03: Stories of Passive-Aggressive Behavior

I grew up in a passive-aggressiveness home.

44: Sunflowers

How we got here doesn’t have to define where we go. Living that truth is all that is required to break the patterns.

21: A Love Letter to Betrayers – Discomfort (Part 1)

When I spend resources trying to avoid the painful moment I am imagining, I will never know how to respond to the actual experience. Everything becomes a story about a fix to a broken fix to another useless hole. These responses to my discomfort only create a new narrative of pain for myself and others. I avoid living in an impermanent moment out of fear.

29: Ego’s Rabbit Hole

Too often, stories in my life have been real because I needed them to be true, not because they are true.

05: Hidden Lessons

On Friday I helped a friend cater an event at a local brewery. For reasons I am still sussing out when we arrived I had a full blown anxiety attack. The first serious and debilitating one I’ve had in a very long, long time. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t remember what people ordered. I couldn’t […]

11: A Love Letter to the Betrayers: The Monsters

Sure there are monsters, but in truth, most of what we are calling monster behavior is simply someone doing something stupid for stupid and innocent reasons. It’s just poor judgment, not pathological.

There are actually very few monsters.

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.