No need to explainājust notice:
where in your body do you feel most at ease today?
World-selfing and self-worlding šŖ¬. In todayās Level Up ā¬ļø immersion I was noticing how much our coping strategies assume and defend a world. For example, āIām quiet because Iām afraid I donāt belong,ā assumes and reifies that belonging is a thing that others can grant or deny. This was beautiful to see, and apply to myself (āIāll share deep insights to earn loving acceptanceā assumes loving acceptance is somewhere other than here already) but then I noticed how I was only emphasizing the world-assumption. And I donāt know how any human could ever know of a world without a knowerāso whenever we say "world,ā we really mean āworld+self,ā and whenever we say āself,ā we really mean āself+world.ā So if Iām assuming and defending a world, Iām also assuming and defending a self.
As another example I was reconnecting with an old friend as he described how complex the world is and how simple and low-bandwidth our models of it are. Yes! I agree! Applying the world+self awareness, I see how my self-concept is extremely simple and low-bandwidth compared to the wild complexity of who I am in āreality.ā
Recursively, the recognition of self+worlding/world+selfing still enacts a world and a self. I donāt think we can stand outside of such a process; we can though shift our sense of what a self and a world are to be more aware of/surrendered into/as the process of this happening. As serious as this sounds, the outcome, if done right, should be more access to a light-hearted playfulness (because weāre always a little mistaken about whatās real and who we are) and heart-break (because everything we love is ephemeral). The heart breaks open to be more with what's here rather than what we hopedābut the grief for what was, is, and what we wanted, is felt more intensely.
Recognizing the process while being the process shifts the locus from defending particular self+worlds to fluid participation in constructing. Self becomes verb rather than noun, world becomes activity rather than container.Ā
#TTT
Shadows of personal growth culture: weaponized toolkits. I think everyone here has probably experienced weaponized NVC. What are some of the other things you see weaponized
that annoy you?
eg:
Weaponized Commitment to connection
: there are bunch of versions of this: i canāt heal myself without you, my feelings are dependent on your reaction (classic codependency) you must stay in the connection and respond to my inquiry or else youāre not deep, spiritual, or committed enough, etc
weaponized owning your experience
Of course most of the time if you simply use principles, steps, and tools for yourself only you dont run into these issues; but even then people are sneaky and manipulative (often without even realizing it themselves!)
Shadows of personal growth culture: weaponized toolkits. I think everyone here has probably experienced weaponized NVC. What are some of the other things you see weaponized
that annoy you?
eg:
Weaponized Commitment to connection
: there are bunch of versions of this: i canāt heal myself without you, my feelings are dependent on your reaction (classic codependency) you must stay in the connection and respond to my inquiry or else youāre not deep, spiritual, or committed enough, etc
weaponized owning your experience
Of course most of the time if you simply use principles, steps, and tools for yourself only you dont run into these issues; but even then people are sneaky and manipulative (often without even realizing it themselves!)
Emotional Awareness leading to suffering or transcendence? š« . Many emotional awareness practices are self reifying. I think this leads to more suffering.
Does being more in touch with your emotional reality invite transcendence of who and what you think you are? Or does it confine you? Are you more open to surprise, or are you more controlling of how people are with you? Are you more responsible for your well-being now that you see whatās happening inside of you, or do you now feel entitled to others treating you a certain way?
Iāve done all of the above, probably today. My apologies to everyone who Iāve been holding responsible for me and my experience. I forget how powerful I am: how I get to choose the interpretations, my right to how I respond, what I show up for, and how I use my resources. I forget to respect the beauty and functionality of how you do things, and to let our differences be OK even if this means more space between us.
I like to think with relatefulness our emotional awareness training opens us up, allows us to be more self-responsible, and transcend the confines of what we limit our self-identity to. But we are flawed and multiple, so sometimes we use our best tools against ourselves. May we be gentle with ourselves and others when we slip into a disempowered assessment, āfeelings reveal the truth of who I am,ā and may we keep shifting toward an empowered inquiry, āfeelings reveal new possibilitiesāam I free to choose?"
#TTTĀ
Postmodernity is too egocentric. This includes current āspiritualā trends.
Hereās what an alternative can look like: Yesterday Dara asked Jason to install a window A/C unit in Valās room; he came over and did it. Last night a participant shared struggling with a contract at work, and a lawyer in the session volunteered to help her redline it. My sister watches the kids while I help my brother-in-law move their furniture to make room for the new baby. If this doesnāt sound special, thatās the point. Youāre already doing this, thatās also the point.
Iām not writing to admonish us to āget ridā of the āegoāāa particular self-identity*. I think itās too hard for modern Americans, steeped in a culture of individualism. I love life, people, experience, and I think a good life includes a sense of āme.ā Instead, I want to expand the sense of self to go much beyond the concept of āmy body, my historyā to see the larger whole these are part of. One upshot of this is gratitude, even for what I usually think of as āJordanāsāālike these thoughts thunk in English. I needed English to think āem, so how much are they āmineā?Ā
Automated & consensual narrative lock-in
We know that social media exacerbated this. Many studies show narcissism and loneliness increasing faster with mass adoption of social media, especially after 2012. Young kids donāt want to serve as a fireman or doctor anymore, they want to be adored as an influencer (Weāre working on this social media problem by launching UpTrust).Ā
Now I worry that AI is exponentiating this self-reification trend to unprecedented levels.
Last week I met four people who were convinced that their personal ChatGPT interface, molding its āpersonalityā to respond based on their unique interactions, was a sentient being. If you think our filter bubbles are bad now, imagine what itās like when we have 8 billion of them? Each individualās personal collection of bots reinforcing whatever identity feels special, safe, and comfortable, no matter how limited and delusional?
Thereās nothing wrong with specialness, safety, and comfort, but neither is there anything wrong with ordinariness, risk, and discomfort. Transformation, life, intimacy, and play all demand both. Are we bleaching the color of life in pursuit of maintaining a self? What are we so afraid of that we hide from becoming? Life is transformation. Relating requires and changes our uniqueness. Other people providing friction and challengeāthatās a service, freely given to all at birth.
Perhaps the trap isnāt narcissism. Itās any reification of identity via any narrative frame, especially spiritual ones, designed to parade as if theyāre narrative-free. And the cost is ordinary love.
Transcend and exclude often means we fall back into less maturity
Iām still trying to get my mind and language around this, so Iām going to highlight the contrast to see the phenomena more clearly. Does your coach / (AI) therapist / culture / practice help you:
Express more gratitude? Become more forgiving? Be more accepting of othersā flaws? āSettle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to courtā?
Or say you should be treated a very particular way (reifying a victim identity?)
Build infrastructure thatās super helpful but unsexy? Do things that are good for others without recognition? Feed those who are hungry? Do mundane things for the local whole like pick up trash thatās not yours?
Or build a marketing funnel that will help you promote yourself and perpetuate the āmeā āmeā āmeā cycle?Ā
Love your friends and family better? Accept being misunderstood? Show up to their events and support their successes? Take care of them when theyāre sick? Be more generous? Patient, humble, respectful, loyal, temperate? Maintain commitments regardless of feelings?
Or emphasize your in-the-moment desire above all else, calling impulsivity and self-centeredness āsurrenderā?
Develop boundaries as expressions of love and connection? Face challenges with grace and acceptance? Take responsibility for your pain, flaws, mistakes, shadows, and limitations?
Or use "boundaries" to control others and force them to change according to your preferences?
Admit ignorance, learn from criticism, hold your beliefs lightly, speak simply about profound experiences, work steadily without needing dramatic breakthroughs, notice your defensive patterns without performatively announcing them, contribute to social understanding, love others as they are?
Or position yourself as having rare insights to help others transcend their limitations through your techniques and advice?
This list can go on; I wish I could speak to the connection and community side more but Iām stuck in my own bias.Ā
Iām not saying itās easy, we of course need guides, mentors, feedbackāitās so complicated! Nor am I saying its specialāall of this has been said for thousands of years! Iām trying to highlight a healthy version of one pole and unhealthy versions of another on purpose to get more clarity on where we are deeply unbalanced today. This is especially true of āspiritualā hotbeds like San Francisco, Boulder, Ubud, Amsterdam. Austin is somewhat counterbalanced by its Texas-nessācowboy culture still emphasizes family, duty and sacrifice to a greater good beyond āyouā. Plus our immigrants are a little more integrated.
Whatās up with me?
Anyway, I ask myself: Why do I care?
Sure, practices purported to transcend ego instead teach self-absorption. But itās in the nameā "personal growth" and āself-help.ā Whatās got me?
Because Iām guilty of all of this.Ā
Sometimes despite my best efforts, Iāve taught people to ignore their minds in order to stay with the sensations of their bodies (rather than integrating them); to āsurrenderā to their feelings-in-the-moment and ignore larger consequences or agreements and the greater wholes that hold them. Iāve corrected a lot of these mistakes, made amends, even evolved the practice and training. Yet I still canāt quite escape the selfishness of āwellnessā culture. Prime example: a couple years ago we hosted a āGive Festā at the Relateful Studio in Austin with a reverse silent auction, where people bid on what they wanted to give to a local nonprofit. Even my wife and I didnāt follow through on what we āwon.ā
Let us redefine wellness and self-development. Let us change the metrics to gratitude, forgiveness, acceptance of our and others' flaws, showing up for family, friendship, and our greater communities. Let us celebrate unglamorous, unwitnessed interdependence.
Three alternatives: what is it all for?
Burning Man is actually a great example of a positive alternative. The economy is about giftingāand after your first year, itās well known that to get the most out of the experience, you need to give. People camp in communities, build massive art projects and cars together, and give them freely without credit, burning them at the end. Itās all about creating for the whole, being present with each other in non-transactional relating. All of this disrupts the self-reification loops in such a way that people are consistently shaken from long held encumbrances, and come out of the desert transformed. I say this as an admirer but not a fanaticāI went to Black Rock City in 2012 and 2014, and then didnāt go again.
Relatefulness
Relatefulness, especially in Level Up ā¬ās Leadership Program and the The Relateful Coaching Training, does not fall into these problem nearly as badly as almost every other community Iāve seen. We claim our directionality of truth + love. This means the personal canāt be number oneāindividual expression and growth is always in service of something greater. Of course we make mistakes. (For example, the Level Up structure highlighted individualism. Weāll be returning to a cohort-only model this Fallāmore on that in a future email). But weāve done a really good job focusing on being with what is, especially relationally and communally.Ā
We donāt abandon compassion and honesty in service of making sure people feel seen, heard, cultivating a āsafe space,ā or maintaining instagram-defined-trauma-therapy-norms. This is hard, because I not only want people to feel seen, heard, safe, and heal, I think itās crucial for a healthy community and for the true pursuit of truth and love. It just needs to be in service of love/truth, rather than an end unto itself. It needs to come authentically from the moment, not as a script or status signal or performance. We run into generative friction embracing the seeming paradox of this polarity all the time, and it is incredibly demanding of our facilitators to walk this tight rope. It demands that we are always changing, individually as leaders, as a community, and even the practice itself. Even our coaching teaches revealing identity commitments, inherently making the self an object in a larger self that can choose āyesā or ānoā to, versus reinforcing a self and an existing worldview.
And even as we teach people how to meta-narrate as a way to witness and disembed themselves from unconscious habits that have been running them, we recognize that the compulsion to name and categorize experiencesāspiritual or otherwiseāoften becomes a form of conceptual possession, serving self preservation rather than self-transformation.
(continued in comment)
(this will be sent out to my #TTT email in a couple of days, but UpTrust gets the early exclusive ;) )
What men wish women understood about men. This has been trigger a lot LOLs and ROFLs in my group chats. It's obviously over-the-top dramatic with the music and tone and hyperbolic "10,000x" language but it did make me think how much "burden" is kept when you don't talk about things. I think that's the basic premise, woman share their burdens and men keep them to themselves. It certainly tracks for me.Ā
https://x.com/chriswillx/status/1957789651621523918?s=46Yesterday, during our tango lesson, I was feeling out of sync dancing with my wife. Our teacher shared that it was because I was moving ahead of her. I was focused more on executing the steps rather than being completely present with her and moving together. When I included her in my awareness and focused on being connected in motion, it felt so much better!
I couldn't help but think that this is another metaphor and a reminder for how I can show up better for myself. So often I prioritize my tasks, completing them, and pushing through while ignoring how my body feels, until it's too late. I'm leaving my body - 'my partner' - behind. But there are times... usually after I'm reminded that I've been neglecting my body... that I make a conscious decision to support my body with movement, good food, and rest, which inevitably supports me in being more focused and better with the tasks at hand.
So I wonder what else becomes possible when I prioritize taking care of myself while working and it becomes more of my norm.Ā
What are some of your uncertainties? Experiences of failure (that maybe you still haven't turned into learnings yet?) Obvious realizations? (eg: things that were maybe super obvious to others, or even obvious to you about others, but you just realized deeply apply to you?)Ā
Will you share some here in the comments?
#quicktakesĀ
Ā "For Lacan, āfull speechā took place on the level of the Symbolic; here was where meaning was produced and expressed. By contrast, āempty speechā occurred at the level of the Imaginary, a pure signification devoid of true meaning... āFull speech is speech which aims at, which forms, the truth such as it becomes established in the recognition of one person by another. Full speech is speech which performs"
This is a different cut on the question of earnestness and sincerity, and I find it quite powerful.
I donāt fully understand what sexual attraction really is. In one occasion I was able to pierce through a feeling of arousal and I found a big wound from my childhood. Something totally non sexual.
I wonder whether a lot of sexual attraction just points to unmet needs and is ādesignedā to help us meet those needs by bringing closer to specific people (with certain characteristics).
But I donāt understand the whole picture here. Is it always like this? There is some clear use for sexual arousal in reproduction, I canāt believe thatās always a sexualized childhood wound. Whereās the border between a sexualization and a genuine, irreducible sexual thing?? What do you think?
Boycotting Explanation. I've been experimenting lately with refusing to explain in relationship.
I was raised by a lawyer and legal assistant and in the context of my upbringing being able to explain myself and my experience/emotions/etc (and implicitly justifyĀ myself) was my ticket to my experiences/emotions/etc being received as valid, worthy of care and attention, and so on.Ā
I have a hunch that this taught me to collude to manipulate/be manipulated by the habit/expectation of explanation - the implicit currency of justification seems possibly insidious and so far, since I've experimented with abstaining from it, otherwise unnecessary.Ā
#quicktakes
Hot take- Hating and complaining is healthy for authenticity and intimacy . In the new age era, there is so much emphasis on positivity and light. I sense a superficial texture at times, where it's challenging for me to feel the depths of the person before me. I noticed a pattern, that when I opened the doorway to begin complaining and hating things playfully yet honestly, gushing renewed life force showered the conversation.
followed by much laughter and beauty.
Ā
yes, some people need to learn how to use words in ways other than complaining and hating....
and some, need that permission slip to be a wild animal in their expression so their soul doesn't suffocate in an in an invisible box of superficial superior spiritualityĀ
Envy and desire. Iāve been studying quite intensively with Kasia Urbaniak this summer. One thing sheās focusing on is something she calls emotional alchemy: moving emotions and cooking them
so that they can lead us towards what we want. One example she talks about is turning envy into desire. When we feel envy towards another person it shows us what we really want, and in fighting that person we subconsciously tell ourselves we canāt have what they have, but in blessing them and befriending them and learning from them we get to move closer to having what they have.
I like the concept and Iāve tried it a few times where itās led me to claim more of myself. Itās actually been quite transformative in a few relationships too, but specifically itās helped me to not be stuck in envy.
What do yāall think about it?
Musings: The World Is Overstilumated. I'm reflecting on my experience this summer spending 3 days in the dark. I was in Tangier, Morocco, in an apartment, and I had those garage door window shutters that would keep the entire apartment completely pitch black even in the middle of the day. I chose to spend 3 days in the darkness. Mostly sitting on the couch staring into darkness.
I wasn't aware of this experience having much impact until I started having phone calls with people from the darkness. I could hear everything in the silence. Beyond someone's voice, I could hear the Soul speaking. I'm pretty convinced we can communicate in Silence, and I love words.
I've been wondering about how overstimulated the world is. In this moment I'm watching the woman across the table from me scroll through her phone, going from Instagram to Spotify to texting to checking out concert tickets this weekend. Starting sentences and starting new ones mid sentence. I'm in love with how incongruent and disoriented we can appear as humans.
I wonder what it would be like for the world to take a day off from stimulus: food, cell phone, entertainment devices, etc. What if we had a collective pause? Sunlight, water, fresh air. Our collective nervous system could use a Parasympathetic Pause. I like this as an Emerging Probability and Planetary Potential. Feels like part of the emerging meta-model and protocol for The Wellbeing of Humanity.
Fuck. I'm not as open minded as I like to believe I am. Iām watching this video made by a former liberal who voted for Trump because I want to better understand what is happening. Itās well made, she seems extremely sane and rational. My approach has been to listen from a mindset of what would it feel like for me if a majority of this was true?
Iām stunned to see how visceral my fear of listening is. Tightness in my chest, sudden exhaustion, extreme urge to eat something soothing or do literally anything else. Iāve been giving myself breathers, but also doing a lot of looking straight at the sensations. Thereās grasping fear of my mind changing, even slightly. Thereās a potent feel of betrayal, specifically in a moment when the video showed Rachel Maddow, betrayal of the gay community I grew up with in Memphis. Betrayal of the beauty and love they raised me with. Fear of becoming one of the people Iāve seen as conspiracy theorists. Fear of estrangement from the people I love the most if I were to ever discover that I disagreed with them, if I could even fathom having been capable of choosing to vote for Trump.
https://x.com/JoomiKim1/status/1850530862531498458?fbclid=IwY2xjawGYjD5leHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHX6NqxhGLf66D5dwcO4QYdWiFNY26N92a26splKrZiqYbHYxosDeCggb8A_aem_hYzzfzlGJolkUhgqT73l-w
Hello! And a question on measuring the quality of a connection. Hi Uptrusters! Sara here, joining for the conversations (debates? connections? community?) and because Iāve been frothing to see the inside of this platform ever since Jordan told me about it š¤¤.
Since I imagine the best way to say hello here is to start an interesting conversation, hereās something Iāve been noodling on lately.
Right now Iām doing a bunch of research on loneliness and social isolation (two different things, as it turns out!) to write an article on How to make friends
for the publication Clearer Thinking, which i think does the best independent psychological research and tool development of anywhere I know. In case you want more context for this post, here is the draft of the first half of the article, posted on my Substack while Iām working on it. https://authenticrevolutionary.substack.com/p/how-to-make-friends-part-1-inner?r=34w9f
There are a few research questions that have come up for me as I do this, areas of study that I think could be more explored and would be exciting to look at if we ever have Ph.Ds or grant funding for our field. If this topic interests people lmk and Iāll post more of the questions.
Hereās one Iāve been thinking on. There are a number of studies that look at how social connectedness, whether strong or weak-tie, affects health and happiness.
However, the metrics they use to ASSESS social connectedness seemā¦maybe incomplete, to me? For instance, I was reading a study this week on how the quality of conversations affects happiness and a sense of connection (study available here, if you want to read the results: https://psycnet.apa.org/manuscript/2019-62902-001.pdf)
The metrics they used to assess quality of connection were:
- Self-disclosure
- Depth of conversation (rated from superficial
to substantive
)
- Liking of the other person
- Prior knowledge of the other person
So hereās my question. What other metrics, if any, do you think would be pertinent to assessing the quality of a connection?