Level 1 - Ritual

These are highly scripted exchanges like, “Hello! How are you?” “I’m doing great, thanks! How are you?” “Also doing great, thank you.” There’s nothing inherently wrong with these kinds of communications; they allow us to acknowledge one another and exchange goodwill. But they do not allow for a deeper experience of connection or communication.

There is a deep assumption in our culture that to express things like anger, disgust, fear, aversion, irritation, etc. is to aggress, to shame, and to hurt.

And it’s true that we have a greater tendency to be unskillful when we’re communicating these feelings.

But here’s what’s also true: if these kinds of feelings are coming up and you’re not saying anything… you’re lying.

I was talking to a client today about how to embrace and process emotional pain when it inevitably comes, as an alternative to resisting, suppressing, numbing, reacting, etc. It's actually a really tangible, concrete, and especially a LEARNABLE skill, so I wanted to share how I broke it down.

Whenever I have to navigate a difficult conversation or work my way through a conflict, this is the #1 tool I turn to. It is the 20% of my effort that makes 80% of the difference.

I want to tell you a personal story, one of those pivotal moments that had a profound influence on the person I became and the work that I do in the world.

In my senior year at Naropa University, I took a class called “Senior Project Seminar” that spanned both semesters and included the same small group of people for the whole thing. We did SO much deep sharing and connecting work in that year, but the highlight for me was “The Bloodroot Project”…

Daniel Siegel in his book “Mindsight” points out that the conscious mind is the “bottleneck” of consciousness. It can only pay attention to one thing at a time, and conscious, working memory is extremely limited in the amount of data it can hold. But the unconscious mind can pay attention to everything all at once, and it is absorbing (and remembering!) every single experience you’ve ever had. And it’s not just remembering events, but also remembering what things tend to lead to what outcomes. In this way it is also a magnificent PREDICTION machine.

There are three parts to this article: first, you’ll read about the classic reality distortions we experience under the influence of the Spike. Next, you’ll get the full picture of what it looks like a) when we lose our Sobriety in the Spike, versus b) when we do manage to keep our wits about us when we get dosed by love. And finally, you’ll be introduced to what I call “The Two Transformations,” two critical passages that we must navigate with Sobriety in order to build a deep, real, and lasting partnership.

“God, grant me one good humiliation each day.” ~Richard Rohr

Given what I do for work, you might be surprised to hear this, but there are certain moments in certain contexts where I become what my friends have come to call “the dragon lady” (think Daenerys, but when she finally gets to King’s Landing). It doesn’t happen often, but given just the right confluence of circumstances, something clicks inside me and I turn into someone (or something) else. I don’t yell and I don’t call anyone names, but I do use every ounce of my personal power to non-verbally convey what a useless, ignorant, pathetic idiot I think you are.

So many of us really want to have more love and connection in our lives, but we walk around the public spaces of our everyday world with a thick bubble of “don’t talk to me” around our bodies. This means we are missing opportunities for connection - and yes, romance - every single day.

In her awesome talk on Oprah’s Super Soul podcast, bestselling author Cheryl Strayed shares about how her goal to write the Great American Novel, though it had propelled her in crucial ways for a long time, eventually became the very thing that blocked her from writing at all.

The closest thing to poetry I write… summoned from the absurd depths of existential ennui.

"You're really good at grieving..." is a weird piece of feedback I've gotten a lot. I want to share what it is that I do in case it's useful, but even more so, I want to illuminate what I mean when I say, "My success depends on my ability to fail well."

In mid-February of 2016, my then-partner Benjamin Buell was diagnosed with a very serious liver condition. Just a few months later, he was diagnosed again with an aggressive form of bile duct cancer. And though we had come to the mutual agreement to transition from partners back to friends, I spent the majority of the next year helping him navigate the dizzying labyrinth of the medical system and weather the incredible suffering brought on by his illness. And on this day last year, May 2nd, I received the unfathomable gift of sitting by his side as he gently and peacefully left his body.