Living on a Prayer 0
Surrender means accepting any outcome. With gratitude. I know this. I’m just not quite there yet…My resistance always coalesces into the same question: “Why does life have to be so painful?”.
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Losing My Faith 0
When you have an experience in life that strips away everything you thought you knew, and everything you thought was real, that is when you find what is actually real and cannot be taken from you.
Let’s talk about privilege 2
I haven’t written in a few months because all of these ideas were sifting through my brain and reconfiguring it. I’ve been thinking a lot about privilege and the way that “Lifestyle Design” and personal growth is generally aimed at people who already have a heck […]
Honoring and Enjoying Our Differences vs “Resolving” Them 1
Can we really “resolve” our differences? And do we want to? One thing I learned in Matrix is to see differences as a good thing. It is our fear of difference, and suppression of difference, that creates energetic blocks in groups and relationships–not the differences […]
Opening Your Heart in an Overwhelming World 0
Over the last year, I’ve experienced an overall opening and freeing of my heart. This has changed the quality of my life in a subtle but powerful way. For the past six months I have been doing volunteer work in the prison system, teaching Non-violent Communication […]
Let’s be awkward together 1
One of my biggest struggles over my whole life has been around belonging, and worrying that I will be rejected for one reason or another. I’m different, I’m a freak, la la la. One way this shows up for me is in my writing life. […]
Let’s Talk About Sex (and Kink) 5
Touch. Sex. Ecstasy. Kink. Bondage. Sado-masochism. These are things we don’t talk about at workshops. Well, unless they are sex workshops. Why? Why are these topics off-limits? Why is there “therapy” and “sex therapy”? The taboo on sex is an invisible line right down the […]
The Incomplete Apology 0
In NVC we talk about “Giraffe Apologies” – using NVC to express regret, name the needs not met, and re-connect. This post is the second of two (here’s the first) that explores how our usual way of apologizing can fail to meet needs, and then how we might […]
Apology / Not Apology 3
In NVC we talk about “Giraffe Apologies” – using NVC to express regret, name the needs not met, and re-connect. This post is the first in a series that will explore how our usual way of apologizing can fail to meet needs, and then how we might […]
Money, Gifts, and Creating an Economy of Love 0
I’ve done the work of learning how to charge what you’re worth. I’ve studied pricing strategy. I’ve run a successful business that supports me and I understand how money works. So I’m not coming to this from the idea that “money is the root of […]
Meditation: Embodying a Time You Felt Connected 0
I used this mindfulness induction in my NVC class this week. It goes with the lesson/exercise on Resourcing/Shifting States. Go ahead and let yourself make the transition from “getting here”/arriving to “being here”/ having arrived. However you do that. (General mindfulness stuff) Mindfulness is….notice what […]
Exercise: Shifting Back Into Connected Consciousness After Disconnect 0
NVC is wonderful, but often people are too triggered or upset to use it. And there’s a reason for that: our brain. When your brain perceives a threat, it shuts down the rational parts of your brain (the neocortex) and reacts with animal instinct. When […]
Sensing the Energy of Interconnection 0
This post is a pointer to a lot of question marks. I experience the ability to sense the larger patterns in reality, time being one of them. It’s not quite the sense of being ‘psychic’ as I understand it–I am not channeling anything. Rather it’s […]
Distributing Shock 0
Shock is defined as experiencing something that overwhelms your ability to cope (from We Are All in Shock). It is more global and severe than trauma. In trauma, you mobilize some kind of response; with shock, you are overwhelmed. If not addressed this lodges in […]
Breaking the Spell 0
“As all the tales teach us, It’s only once a spell has been broken that its influence is truly visible” – Jessica Montgomery, in a META newsletter This speaks to me of the importance of groups, and other people in general–people who can see our […]
Culture as an Anchor During Change 0
One of my teachers, Donna Roy, recently returned from South Korea and shared in the META newsletter about her experience returning after 35 years. She was struck by how much Korea purposely pursued economic change, and yet retained the core organicity of their culture. It […]
Being a Spiritual Conduit 5
In Matrix I was introduced to the term emotional conduit. It’s a role that people take on, generally unconsciously. The classic example is the person in the family that feels everything that the other members are denying or suppressing. It’s not a fun role, because you are […]
When Culture Works 0
My experience in Matrix is that profound experiences can be named and recognized easily, as they happen. There is an attention and awareness and acknowledgement of what is actually happening between people, and its significance. There is mutual recognition, and cultural (group) recognition, of the […]
