46: The Silent Treatment

This is my pattern. I am committed to breaking the pattern.

The Things I Carry – The Preamble to Failure

One of the accusations leveled at men and women post discovery of #infidelity is the intentions to change, remorse, shame is all manufactured after the fact. That wasn’t my experience. I rediscovered a post about shame I wrote to © a month before discovery.

Thoughts on Pema Chödrön’s Curious about Existence

There was a great deal of beautiful qualities in my relationship with my ex…but she is not the flower. She is not the reason it was beautiful. She is not the blossom or the tree. Our life was beautiful and it bloomed because that was the season and we both contributed to the season..

Our life together blossomed because it was our choice. Now it’s time for a different choice.

30: Thoughts on Unicorns, Chumps, & Other Mythological Creatures

The narrative that has choked so many meaningful intimate moments in my life is the false narrative, “You deserve to be happy but if there is a conflict that must mean there is something wrong. Not with them, but with you.”

Thoughts on Conflict Transformation: Moving Closer (Part 5)

If I love you too often I’m conflict avoidant. An uncomfortable pattern with family relationships and romantic relationships.

There are reasons for that right?

Thoughts on Conflict Transformation: Winners and Losers (Part 4)

Long before I have a conflict with others I have conflict within myself. Who wins? Who loses?

I create my own reality and therefore I’ve created the conflict.

Thoughts on Conflict Transformation: Lawyer Mode (Part 3)

I see in the situation of infidelity, there will never be agreement about my intentions, motivations, or reasonableness but Buck is challenging us to discover what we can “create together.” To focus on the solution and not “fall into countless volleys of ‘you said…I said’ back and forth.” This unskillful approach “usually increases tension and decreases connection.”

Thoughts on Conflict Transformation: Intentions, Not Excuses (Part 2)

Intentions don’t matter when u r bleeding out emotionally. There is no room for nuance when performing emotional triage on your identity and life.

25: Of Apples and Badassery

There was little room to learn how to express feelings, needs, and wants in a way that is vulnerable when it is met with derision, contempt, competing interests, and sarcasm. So I don’t think I was afraid of vulnerability as much as having a definition that equated it with weakness resulting in abuse.

Thoughts on Conflict Transformation: The Pattern (Part 1)

As I read and begun to have an understanding of Brown’s intentions, I started to recognize how foreign these concepts are to my life…and why.

Like pain, I have to learn how to make conflict my friend.