My Ship Has Sunk, Yet I Have Learned To Swim
California Institute of Integral Studies Bachelor of Science in Psychology Admissions Essay by Chris Wilson 6/01/2024
The event took me by such surprise that I misunderstood it for a heart attack, and I thought I was going to die. That day, the person I thought I was crumbled and blew away. “Maybe I’m allergic to the soap from the shower this morning,” I thought. On a sunny Wednesday morning in November 2014, I walked to my office in the SOMA district of downtown San Francisco. That morning, I started feeling itchy all over my body on the way to work. I shook it off, wondering where it was coming from. Eleven people were present around a boardroom table. While delivering a presentation, the itching would spread into a sense of fear that something was wrong inside my body. There, in the location where I felt most safe, connected, and purposeful, I would experience a massive panic attack. The morning after was an immediate rush to “fix” myself: I thought, “Something is wrong with you Chris!” In three weeks, I’d leave my job, losing my friends and sense of connection to who I thought I was. I didn’t know if I could trust myself. I was terrified.
We could look at it this way. There is map; then there is territory. (Ray, 2016, p. 3). The experiences in my life that have shaped my desire to return to college today were like signposts guiding my attention inward, into the territory of my body, away from the stories, ideas, and images that once kept me safe and that I thought were my life. Allow me to share the story of four of these points that guided me to get out of my head and into my body: These direct physical experiences allowed me to discover Self. This is why I am alive today. This is a small part of the story that has been my life. But, the discovery of Self has been the most meaningful. Now, I want to spend my life helping others to access Self. My personal journey has inspired my desire to complete my degree in Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies with a vision and mission to continue to complete my master's in Somatic Psychology. I am Chris Wilson, and I am a commitment1 to completing this mission with the deepest of intentions to master my practice and to become a somatic therapist for the good of myself and everyone and all things. This brings me joy to share with you today.
Continuing my story: Months earlier, my insurance had run out, and with it, my last appointment with a therapist. She had been the first to point me toward befriending what was happening inside my body. The therapist mentioned two favorite resources for me to explore: Dr. Eve Ekman’s work around cultivating emotional balance and the somatic meditation practices guided by Reginal A. Ray. She gave them to me like gifts for someone you’d never see again. I put them aside, uninterested, and went back to worrying about my life.
The next season was a different kind of fear: Floating alone in the ocean of my life. The panic attack had sunk my ship. I was grasping for anything to help me fix myself. I didn’t know it then, but I’d begin collecting tiny pieces of floating debris that would one day allow me to sail again. The first came when I was surprised to see a workshop with Dr. Eve Ekman, who gave a talk down the street from my house. “How serendipitous,” I thought, “I know that name.” I invited my girlfriend Anna, whom I had just started dating, to join me. We were asked to take off our shoes as we walked into the meeting space. Anna hesitated, realizing her reluctance; she explained she would rather head home. Normally, I would have taken this as an opportunity to leave, too, but something told me to stay and explore independently.
The choice to stay would change the course of my life and the next ten years. In that room that day, I accessed Self for the first time. I left that session with a teaching that I would repeat repeatedly in many ways for the next ten years. “You are the only person who can report on what you are feeling. No test, scientist, or guru can tell you what is happening inside your body. If you don’t know how to report on it, you are not bad at it. Likely, you’ve just been poorly trained.” When Dr. Ekman made this statement to the group, it made me feel like she was speaking to me and that I might not be broken. This lit me up inside and gave me permission to begin training. She inspired me to explore and to learn to trust my body.
The seed had been planted for a new sense of purpose: A sense of purpose that would flourish within my own body for my entire life. This new, unshakable sense of purpose was forming around a generative intention of becoming more and more curious and kind to my body. Little did I know how much of a Self-fulfilling prophecy this would become. I received a glimpse but was still firmly stuck in my head.
In time, my money ran out. I tried to return to the job I loved, but something had changed. I felt like I was clinging and faking in a world where I once felt authentic. “What’s happening to me?” I’d ask myself. “You need to fix yourself.” I’d say. “No, you’ve just been poorly trained.” This yoyoing would repeat itself incessantly. The next floating debris would come as an invite from a conversation during a Lyft ride with a stranger named Gabe.
“You didn’t go to college?!" he replied with a surprising zeal. “No, I didn’t finish college. I left college to try and race bicycles for the US National Team, but I didn’t make it and ended up putting all my energy into learning to sell. Sales is safe! I got a job in software sales, and that’s what brought me here to San Francisco.” I was the Lyft driver, and he was my passenger. He worked at a program called Uncollege. They were a guided-gap year program for high school students that taught social-emotional learning, preparing them to find career paths through self-directed learning. “Wow”, I eagerly stated, “That's really neat. I’d love to work with kids like that!” He introduced himself as Gabe and invited me to give a talk to the kids. This interaction would lead to a year-long contract position as the Learner-In-Residence for UnCollege.
This contract position was one of many experiences that have prepared me to work in a collaborative learning environment. My job would be to run daily and weekly home circles with a gaggle of exuberant learners, with whom I would have the honor of living in an apartment building in Nob Hill. My task was to ensure that their home life empowered their learning experience and that they found their way to classes across town each day. I ran a circle where we would sit and reflect on the trials and tribulations of their respective paths. The circle became my container where we would conjure, hold, reflect, cry, and laugh. The circle formed an empty space that was teeming with life and possibilities. I experimented with various playful practices and exercises to empower the students for a year. Running circles became a craft. The students reconnected me to my inner child by being in the circle. I had no idea this craft of circling would be central to the unfolding transformation occurring in my life over the next ten years.
The circles I facilitated could hold so much more than I ever imagined. Mike was the twelfth outside professional I’d invited to share his story with the students. Mike was a men’s coach with a background in theater. After sharing in the circle with the students, he invited me to learn more about men’s circles. By Spring, he and I would become friends and partners to host our first weekend-long Men’s Retreat. I was scared that I was way over my head, but the circles I was learning to facilitate were responsive, adaptable, playful, and powerful. I’d never wanted to be a men’s coach or even heard of men’s work; yet, this life-changing experience at my first retreat inspired me to commit to mastering my men’s circle facilitation skills.
I came home from that retreat with a fire lit in my belly to build a business for men to access these spaces of healing and transformation. Mike and I became business partners and started The Unshakable Man.
Just imagine looking across a circle at another human and being guided to look past that person to scan the space behind them for danger. As you inhale through your nose, you are invited to open to receive the care and protection of the person in front of you. As we all exhale and perform this practice together, you hear me say, “The circle is the safest shape for the human nervous system.” This is one of my favorite ways to form a circle with a group. Uncollege ended. I moved in together with Anna and asked her to marry me. My relationship with Mike flourished into a business, creating containers of healing and transformation for hundreds of men. I became a men's coach and eventually bought the entire business from Mike. The practice of holding men’s circles became a six-figure business and my mastery craft. A community formed around the work.
The circles would regenerate each summer, spring, fall, and winter. Over the next five years, I’d hold two-hour-long circles Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings for three weeks a month. This work became my practice, and my practice was my life. I built a successful business running sessions online and in person that allowed me to put food on the table while following where my practice took me. I became a sponge, absorbing everything I could about somatic psychology. I cultivated deep friendships by sharing my practice with men I met online from around the world. Dr. Chris Spromberg was one of the most collaborative; although he lived in Montana, we bonded over our shared interest in the culture of manhood and shame. I read his dissertation on the topic, and we eventually co-led three seasons of circles and three men’s retreats together. It was a beautiful and challenging time of my life. I was constantly living on my edge.
Five unbroken years of sitting in men’s circles; 6000 hours of one-on-one coaching practice, over 400 men passed through these containers… lives changed… I changed. Embodied leadership skills were practiced. I learned from the bottom up how to be with the experiences of my life in more empowering ways. In June 2024, I celebrated 20 seasons of consistent seasonal three-month containers. I began documenting what we were doing into a 200-page embodied leadership training manual. This work has changed every aspect of my life. The greatest gift of this work has been realizing more and more access to Self and cultivating what I call the subtle joy of being. I’ve only recently begun to relax, realizing it might not go away as I have consistently become more buoyant. This brings me to today. All I want is to help more people to access this state of being. This is why I want to become a somatic therapist.
It’s been ten years since the panic attack that made me think I was going to die. That boy was left terrified, clinging to the idea of who he thought he was. He was scared to let go, afraid to drop into his body. He had no idea that connecting to his body would lead to the transformation that would define his life. I now see that real growth is not attainable by separating or withdrawing from my life, body, emotions, relationships, or challenges. It is not found by pushing through, conquering, or hardening. “The only way to reach complete realization is in and through our completely embodied human experience” (Ray, 2016, p. 5). The journey I’ve shared with you today has taught me that the challenges in my life are my curriculum, and we each have our own. The courageous act is to choose to open. These challenges guide me to find the places that need my care and attention inside my body. The more I learn to provide this loving kindness, the more access I gain to Self, and the more courageous and compassionate I become.
The most beautiful fruit of my practice is my relationship with this subtle joy of being that I get to share with my fiance Anna, our friends, the people in my life, my clients, teachers, and the beautiful work I will one day get to do as a therapist. Now, I feel deeply rooted in my practice. This rootedness is not fixed. It must be nurtured and watered like a garden. It is my responsibility to commit to my practice as deeply as possible, which motivates me to attend the California Institute of Integral Studies. I want to learn from more teachers and to be surrounded by other students with whom I can collaborate and share stories of growth and enlightenment. I am proud to say that I am a man with the courage to follow my heart to where I can make my greatest contribution to others.
Hear my commitment now: I am ready, open, and deeply committed to completing my degree in Psychology at The California Institute of Integral Studies, with a vision and mission to continue on to complete my masters in Somatic Psychology. I am Chris Wilson, and I am a commitment2 to completing this mission with the deepest of intentions to master my practice and to become a somatic therapist for the good of myself and everyone and all things. This brings me joy to share with you today… My ship has sunk, yet I have learned to swim.
References:
Ray, R. (2016). The Awakening Body. Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Footnotes:
1 & 2: In the embodied leadership groups that I run, we train circle participants to speak their commitments as full-bodied statements of being, for example, “I am committed to being kind to myself” vs. “I am a commitment to being kind to myself.” The latter allows the speaker or reader to fully embody their commitment as if they themselves are the commitment with no separation.