‘Can I sit there, please?’ I ask the question friendly, but firmly, after checking three times that it is really my chair that is being occupied by another passenger.

A nod towards the empty chair in the middle is the only response I get.

My request triggers an unintelligible wave of moaning and groaning. The meaning is clear: can I please disappear from this earth. As of now.

Then the woman gives in and starts her theatrics: arduously rearranging her seriously oversized hand luggage, unclicking her seat belt, settling back into her seat, rolling her eyeballs in despair, sighing, more moaning and groaning.

Finally we both sit down. I’m ready for a long and silent flight.

At regular intervals she breaks the silence, mumbling in an unfriendly tone.

But the mumbling fades ever more, and totally disappears as the engines rev up to catapult us into the air.

From aside I see her eyes lock onto nothingness as she goes into a complete freeze.

I hesitate for a moment, but then I extend my arm forward into her sight. I open my mouth to say something, but she has already clutched my arm and hand tightly, as if she was in a judo competition.

Every now and then I tell her what is happening and what can be seen outside. Not that she seems to hear or understand any of it.

Once we pass through the clouds and the turbulence, she lets go of my hand. A pair of eyes gently meet mine, and she makes a friendly comment.

Until the descent to Schiphol we sit next to each other in silence.
A different silence.

“I’m Suzy. I have autism and I think this is all pretty nerve wracking. But I bet you had already spotted that I am quite different.”
Talk about jumping straight in! It allowed me to share that I had not noticed anything different, actually. That I knew nothing about autism. And that I know little about labels to begin with.

No need for that. But she heard I could do things with breathing, and she was desperate for that.

It was the start of some irregular visits. First to work on her breathing with archery. But later she also wanted to deal with the physical inconveniences that stress caused her. And her fear of the outside world in general.
And when stress really got the better of her, she would sometimes call me. Like that night.

‘Jac here…’
Instantly the smartphone shrieked at 10:
“I will never ever be okay. I have been working on myself for I don’t know how long and have seen umpteen psychs and shrinks. When will I see my life turn normal?”

I don’t have a clue what normal looks like, but I did understand her. She managed her normal day job, but boy, did that drain her energy!

And just when she finally thought she could enjoy some peace and quiet in her free time, her body would shoot into a total spasm that would hammer out the last bit of energy. Lying in bed would then be her obligatory activity for the rest of the weekend.

But a lot had improved over time, as well. It seemed like a good idea to me to shed light on that and make clear how much had changed already. So, completely in accordance with the solution focussed approach, I would repeat everything again, every time that she remembered an improvement. Predictably followed by ‘And what else?’

At one point I could no longer remember every improvement, and I blurted: ‘Well, isn’t that quite a lot?!’

Silence. Followed by a light sobbing that quickly grew into a serious weeping storm.
‘Huh?’ I uttered.

‘Yes, that’s a lot. Quite a lot. And maybe all of them improvements, but every improvement is a change. That makes for a lot of changes. And you know that I am autistic. So I don’t take changes too well. Positive or not.’
Dumbfounded, I could still enjoy the clarity of her twisted thought. And there was no arguing with it, as usual.
The tears dried up, and it seemed as if a new reality was dawning.

By now I know perfectly well how to work more slowly. And when we think back to this conversation we see it as a tipping point. And it makes us both smile.
But it did teach me a valuable lesson: get curious, stay curious. Especially when I think I understand it quite well.
Because some people can be quite different.

“And what was that confrontation all about?”
Without blinking an eye Kees, my coach, looked piercingly at me. Like always, somewhere in this conversation I was lulled into believing that this would be our first conversation without difficult questions. Just a nice conversation. Without the shaming of my firm beliefs.
Once again, I was wrong.

It started with me not understanding what had happened in a group that I was working with. Well, actually, I was pretty convinced that I understood what was happening at the time, and what that meant. But the group had a different opinion, and kept rubbing that in until I was shining with shame.

“Now look here, Jac,” Kees teased in his familiar teaching tone of voice. “You don’t have to get the meaning of anything. As long as they do.
In my days I would sometimes also lose track with a group.
In that case I would pick a random tape of Tom and Jerry and have them watch it. After that, I asked them what it was all about, and what it had to do with them.

Predictably, people came up with the most brilliant interpretations and meanings.
Their meanings. And that is what this is about.”

Recently I visited Kees again. Partly because he was ill, but also to tell him I finished my last year of Somatic Experience training. I was now officially a trauma therapist.

For the first time in 20 years his eyes weren’t flashing with bright anticipation as he ushered me in. His health…

When I asked after it, he dismissed all his inconveniences with a slightly bowed head. Except for one:
“You know what really bothers me? My fingers can’t write anymore!”

“Are you curious to find out what those fingers still can do?” I blurted out.

He put his chin up, looked straight into my eyes, and firmly put his fingers into my outstretched palm.

“How would it be if you could allow them to make the smallest possible movement?”
And sure enough some small movements started. Without thinking, I let my hand react.

“Kees, do you notice where that movement starts and how it runs from there?”

A faint nod, a slight smile. Silence. And then more small, concentrated, miniscule movements.

“Well??” I asked, as his fingers calmed down.

He came back from a place far away, and looked thrilled at me: “I was holding the mainsheet again. And the old boat was sliding through the water ever so smoothly! How nice to sail like that one more time.”

There was no time or energy left to discuss the SE training. But he had experienced some of it, in a beautiful way.

And once more he had shown:
People don’t need someone else to tell them what it is all about.
They know.

Blokes they were – nice blokes.
The nice bit was not what first met the eye though. I was struck by their curt movements. The firm build. Silent stare. Self control. Tight.

We had the shortest introduction round ever. Then, with a simple nod, they decided to go and shoot immediately. That’s what they came for, after all.

Maybe the archery would mellow down the ptsd that some of them had to deal with regularly.
It was an experiment for everyone. Myself included. But I had already seen some heartwarming effects when I had been shooting with refugees in the emergency shelter in Amsterdam.

The first session a lot happened. But, only if someone would come back could we have a conversation on the archery’s effectiveness.
Someone did come back. And this was our complete conversation when we met again:

‘Well, did you notice anything?’
“Sure…”
‘Sure, as in…’
“Less aggression.”
Silence…
‘Shall we shoot?’
“Yup.”

Since then I shoot once a month with whoever turns up. I got to know a couple of them as normal people. Very normal people who have done something very exceptional.
To protect others, they have risked their lives, lock, stock and barrel.
They’re now paying a high price for it. Every day. But not everyone understands.
So they have become very good at keeping up a tough appearance. Out of sheer self protection.

But sometimes, rarely, they let down their defenses.
Near the archery field a daft blackbird has decided to nestle on top of the wobbly blinds of the material shed.
That means for every archery session: take the nest down, take material out or in, put back the nest. Twice.

Fast, efficiently, quietly, as to disturb the birds as little as possible.
Three complete nests flew out this way.
That tells you something about the caretaking of these veterans.

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The ICF offered a rare chance: I could register all my coaching hours from the past decade for my coaching certification. That would immediately land me the pcc-level.

Only the amassing of the hundreds of hours…
It loomed like the most tedious task ever.
Wrong.

I typed and sent tens of e-mails indeed.
No copy/paste, no mailing programme. All personally written and sent.

But the effort was well rewarded: everyone gave their permission to register their sessions. Sometimes recounting a beautiful personal story about how things had developed after the coaching.

Then the following mail dropped into my mailbox:

‘Let me write a text for you to hammer some sense into those administration addicts.
Why certify everything? It kills the magic!’

This was the heartfelt complaint of a writer with a congenital allergy for petty rules and regulations. For him, coaching with archery had been magic come to life.

I recognized his sincere tone, and realized he would only be too happy to throw in his verbal virtuosity to demolish the concept of certification for once and for all.

But that was not going to help me to secure my certification. And I really wanted it. For big clients like Philips had already made clear it would become a requirement.

So I gave him a ring, and told him I was convinced of his capacities to whip up an entertaining and brilliant piece of writing. And that he would do me an even bigger favour with a simple confirmation of his hours.
He assented. With this beautiful oneliner as a bonus:

‘Magic shall not be caught in procedures. But hey, certification can’t prevent miracles.’

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Look fast enough, and you see someone clearly revealing himself by shooting a single arrow.

That’s why the Japanese say: an arrow, a life.

It works well as an aphorism, which is why it often whizzes past on the internet.

Just like ‘Live as if today is your last day.’

But what if you have already lived your last day last week, or last month?
Because that is what learned helplessness feels like.

Learned helplessness: you think you can influence your situation. But every time you act, you get slapped down.
If that happens often enough, you learn that nothing you do matters.
That it is better to stew in your misery.

This piece of academic knowledge stuck with me during my study Mass Psychology. But now that I shoot with refugees in a refugee shelter, I have some moving images to go with it.

Each week I see a bit of the shine disappear from some eyes.
Each week the movement changes. Slower. More cautious.

Rather smart, if you’re not sure where the next surprise in your life is coming from. If you seem to have lost all control.

I now understand why archery is so popular in the shelter. It brings something new that people do have control over.
If only a bow and arrow.

A single arrow.

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