Electric Memories
Warren Buttery
The Healing Path | Story 4 of 4
Electric Memories is an online storytelling platform that documents, records, and packages your defining moments, lessons learned, and personal history across multiple media for permanent storage, access, and sharing. For more information, visit www.electric-memories.com.
For the complete set of Warren Buttery’s audio, video, and text remembrances, visit www.electric-memories.com/warrenbuttery.
The interviewer is Brian Gruber.
This interview is the fourth of a four-part series featuring Warren Buttery. You can read the entire series at medium.com/electric-memories.
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An injury in Sri Lanka led you down your current path.
I was living in Sri Lanka, working overseas doing humanitarian work. It happened to be the time of the invasion of Iraq. I went there with an organization. And I found myself up in the Sunni triangle, which was seen as quite a hotspot at that time. My role was to conduct assessment of what was happening there and develop ways of helping people develop programs to help people. I found myself in a pickup truck in the passenger seat quite a bit with an Iraqi national driver. And as we’re driving around in what is quite a tense environment, the warplanes were still dropping bombs at that stage, a lot of people were running around the battlefield, I found myself falling asleep. The structure of my neck is affected by this kind of bobbing movement. But I didn’t recognize that until I got home to my then partner. It was quite a tumultuous relationship, a lot of fire, a lot of heat, a lot of extremes from incredible highs to incredible lows. Lots of drugs, which also helped this undulating high frequency life, going from conflict zones into another extreme. We were making love, which was rare because normally there would be arguments before I left. And then there would be arguments or silent treatment for a few days before we reintegrated. It was powerful and very beautiful but then suddenly something popped, quite literally. I didn’t know it at the time, but I had a prolapsed disc in my neck. Everything below my neck was pain. I couldn’t scratch, couldn’t think, face turned blue. And my very powerful woman, I saw fear in her face for the first time. That was quite shocking for me. I was very blessed because I’d already become acquainted with a Chinese medicine practitioner who was also Western trained, a story on its own, spoke no English, but I trusted him implicitly. And over a four-month period, I went through lots of acupuncture, putting my neck up in a harness, and gentle manipulation to be able to get the disc back into place.
The injury for me I later realized was twofold. One, it was the expression of our relationship in a very physical manifestation. Too much. Something had to break and, in the end, it was me. And I also had this first opportunity to start to listen to my body, what was happening in my life preceding the injury, what was happening in my time at the moment of injury, and how I was able to deal with the injury, how I was able to heal. I wasn’t listening to my body, I just got to this position where I could work again. And I did since that time, this was 2006, 2007.
Something had to break and, in the end, it was me.
Since that time I have been afflicted by two other spinal injuries in my lower back. The first one, sciatic pain, a prolapsed disc with sciatic pain down both legs, extraordinarily painful. Again I fell back on the Chinese medicine practitioner, who was wonderful. He really saved my life. And then a few years later, my third injury, when I was living in Burma. This time I was surrounded by people who allowed me to be vulnerable and to talk about what was going on. It was that point in time that I was looking for different types of therapies. And I discovered yoga. And I came to this island, Koh Phangan, which I’d been coming to for a couple of decades to party, and in this case, an angel, wonderful sister said to me, why don’t you come to heal, there’s a different side to this island. And when she first mentioned it, I thought I can’t dance for days, drink tequila for breakfast. I can’t do that, take drugs, but she said no, no, no, there’s another way.
I stumbled across a wonderful healer here. Her name is May. And I’m very grateful for her. And she gave me a version of chi nei tsang, which is also now one of my practices and offerings to the community. It’s an abdominal massage from the Taoist tradition. It was very powerful. It happened to be at a blood moon. My healer’s little space for healing was above the water at Why Nam under this massive red moon. At one point, she pressed deep into my heart space. And I let out a breath. It was an ancient breath, a 100-year-old breath (groans loudly) this kind of thing, it had dust on it. And I stopped breathing. I’m not sure for how long. I just lay there in this state of nothingness. Then, suddenly, the breath came back. Such a reawakening, I felt energy leave my body and come forcefully back in. There was a big shift in me from that day forward. After that wonderful healing session, I went back to Burma and I quit my job, which wasn’t serving me, quit a relationship that wasn’t serving either of us. Quit a beautiful apartment and I came back here to have my second chi nei tsang experience, which led me to reconnect with my mother for the first time in 32 years in a safe space with wonderful, powerful feminine energy around me, to give me the support to be able to do that. And that really kick-started my whole healing journey. From that moment on, I wanted to explore every type of modality that I could here.
Pha-Ngan
What does this island mean to you? And what about these myriad life experiences bring you to this place?
I came here 20-plus years ago, but I came here to party. I would be between humanitarian jobs. Being in a complex environment, thinking I’m going to bring myself into a joyful, relaxing atmosphere. What I was doing was going to different extremes because I’d be dancing for days and not really being on my own until the hangover came. So I was always looking for healing. And that’s really what this island is about. It’s about healing and transformation. Certainly that’s been my experience. This time when I came to heal, I was open to different experience. And I sought out healers of reputations that could be helpful for me.
What I recognize with a little more education is that the trauma that I’ve been holding in my body, but also the stories that I’ve shared of survival and courage and loss, are stored in me. Apart from the Chi Nei Tsang experiences, I came across a young man, his name is Patrick, who practiced something he calls Zen Thai Shiatsu. He’s a beautiful young guy, a surfer, curly golden locks, surfer beads and the kind of guy that as a mature man I would push away as being not so relevant. What do you know, my ego! And somebody had said to me, Warren you’re really connected to your feminine, but maybe not to your masculine. I was affected by that, a bit triggered. And I sought out this guy Patrick, thinking I’m just going for a massage. And he used his hands, his feet, his elbows, his knees to pull and stretch my body into positions that doctors would have said, don’t do. And the whole time he’s asking me questions about oh, so where’s that injury? What occurred there? Oh that. That’s my mother. What’s this injury here? Oh, that’s my lover. What’s this injury and this, this very powerful practice, I’m going between tears and screams and releasing of energy and emotions. And I truly experienced that connection between the injury and what I’d been holding in my body. The injuries physically had healed. But the emotions around the injuries had not. And he shined the light and was able to let those go as an experience. I was bullied as a child and I broke this elbow. And I spent three weeks in a hospital with my arm extended and weights held to get things back in order. I was about 12 or 13. So I was isolated from my parents. And for all my grown life, whenever I had a massage, I couldn’t allow anyone to touch me here. And during that experience, I went through and told that story. And now there’s no problem. The injury had healed, but my emotional attachment to that injury had not until this sharing, through releasing of the pain and the stories around it.
That’s what this island is about, healing and transformation.
You also had an experience with Reiki.
These are the three powerful healing experiences that I had, the Chi Nei Tsang, the Zen Thai Shiatsu, and Reiki. It wasn’t here on the island, but its connected, a wonderful woman friend, who’s a Reiki Master Trainer. She’d set up a massage table in her apartment in Bangkok. I’d experienced Reiki before but never really understood what it was. I was laying on the bed and she sort of waved her hands over the top of me. I thought that’s nice but didn’t really feel anything. At the end she said to me, well, you need to come back to your mother. What a coincidence. She just died four days before. So that’s not possible that I can connect to my mother. She said no, this is the best time. I asked, so what do I do? Well, okay, just lay there and begin to feel into your heart and bring up representations, images, memories of your mother. She had to leave the room, she gave me a session interrupting a training that she was doing in the next apartment. And I thought, what is this? I’m on my own. I’ll give it a try.
As I lay there on this massage bed, I felt this huge weight upon my chest. It was like Encyclopedia Britannica books piled up on my chest, pressing down so much so that I found it difficult to breath. And suddenly, bang, like the Alien movie, where my chest blew open and there was water pouring up, this energy, but it felt like water, this powerful waterfall going up from my chest heading up into the sky, into the ceiling. And I’m here like this aaahhhhhhhh (groans loudly) and then that went on for 5, 10 minutes. When it finished, the water had subsided, or the energy had subsided, and I came back into this very relaxed state. Feeling unsure what to do with that. And it came to me, why don’t I try this again with my father who had already passed. I didn’t have the opportunity to reconnect with him, unlike the opportunity with my mother. And so I did the same thing and I focused on my heart and focused on memories of him and I felt this huge weight come down on my chest. Same reaction, this bursting open of my chest, me flailing back, and this energy rushing up into the ceiling, into the sky. And that went on for a number of minutes. I just fell in this heap on this massage table. And I thought okay, should I try this again with my former wife, and I thought, no, I don’t have the energy for that (laughs). I curled up in a bundle and fell asleep.
The Mother and Father Wound
Describe your men’s work on the island.
I’ve witnessed the worst in men. The absolute worst. I’ve literally sat down and drank beers with psychopaths, leaders of bloodthirsty revolutions such as Foday Sankoh in Sierra Leone in 1999. Spent a lot of time in war zones with very violent people, people who committed war crimes and atrocities, both from the aspect of an invading country and an invaded country.
Around five years ago, a good man came to me and said, have you ever sat in a men’s circle? I said, no, what’s that? There was a small group of men from different backgrounds, different cultures, different experiences, different age groups and we sat down and had a very loose structure about building a safe space. That was my first opportunity to really sit with men without alcohol, without an agenda, without a purpose, except to be seen, to be heard, to be supported, and to be called upon our bullshit.
Since that time, I have a similar format. Once a week, a group of men meet with this in mind. The transient nature of this island is that some men, they’ll be here for a few months, and then they’ll go away, but then might come back, and I feel very rewarded that a lot of men do come back. I’ve seen men come from states of depression, states of suicidal thoughts, even actions. Within a period of a few months, three, four, six months, have picked themselves up and moved on. How do we feel ourselves? How do we get out of mind and into the body, which relates my yoga and breathing practices, discussions and commitments around accountability and integrity. We have a physical piece, how do we embody this energy? How do we embody these emotions? And how do we get to release them in a safe space? And the men’s circle always ends in gratitude. What are we grateful for? This work has been important for me, I show up almost every week.
Last night is an example, I was with my group and there was a group of five men who we’ve known over the last couple of months. I went through a process of understanding some of the needs of my relationship that I’m not fulfilling and I’ve been putting aside. I felt out of balance with my own integrity and my commitments to myself and my relationship. By being supported by these men in this process, I was able to come back and make some healthier commitments to be able to support my relationship. Tomorrow, there’s another embodiment workshop that I’m doing as part of the festival here, to help to bring men in to recognize that they can be vulnerable and still be in their masculine power.
You said that you listen to people’s their stories and their trauma and so much of it is the father and mother wound. Are you able to articulate what the father or mother wound is for you?
The first step is to recognize that’s where it is. We are a product of our environment and our relationships, particularly our fathers, particularly our mothers, because we hold them on high pedestals without recognizing they’re human too. And they are also dealing with the wounds that were presented by their fathers and their mothers and they didn’t have the skills, they didn’t have the tools, they didn’t have the opportunity to look into themselves. That’s my experience anyway. It is incredible how I meet, in particular, Europeans, how they’ve been affected by conflict, by war. If we look back at some of the injuries that my father carried, emotional injuries, they go back to his time in World War Two, when he was a young sailor. He used to have dreams, he’d be screaming at night, as if drowning. Those wounds that are carried down, suppressing of his fears, not having the opportunity to speak about them, not being able to be in a safe space to share them. What effect does that have upon me as his son, the pressures that were put on to him. With men’s work, it’s helped me to be feeling safe and, in a non-competitive environment, to be able to speak vulnerably. I continue in that work for myself and to support other men.
We talked briefly about possible interest in having children at this point in your life. Is that still an aspiration for you (Warren laughs)? Is that your answer?
I don’t have any desire to have children (laughs). My injuries certainly put on an aspect of my emotional injuries around sex. Because once I hurt my spine, there’s a lot of fear in there. Instability, physical instability, emotional instability, the feeling of helplessness. With my second lower back injury, I was in Sri Lanka, I had two lovers at the same time, all very open and truthful and honest, which taught me a great deal. But I was prolonging my recovery, because I was fucking, and lower back injuries and hip thrusting movements.
I am aware of this phenomenon.
Not good to lay on my back, and to receive, also not good. So it’s been helpful to understand these injuries and what I can strengthen so I can be a lover again, and not be in fear. That’s played a role. It’s also some of the stuff we do in men’s group, to be able to talk about sexuality, and where we’re at. Not about, you know, I banged this woman, a horrible way of looking at things, but what is our vulnerability? What’s been our emotional experience in being so present, both physically and sexually, with a woman and with ourselves? That’s an ongoing process. And there’s been some amazing work done out there. Which I’m now incorporating in discussions with the men around me.
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Electric Memories is an online storytelling platform that documents, records, and packages your defining moments, lessons learned, and personal history across multiple media for permanent storage, access, and sharing. For more information, visit www.electric-memories.com.
For the complete set of Warren Buttery’s audio, video, and text remembrances, visit www.electric-memories.com/warrenbuttery.
