therapy

Times like these . I feel alone and trapped with animal abuse and cruelty and I don't know what I can do to change things

Hi intro. Author, healer, therapist, student of life, massive AI enthusiast, attention span of a squirrel looking for snacks! 

On the plethora of Therapeutic modalities.

There's a genre of book that's the therapy modality book. They're all the same. They go

I was a therapist and what I was doing wasn't working, and then I discovered <specific technique the book is advocating> and then it cured me and all my clients and now things are great and we just need to teach everybody this technique.

So many therapy books are like this. Focussing, the IFS book, the EFT book, to name a few. The various ACT books. Waking the Tiger.

And the specific technique is different from book to book. Radically different. And even contradictory.

So what's going on here? Apart from probably there's some book somewhere about how to write a therapy book, or some ghostwriter that's cranking these out?

If we take these stories as more or less true, how do we make sense of these seeming contradictions?

This is not a rhetorical question! I'm going to give you my best guess below, but please take a moment to think of your answer, and ideally post it in the comments for everyone to see. I am very much interested in other answers here.

Ok, my best guess (at least, the guess that I find most interesting):

What works is having a therapist who believes they are helping. It's like the placebo effect. If the doctor handing you a sugar pill is like "Yeah, idk, people told me this is helpful. lmk what you think", my guess is, you're not going to get much placebo effect out of that pill (actually they've done research and you do still get some but not as much iirc).

So when the therapist is out of school, they're doing what they were told works, but for a certain kind of mind, that doesn't give them confidence. So then they have to go on a big heroes journey, and come back with some technique, some approach, that for whatever reason they believe in.

Now they're back, and they believe it works, and low and behold, it does!

It's like Dumbo's magic feather.

"some technique, some approach, that for whatever reason they believe in."

So why do they believe in the technique they chose? Because they love to do it. Because, when they're doing it, they feel most like themselves, and they feel most connected with the person they're working with. Or they feel most connected with what they consider important, about a mind, about a heart, about a life.

And maybe this gives it some extra sauce too. Maybe this love of themselves, this intrinsic interest, radiates out, and reminds their clients that they too can love themselves, love life, be enthusiastic, and intrinsically interested.

Or maybe that last part is just what I have come to believe works ;)

On the plethora of Therapeutic modalities.

There's a genre of book that's the therapy modality book. They're all the same. They go

I was a therapist and what I was doing wasn't working, and then I discovered <specific technique the book is advocating> and then it cured me and all my clients and now things are great and we just need to teach everybody this technique.

So many therapy books are like this. Focussing, the IFS book, the EFT book, to name a few. The various ACT books. Waking the Tiger.

And the specific technique is different from book to book. Radically different. And even contradictory.

So what's going on here? Apart from probably there's some book somewhere about how to write a therapy book, or some ghostwriter that's cranking these out?

If we take these stories as more or less true, how do we make sense of these seeming contradictions?

This is not a rhetorical question! I'm going to give you my best guess below, but please take a moment to think of your answer, and ideally post it in the comments for everyone to see. I am very much interested in other answers here.

Ok, my best guess (at least, the guess that I find most interesting):

What works is having a therapist who believes they are helping. It's like the placebo effect. If the doctor handing you a sugar pill is like "Yeah, idk, people told me this is helpful. lmk what you think", my guess is, you're not going to get much placebo effect out of that pill (actually they've done research and you do still get some but not as much iirc).

So when the therapist is out of school, they're doing what they were told works, but for a certain kind of mind, that doesn't give them confidence. So then they have to go on a big heroes journey, and come back with some technique, some approach, that for whatever reason they believe in.

Now they're back, and they believe it works, and low and behold, it does!

It's like Dumbo's magic feather.

"some technique, some approach, that for whatever reason they believe in."

So why do they believe in the technique they chose? Because they love to do it. Because, when they're doing it, they feel most like themselves, and they feel most connected with the person they're working with. Or they feel most connected with what they consider important, about a mind, about a heart, about a life.

And maybe this gives it some extra sauce too. Maybe this love of themselves, this intrinsic interest, radiates out, and reminds their clients that they too can love themselves, love life, be enthusiastic, and intrinsically interested.

Or maybe that last part is just what I have come to believe works ;)

On the plethora of Therapeutic modalities.

There's a genre of book that's the therapy modality book. They're all the same. They go

I was a therapist and what I was doing wasn't working, and then I discovered <specific technique the book is advocating> and then it cured me and all my clients and now things are great and we just need to teach everybody this technique.

So many therapy books are like this. Focussing, the IFS book, the EFT book, to name a few. The various ACT books. Waking the Tiger.

And the specific technique is different from book to book. Radically different. And even contradictory.

So what's going on here? Apart from probably there's some book somewhere about how to write a therapy book, or some ghostwriter that's cranking these out?

If we take these stories as more or less true, how do we make sense of these seeming contradictions?

This is not a rhetorical question! I'm going to give you my best guess below, but please take a moment to think of your answer, and ideally post it in the comments for everyone to see. I am very much interested in other answers here.

Ok, my best guess (at least, the guess that I find most interesting):

What works is having a therapist who believes they are helping. It's like the placebo effect. If the doctor handing you a sugar pill is like "Yeah, idk, people told me this is helpful. lmk what you think", my guess is, you're not going to get much placebo effect out of that pill (actually they've done research and you do still get some but not as much iirc).

So when the therapist is out of school, they're doing what they were told works, but for a certain kind of mind, that doesn't give them confidence. So then they have to go on a big heroes journey, and come back with some technique, some approach, that for whatever reason they believe in.

Now they're back, and they believe it works, and low and behold, it does!

It's like Dumbo's magic feather.

"some technique, some approach, that for whatever reason they believe in."

So why do they believe in the technique they chose? Because they love to do it. Because, when they're doing it, they feel most like themselves, and they feel most connected with the person they're working with. Or they feel most connected with what they consider important, about a mind, about a heart, about a life.

And maybe this gives it some extra sauce too. Maybe this love of themselves, this intrinsic interest, radiates out, and reminds their clients that they too can love themselves, love life, be enthusiastic, and intrinsically interested.

Or maybe that last part is just what I have come to believe works ;)

On the plethora of Therapeutic modalities.

There's a genre of book that's the therapy modality book. They're all the same. They go

I was a therapist and what I was doing wasn't working, and then I discovered <specific technique the book is advocating> and then it cured me and all my clients and now things are great and we just need to teach everybody this technique.

So many therapy books are like this. Focussing, the IFS book, the EFT book, to name a few. The various ACT books. Waking the Tiger.

And the specific technique is different from book to book. Radically different. And even contradictory.

So what's going on here? Apart from probably there's some book somewhere about how to write a therapy book, or some ghostwriter that's cranking these out?

If we take these stories as more or less true, how do we make sense of these seeming contradictions?

This is not a rhetorical question! I'm going to give you my best guess below, but please take a moment to think of your answer, and ideally post it in the comments for everyone to see. I am very much interested in other answers here.

Ok, my best guess (at least, the guess that I find most interesting):

What works is having a therapist who believes they are helping. It's like the placebo effect. If the doctor handing you a sugar pill is like "Yeah, idk, people told me this is helpful. lmk what you think", my guess is, you're not going to get much placebo effect out of that pill (actually they've done research and you do still get some but not as much iirc).

So when the therapist is out of school, they're doing what they were told works, but for a certain kind of mind, that doesn't give them confidence. So then they have to go on a big heroes journey, and come back with some technique, some approach, that for whatever reason they believe in.

Now they're back, and they believe it works, and low and behold, it does!

It's like Dumbo's magic feather.

"some technique, some approach, that for whatever reason they believe in."

So why do they believe in the technique they chose? Because they love to do it. Because, when they're doing it, they feel most like themselves, and they feel most connected with the person they're working with. Or they feel most connected with what they consider important, about a mind, about a heart, about a life.

And maybe this gives it some extra sauce too. Maybe this love of themselves, this intrinsic interest, radiates out, and reminds their clients that they too can love themselves, love life, be enthusiastic, and intrinsically interested.

Or maybe that last part is just what I have come to believe works ;)

Pain and suffering- the difference looks massive to me lately. Someone was rude to me earlier today. The in-the-moment impact of his words was discomfort (pain), but the suffering happens in the rumination. 

The expectations I seem to be putting on myself for the quality of this post is suffering, so I'll stop here.

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.

Micro-transformation: unitive practice from Russian Orthodoxy ☦︎. Fun fact: Ceaselessly, inwardly repeating the Jesus prayer “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me” from your heart has consistently led to stabilized unitive state-stages (Theosis) for more than a millennium. 

This practice is called the Hesychasm. It’s been officially recognized by the Eastern Orthodox Church since the fourth century. I’ve been playing with it as much as possible for the past few weeks, and I am loving it. It is very powerful. 

Then! In the early 1900s, hesychast monks on Mt. Athos took it a step further. Their results were so radical that in 1913, the Russian government sent troops to stop them! 

What was the shift? Their actions were the same—they aimed to engage the Jesus Prayer every moment of every day. But my (very limited) understanding is that their attitude reframed prayer from a practice that petitions for union with God one day that isn’t now — to an expression of divine essence (nonduality) right now. Prayer is not a behavior you do; prayer is God happening. Faithfully seeking IS participation as found-ness.

What’s so beautiful is that seeing it this way resolves the seeming duality between “no where to get, no one to get enlightened” and “but I’m not yet aware that I’m enlightened.” That thought itself expresses the divine. As does practicing.* We can see this parallel in every mystical tradition I’ve studied.

Variations on Imiaslavie 

Here’s a way I’ve been playing with this practice.

I shift the “me” that I’m asking mercy for (from my heart), when I say “have mercy on me” to be wildly more inclusive than my particular body-mind-character-Jordanness. Eg:

• “me” including whoever I’m judging or mad at
• “me” including whoever I’m speaking with or looking at
• “me” including all of humanity, or a people, or a country, or a world leader (especially one I judge)
• “me” including all plants, animals, and living creatures—a bug in my house for example

I think the “including” part is really important. I’m not praying for these beings as separate from me, but rather as extensions of me, or expansions of who I identify with. If this doesn’t make sense, a place you might want to start is with your family, especially if you’re a parent of young children.

I want to honor the lineage and centuries of practice by noting that I may be totally butchering the practice and theology. Although I believe it reflects the view of Gregory Palamas, a 13th century saint famous for defending hesychast spirituality, I haven’t run this by any practitioners or been advised by anyone else doing this practice. Nevertheless I share it because I believe it’ll be asymmetrically positive, and, especially with this caveat, I believe in the value of our civilization experimenting and adapting practices from a variety of ancient and time-prove lineages that are good for all.

(h/t Sean Esbjörn-Hargens for turning me onto this practice),  #TTT 

Two sides to “codependency”: my taking on others + expecting others to take on me 🏗️. This was probably obvious to a lot of people; it’s all over the psychological literature but I missed it as it applies to my life, so I want to share it (and make it quick):

There are (at least) two sides to claiming more sovereignty—seeing through the belief that I’m responsible for other people’s well-being (savior), and seeing through the belief that other people are responsible for me and what I need (victim). Idk if it's just me and my projection, but I think we-space practices in general have some very sneaky ways and fancy language to demand that other people show up for them in a certain way.

#TTT 

You're codependent but luckily codependency isn't bad. Picture it, two astronauts floating deep in space. Don't worry how they got here, just know that they're floating so close they can touch. Do you know how space works? If we're in space and I actually bump you or something bumps into me...we'll float...away...possibly forever. So what do we do?

We build a tether. Some astronauts make the tether out of common household chores. You cook and I'll mow the lawn. Or roles. I'm the disciplinarian and you'll make sure the kids feel loved. I'll be strong and you'll use hypnosis to calm me down...like how Black Widow lullabies the Hulk back into Bruce Banner.

We need the tether of codependency. If I say that I'll meet you at the movie theater at 7 and don't arrive until 8, why do you think that means I don't love you? You're a fully functional adult who can see a movie perfectly fine on your own. If I don’t show up at 7, does that mean I’ve let go of the tether? Or were we using that tether to hold something deeper in place? "Hey now, hey now, it's just bad logistics! I can still love you and know that I don't want to live a life where I'm showing up to places to meet and there's nobody there!" Got it. "Let's keep that thing where we show up to places when we say." Codependency is practical!

But sometimes it’s not. When I turn down my extroversion because your introversion doesn't want too many people coming close too fast, why does that mean you love me? Codependency is awesome...until it's not. It's because a healthy human always keeps developing. Healthy people change. What's stopping a lot of the change is we all subconsciously think we're loved for our roles. We think we're loved for our tethers. But if you think about it, we made the tether to secure the love.

And if I’m honest, sometimes I still engage in codependency because I don’t know how else to feel like I deserve love. If I’m useful, if I adapt, if I help — then maybe I won’t be left behind. It’s not always noble. Sometimes it’s a survival reflex dressed up in affection. But it’s real. It’s me. I’m trying. I’m learning to trust that love might still be there even if I stop earning it.

When someone starts wilting because they don't believe they can change, the tether becomes brittle. Think of the extrovert who stops going out. Think of the caregiver who forgets to care for themselves. It may stubbornly hang on but it's ready to go. Then it becomes "The Crucible of Relationship" (restated: the place where relationships reforge and reforge those who are in them) I'm not gonna turn down my extroversion anymore. It was hurting me to do so. You're going to "feel" abandoned. But I'm still right here. Now I'm more the new me. Why do you think it means I've floated away? I'm right here. Look at me. I don't know me either. I just became. A little older. A little more free. A little more me. I didn't even know this was me before I became but...I can feel it now. This feels more me. If we love each other and I just became...I think that means love is deeper than identity.

This is the mystical path of codependency. It's mystical because every time we shed an illusion about love, we get closer to what’s eternal in us. Together it leads us to the distillation of love. "I thought love was this!" And then "this" was gone. "Do we still love each other?" Yes. "Then love must be a more subtle 'this'!" And when that 'this' is gone we ask again, "Do we still love each other?" A thousand times a million times a billion. It will be painful, but most painful the first time. The pain will be reversely correlated to how much we are mistaking the tether for the love.

Please don't erase all your codependencies to try to meet God quicker. Just the brittle ones. The supple ones are merely love in action. You can feel it, can’t you? When I wash the dishes after you’ve cooked with a smile on my face. I love you.

#Deeptakes

My therapist says... if you have a disorder (I’d call this an undesired response + occurring regularly), don’t apply any strategies, any self-regulating methods to meet the stimulus. Don’t try to lower the fear. Any safety strategies will likely keep it in place.

When you do any kind of method you tell your nervous system this is truly dangerous. You need to show your primitive brain that this isn’t dangerous: I don’t have to do anything.

…

This feels so right in me. What a relief actually!

It feels related to what Jordan said earlier, that naming safety creates feelings of unsafety, making us more aware of what could go wrong.

Similarly, naming trauma encourages people to feel into their traumas, leading to distress…creating the opposite of what is intended.

Showing up to a disorder with a strategy is like an invitation to experience more of it.

What do you guys think?

My best attempt ever to make Integral Theory accessible to first tier. https://www.guidedtrack.com/programs/we0q1pq/run

I’ve put all of my energy about this political season into creating the most helpful thing I can imagine. It’s called Better Political Conversations, a quiz and mini-course that uses Integral perspectives to help people be able to see where each other is coming from more clearly.

This is my most genuine effort to be the change I wish to see in the world. My aim is that this is something that people of any perspective, worldview, or political opinion could find value in.

My standards building it were Pareto Principle on precision of information with a massive intention to make the concepts and wording comprehensible and relatable to folks in first tier. I aimed to honor every worldview as much as possible and not to compromise info in any ways that are misleading.

I already have about 25 quiz results, and I wonder why I’m so surprised how many people’s highest percentage is in Amber.

How do we realign the incentives in Healthcare to actually support wellbeing? Currently, there are many conflicts of interest and misaligned incentives in the Western medical system. For example, Doctors by default fight for their patients to live as long as possible, even when that’s not what might actually benefit the patient’s overall wellbeing (or even when it contradicts the patient’s stated preferences), because they rightfully fear litigation for not doing enough.

In general, the medical system is full of multi-polar traps like this. Collaboration and humility and vulnerability are devalued, because unless everyone simultaneously were to adopt them (which would actually benefit everyone), then individuals suffer for adopting them.

Bot Idea: Sense of Self. I just got an idea for a bot that can review every reference you’ve made to yourself and give you a sense of how you speak about yourself and what that seems to imply about how you see yourself.

It's too intimidating for men to be men. Alright, here’s one of my most controversial opinions, and I’m gonna try to take the filter off as much as possible:

Feminism has played out as retribution instead of solution. The Barbie movie is an entirely thorough example of what I’m talking about. You suppressed us, so we’re gonna use any means necessary to take over. And then they recreated the same imbalance in its opposite.

I see most social movements do this too. True solutions to imbalances aren’t fair because they don’t have human-enacted payback. You suppressed us, so we’re going to move toward balance.

I’ve been spending about 2 years trying to set aside my learned default into my masculine energy (having grown up in highly feminist orange/green) and learn how to root in my feminine. But my feminine longs for a tether to something rooted. Masculine energy feels rooted, solid, grounded, and my feminine very much doesn’t (though it is held by a spacious ok-ness, but it’s so airy it easily gets chaotic when not balanced in connection with a grounded masculine.)

But I’ve had a hell of a time finding grounded healthy masculine men. Many of them can do it for a time, but then flee to an extreme, like angry resentment at one end and non-binary softness at the other end. And I think it’s because the culture has become super aggressive to men who are solidly men.