceptance. And yet, the facilitator—this stand-in for my grandfather—never shut down. Never pulled away. He just sat with it all, mirroring my emotions without resistance. He cried with me, he smiled with me, he scowled with me.

And that’s when it clicked.

I had spent my whole life suppressing emotions, trying to stay stoic, afraid of being too sensitive. But here I was—raw, exposed, seen—and the world didn’t crumble. Better yet, I witnessed a powerful male figure—both the facilitator and the man he represented—meet me in that rawness. In that moment, I unlearned my instinct to hold back, not just because I allowed myself to feel, but because I saw someone I deeply respected do the same.

That was the healing.

Since then, I haven’t had a single issue expressing my feelings—or being called sensitive. (WIN!)

Note: After the retreat, I talked to my mom about the experience. I told her everything: the emotions, the memories, the realization that I had been carrying something that wasn’t just mine. I asked her about her own childhood, if any of this resonated. And it did.

Pulse 5:

When I first arrived at the retreat, there was one woman I immediately felt resistance toward. Something about her rubbed me the wrong way—her laugh, her softness, her docile energy. I couldn’t pinpoint why, but I didn’t like her.

The morning before our next pulse, I was at breakfast, chatting with a group of men. At one point, I tried to speak, but the conversation skipped right over me. Ignored. Again. It stung—especially coming from men—and in that moment, I made a decision. The next pulse? I was going to work out my anger on them.

But before I could act on my plan, she approached me. The woman I had been resisting all week. She asked if I wanted to meet her in anger.

I abandoned my plan to fight the men and turned toward her instead. And just like that, we started screaming. Full-body, rage-fueled screaming--the kind only a woman could muster. And as the anger poured out, something clicked.

She wasn’t the problem. She was me. 

Everything I judged her for—her softness, her reluctance to take up space, the way she seemed to shrink in the presence of others—was everything I resented in myself. It was a complete projection (embarrassingly obvious in hindsight).

I wasn’t mad at her for being quiet. I was mad at myself for staying silent when I should have spoken up.

I wasn’t mad at her for being overly accommodating. I was mad at myself for letting people—especially men—dismiss, belittle, and overlook me.

I wasn’t mad at her for not demanding attention. I was mad at myself for believing I didn’t deserve it.

We kept screaming. This time, we hurled every insecurity we had at each other—words we had swallowed for years, buried deep, aimed inward.

"You’re useless. Stupid. Not good enough. Not special enough."

Each time, she asked, "Is that true?"

It wasn’t. Of course it wasn’t. But I had believed it.

And then, with consent, I wrapped my hands around her throat. I choked her. I didn’t stop until she “died.” And when she did, I realized—I had died. Or rather, my insecurities had. We held a funeral. For her. For me. For the version of myself that had lived under the weight of those lies.

We covered her body with a sheet, and I stood over her, staring at the figure on the floor. I felt tall. Disconnected. As if I were looking at something that no longer belonged to me. And that’s when I knew—those insecurities, that self-doubt, that fear of taking up space…they weren’t mine anymore.

As I lay down to start integrating the experience, two of the men involved in that mornings interaction came over to comfort me. In choosing myself and choosing women, the men came to uplift me. Interesting. What was even more interesting is that these two men were the smartest and most interesting in the group, two of the things I had initially felt insecure about.

My insecurities had never returned.