Transcript from Hannah Taylor AMA: Influence Is Having a Great Time Right Now
New to interpersonal relationships
A live recorded conversation on UpTrust between Jordan Myska Allen and Hannah Aline Taylor.
On Saying "I Love You"
[00:00:00]
Hannah: Can we agree on reality?
Oh — hi!
Jordan: So happy that we're live here with you. I love you, so that's enough for me to be super happy.
Hannah: Yeah. I'm so glad we're here. I love you too. I've been teaching on verse 29 of the Tao Te Ching the last two days, and it just always makes me think of that moment in the hackathon when you just went like this and I knew exactly what book and exactly what verse you wanted.
Jordan: That's so cool. And funny — what a synchronous timing that you've just been teaching on it and here we are.
Hannah: Yeah. Well, I was teaching on corralling control — how do we, because every part of the human psyche has a sacred role, has some technological application that makes it good technology. If we think of technology as simple as a knife: that knife can be very harmful, and it's also essential. It's all about application.
Where are we applying it? And control is well-applied to my impulse to control. If I'm really good at controlling the world, then I can apply that control to my own impulse to control.
Oh — is it easy for both of you to say "I love you"? As in, it's not easy for a lot of people. Take that away, Jordan. I want to hear what you think.
Jordan: I love that question. It is easier and easier. Partly — I had good modeling. I met this woman who just unapologetically sends out: "I love you, love you so much, I'm so excited thinking about you." And she doesn't have leaky sexual energy — I've never once felt hit on by her. It just kind of blew my mind. I was like, oh yeah, I can just love people, and as long as I'm clean, I can just do it.
Hannah: Yeah. And part of it is how quickly I jump into saying it. I actually want to say it on the first meeting, because if you wait, it starts to develop this big meaning — this thing that hasn't been said, and it only hasn't been said because it means so much. And a lot of people will say "one love" but then wait to say "I love you" to their friends.
Jordan: Exactly. It really is vulnerable. I think there's something where I am letting myself be exposed and kind of undone. There's something about love that is — hmm — destructive in the best possible way. This love doesn't control, for example. So I'm like, all right, I've got to let go of that if I'm going to speak from this place.
Hannah: Totally. And so much of control is just trying to control how other people perceive me. There's this courage involved — I'm putting it in your hands. However you're going to perceive me saying "I love you" to you is out of my control.
Jordan: Yeah, exactly. Okay, so one theme about control I thought would be cool to talk about: the jailer is as stuck as the prisoner. The way we imprison ourselves by trying to control others. And then there's this civilizational immaturity — we're not quite adults, and the Western world doesn't really train us to be adults. Organizations, communities, people trying to coordinate — they tend to be organized around control. So what does organizational adulthood look like? Community adulthood?
Hannah: What do we organize around?
Jordan: Could be anything. I'm thinking of a company, a church — but I like that reframe.
Influence Is Having a Great Time Right Now
[00:05:01]
Hannah: Yeah, I think ontological organization is what I find most important. If we can organize around the beingness of right now, we actually can't be doing the controlling thing.
That's the thing that came through in teaching this week. Someone brought up influence. You know, there's the woman at 2 AM who goes around the party and turns down the lights, adjusts the music — it's such a contextual arrangement. Is that not control? Is that violence to the environment?
But my answer is this: influence is having a great time right now. Control is willing to slaughter the now moment — and everyone's experience of it — in order to make a better later. And that's what I see embedded in colonialism and capitalism: this sacrifice of the now moment, which is actually truly all there is, in order to have this vision — or delusion — of how the future might be good.
How Long Is Now? Responsibility in Indivisible Portions of 100%
[00:07:13]
Hannah: Yeah. My own little Zen koan: how long is now?
Jordan: I love it. It really reveals the structuring — the imposition of a timeframe — onto experience.
[Chat — viewer:] Mindfulness of communications as a seesaw of intention and perception restores some control and reapportions responsibility for change and balance more reasonably. I don't absolutely reject that the speaker's intention leads the transaction, but I think there are other perspectives and controls that should be incorporated — into a definition process, outcomes, expectations — that create a better world for all.
Hannah: I really love this. It's such a beautiful point about responsibility being distributed everywhere. This is such an answer to the Newtonian mechanics that want to invest in an object and an actor and make the actor solely responsible for what's happening to the object. Newtonian mechanics are like a cartoon of reality — super useful to look at physics via a cartoon instead of the very intense quantum entanglement we actually have. But the truth is: everything is alive, everything has responsibility.
I love this quote: "Responsibility comes in indivisible portions of 100%."
Jordan: You embody this more than almost anyone I know.
Hannah: Thank you. I think it actually comes more from my tyranny. I was such a tyrant. And then I found The Secret — a burned-disc version of the audiobook on four discs, one of them corrupted, so I was listening to most of it and wasn't even sure what I was missing. But I started to understand the role I was playing as the receiver and interpreter of all things. Once I saw that, I couldn't unsee it.
It felt like I was making shadow puppets on the wall with my hand and being afraid of the shadows. And then I realized it was my own hand — and I was like, well, I can't be scared of the shadows anymore. Not now that I know it's just my hand making that motion.
Jordan: That reminds me of something I first read in a Ken Wilber book — talking about shadow work, he said it's like you're pinching yourself, and people ask "what do you do with the pain?" and he says no one has ever asked "what do you do when you realize you're the one pinching yourself?" Once you know, you just stop.
Hannah: So funny. There's a comedy video about the shortest therapy session: the therapist hears the whole story and just says, "Okay — stop it."
I had a client who came to just a few of my master classes, and she said, "I can't remember what had me controlling and blaming. I can't remember my logic for that. I can't connect with what about it made sense at the time." These ideas about how the world works — they're a psyop. Like independence, for instance.
Jordan: Keep going. I think this is where your thinking is so powerful — zero pushing away, and yet you're like, "look, here are all these concepts we assume are true that are actually just psyops."
Interdependence Is a Fact, Not a Choice
[00:12:58]
Hannah: Well, I teach a lot on codependency — how to move beyond it entirely. A lot of relational technology out there is actually just about having a better time being codependent. And people say, "Oh, I choose interdependence instead." No. Interdependence is a fact. You don't opt in or out. Your nervous system does resonate with the other nervous systems around you — period. That's science.
So it's about shifting the flavor of the interdependence, because codependence is just one flavor. If we try to stop being codependent by opting out of participating, we don't end interdependence — we just create more loneliness. To truly stop being codependent, we need to get busy with another way of relating.
And this is what makes these things psyops — you can say just a couple of things that put people back in touch with reality, and the psyop can't take root anymore. I love Byron Katie's work for this. She just puts you in touch with reality in a way that the psyop simply falls away.
The real trouble with delusion, though, is that it's not optional. I must be engaging with delusion at all times. I had the delusion this was going to happen at 2 PM; Jordan had a different delusion it was happening at 4 PM. And we need to hold those delusions, participate in them, in order to function. Money's not real, time's not real — but they also are real, because everyone else is holding them too. It's really fun.
All Thinking Is Imaginary
[00:15:47]
Jordan: What do you do personally when you've invested in a delusion that then reveals itself? Do you ever find yourself — oh shit, I forgot it was a delusion?
Hannah: I like the word imagination better. All my thoughts are imaginary. Imaginary experiences — experiences of things that are imaginary — can be real experiences. A fake flower is a real object; it's not a flower, but it gives me something of an experience of a flower. And the thing that's wild: my thinking is all imaginary, and so is the part that judges how real my thinking is. I want a pink elephant — that's a very imaginary imagination. I think I have a call with Jordan at 2 PM — that's a pretty real imaginary thing. But I'm just imagining how real each of those things is as well.
[Chat — viewer:] What's your quantum understanding of communication? The responsibility for the interaction lies somewhere only with the speaker.
Hannah: I would say the responsibility lies everywhere. That's the real thing.
"Negative" and "Positive" as Value Judgments
[00:18:16]
[Chat — @Juliei:] You never have a negative response — not even one that's beyond the boundaries set for a professional relationship.
Hannah: I actually don't use "negative" and "positive" as value judgments. For me, negative means describing what is not — I use it as a linguistic term. "Negative" as in "undesirable," or "bad" as a judgment of reality — that language I don't use. Reality simply is.
Jordan: I always have a response because the universe moves from one moment to the next. There's a universe and I'm in it — there's a response, whatever it may be.
And this is part of why you love Byron Katie so much. Is it true? Is it really true? How do I know it's true? When you take those questions seriously, those concepts fall away and become very hard to hold onto.
Intentionality Is the Placeholder for What You're Not Actually Being
[00:22:29]
Jordan: There's something I'd love for you to speak about: unintentionality. People think "communication is hard, therefore I need to be more conscious, more mindful, more intentional." And I think you've rightly identified the cost of that — it's relationship itself.
Hannah: The thing about intentionality is that it's a form of idealism, and the role of ideals is to hold the place of what is not here. My favorite example — I live in Nevada City, it's a very hippie town, and the men here are like, "Oh, I'm in devotion to the feminine. I love being in devotion to the feminine." And I'm just like — well, that's how I know for sure you're not.
Every man I know who's actually in devotion to the feminine would not say that to a stranger. And then anyone they're very intimate with will hear them say, "I don't know if I'm doing it right. It's so hard. I'm never enough." The whole point of intentionality is to hold space for how you're not being. If you're being it, you don't have to tell people you're being it.
[Chat — viewer:] Responsibility comes in indivisible portions of 100% seems a little at odds with everywhereness and what we can and cannot control. We're not in disagreement — we are in exploration.
Hannah: Yes — I am 100% responsible for how I act toward the things I can't control. The locus of control is actually much smaller than we think. I don't control my thoughts and feelings. So free will begins at the farthest-out meta experience. Here's this thing happening and I hate it — I don't get to choose not to hate it; I am hating it. That's the reality. My free will begins in the further-out meta experience: I get to choose how I hate it.
And this is why responsibility is not blame. It's not total agency or dominion. Responsibility, accounting for every factor — and then how do I show up given all those factors? I can't account for the unknown unknown. Responsibility is my ability to respond. It's always very limited.
Jordan: Yeah. This is why I say you're the best stoic. What is actually in my control? The answer is basically what I do with my perception — and even that is often very limited. So much smaller than we usually assume.
Questions Are Rife with Projection
[00:27:46]
[Chat — @Juliei:] You don't ask questions much — interesting way to have an exchange.
Hannah: I find questions to be very interfering with curiosity.
Jordan: Can you say more about that?
Hannah: A question is necessarily rife with projection and assumption in most cases. What I want to know is what you want to reveal of yourself.
Jordan: The way I experience being with you is that you say what's true or interesting for you, and then you just empty out — you're the space. If something wants to come forward, it can. And what's so beautiful about that is that there's less tendency for people to speak when they don't need to. People learn that words are the way to exchange, to be intimate, to express love — and with you, it's just fine for it to be: we're here.
Hannah: I've been reading Hunt, Gather, Parent — have you read that?
Jordan: I have.
Hannah: So epic. And it weaves perfectly with the intentionality thing. Words are in the realm of intentionality. Questions are limiting because they're rife with projection and assumption.
[Chat — Renee:] She finds questions aggressive.
Hannah: Yeah. There's something in just being together — really being together. Those first dates that feel like an interrogation. I read a thread recently about someone realizing a man wasn't asking any questions — and when I read deeper, it was like he also wasn't leaving space for her to talk about her experience. But I think the questions are a red herring.
Jordan: Absolutely.
Hannah: I love what you said about making the assumption and then trying to steelman the argument underneath it. Every time I watch our conversations back, I'm like — oh, I didn't say a thorough enough "yes" to what Jordan said before I launched into building on top of it. But obviously I agree with you, so I just don't even bother to say how much I agree in a lot of cases.
Jordan: It's true.
Accountability Is Not Blame
[00:35:04]
[Chat — @Maryia:] I'm curious if you both agree: we are each responsible for ourselves, for our experiences, our choices, and our outcomes — and accountable to each other in relationship. Personal responsibility plus interpersonal accountability equals relational synergy. Responsibility plus accountability equals being held to account by the universe. Cause and effect — but we can claim it by acknowledging impact and making repairs.
Hannah: I love this, @Mariya. Repair is a really interesting one — there's often this wish for reversion, something that wants to go back in time. And this is one of those subtle and not-so-subtle places where responsibility is not blame, but it's often offered as blame. People say, "I want you to take accountability," and what they really mean is: I'm blaming you, you are to blame, and I want you to fix the past. That really eludes what responsibility and accountability actually are.
I've had women say, "Why did it feel so bad?" It felt bad — that's how it felt. There's something in accounting for how it felt without making feeling bad a crime or something going wrong in the world.
Jordan: Totally. This is something I run into as a parent constantly — you hit the reality that your kids are going to suffer, and sometimes at your hands, and sometimes just because that's part of reality. Making it wrong doesn't help them in any way. It makes it worse. "Yeah — that hurts. That's all there is."
Hannah: Mm. And this is where the controlling tendency begins: when we ask a kid, "Hey, what's wrong? Hey, what's wrong?" It starts to link: I'm having a bad feeling → there must be something wrong in the world. And that's how we come to try to control the world to make it go right — because my bad feeling is the evidence that things are going wrong.
Jordan: Yeah. And I definitely do that with my kids sometimes. These little innocent babes — I want to protect them, now they're hurting, and I want to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Hannah: And holding both at the same time — because if I say "hey, this hurt" and you really love me, I'm trusting that you actually don't want it to be hurting. That doesn't mean either of us is treating hurt as a crime. It's just: ooh, nice data point. That hurt. Hurt is not what we're going for here. So the data point of "that thing hurts" — then I actually want to shift, to collaborate on a reality where my intention for us to have a warm and generous interaction isn't bypassed by unintentional hurt.
What Gets People to Reveal Themselves Is Mislabeling the Situation
[00:39:32]
[Chat — viewer:] A lot of questions don't actually come from curiosity. They come from habit, from insecurity, from wanting confirmation, not understanding, from wanting to be right, not wanting to grow. Most people don't ask because they're hungry for truth — they ask because they're hungry for comfort. "Tell me I'm okay. Tell me I'm right. Tell me I don't have to change." That's not curiosity. That's outsourced thinking. Real curiosity is dangerous. It cracks open assumptions, forces humility, requires patience, admits "I don't know." Most people won't sit there — it's too quiet, too honest. So they stay in shallow water, asking safe questions, swimming in circles. Questions should be open doors, not reinforced cages.
Hannah: Yes — a question as an invitation to dialogue is one among many types of invitations to dialogue.
And Chris Voss talks about this in Never Split the Difference — the other book I can never shut up about. Byron Katie's Loving What Is — four questions that change your life — those are an invitation to dialogue within yourself about what's going on. And Chris Voss talks about open-ended questions like, "How are we going to do that?" Those can really open things. But the idea that a question is the only invitation to dialogue is just not true in my experience.
Chris Voss's work is about hostage negotiation, and these tactics of verbal conflict de-escalation — which is really what negotiation is — are things I marinated in for three years while working in juvie. Then I found this book and I've listened to it eight to ten times all the way through. Even steeped in this information, the thing that keeps hitting me is: truly, what gets people to reveal themselves is mislabeling a situation.
Jordan: Yes.
Hannah: Say to a man: "Oh, you seem afraid." He'll say — "No, I'm this, I'm that, I'm that." And he'll just tell you everything. When I'm looking for revelation, questions are very rarely where I'm going to go.
Jordan: I love that. And there's something it both requires and produces: a willingness to be wrong, to be perceived as wrong. I'm going to mislabel and I know it's going to be wrong, and that's okay — because I don't need to always be getting it right or be the person who listens perfectly and knows everything.
Hannah: So much more relaxing, honestly. I used to really need to be right. It made me very controlling and miserable. You know that old quote — "Would you rather be right or happy?"
Jordan: I first found that in A Course in Miracles.
Hannah: Is that where it's originally from?
Jordan: A lot of things get misattributed to Rumi or Nelson Mandela that probably come from A Course in Miracles, but I haven't confirmed it — we'll leave it as an unknown.
Relationships Are Context for Meeting Life — Not Content to Fill It With
[00:44:21]
[Chat — @sass:] Jordan, I bet you let your kids learn how to hurt in the safest way, and that's super valuable life prep too.
Jordan: Thank you. Yeah — I love getting affirmation. I steeped in all of this, but I still want to steep in it. If I know something, I'm happy to hear it again from someone else in different words.
Hannah: This thing about doing life together — when I teach about relationships, I'm often teaching that we're meant to be context for meeting life together. A lot of modern relational strategies are about how we make our relationship the content of the life we're living — quality time, let's touch, let's spend time together. And honestly, it gets old pretty fast.
There was a lot more fun to be had with that delusion before we were trapped at home with each other for three years. Relationships really could be content when we had about 10% of our time to devote to them. But once we had 100% of our time to devote to them, we were like — holy shit, this isn't going to work.
And a lot of talking about the relationship consumes the relationship. Relationships consume themselves at the rate of self-reference. And the more we make existential grief into a relational problem, the more trouble we have in relationships.
The third book I always plug is The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller. He has five gates of grief — places where grief is guaranteed to appear in a human life. The fourth gate is what I expected and did not receive. And boy, does that ever appear to be a relational problem.
Jordan: Amen.
Hannah: It is an existential problem. It's just true. I have this infinite imagination. I can form expectations willy-nilly at any time, and then be angry at my loved one that my imagination wasn't validated.
Jordan: Yeah. And kids make this so obvious — with a two-year-old, how could they have known that expectation?
Hannah: And then I get to see what I was expecting to happen. One of my little kiddo friends was sitting at a restaurant with her spoon — they brought her bowl of rice — and I didn't even realize I had an expectation until she went two hands into the bowl of rice and ate it like that. And I was like — oh. I had an expectation. I thought I knew what was going to happen, and that isn't what's going on.
Jordan: Ha. And it's often so rational. My kids did this the other day — they started eating by putting their faces in the food. And they said, "But that's what Ron Ron does" — that's our cat. And I'm like, that's a really good point. You're copying what you've seen done, and he's part of our family.
Baked-In Assumptions — You Don't Need a Reason to Say No
[00:48:06]
[Chat — @juliei:] Both of you gave examples of things you said were uncomfortable. "Language is usually what we most fuck up because we don't ask questions or clarify intent." Could we do much better? I've seen this framed in ways that feel imprecise. Did you say that, or did I think it? A question is the only invitation to dialogue — are we assuming that's why someone is asking?
Hannah: The trouble with language is that we can't choose for someone else to understand the precision — or imprecision — that we're using. I use gendered pronouns because they make language easier to understand in a generalized post about relationships, and then people say, "Well, this goes the other way with genders." And I'm like — wow. The gender had nothing to do with my position. This was just linguistic convenience.
What I would say, Julie, is that language is usually what we most mess up — because we don't ask questions or clarify intent. But I would also say: when I feel a lot of coherence and agreement, questions feel beside the point. Jordan and I have a lot of coherence. When we do ask questions, we find a lot of coherence there too. When I say "what do you mean by that?" and he clarifies, I'm like — that's exactly what I thought. You're not going to see that history on this call.
And Byron Katie's work has helped me see the underlying assumptions in dialogue — assumptions the speaker sometimes isn't even aware of. It's not my job or my business to make them conscious of assumptions that underlie the questions they're asking me. For example: in a partner dance group, someone said "It's not fair to not dance with someone unless they've harmed you." And I realized — that means I have to be harmed in order to say no. I don't get to set boundaries that would prevent me from ever being harmed. The harm is baked in.
And when I pushed back, she doubled down: "But I just don't understand why you would not want to dance with someone who hasn't harmed you." And they literally cannot see that they have a baked-in assumption — that harm should happen, and that it's unfair to decline unless you have a dire reason. But I simply have agency. I get to decide who I dance with and who I don't. I don't even need to fear harm to say no.
And so many of us as children didn't learn that we're allowed to not want things.
Jordan: This is huge. I see it in myself and in almost everyone — this assumption that I have to have a reason to say no, or a reason to say yes.
Disagreement as Alley-Oop — Being Repulsive to the Wrong People Is a Feature
[00:53:10]
[Chat — @juliei:] Dangerous territory here, Hannah — you seem quite committed to being right, or perhaps better language, to not entertaining approaches I've suggested. I admit it's imperfect, but are you saying that what I proposed is not your experience, or that you don't think or teach it? Is this not open for discussion? I'm not intending this as an attack. As far as I'm concerned, we are still in exploration.
Hannah: I just disagree with the comment. I think we've entertained a lot of these things and spoken to the value of questions, the hazards of questions, when I would ask questions. And yes — I am very committed that the way I've decided is right for me is absolutely right for me. And I'm very clear that the way that's right for me is not right for everyone.
It's also conveniently repulsive to people who are not for me. If I seem like I never ask questions and someone values questions, they'll clear right out of my field — which is amazing. I hope they find someone who's really got a lot of questions for them. But there's no way to universally guarantee coherence between two individuals. And that's the beauty of the multiplicity available in the world.
Jordan: I love that. And I'm so grateful for the comments, for the risk everyone's taking to share these opinions. Because what you just said — I met my wife on Bumble, and I put something in my profile that was basically: let's meet up for a hike and talk about what makes life meaningful. And I am sure I turned off many, many people who weren't available for that. And I'm so grateful for it, because I didn't want to spend time with people I wasn't matched with.
Like what you said — I see it almost as an alley-oop. Someone disagrees, and then I'm like: great, that helped me clarify my position. You don't even have to agree with me. I actually see that as a team effort.
Closing
[00:55:44]
[Chat — @Mariya:] You are two of my favorite humans. I'm so delighted to see you both sharing your lights together.
Jordan: Thank you, Mariya.
Hannah: Thank you, Mariya. Really appreciate you.
Jordan: Thank you, Hannah. Oh — you teach courses, as mentioned. People can find you by searching your name.
Hannah: Yeah — and securedetachment.com.
Jordan: If anyone missed that — Secure Detachment, not Insecure Attachment.
Hannah: Secure Detachment. Yeah. So funny. Thank you, Jordan.
Jordan: Absolutely. Likewise.
Hannah: Okay — loving you.
Show Notes & References
Books
Tao Te Ching (also Dao De Jing) — Lao Tzu. Hannah opens the conversation having just taught on Verse 29, which addresses the futility of forcing or controlling the world. Multiple translations available; widely cited editions by Stephen Mitchell, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Red Pine.
The Secret— Rhonda Byrne (2006) Audiobook/book on the law of attraction that Hannah credits with an early, formative shift in recognizing her role as "the receiver and interpreter of all things." Hannah notes she listened to a partially corrupted version — which she finds amusingly appropriate.
Loving What Is — Byron Katie with Stephen Mitchell (2002) Referenced multiple times throughout the conversation. Katie's "The Work" consists of four questions applied to any stressful belief: Is it true? Can I absolutely know that it's true? How do I react when I think that thought? Who would I be without that thought? Followed by a "turnaround." Hannah credits it for making psyops "unable to take root."
Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It — Chris Voss with Tahl Raz (2016) Former FBI hostage negotiator. Hannah has listened to it eight to ten times and draws on it heavily in her relational teaching. Key technique discussed: mislabeling — intentionally naming an emotion slightly wrong to prompt the other person to correct and thereby reveal themselves. Also covers open-ended "how" and "what" questions as tools for de-escalation.
The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief — Francis Weller (2015) Hannah plugs this as her third perennial recommendation. Weller identifies five "gates" through which grief enters human life. The Fourth Gate — what we expected and did not receive — is discussed here at length as an existential reality that frequently gets misdiagnosed as a relational problem.
A Course in Miracles — Helen Schucman (scribed 1965–1972, published 1976) Jordan identifies this as the probable source of the oft-misattributed question: "Would you rather be right or happy?" The text is widely attributed to Rumi, Nelson Mandela, and others.
Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans — Michaeleen Doucleff (2021) Hannah recommends this in the context of presence, words, and unintentional communication with children — and notes that Indigenous parenting practices involve far fewer verbal questions and far more simply being alongside children.
People
Byron Katie (Byron Kathleen Mitchell) Speaker, author, creator of "The Work" — a self-inquiry method for identifying and questioning stressful thoughts. Hannah references her work throughout the conversation as a foundational framework for releasing controlling mental habits.
Chris Voss Former lead international kidnapping negotiator for the FBI; founder of The Black Swan Group; author of Never Split the Difference. Hannah applied his negotiation frameworks during three years working in juvenile detention.
Ken Wilber Philosopher and developer of Integral Theory; founder of the Integral Institute. Jordan references Wilber's treatment of shadow work — the metaphor of "pinching yourself and asking what to do about the pain, never thinking to just stop pinching." Likely from No Boundary (1979), A Brief History of Everything (1996), or Integral Psychology (2000).
Francis Weller Psychotherapist, author, and soul activist; apprenticed in Jungian and indigenous traditions of grief work. Author of The Wild Edge of Sorrow.
Hannah Aline Taylor Creator of the Secure Detachment methodology; teacher on codependency, control, interdependence, and relational sovereignty. Teaches live workshops and online courses.
Jordan Myska Allen Founder & CEO of UpTrust; founder of The Relateful Company / Relatefulness. His work spans trust infrastructure for the internet, developmental psychology, and integral approaches to communication.
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Key Concepts & Research Referenced
Nervous system co-regulation / resonance Hannah states: "Your nervous system does resonate with the other nervous systems around you — period. That's science." This is supported by research on co-regulation and interpersonal neurobiology — including the work of Stephen Porges (Polyvagal Theory) and Daniel Siegel. Facial mimicry, emotional contagion, and heart-rate synchrony between people in close proximity are well-documented. The key implication Hannah draws: you cannot opt out of interdependence, only change its flavor.
Polyvagal Theory — Stephen Porges Underlying science for much of what Hannah discusses about nervous system states, social engagement, and relational regulation. See: The Polyvagal Theory (2011) and The Pocket Guide to the Polyvagal Theory (2017).
Locus of control Hannah references this explicitly in the context of Stoic philosophy — echoing Epictetus's dichotomy of control (what is "up to us" vs. what is not). Jordan notes this directly: "This is why I say you're the best Stoic." See: Epictetus, Enchiridion.
Mislabeling as a negotiation and revelation technique (Chris Voss) Intentionally naming someone's emotion slightly incorrectly (e.g., "You seem afraid") invites correction and self-disclosure. Voss identifies this as one of the most reliable paths to getting someone to reveal what they're actually feeling.
The "shortest therapy session" comedy sketch referenced by Hannah is likely the Bob Newhart "Stop It" sketch from MadTV (2001) — widely circulated and often cited in therapeutic contexts as a comedic exaggeration of behavioral change.
"Responsibility in indivisible portions of 100%" — exact origin unknown; circulates in integral, relational, and systems thinking communities. Consistent with Kegan's and Wilber's frameworks around full-spectrum accountability.
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