writing

You're cordially invited to ROAR. Jordan here,

You're cordially invited to submit a paper for the inaugural issue of ROAR, the new Research in Applied Relatefulness Journal.

This is a powerful endeavor to

• build our communal body of knowledge
• cross-pollinate new insights, failures, and best practices
• celebrate all the incredible practitioners, innovations, and generally showcase the community

We believe relatefulness has a lot to contribute to civilizational knowledge and inquiry about intersubjective awareness, communication, group facilitation, and the strengths and limitations of our how these practices interface and apply to other fields of study. 

What kinds of papers?

(1)  Cross-modal integration: what happens when relatefulness meets other frameworks in practice? eg: IFS & relatefulness, functional medicine and relatefulness (coming in the first issue)

(2) Practitioner Case Reports: internal relatefulness experiments and best practices. eg: a particular exercise, event flow, or structure 

(3) Field notes / failure reports. failures and lessons learned. eg: 

(4) Theoretical & philosophical contributions exploring the conceptual foundations of relatefulness and advancing new frameworks. eg: I'll be publishing an article version of my Relateful Camp 2024 talk "How Not to Start a Cult"

This is meant to help us see all of our play and exploration as research (because it is) and take part in the larger, ongoing human conversation by being more visible, citable, and propagating what we're doing, what works, and what doesn't, so everyone can learn from everyone and iteration can happen faster. 

Why you?

You get to be a founding contributor to a new field, your work becomes citable, you build credibility as a practitioner-researcher, and you get visibility within a growing community.

If you're not sure, post an abstract to the ROAR UpTrust group and people will weigh in and give you feedback.

Why now?

I'm just really excited for the experiential knowledge interchange for the sake of itself. That said...

We're in an era where our globe's biggest problems require coordinating across wildly different perspectives with very distinct values and desires. 

Relatefulness can be a key contributor to emerging social-psychotechnology (consciously created intersubjective infrastructure) to help people communicate, and find internal peace and sanity amidst unprecedented pace of transformation.

Submission Deadline 

Track 1: March 15th. Your article will be ready for the Camp Preview; a physical artifact at the chow hall at camp that proves the concept and inspires people to submit.

Track 2: May 15th. Full Founding Issue This gives the broader community a real runway to write something worth publishing. The full issue goes up on relateful.com, gets a downloadable PDF, and is available on Amazon.

Details

Formats:
Practitioner case reports (1,000-2,000 words), cross-modal integration papers (2,000-4,000 words), Field notes / failure reports (500-1,500 words); Theoretical / philosophical contributions (2,000–5,000 words)

Review/editorial process.
Submission:
1) Submit draft to a private UpTrust group, anytime starting day of announcement
2) Get community feedback (this is not quality control and you should not assume that all comments are good, it just helps the community get involved in our style) Editorial review proceeds on its own timeline and does not depend on community response. 
3) Editorial review: v1 at least Jordan Myska Allen will review, whether or not you get comments before approval depends largely on the number of submissions; we may expand to a founding editorial board (TBA)
4) Accepted articles will be published in the following:

Distribution/format.
- announced on TTT email list
- announced on Substack
- a linkable, indexable page on relateful.com
- a downloadable PDF
- A printed copy that people can order through amazon (this may not be ready by Relateful camp. But we will have at least one printed copy at the chow hall)

Guidelines:

• Abstract (150-300 words) (unless field notes/failures- (50–150 word abstract is fine)
• Author info: name, relevant background (facilitation credentials, affiliation with Relateful Company, professional practice, academic training, whatever establishes your credibility in the domain you're writing about, and contact email (for editorial use only, not published))
• Originality statement (A line confirming the work hasn't been published elsewhere and is the author's own)
• Conflicts of interest / disclosure: (any relevant personal/financial stakes)
• Permissions (If you reference specific client work/sessions in a practice that emphasizes confidentiality, this confirms you have consent or have sufficiently anonymized)
• Voice: first, second, and third person are all welcome (I, we, it) but no need to label them; use whatever constructs enact the experience you're hoping to communicate, including shifting views if needed. We can't study the relational while pretending there's no I or we. (Drawing from Integral Methodology Pluralism).
• References/citations: We're not imposing APA formatting on practitioners bc we think it'll kill submissions. if you reference someone's work, name them and link to it. 
• Co-authored pieces should list all contributors with individual author info. Designate one corresponding author for editorial communication.
• Authors retain copyright; Relateful Company has permission to publish, distribute, and reprint

(Skipping for V1: Detailed style guides, structured heading requirements, blinded review formatting, cover letters, IRB approval documentation, etc.)

How to submit: Post to here in this ROAR UpTrust group.

I don't feel very creative or safe lately. Lately, so much of what I write or create feels meaningless with the current state of affairs in the background, humming like a constant threat.

I have scrapped so much content, and I usually tend to create for the practice of creating.

Then my older son asked me, “Uhma are you writing about what you are feeling + dealing with?”

That’s when I realized I have been busy numbing myself -a type of disassociation or distracting myself to avoid the overwhelm.

Some thoughts:

1) A level of safety if necessary to create

2) Safety can also be found within through practice + discernment

3) Sometimes, we must not run from the fear we feel but toward it to understand

3) Sometimes, because we don’t feel safe, we need speak on that.

Confession: I don’t feel safe lately.

In process: I am building an inner sanctuary of safety to face my fears.

I don't feel very creative or safe lately. Lately, so much of what I write or create feels meaningless with the current state of affairs in the background, humming like a constant threat.

I have scrapped so much content, and I usually tend to create for the practice of creating.

Then my older son asked me, “Uhma are you writing about what you are feeling + dealing with?”

That’s when I realized I have been busy numbing myself -a type of disassociation or distracting myself to avoid the overwhelm.

Some thoughts:

1) A level of safety if necessary to create

2) Safety can also be found within through practice + discernment

3) Sometimes, we must not run from the fear we feel but toward it to understand

3) Sometimes, because we don’t feel safe, we need speak on that.

Confession: I don’t feel safe lately.

In process: I am building an inner sanctuary of safety to face my fears.

I don't feel very creative or safe lately. Lately, so much of what I write or create feels meaningless with the current state of affairs in the background, humming like a constant threat.

I have scrapped so much content, and I usually tend to create for the practice of creating.

Then my older son asked me, “Uhma are you writing about what you are feeling + dealing with?”

That’s when I realized I have been busy numbing myself -a type of disassociation or distracting myself to avoid the overwhelm.

Some thoughts:

1) A level of safety if necessary to create

2) Safety can also be found within through practice + discernment

3) Sometimes, we must not run from the fear we feel but toward it to understand

3) Sometimes, because we don’t feel safe, we need speak on that.

Confession: I don’t feel safe lately.

In process: I am building an inner sanctuary of safety to face my fears.

AI inevitably will change the film industry forever. Deal with it. . Many of my friends in the film industry HATE AI.  The hate the fact that AI will collapse the status quo in the industry.  For some reason they prefer the studios to gate keep everything.  I just don't get it.  AI filmmaking will democratize the art and allow anyone create movies.  Sure there will be a lot of slop, but as in all things, the cream will rise to the top.  I'm a screenwriter and I already see how AI threatens what I do. But instead of cursing the darkness, I'm teaching myself to use AI.  I'm trying to ride the tsunami instead of being washed away by it.

AMA with Rob Miles on AI Safety. Wednesday, 2/4 at 1:00pm CT

AISafety.info founder has spent years telling the world about risk posed by strong AI.

Hey Writing is my passion. Is it yours as well? I am in the process of writing a Memoir. I also enjoy writing poetry and short stories. 

Hey Gang. Hey there! I am a children's book author, part time travel agent and sports nut. Hope everybody's hanging in there. 

I can’t stop crying about food and groceries.

As we pulled into the grocery store the other night I went from laughing to weeping, knowing I was going to go into that store and get anything I wanted and spend any amount of money on it without thinking about it.

In truth, “not thinking about it” has never been a thing. I don’t have a tone of fear around spending money on groceries or anything else. I have no thoughts of “not-affording” or restricting money. But crying in the grocery store parking lot has been a feature of this prosperity practice since I began. I do think about it. I think about how easy it is, and it brings me to grief.

It is this grief the fear which used to rule me was coming in to mask. The grief of being in privilege and prosperity is so immense that many people of privilege and prosperity choose to stay in fear and scarcity so that they don’t have to face it. I know because I found myself in that practice, and shifting it showed me the roots.

I go in that store, and it is so easy for me. I get every single thing I want, and I KNOW the sorrows of the world, that it wasn’t that way for my parents, or friends I grew up with, and it’s a looming threat on thousands of American families now.

This is the knife-edge of privilege, to keep receiving, to stay ridiculously nourished, and to be OVERCOME with grief for the sorrows of the world, for every way I imagine someone else struggling or suffering in a way I would prefer not to.

I meet my sorrow with commitments to practical prosperity. I will get every single thing I want in the grocery store, and as I do I will know it feeds my community as well as myself. I stay grounded in the way I know I can show up in the world when I am fully nourished and overflowing.

I know, too, that I will stand in the gap so that anyone in my field of awareness gets what they want in the moment I am in the grocery store. I refuse to bear witness to another human in front of me being deprived of anything they want in the grocery store, and I can be the one to make sure they’re fed on my watch.

Prosperity is about feeling good, staying nourished, staying focused on positive and practical (aka existent) elements of nourishment, comfort, and ease. Prosperity is available exclusively *within* my locus of control.

The largest part of feeling good is accepting and allowing BAD feelings associated with all that I imagine which is not within my purview. How I meet that which violates my preferences and lies outside my locus of control will make or break my experience of the world.

I don’t expect that walking prosperity will feel good all the time, in a primary sense. It does not and will not feel good to Have while I acknowledge that others Lack. It does not and will not offer any nourishment whatsoever to others if I choose to starve along with the lacking.

It could not be wealth if I were able to look away from the human realities.

Wealth is concerned with distribution. It MUST allow that it HAS resources, and that others are in a position to receive of those resources. Wealth cradles the gulf between my personal Having and the wants of the world.

Practical Prosperity keeps me, efficient, effective, agile, of service; within my locus of control. Practical Prosperity wisely invests my resources and freely gives and receives of the gifts of grief.

The swollen coffers of capitalism are NOT wealth.

Wealth lives in sacred stewardship, in practical prosperity, in the actions which distribute love via various vehicles, dancing in the infinite flow.

If this platform is built on trust, then I vow to show up as I am — open, honest, and real. Will I fail this test or flourish? Let’s find out.

I don’t know if I am doing this right. . I had the urge in my car to start singing an improvised song (inspired by my relateful camp experience at Annabeth’s Vocal Flow and Kedar’s bonfire jam) and it was in that exploration that I had the epiphany that I am allowed to write bad poems! This really excites me and now I’ve started to write a bunch of things that I feel poetic about. The permission to be bad has been crucial in my permission to try, and now I am wanting to maintain my permission to be bad and try in front of others. 

I haven’t posted on UpTrust because I question whether or not I am really “trustable” on any topic. I don’t feel qualified, or justified, or certifiably “trustable”, apart from maybe my honest attempts at honesty. But my honesty =/= truth. I could speak honestly about what I think a Beef Wellington is and still be wrong.  

But I can write bad poems, and I can be wrong, AND I can do that publicly. And in doing it publicly, maybe my poems become better and my honesty becomes truer. 

Is poetry dead? I have always felt so deeply when I wrote. It's the only time where I can pin point an emotion and freely express it. I'll let my mind wonder onto the pages so desperately as if I was screaming but to burdened to speak them out loud. Yet I wonder if poetry is dead or if we as individuals don't see the Beauty in our flaws.

If this peaks your interests maybe share your own poetry or wrestle with my question.