I trained at the GIT with Jorge Rosner who was not only a master Gestaltist but a shaman of sorts, who often quoted Carlos Castenada, known to everyone it seems in the 70’s but barely remembered these days except to an esoteric few. Carlos wrote about the shaman Don Juan who taught a shamanic view of reality – that reality as such does not exist but is rather “assembled” by us humans. The average human’s reality is what he called “consensual reality” which is the world as we know it complete with our thinking, living, politics, pastimes and eating patterns. He wrote that humans can grow in our lifetime by shifting the way we assemble reality. He called that the “shift of our Assemblage Point.”
 
According to Don Juan, 98% of humans on the planet are assembling reality at “point 2” out of a possible 10 (10 being enlightenment). Point 2 is called the “box of limitations” because at point 2 we think our way and our people’s way is the only way, is right and all others are simply wrong. We have all visited this Assemblage Point, but as we look at the world today it seems that Don Juan had a point.
 
Assemblage point 3 is considered the turning point for humans – it represents the time in our life when we suddenly jump to the realization that another person’s view point (or an animal or tree’s viewpoint) is just as legitimate as our own. This movement from 2 to 3 is considered by Don Juan to be the generous gift of Spirit to humankind, because it changes us utterly when we reach it.
 
Only after moving from 2 to 3 does the path of becoming truly human become possible. For example at Assemblage point 4 we begin to have self awareness (“there I go again! I don’t like that pattern and want to change it!”) and at Assemblage Point 5 we are able to take pause, hear another person’s point of view and consider it without trying to fix them.
 
Gestalt therapy operates at Assemblage Point 5. It takes years of training before a therapist who desires more than anything to help others learns to respect the client’s greater knowledge of themselves and to support where the client is at rather than trying to change them. When a person is assembling 5 then their ability to communicate with the other 98% of the world becomes very difficult. The shamanic rule of thumb is that more than a 2 point difference and we no longer understand where one another is coming from.
 
Readers of this blog may be able to identify with this. The downside of growth is that it becomes clearer that others are living an untenable life, but we no longer can express this to our friends or family. Once we assemble a greater reality, one that includes a larger perspective, there is no going back, and the ability to impact others becomes a greater challenge. This is very painful, and can result in the loss of friends, life partners, and lead to a special kind of loneliness.
 
That is when we struggle to reach Assemblage point 6 – a very difficult point to reach; it takes years of work. Here we recognize we alone are responsible for creating our own world, with the people we want in it, with the ways of relating we value, with the work that is our vocation, We don’t fret or worry – we simple do what needs to be done. This Assemblage point is called ruthless compassion. The shaman’s say when we get here we have one great moment of feeling sorry for all of the years we wasted caring about what others think of us and not living our truth, and then we simply get on with it.
 
Fritz Perls said I never promised you a rose garden. I think we all know that the price of greater awareness is not a happier life, but it is a more honest life. The thing I like about this assemblage point model is we can track where we are assembling at any given time. When we are stuck in blame and pain, when we are open to the other and when it is the time for one last moment of regret before just getting on with it.
 
-Jay Tropianskaia, Director of Training
Copyright December 2017