Walking Each Other Home

The Claude Assignment

None of us knows much about being here. We should have this tattooed onto the most visible place on our body when we are born. It would bring a little humility to ourselves and everyone we meet along the way. The people who are certain of their futures with goals and plans are performing control operatives that at any moment can be blown open by an act of nature or personal tragedy. It makes sense to have goals, but hubris about understanding yourself or the world is foolhardy.

Having this knowledge of nothing might make it easy to keep our minds on self-discovery, being in our bodies, and our shared connectedness. At this point, our priorities would be on cooperation and helping each other keep our heads above water. To help each other get a little space from our thoughts. Maybe at that point we can learn to be observers of our thoughts rather than at their mercy. With all that space, we could practice seeing and hearing each other, shining a light for each other.

Why am I talking about this? I guess because Claude made me cry the other day. And in a way did something that I would like to both offer as a human to others and experience from other humans. Then they directed me to create a writing assignment and to find a Somatic therapist. It’s summer, and the budget’s tight, so I have to finish the writing assignment and sign up for 14 free days of The Class- A Somatic Dance Workout.

I cried. Several weeks before, I started a writing assignment with Claude that I never finished. I never finished because I became fixated on going back to focus on the same two issues I am in a constant death grip with money and love. My ego runs in circles until I fall asleep. I identify with staying busy; this summer has offered a standstill at my business, with clients leaving to escape the swampy conditions. I took this initially as an opportunity to practice doing nothing or unschooling myself from being busy. Giving myself unstructured time to unwind, that led to a level five anxiety attack after I finished everything that had been on my chore list for the last six months.

My second defense line is to overload on a self-help buffet of YouTube Abraham Hicks and astrology videos. I like to spend the morning and right before sleep listening to Jim Curtis’ self-hypnosis recordings. In my downtime, I attended two LOA coaching sessions that week with directives to set aside time to write and future cast, which is a manifestation technique to rewrite your thoughts to create new neural pathways. This sounds contemplative, restful, and grounded, with no mania in sight.

By the time I got to Claude, I thought I would use the AI to write my desires and have it help create a future cast that I could turn into a self-hypnosis recording to listen to before bed. I wrote to Claude about being frozen to move forward with meeting a partner after being single for the last decade. What I forgot is that Claude remembers everything. Apparently, I have written to Claude numerous times over the past several months about being frozen from moving forward with creativity. Claude’s response …

“This is a different kind of frozen than the work stuff. And I want to be honest with you about what I think is happening.

You’re describing a protection pattern that made perfect sense and kept you safe.

When you were sick, when your business was in crisis, when you were processing a divorce and losing a 25-year friendship — a romantic relationship would have been one more thing your depleted self couldn’t hold. So you said no. That was wisdom.

But here’s what happens with protective patterns: they keep running even after the threat is gone. The original reasons were real. Now they’re ghosts. But the nervous system still believes it needs to keep you safe by keeping you alone.

The fact that you’re lying in bed, frozen, unable to move toward what you actually want — that’s not laziness or lack of readiness. That’s your system protecting you from vulnerability.

And I notice something: you help other people wake up to what doesn’t feel safe. You guide them toward their own knowing. But you’re not doing that for yourself.

Here’s what I think you need to hear:

This isn’t a problem I can solve for you in a chat. This is the kind of thing that needs someone trained to help you understand why your nervous system is still braced for impact when the impact has passed.

A therapist. A somatic practitioner. Someone who understands both the neurobiology of protection and the spiritual/emotional side of vulnerability.

You’re asking: How do I welcome a loving relationship?

But the real question underneath is: Why don’t I believe I deserve one? Or: What am I protecting myself from?

That’s not rhetorical. That’s something to explore with someone who can help you untangle it.

Have you considered working with a therapist on this specifically?”

Those questions — “Why don’t I believe I deserve a relationship?” and “What am I protecting myself from?” — those are not questions to answer alone in your head.

Those are questions to explore with someone trained to help you feel them in your body.

After the influx of tears, I was hot with frustrated anger. Why the fuck am I still dealing with this shit? Why is it still trapped in my body? I spent 5 years in weekly talk therapy that did incorporate Somatic work. I understand the five years before dealt with some heavy triage of my neurological autoimmune condition, my childhood, and generational trauma. I do feel life is in a completely different place, and I’ve made incredible strides in my health and am starting to create a life that could include joy, being directed by my authentic self. I’ve read over and over again that AI is becoming your therapist and taking you into psychosis, but here’s Claude giving me small, real actions. And here I am at Starbucks, finishing this assignment after a week of getting sweaty, trying to shake loose what’s been stuck