Tag Archives: Relationships

What Is a Spiritual Perspective?

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A spiritual perspective on some area of life asks questions like these:

  • What is my current relationship with this part of life?
  • How would I like my relationship with this part of life to be?

If you remove the physicality from life, what remains is energy. But energy alone is meaningless. What brings meaning to different energy patterns is how you relate to those patterns.

So these questions can pop you up to a spiritual perspective by helping you focus on the relationship you’re experiencing with any aspect of life. The spiritual perspective is the lens that gives you clarity about how you relate to different energy patterns. Everything in life can be seen as an energy pattern.

Another way to frame this is to note that everything you ever think about it is a thought pattern, which is also an energy pattern. Neurons in your brain fire in a certain way when you think any thoughts. And other parts of your brain have relationships with these patterns. So whenever you think a thought, other parts of your brain automatically activate their own neural firing patterns in response.

Hence the big picture “spiritual” perspective is also about how to change or improve the relationships among these different firing patterns. If everything you experience in outer reality is represented by a firing pattern in some part of your brain, then you can consider that all relationships have internal representations in your mind. So you could regard spiritual growth as an effort to change these patterns in some meaningful way. Do you want to make them more harmonious, more orderly, more playful, etc?

I find this perspective immensely useful on a practical level. I use it for making day-to-day decisions frequently. Just getting clear about what kind of relationship I want to have with some aspect of life helps me consider the long-term perspective and the core quality of life issues involved for myself and others.

These questions can also be asked repeatedly to create rewarding growth arcs in different areas of life.

Assessing Your Spiritual Relationships

A simple way to answer these questions is just to list a bunch of descriptive words and phrases that come to mind when you think about a particular part of life.

For instance, when I was growing up, here’s how I would have described my relationship with public speaking:

  • nervousness
  • anxiety
  • procrastination
  • fear
  • worry
  • shaking
  • sweating
  • embarrassment
  • unprepared
  • tedious practice
  • failure
  • too much attention
  • complicated
  • uncontrollable
  • disappointing
  • dread

So from a spiritual perspective, my personal energy and the energy of public speaking aren’t meshing well. Our energies are fighting and resisting each other. The alignment isn’t there.

Note that this relationship exists within my own mind. The relationship itself is a collection of neural firing patterns interacting. And since it exists within my mind, that gives me some power to change it over time. That may not be easy, but I can surely engage with these patterns and nudge them to change over time.

After years of Toastmasters and other speaking experiences, here’s how I’d have described my much improved relationship with public speaking:

  • confident
  • challenging
  • in control
  • structured
  • prepared
  • growth
  • skillful
  • readiness
  • excitement
  • positivity
  • rewarding
  • laughter
  • applause
  • encouraging
  • competitive
  • improving
  • motivating

So that relationship is much improved from where it was earlier. However, I can still see further room for improvement relative to where I really want this relationship to go.

Here’s where I’d say my relationship with public speaking is today:

  • relaxed
  • chill
  • spontaneous
  • connecting
  • playful
  • fun
  • curiosity
  • easy
  • light
  • flowing
  • occasionally silly
  • interactive
  • teasing
  • joking
  • simple
  • natural
  • pleasing
  • listening
  • exploring
  • social
  • present
  • aligned
  • purposeful
  • safe
  • conversation

So this relationship has lightened up a lot. It no longer strikes me as a situation where I need to feel confident or in control. Wanting to feel confident while speaking would be like saying that I need to feel confident while making breakfast. I could try to feel extra confident while making breakfast, but it would be an odd framing to use all the time. It would be like Tom Hanks reveling in his ability to make fire in the movie Castaway.

Clearing Space

Notice how an overly tense or controlling relationship with public speaking can get in the way of creating an aligned relationship with the people in the room. One misaligned relationship can block the full richness of another relationship from coming through. It’s hard to access the fun and playfulness of this connection if a complicated relationship with public speaking is getting in the way.

As I gradually transform misaligned relationships into more aligned ones, I notice that new relationships very often emerge.

It’s much like being in a human relationship with a mismatched partner. While your energy is tied up with that person, it’s hard to see the potential for a more aligned, loving, and joyful relationship to come into your life. Your current relationship can easily block better relationships from coming through.

Breaking up is also a way of transforming a relationship. Enforcing boundaries can help you get some distance from a misaligned relationship, so you can reassess what kind of relationship you want to have in this area.

Earlier this year I got clarity that I really didn’t want to have any personal or professional relationships with Trump supporters. It felt most aligned to kick them out of my space completely, so I adopted a policy of purging them from my life and work. They consistently violate my principles and values, and I realized I’d very much prefer not to have such people in my life at all, at least not at close range. When they’re too close I mostly feel disgust and contempt due to the boundary violations, like I’m being raped by red-hatted idiots. But when I do proper boundary management and keep their energy from violating my space, I feel that this relationship is much improved. I still have no desire to engage with them, but I no longer feel disgust and violation. Instead I notice gentler feelings like compassion and forgiveness starting to emerge.

I also notice, as you might expect, that with this misaligned energy out of the way, there’s a newfound invitation to explore the relationships that this energy was blocking. My connections with high-trust people have growth stronger, and I’ve been investing more in some of those relationships. For instance, I’ve been really enjoying my months-long involvement in the Transformational Leadership Council’s Diversity Committee. We’ve been having hard conversations about inclusiveness and anti-racism, and I’m loving it. It’s inspiring to connect with friends who are genuinely asking how we can do more to make a difference, and they’re investing extra time and energy month after month. I was initially concerned that this kind of group might fizzle out, but I’ve been seeing the opposite. The passion, energy, and honesty have been growing as we’ve continued to invest.

Being angry at Trump supporters is too easy. But getting wrapped up in that energy is mostly a distraction. It hides the calling to invest in something more deeply transformational that could actually move the needle forward.

Honesty

Asking yourself what kind of relationship you want to have with a certain area of life is a call to deeper honesty. This isn’t easy.

One trap is getting caught up in society’s expectations. You may start by wanting what you think you’re supposed to want. Society taught you how some relationship is supposed to be. You may buy into that model, but maybe in the long run it doesn’t really work for you.

I like to see society’s models as stepping stones. They aren’t really where I’m going to end up, but I can still make some progress if I aim for them, at least till I discover something better.

The tricky part is getting clear about what you really want and not getting sucked into society’s partial matches for too long.

The public speaking example shows how I initially aimed for confidence with speaking. Isn’t that the ultimate goal for a public speaker? Get up on a stage and speak with confidence? It’s fine to aim for this as a starter goal, at least until it feels hollow.

Again, it’s like feeling confident making breakfast. Once you see beyond the illusion of fear, it’s not so inspiring to think that you even need to be confident.

So then you pick a better relationship goal. Maybe it’s fun and playfulness. Maybe it’s presence. Maybe it’s creative flow. Maybe it’s inspiring people.

This is especially applicable in business, whether you’re an employee or entrepreneur or you like to just mess around. What’s your ideal relationship with work and business?

Here’s how I’d describe my relationship with my business today:

  • trusting
  • abundant
  • interesting
  • variety
  • growth-oriented
  • waves of work, play, and rest
  • balanced
  • playful
  • expressive
  • flow
  • creative
  • rewarding
  • flexible
  • surprising
  • unique
  • impactful
  • presence
  • enduring
  • openness
  • courage
  • purposeful
  • warm
  • intimate

I just made this list off the top of my head. It’s interesting to me that I didn’t describe my business as organized, productive, profitable, etc. The spiritual lens helps me focus on my personal relationship with it.

This isn’t where I started as an entrepreneur. Initially I cared about success and achievement. Now I think more about the experience of flow.

I also place a high value on flexibility and variety, which are more important to me than routine and structure. I like that I attract readers and customers with expansive and flexible interests who don’t need me to stick with just one niche topic year after year. Each day people communicate with me about different types of challenges and experiences. I like how this keeps the relationship with my readers fresh and growth-oriented. It keeps the door open for surprises and synchronicities.

Courage

Just as it’s difficult to discover the honest truth about the type of relationship you want, it’s also difficult to publicly admit how you feel. But if you can openly share your truth, it is easier to attract and enjoy the kind of relationship you really want. You also won’t have to waste so much time and energy dealing with partial matches.

It takes courage to make your own individual choice here. It takes courage to admit when you’re wrong. It takes courage to stand by your choice when you’re right. And it takes courage to stay with the flow of evolving relationships because they don’t remain static.

Courage helps you find and follow a path with a heart in your relationships with different parts of life. At some point you’ll need to break from society’s expectations, so you can explore the aspects of these relationships that don’t agree with society’s plans.

What’s really happening here is that your brain stores the patterns of society’s plans for you, and you’re also upgrading how you relate to these patterns. Initially you may obey them. Then you may rebel against them. And then you might frame them as stepping stones or intermediate lessons. This latter framing can create more harmony in your thinking.

When you consider the spiritual perspective, realize that it’s all about relationships. How are you relating to each part of life? Where are you experiencing flow and harmony? Where are you enduring resistance and struggle? Let each misaligned relationship point you towards deeper desires.

Be ambitious here. Keep asking for the impossible if it’s what you really want, and you may eventually get it. And you’ll realize that that’s not the end of the road either – the possibility space is vaster still.

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Being a Source of Pleasure

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To extend the topic of yesterday’s article on your relationship with pleasure, let’s flip that idea around and consider what it’s like for someone else to relate to you on the basis of pleasure.

How do you feel about playing the role of being a source of pleasure for someone else?

Such a relationship can be corrupted by weaving in manipulation, lying, abuse, victimization, etc. And just as with yesterday’s article, I encourage you to set aside those aspects because they aren’t endemic to pleasure-based connections.

Is it possible to connect with someone simply on the basis of giving and/or receiving pleasure without weaving in any negative aspects? Could you keep the pleasure aspects simple, clean, healthy, fun, and pure?

Of course. Many people connect this way very naturally. They’ve developed a healthy relationship with pleasure that’s good for them and for others.

It’s tempting to throw away the whole concept of sharing pleasure with someone when you’ve lost your childhood innocence about it and you’ve been subjected to abuse. Pleasure isn’t to blame for that though.

Abuse and pleasure don’t have to mix. Some people are adamantly opposed to mixing them. You can still engage with the purity and simplicity of pleasure-based connections without making them complicated.

Imagine having another person in your life who is willing and able to do things for you that feel really good. And suppose they enjoy playing that role for you. And suppose they’re honest about their intentions and you can trust them.

For some people it might seem like a monumental task to reach this point. For others it’s just their normal daily reality.

For me it’s been both. These days it seems totally natural as part of the daily flow of abundance, both to play this role for someone and to have someone in my life who enjoys playing this role for me. It’s delightful to enjoy pleasure abundance instead of pleasure scarcity.

But it’s so easy to push this kind of pleasure away, both in terms of giving and receiving, when you wrap negative aspects into it. It’s very easy to succumb to a dysfunctional relationship with pleasure.

For me the negative aspect I wrapped into it involved guilt and shame, mainly because that’s what I was taught from childhood. Pleasure was some kind of temptation from the devil and couldn’t be trusted. Many activities that felt good were deemed sinful and wrong. Sometimes I did things just for fun that I later had to confess to a priest as sins and ask for forgiveness. You can imagine what a messed-up relationship this creates with pleasure itself. It was confusing to grasp why some pleasure was wrong and some was okay when it didn’t align with my intuitive impressions.

It took a while to unload and release this corrupted mindset. Admittedly it’s still a part of me today, but I can at least see it for what it is and set it aside when it tries to rise up. It’s especially helpful to have reference experiences to remind me that sharing pleasure with people is actually really nice and that not every situation needs to be approached with suspicion and jadedness.

I also learned that some previous forms of pleasure do feel wrong to me, so I no longer engage in them. For instance, I don’t relate to animals’ bodies as products to be bought and consumed. I can never achieve a purity of pleasure there because this type of action always feels wrong and abusive to me. Trying to cultivate a pleasure-based relationship with animal abuse, as I was taught growing up, only pulled me out of touch with my deeper feelings.

Because of so many negative associations to pleasure, it’s hard to simply invite a pleasure-based experience, but the biggest blocks really are internal. When you transform and purify your relationship with pleasure, you’re much more likely to connect with others who feel similarly, and you’ll probably feel more compassion towards people who still wrap fear, guilt, or shame into it.

Another risk is that if you don’t come to terms with your relationship with pleasure, you may develop a distrusting and jaded relationship with this part of you that endures for years or decades. And that may make it hard to connect with people because a lot of human connection flows through the realm of pleasure. People will give you space instead of inviting you to share experiences with them because they’ll sense that you prefer to keep your distance.

What I found especially helpful here was to take a deep and honest look at my own intentions for pleasure-based connections and to consider how I really felt about them. Which intentions seemed good and honorable? What seemed problematic? Where were the right boundaries for me?

Is it wrong to want a hug? A make-out session? A massage? A sexual experience? A kinky sexual experience?

I had a lot of gunk in my mind that wrapped guilt, shame, or fear into many types of experiences that didn’t require those negative associations. Why feel guilty about receiving a massage from someone who willingly gives it? This guilt about receiving also corrupted the experience of giving, as if giving pleasure to someone automatically did them a disservice by potentially stirring up some negative feelings related to receiving pleasure. It was difficult to see that many people simply don’t have such negative associations to pleasure. That’s because these associations are learned, and we don’t all have the same learning experiences.

I found it especially helpful to journal about this to work through my thoughts and also to discuss this with people on similar journeys. It was eye-opening to connect with people who didn’t have negative associations to giving or receiving pleasure. For them it just seemed like a normal and natural thing to do… no big deal. They could still be cautious about risks and make careful choices regarding partners, but this caution didn’t devolve into suspicion of pleasure itself. They still trusted pleasure.

Take a look at your relationship with pleasure on the giving side. How do you feel about serving as a source of pleasure for someone else? Are you ever in the mood for that? Do you ever feel like it’s okay or even fun and rewarding to allow someone to enjoy you for their own pleasure? Could you do this without feeling resentful, abused, victimized, or used in a bad way?

Under the right conditions, I like playing this role. It’s nice to make someone feel good. It’s nice to be enjoyed and appreciated as a source of pleasure for someone. I like making people feel good. I love the simplicity and the purity of it. It’s a delightful way for humans to connect.

There are lots of ways to be a source of pleasure for someone. Maybe someone finds you intellectually stimulating. Maybe they want to do something physically or sexually pleasurable with you. Maybe they love your sense of humor or your positive attitude. Maybe they enjoy your beauty, they love hearing the sound of your voice, or they just feel delighted to be in your presence.

Do you ever feel this way towards other people? How do you feel about someone feeling this way towards you?

Could you even say to someone, “Enjoy my body. Have fun with me. Do whatever you like. I want you to feel good”? Does that seem exciting or threatening? Of course you can still specify any boundaries to define your limits.

How would you feel if someone said these things to you? Could you receive this happily and deservedly without feeling like you have to earn it? Could you say a “hell yes” to it? Or is it too much muchness?

This is an area where we can benefit tremendously from more honest and courageous communication. Instead of having to disguise pleasure-based intentions and sneak or manipulate your way into someone’s space, we could just be honest and upfront about what we’d actually like to share and explore together.

Suppose that what you really want is to explore a pleasure-based experience with someone. Could you invite or offer that when you realize that it’s what you want? Or do you need to disguise your intention and pretend you want something else?

My romantic relationship with Rachelle began with a mutual intention to share and explore pleasure together. We didn’t go on any dates first. We simply decided to play together. We wanted to enjoy each other. Co-creating and co-exploring fun and pleasure have been embedded in our relationship from the start, and this is still a significant part of our relationship today. We enjoy making each other feel good – physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. I like being a source of pleasure for her, and she likes being a source of pleasure for me. As I noted in a previous article this week, we see each other as gifts.

If you’d told me 30 years ago that I could someday have a relationship like this, I wouldn’t have believed you. It was a long journey to recover from so many negative associations to pleasure. But I have to say that it’s been an immensely rewarding path. In fact, I think I enjoy pleasure even more because of how much work I had to do to clean up this relationship and restore it to a state of health, flow, and abundance.

How do you begin such a journey, especially if your concept of pleasure is wrapped up in negative past experiences or associations? You decide that it’s time to heal this relationship. That won’t happen overnight. It may in fact be a very long journey, but it begins with the decision to heal your relationship with pleasure.

You can have a lot of pleasure in your life – every day if you want. You can share pleasure with willing partners, free of fear, shame, or guilt. You can restore your relationship with pleasure to a pure and healthy state. You can have abundance instead of scarcity in this area of life.

Pleasure isn’t evil. It isn’t addictive. It isn’t dangerous. It isn’t abusive. It isn’t unsafe or unhealthy.

Pleasure is satisfaction. It’s smiling. It’s feeling good. It’s a hug from reality. It’s a gift.

How will you relate to this gift?

Healing this relationship is just one phase of the journey. Beyond that you can continue to explore and elevate this relationship, such as by weaving in caring, beauty, playfulness, and curiosity. Once you feel safe and secure in the space of pleasure, you can also do a bit more risk-taking to explore your boundaries and other people’s boundaries if they’re willing. You can map out more of the possibility space to discover where the most delightful gifts are.

Do you trust pleasure? Do you think it’s a curse that just messes people up? Or can you see it as an invitation? It really is an invitation to grow, to heal, to connect, to align with abundance, and to have more fun in life.

Your relationship with pleasure is a delicate one to get right. It may seem like it’s leading you astray now and then, and sometimes you may be tempted to swear it off completely, but the invitation to dance with it is always present, and pleasure is a very patient dance partner.

Here’s another key benefit of healing this relationship. As you go through this inner journey for yourself, you can also help others who also want to heal this relationship. That helps to put this challenge in context. You’re not just healing this relationship for yourself alone. This isn’t just about your own pleasure. Your healing journey will also influence and uplift others who want to heal this relationship too. This may help you see that this is a more meaningful and purposeful pursuit than you initially realized.

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How To Embrace Alone Time (And Even Start Enjoying It)

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The Spiritual Purpose of a Relationship

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Each relationship that you’ve had, whether short-term or long-term, can be interpreted through the lens of spiritual purpose.

Why are you and your partner in each other’s lives? What are you here to do for each other spiritually?

I’d learned of this concept during my 20s but just in a very limited way. The idea was that we’re all spiritual teachers for each other. A relationship is supposedly a spiritual growth experience.

I think that framing held me back because it doesn’t fully encompass what’s possible.

My first marriage to Erin did seem to have that purpose of being co-teachers to each other. In the early years of our 15-year relationship, Erin and I often noted that I was teaching her courage while she was teaching me compassion. We both learned a lot from each other, sometimes by example and something through direct help and advice.

That relationship was challenging at times, but it was also loving, supportive, and patient. We shared a long journey together, which eventually came to an end. When I look back upon that relationship, it feels like it fulfilled its purpose for us both. One friend said to me afterwards, “You completed your marriage.” That’s still how it feels today, now that more than 11 years have passed since we separated.

But is that the only possible purpose of a long-term relationship? Must we always be in a relationship where the main purpose is spiritual teaching?

Not at all. The spiritual purpose of a relationship can be a lot more flexible than that. It doesn’t have to go in a co-teaching direction.

My current (almost 11-year) relationship with Rachelle isn’t about co-teaching. While we can play those roles for each other if we want, this isn’t a big part of our relationship and never really was.

Last night we had a short discussion about the spiritual purpose of our relationship. Neither of us look upon each other as spiritual teachers. The way we actually see each other is more like spiritual gifts.

Rachelle said she feels like her role is to be my reward, and that’s how I see her as well. I enjoy and appreciate her so much that it feels very natural to just revel in that space of appreciation and enjoyment when we’re together.

She feels much the same about me – that I’m her reward. We aren’t co-teachers for each other. It’s more accurate to say that we’re co-playmates, co-lovers, life companions, and best friends.

Spending time with Rachelle is like watching my favorite movie, The Princess Bride. Even when it’s familiar, it’s still fun and enjoyable, and I always find something to appreciate in it.

I feel like the main role I play for Rachelle spiritually is to fully and deeply appreciate her as she is. I feel delighted to be in her presence each day, and I love that I see and appreciate so much beauty and wonder in her that other people might miss. I feel like she needs to be fully appreciated and that my role for her spiritually is basically to gush appreciation at her each day. I especially love to make her laugh and smile.

We fit together like puzzle pieces. What she offers in a relationship is what I naturally appreciate and enjoy, and vice versa.

Being spiritual teachers to each other doesn’t really describe us. But I can say that we do help each other to spiritually grow. This doesn’t have to do with challenging each other though. As much as we both love a good challenge, we’re both already very good at challenging ourselves in a variety of ways. So we don’t particularly need to push each other. When one of us suggests a new challenge, we’ll sometimes agree to do it together when it makes sense, and otherwise we won’t.

I’m doing a one-year blogging challenge this year. Rachelle just passed 440 days in a row of closing all of her Apple Watch rings, so she has 60 more days to reach her goal of 500. Last month we both did NaNoWriMo and successfully completed that challenge. This month she’s doing a 30-day decluttering challenge along with some other CGC members. I’m preparing for a one-year experience of eating all raw in 2021, so I’m spending some time each day re-familiarizing myself with raw meals and practicing various raw recipes. I’d also like an easier December since I’ll be working on a new deep dive course early next year, which can be an intense experience.

If we weren’t in a relationship together, Rachelle and I would still be working on our personal growth as individuals. So we don’t need the relationship to play that role for us. We share this part of our life together, but it doesn’t seem to connect with the purpose of our relationship.

In terms of spiritual growth, our relationship feels like the universe said to each of us, “You’re doing great. How about a nice reward that you’ll surely enjoy and appreciate? Here you go! Have fun!”

This is a very different framing to place upon a relationship instead of being co-teachers for each other. It’s especially different from the lens that says you should be in a relationship with someone who antagonizes you because it will help you grow.

Rachelle and I are already good at identifying and diving into new growth experiences. Neither of us really wants or needs to push each other to grow more than we’re already doing. We can simply trust that we’re both going to keep learning and growing no matter what, and there’s ample evidence to prove that to each other.

It feels to me that maybe these aspects are connected, like the reason I get to be in a relationship with a “reward” at this stage of life is that I’ve locked in a consistent and perpetual flow of growth experiences without feeling overwhelmed. I’ve figured out a flow that works for me, and Rachelle has found a flow that works for her.

We both spend a lot of time helping and serving others too, so that may be part of this as well.

I’m not sure about this aspect of the framing though. It could just be the ex-Catholic in me that feels that every reward must first be earned. It would be interesting to know if other people are in relationships that feel like spiritual rewards that they didn’t have to spiritually earn first.

What Rachelle and I love doing for each other is to be each others playmates and to share love, appreciation, affection, friendship, and encouragement.

We’re also co-adventurers. We love traveling together. We love having shared experiences. Our favorite type of “challenge” to do together would be to share in some new kind of adventure together. We’ve always had a good time exploring new cities together. We’ve been to dozens of different cities throughout our relationship, which began as a cross-border relationship where switching countries was necessary just to see each other.

Even under COVID conditions where we’re spending way more time at home than in a typical year, I never feel bored with her. As much time as we’ve already spent together, I still crave more. I love spending each day with her. Somehow this continues to feel fresh and new, even when the setting and circumstances are familiar. She’s a source of beauty that I enjoy each day without feeling like the enjoyment and appreciation could ever run out.

This relationship feels like it’s exactly what we both want and need. It’s wonderful to spend each day with a partner who feels like a gift and a reward. It’s fascinating to be in a relationship with a woman who sees me in the same light.

This kind of framing is relaxing and restorative. Neither of us feels like we must “work” on the relationship to fix problems or to improve it. We actually succeed in our relationship mainly by being, not by doing. Simply being present makes our relationship fulfill its purpose. Just cuddling each other on the couch feels very purposeful.

Remember that feeling you have when you buy a new piece of tech like the latest smart phone, and for a while you feel extra special because you have the latest and greatest? But then a year later, a new version comes out… and then another new version a year after that. And now you’re behind the times and wondering if you should upgrade. But what if you could have that new-tech feeling every day, so you felt that extra appreciation above the baseline, and it never went back down again? That’s similar to how my relationship with Rachelle feels each day.

Almost 11 years ago, a significant increase in appreciation, gratitude, and enjoyment came into my life, and it never went back down again. Those aspects of my life have remained elevated this whole time.

But what I find most interesting is that I never developed a tolerance for it. It’s like having coffee where every cup is as stimulating as the first one, and your body never adapts to higher caffeine levels and brings you back down again. So the same dosage remains very stimulating, and you don’t need to keep increasing the dosage to get the same effect.

Each day with Rachelle feels like it exists above my baseline. But somehow my old baseline hasn’t raised itself up to match my current day-to-day experiences. That seems very odd to me. Why hasn’t the baseline come up? Why doesn’t each day with her just feel okay and normal now? Why do I still experience delight and appreciation with her after all this time together? Why does she still seem like a gift?

I don’t know, but I do like it.

Before I experienced this relationship, I didn’t think it was possible for a real human relationship to have the spiritual purpose of being co-gifts, co-rewards, and co-playmates for each other. That seems too easy and too good to be true. I wondered if we must be in some realm of co-denial about all the real spiritual work and tough love we must surely engage in sooner or later. It took a while to get aligned with the co-reward idea.

Why share this? One reason is to let you know that a healthy and happy relationship doesn’t have to involve working on your partner or on the relationship to improve it. For some that may sound like heresy. While people can enter a relationship to directly help each other grow and improve, that doesn’t have to be the case. You could also be in a relationship with someone whose beingness you enjoy and appreciate.

I think the more challenging aspect is when you flip this around and ask: For which person could I be a gift that they’ll appreciate and enjoy each day, just by being myself as I am right now?

That’s another special aspect of my relationship with Rachelle that I don’t notice as often, but it is nice to acknowledge when I see it. I like looking at her and thinking, “I’m good for her. She’s lucky to have me in her life.” I can understand why she appreciates and enjoys me. I can see the value I add to her life. And this feeling is very much mutual. She can readily see how good she is for me too and how much value she adds to my life. It’s nice that neither of us have to wonder about that or question it. It’s plain as day to us both that we’re good for each other and that we enhance each other’s lives by being together.

You can attract a relationship that’s a lot of work, but you have other options too. What do you feel ready to experience spiritually at this time in your life? Do you want a co-working type of relationship? Do you want fun and adventure? Do you want grace, ease, and lightness? Do you want lust and passion?

If you’re in a current relationship now, is it still aligned with a spiritual purpose that feels aligned with who you are today? Is it what you want to experience at this stage of your life? Or do you feel called to explore and experience a new relationship with a different spiritual purpose?

Pay attention to that purpose alignment. If your relationship has lost its connection to such a purpose, consider that it’s also your purpose to fulfill a meaningful role for someone else – to be their teacher, their reward, and so on.

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Making Unpopular Decisions

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If you’re committed to learning and growing, you’ll need to get used to making decisions that others disagree with. It’s inevitable that you’ll eventually face decisions that are opposed by some social resistance.

Maybe you’d love to pursue the path of entrepreneurship, but your family thinks it’s a bad idea.

Maybe you’d like to upgrade your diet, but your friends keep trying to talk you out of it.

Maybe you’d like to explore an open relationship, but your partner keeps nudging you away from that.

If you’re in a situation like this, you’re not alone. This is one of the most common types of feedback I’ve received in the past 16 years that I’ve been working in this field.

People see this kind of social resistance as a real block that’s holding them back. But it’s really just a basic test of whether you can make growth-oriented decisions and follow through. Having people whine about your choices is hardly the biggest challenge you’ll face. It may seem like a major hurdle, but it’s a minor speed bump relative to more interesting challenges you’ll face.

This block doesn’t usually go away on its own. If you let it stop you today, it will still be there in the future. It’s a problem to solve in your mindset today, not in a month or two.

The (somewhat obvious) truth is that if you want to pursue interesting goals and experiences, you’ll need to get used to making decisions that some people oppose. This needn’t make you cold and callous. You can consider others’ opinions. But it’s your life that you’re living, and you’re responsible for your results.

While other people may be affected by the external effects of your decisions, no one else has to live in your mind each day, dealing with the internal consequences of inaction and stagnation.

Here’s a mindset framing that I’ve found helpful in these situations:

If I don’t do this, I’m still going to be thinking about doing it next year… and the year after… and the year after that. I know it’s risky, and I still want to explore it. Even if it doesn’t pan out, it’s still worth doing to satisfy my curiosity about it. Then I could let it go, and at least I’ll be letting it go from a place of some knowing and personal exploration, not from ignorance.

No matter what happens, I’ll surely learn something if I engage in this. It doesn’t matter that much if I fail. I can recover from failure, and I’ll be a little smarter and wiser on the other side. And besides, one failure doesn’t rule out the entire possibility space in that direction. I can always try again in a different way. There may be a lengthy learning process to go through.

But what if this does lead to a better life? I have to find out if that’s the case. Even if this first step doesn’t work for me, it could also be a stepping stone to something better. I can’t see past this idea till I test it, so I have to test it to at least get it out of the way and clear this from my mind.

If you don’t take action to explore what keeps churning in your mind year after year, you’re sentencing your future self to more of the same.

When you’re tempted to explore something, you’re not really present to what’s arising in your life right now. Part of you would rather be doing something else, living somewhere else, or connecting with different people. That isn’t likely to change. You’ll continue to be tempted and distracted until you do something about it.

When I dive into a new exploration – actually when I make a committed decision, even before I get into the active exploration part – I feel an immediate increase in presence. Life feels more real and vivid. I feel more engaged with reality on a day to day basis. I feel more energy and excitement flowing through me. Have you had similar experiences?

I might also feel a bit scared or trepidatious. I think: What am I getting myself into here? Am I really doing this?ˆWith action this kind of emotion flows into some early results that encourage me to keep going.

When you face these situations, be deeply honest with yourself. If other people want you to let go of your idea, can you really do that? Can you let it go and forget about it? Can you continue living in the world that others would have you live in? Can you be fully present to that world?

Or will you continue dreaming, wondering, pondering, and asking what if?

What do you predict will happen?

If you don’t honor this voice enough, you’re not honoring who you really are. You’re stamping out the person you’re capable of becoming, and if you keep doing that, it will lead to a hollow life of massive regret. You’ll be sitting on the sidelines watching everyone else explore… always wondering what might have been. You’ll be a non-player character in the game of life.

You can’t just dream. You have to act on those dreams. Otherwise your dreams will eventually abandon you, and they’ll go to someone else, but they will leave behind just enough energy to haunt you for decades. Someone else will get to experience the results of action. You’ll get to experience the results of if only.

Realize that it won’t get any easier to postpone your dreams and ideas. You’re only sentencing yourself to another year of non-presence. But of course people don’t usually sentence themselves to a year at a time. They do it a day at a time, an hour at a time, a minute at a time.

Why not make a different decision this minute? You can do that. Yes, it takes courage, so be a person of courage.

Make your choice. Explore your idea. Let people squawk about it.

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When Friends Turn Nutter

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What do you do when friends of yours turn nutter on you, such as when they descend into conspiracy theories, Trumpism, etc?

If they’ve otherwise been good friends, it can be distressing to watch them go down such a dark path. You may wonder if something happened to their brains, like a buildup of toxicity that made them turn. You may wonder if you could have done something to prevent their excursion into anti-truth. You may wonder how on earth they could be so ridiculously deluded.

You may ponder how to frame this situation going forward. Did they just turn stupid? Turn into assholes? Get sucked down some racist rabbit hole?

Start by accepting the obvious. So they went nutter on you. Let that sink in. Maybe it’s from ignorance. Maybe it’s from stupidity. Maybe it’s some latent assholishness that’s currently flexing itself. Maybe they did this to themselves, or maybe they got sucked into it.

Sometimes people go nutter. It happens – a lot. Perhaps it finally happened to people you know, including some friends, family, or coworkers. And maybe this is surprising or upsetting for you.

Asking Why

You can make yourself crazy trying to answer the “why” question. You’re not really going to know the whole truth about their descent (or the revelation of a pre-existing descent that you were previously unaware of). Regardless of what your friends say and regardless of how you try to explain their nutter descent, those answers aren’t going to satisfy you.

One problem is that even if you ask and probe, you’re unlikely to hear the real truth. You may get a sanitized answer, and it probably won’t make much sense. When someone goes nutter, they’re unlikely to see it or admit it. But you see it plain as day, and maybe it pains you that they can’t see it.

Another problem is that you don’t want it to be true, and that desire clouds your ability to see and accept the simplest version of the truth. You probably believed in a more idealistic world than the one we actually inhabit. So the realization that so many people are total nutters is hitting you hard. Your world doesn’t fit your expectations.

Maybe you thought the nutters were around 2% or less of the population, possibly surging to 5% in a bad year. But 40%+ is unfathomable. Do you really live in that kind of reality?

Yes, perhaps you do. Let’s stipulate that you do live in that kind of reality. Let’s accept for the moment that this reality happens to be abundant in nutters.

I know – it’s not what you wanted, but it’s here, it’s real, and it’s what you’ve got to deal with.

For the sake of simplicity and your own sanity, I suggest you let go of the why question because it will only run you in circles. Accept the obvious. Your friends have gone nutter. Maybe it’s temporary. Maybe it’s permanent. Maybe you could someday come up with a satisfactory explanation. But first just accept the simple truth that’s staring you in the face: their undeniable descent into nutterdom.

Here’s another tip: When asking “why” doesn’t give you good answers at one level, it will likely make sense at another level of asking. So instead of asking, “Why did my friend go nutter?” as if they went down some crazy rabbit hole, ask questions like, “Why is reality poking my boundaries like this right now? Where’s the lesson or invitation to grow here?”

Many people are realizing that the answer in this case isn’t just to see things from the other person’s perspective, shake hands, and go on about your business as if nothing happened. That works with disagreements where both people are reasonably aligned with truth and when both are willing to communicate honestly. It doesn’t work well when someone is over-invested in falsehoods. When someone is willing to accept a lie as their truth and defend it emotionally, you’re at an impasse, in which case you may be better off questioning why you’re tolerating having a relationship with a nutter in your life at all. Is it time to socially graduate to spending more time with intelligent and sensible grown-ups?

A nutter, almost by definition, will violate your boundaries. How do you want to relate to people who behave like that?

Nutterland

After the recent election, the L.A. Times invited Trump supporters to share their reasons for supporting Trump, devoting a significant amount of editorial coverage to this purpose. As you might imagine, it was a shit show, full of the usual disinformation and vapid nonsense you’d expect from such nutters. The Times took a lot of flak from their readers for this stunt, especially for legitimizing nutterdom as if it’s on the same level as intelligent discourse. Some even felt that featuring this content was cruel to the nutters, like gawking and poking at zoo animals.

This has been a nutter-rich world for a very long time. Look at how many different religions teach falsehoods that millions of people profess to believe, even though those beliefs make no sense. It’s not particularly difficult to find nutters just about anywhere.

Perhaps the problem is that you didn’t realize and accept this. Maybe you thought you’d carved out a social space separate from Nutterland. You thought your friends were smarter, nicer, and less delusional than they actually were. Their descent (or revelation) took you by surprise.

So you had some faulty assumptions that you need to bring back in sync with reality. You were simply wrong about those people and about the allure of Nutterland for them. The reason they surprised you is that your predictions and expectations about them were wrong. You’ve probably been wrong about those people for a long time, and you’re just realizing it this year.

So update your predictions and expectations. Now you know. It’s unlikely that the nutters are just going to flip around and start satisfying your erroneous expectations again, although you can slide into that pretense if you want. It’s better not to wallow in denial though. Let the truth have its say. Okay, so they’re nutters. You can still accept that and deal with it.

Choosing Your Response

Grieve if you must, but what you’re really grieving is the death of your own inaccurate expectations.

You didn’t think your friends would turn nutter, but they did anyway.

You didn’t think so many millions of people could go nutter, but they did anyway.

When reality surprises you, don’t blame reality. Confront your own false expectations. So you were wrong. Reality behaved differently than you expected. That happens sometimes.

When reality surprises you, see it as an invitation to upgrade your thinking and to improve your alignment with truth.

Accept the truth as presented to you, even when you think it’s an ugly truth that you’d rather not have to deal with.

When the truth sinks in, it’s easier to choose a sensible response. If your response is an honest one, you can also make it compassionate and empowering. But don’t try to be compassionate while turning your back on truth. Keep truth alignment front and center. Don’t pretend someone isn’t a nutter when it’s plain as day that they are.

If you want to continue having a relationship with nutters, then relate to them on that basis. Don’t pretend that they’re smart, kind, and caring people with minor character glitches that just need “healing”… while they continue to share the most ridiculous conspiracy theories.

Maybe you want to keep connecting with certain nutters for secondary benefits while keeping them at arms length, figuring you can limit your exposure to their worst aspects. Or perhaps you may conclude that nutters are beneath your standards for genuine friendship and let them go, so you can build or maintain a more truth-aligned, nutter-free social network. Maybe you can still appreciate their emotional expressiveness, even if it’s mostly fear and anger, and then you can decide what kind of relationship you want to have with people who wallow in fear and anger.

Are nutters worth your ongoing investment? Are they worthy of your friendship?

The scarier question to ask is: If you release the nutters, then what? Then you might build stronger relationships with smart people who care. And that’s a lot more difficult than you might assume.

Nutters have lower social standards. They’re more likely to accept you as you are, even when you succumb to delusional thinking. They’re less likely to hold you accountable to be your best, think your best, and do your best. They won’t really challenge you to grow, except in your tolerance for nonsense.

So that’s a temptation to watch out for. Nutter friends are easier in a way because once you accept that they’re nutters, they start looking pretty predictable after a while. They’re fountains of nonsense. Yes, it’s ridiculous what they believe, but it’s also easy in a way because you know it isn’t true. So they don’t really challenge you in the realm of truth.

It’s like being a 10-year old in a friendship with a 5-year old. You have the advantage because you’re older and smarter. You can see the 5-year old’s personal zoo of silliness for what it is. And there’s safety in that. Now flip it around and imagine being in a friendship with a 15-year old while you’re still 10. That’s going to through you off balance – that friendship is likely to challenge you a lot more.

So just consider how you’re using your relationship with nutters. Have you been getting clingy with them because you don’t feel as safe playing with the older, smarter kids who challenge you? It’s all too tempting to spend a lot of time poking and gawking at the nutters and lamenting their predicament… especially when this lets you avoid more daunting social challenges.

In that regard you can think of your relationships with nutters as a form of social porn. What’s the non-porn alternative? If you stopped fussing over the nutters and just let them conspiracy-circle-jerk to their heart’s content, what would you want to do and experience instead, especially socially? That’s a much harder question to answer. Visiting the zoo is often easier.

Consider taking just 5-10 minutes today to ponder these questions. Stare off into space to let your mind float, or actively journal about this. If you released the nutters from your life, where would you want to take your social life instead? What kinds of people would you want to connect with? Where does your social attention actually want to go?

In general a great question to ask whenever you get confused about what reality is doing (or the people within it) is: What’s the bigger invitation here?

I’ll bet if you face the honest truth here, it’s going to scare you a bit. And you’ll likely see that you’ve been leaning on your relationships with nutters to keep you from exploring a bigger realm of uncertainty.

Let the nutters push you away. They could be doing you a huge favor. Now you can leave that old comfort zone behind (because it’s broken), and go explore the unknown. And oddly this will transform your relationships with nutters for the better. They won’t bother you so much when you recognize and acknowledge their “why” in your reality and start acting in alignment with that understanding.

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Cancel Thanksgiving

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The USA just reached 10 million reported COVID infections earlier this month. Now it’s beyond 12.5 million and is on track to hit 14 million by the end of the month. It’s been estimated that at least 3 million people are probably infectious right now, and many don’t know it because they’re asymptomatic. The real number could be a lot higher.

A few days ago we hit another new high: 204K new cases in one day. This is after just recently breaking 100K for the first time.

Deaths are still ticking up as well, now around 2K per day. I imagine that’s going to be a lot higher in December.

In some U.S. states, the infection rate is so high that even with a modest-sized family gathering, it’s likely that at least one attendee is infected.

Some places that were previously doing contact tracing have abandoned the practice because they can’t keep up with all of the cases.

In my state of Nevada, the Governor just tightened up some restrictions because the infection rate is surging here too. A couple of months ago, we were seeing 250-500 new cases per day. Now it’s around 2000 per day with a recent high of 2416. And the infection rate here is modest compared to what some places are currently seeing. Even so, a major hospital still had to convert a parking garage into overflow space for COVID patients, and it’s already being actively used.

This Thanksgiving will be the last one for many people who aren’t intelligent, informed, or caring enough to cancel family gatherings this year. Millions of people are heading for an avoidable trap.

If you intend to host or attend a family Thanksgiving event this year, think again and cancel those plans. It isn’t safe. Such behavior is incredibly reckless right now.

If you have some intractable and clueless relatives, would you rather see them terribly disappointed, terribly sick, or peacefully dead (after being unable to breathe for a while)?

A few weeks from now, a lot of people will be crying and wishing they’d made a different decision. Don’t be one of them.

Sometimes the right decision isn’t to seize an opportunity but to avoid a calamitous mistake. Remember that you’ll have the memory of what you do this Thanksgiving for the rest of you life. No matter what you decide, you’ll carry that memory into 2030, 2040, and beyond. Which memory do you want?

You only control one side of this decision. You don’t get to control reality’s responses. And reality is clearly queuing up a big lesson for a lot of people, namely that it doesn’t respect fools.

If this is all just common sense to you – and it absolutely should be – please also do your part to actively and vehemently discourage your friends and family from having family gatherings during this time.

I know from years of experience that while my readers tend to be very smart and sensible, many have relatives who are… how shall I put this… dumb as a stump. If that’s your situation, then here’s your chance to put your personal development investments into practice. Let’s see that fancy courage you’ve been working on all these years. Get aligned and stay aligned with truth. Don’t be loyal to ignorance and denial, even if you share some blood with it.

I can assure you that no one will die from our Thanksgiving, and no animals will be harmed either. Rachelle and I are staying put, and no one is coming over.

Use your brain and don’t be stupid this year.

There will be another time. Not this year.

If you need to use it as such, this article also doubles as a permission slip to skip Thanksgiving this year.

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Desperation Loyalty

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Desperation loyalty is remaining loyal to a group or identity based on neediness or clinginess, often in violation more important values. It is a place of stuckness that elevates loyalty to others above the commitment to grow.

It’s relatively easy to spot this in other people. It’s harder to spot this in ourselves.

If you pursue a strong and centered path of personal growth for many years, you will outgrow many friends and social groups along the way. That’s a normal part of a life of growth and change.

But at some point in your journey, especially early on, you may have doubts about taking the next leap because it may feel like a leap into aloneness.

The truth is that you may sometimes leap into aloneness, but these needn’t be leaps into loneliness.

Accepting an invitation to grow is an individual decision. That is your challenge to face, and some challenges in life must be faced alone. Now and then it’s important to get away from social influences to dwell in the fire of your own values and let them burn out of you what no longer feels aligned.

The antidote to desperation loyalty is inspiration loyalty. Feel the call of this fiery invitation, and give it your full attention when it demands this from you.

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Sensitivity to Lying

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Some people have a high tolerance for lying and falsehood. They can hang out around others who frequently share false information, deliberately or from ignorance, and it doesn’t seem to bother them. Either they don’t notice the falsehoods, or they aren’t much affected when they do notice.

I’m not one of those people. I used to be though. When I was younger I could hang around people who spewed nonsense left and right and be okay with it. That’s basically how I grew up, being taught lots of false religious ideas about how the world worked, only later to realize it was a pack of lies.

But just growing up in that kind of bubble didn’t make me sensitive to lying. If anything I think it made me less sensitive. Somewhere along the way, I developed numbness to lying. I could be in the presence of lying and falsehood, and it didn’t affect me much at all emotionally.

Going vegan, experimenting with raw foods, and doing lots of health-related detox significantly raised the sensitivity levels over time. I’ve written before about the many internal changes that going vegan caused, especially with respect to the heart-brain connection. Many senses and impressions became more sensitive as I made efforts to clean up my body.

I think fasting helped a little too – I’ve done a 17-day and a 40-day water fast – but that was late in the game for me. Fasting probably would have had a bigger impact if I’d done it much earlier, like during my 20s instead of my 40s.

Sensitivity Advantages

There are some nice advantages to this heightened sensitivity. I never get writer’s block because I’m sensitive enough to always tune into an abundant flow of ideas. I’ve published something new to my blog every day this year, and it’s not even difficult. The ideas mostly share themselves, and I take dictation.

I’m also super happy in my relationship with Rachelle. I adore and appreciate her so much. Each day we spend together is just delightful. I can’t help but smile when I see her. It’s wonderful being extra sensitive to feelings of love and gratitude and getting to feel those at full volume. It makes it so much easier to enjoy a beautiful relationship, especially with another sensitive person. Because we’re so sensitive to our feelings and each other, we’re really good at caring for each other.

So I wouldn’t trade this sensitivity for the world. It has added so much beauty to my life. I don’t think it’s the sort of thing you appreciate till you experience it though.

These benefits make me watch my diet and health habits and not let myself stray too far. If I eat a lot of heavier foods for a while – which for me is too many grains and beans (and foods derived from them like tofu) and not enough fruits and veggies – I can feel the sensitivity declining. But at least I know how to get back on track.

Eating more raw foods always brings the sensitivity back up again. Yesterday I had two large green smoothies and some other raw foods. This included bananas, cherries, blueberries, clementines, spinach, kale, mixed greens, celery, and cucumber. I can feel the difference this morning. I feel happier than usual. Writing feels even easier than it normally does. The simpler and cleaner my diet is, even on a day to day basis, the less friction I experience mentally and emotionally.

Sensitivity to Lying

Here’s a potential downside though. I’ve become a lot more sensitive to lying, falsehood, and deceit than I was 30 years ago. Watching, listening to, or reading lies and false statements causes a palpable reaction in my body. I’m not in control of that reaction when it happens, except that I can prevent or disrupt it by sabotaging my body itself, like by eating lots of heavier foods.

Many people joked about drinking lots of alcohol during the election, which is an effective way to suppress emotions for those who are more sensitive. Of course if you overdo it, you may just be swapping some negative reactions for others.

I have a strong negative internal reaction every time I watch Donald Trump speak. The reason is simple. He lies constantly.

I don’t exactly know why my body reacts the way it does, but it does react. I feel emotionally disgusted. Sometimes I feel a bit nauseous. It’s like I just had a spell cast on me that’s about to make me vomit up some slugs.

My body reacts similarly in the presence of Trump supporters when they talk about him. Whether intentional or not, they always resort to sharing lies and falsehoods to justify their support. There’s just such a huge abandonment of truth in that space.

I like being around people who speak the truth, and Trump and his supporters just don’t. At least I’ve never encountered one who does. Trumpism and falsehood always seem to go hand in hand, along with insensitivity to lying.

Interestingly I didn’t have this reaction to seeing Trump speak before he got into politics. Erin and I would sometimes watch The Apprentice when we were together, and while Trump was often a bit of a jerk on that show, it just seemed like ego-based entertainment and posturing. It’s different when the lying is sociopathic and directly harmful.

Trusting Your Inner Senses

At first I did my best to tolerate these feelings. And then I questioned why I should keep doing that. Is that really a wise approach? The feelings weren’t going down. They grew stronger and louder as the consequences of such lying grew even stronger, like lots of people dying unnecessarily.

In addition to being sensitive to my own feelings and senses, I also feel sensitive to other people’s feelings, and those have been especially loud this year. I could feel a lot of stress in the air.

The majority of people that I connect with regularly are also disgusted by Trump and his rampant lying, especially friends who live outside the USA. There are a lot of other sensitive people out there too, and I think many of them are good at broadcasting their feelings without always realizing it.

I opted to start trusting my body more. Otherwise I’m too tempted to disrupt my health to tone down those inner signals, and I don’t like doing that. I trust that this sensitivity exists for a good reason, especially since it produces so many other benefits that I don’t want to sabotage.

When I say that Trump supporters make me nauseous, I’m being literal about that. I recognize that it may sound like an exaggeration to someone who isn’t familiar with this kind of sensitivity due to lack of personal experience. I think many vegans and raw foodists will likely have an easier time recognizing that I’m speaking the truth here if they’ve experienced similar changes in sensitivity from dietary improvements. This effect is described in detail in some books too, such as Raw Emotions by Angela Stokes.

If you know that eating heavier foods and drinking alcohol can dull your senses and emotions, is it such a stretch to consider that eating cleaner can swing you the opposite way? How would you feel after drinking six shots of liquor? Now imagine how you could feel if you could somehow remove six shots worth of disruption from your body, starting from what you think is sober and normal. So many other aspects of life become easier, but then you have to live in a world where a lot more people seem like they’re drunk – mentally foggy, confused about their lives and purpose, and emotionally numb. It’s always tempting to want to return to the fold, but you can’t unsee what you’ve seen.

When you’re very in tune with your emotions and your inner senses, it’s hard to act against them – sometimes a LOT harder. The question then becomes: How much are you willing to trust these signals?

Trusting the Sensitivity

I do feel it was the right choice to honor those feelings, which led me to do some extra social purging during the past few years. That felt better than the alternative of engaging with bullshit again and again.

Last week I joked that I had to pay extra to upgrade my Facebook block list to 2TB. While I can look back and appreciate some of those connections for what they were, I also honor my body’s signal when it’s time to move on.

I don’t regret it. It was the right choice for me.

What I didn’t realize was that I can’t fully honor these sensitive signals while also trying to numb myself to them in some areas. If I put loyalty to friends first, I always lose something of much greater value. I have to honor the truth first and let my social circle align with that. And plenty of people do. I’ve grown closer this year to some good friends who are very sensitive too, and there’s so much more depth and beauty in relationships with sensitive people than with relatively insensitive ones.

So this has never been about politics for me. Nor is it about character either. It’s actually about trust – trusting the sensitivity that can be challenging to hear but keeps bestowing surprising gifts.

Moving on is a big part of personal growth, and it’s often difficult. I notice that when I do this intelligently, it’s a move into greater trust – trust in myself, trust in reality, or trust in the universe.

This kind of trust is hard. It’s so easy to doubt yourself. It’s easy to doubt your inner signals. It’s easy to want to numb yourself. It’s hard to let yourself sense what you’re sensing, feel what you’re feeling, and let that guide you.

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Does the USA Need to Heal Now?

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In my extended social circle, some people are calling for unity and healing now that Joe Biden will be the next President. Others aren’t so sure that healing is really what’s needed.

The offer basically sounds like this:

It’s time to repair the wounded relationships between the people who supported a lying, racist sociopath path for President and those who wanted to replace him.

That’s a crappy offer. It doesn’t land well. The most airy-fairy people I know seem to be swallowing it and trying to invite people into some awkward reconciliation phase, but most seem to be declining this offer and searching for a better one, at least for now.

There’s some stress and sadness too because people aren’t sure if there is a better offer on the table right now.

The problem with this offer is that this election wasn’t really about the usual politics where otherwise good people may have different views about certain subjects. This election went into much darker territory.

Even though Biden won, which caused great relief, lots of people around the world (and in the USA too) were still shocked and dismayed to see that more than 70 million Americans cast their ballots for Trump – voting against racial justice, against global cooperation, against the environment, against human decency, against science, against health, and against so much more that people care about. How can they not see this as being so, so backwards in this day and age?

And it is truly backwards. My international friends are right in their assessment.

While some blame the media, Trump has been one of the most communicative Presidents ever. Anyone can watch his speeches or read his tweets. Even when there’s a Twitter warning label attached, you still get to see the original messages. There’s an over-abundance of primary source material for all the world to see. Fox News may add fuel the fire, but there’s more than enough coming from the White House itself, direct and unfiltered.

More people voted from Trump in this election than voted for Obama each times Obama won. Fortunately a lot more people voted overall, which pushed Biden into record territory, gaining more than 75 million votes.

So what do people of good conscience do about this?

Some people are starting with a bit of celebrating. People have been dancing and cheering in the streets in some cities. But it’s a bit of a black celebration. Even if you do celebrate, what comes next?

Do we now offer hugs and handshakes and say, “Oh well, your guy lost the election… better luck next time”?

Are we suppose to pretend that people who voted for Trump are just good people who slightly lost their way or just voted for their party or for financial reasons? And now that he’s on his way out, they should be fine in a month or two?

I think a lot of people realize that there’s no going back. The cat is out of the bag. Too many Americans scared the hell out of the world, first by voting for Trump in 2016 and then again this year. Now the world and the rest of the country want answers – why did this happen, and what will be done to prevent this from happening again?

Patching things up with delusional friends and family members isn’t going to cut it. That would only be a temporary bandage, and too many people would still be left with a feeling of lingering dread that we could be right back here again in 2024.

There are complex issues to be unwound and resolved regarding causes and solutions. I’m not going to get into that now, but at this point I will say that I think a first good step is to decline the healing offer. It’s a phony offer, tantamount to sweeping these issues under the rug. We can’t do that. This was a wake-up call, so stay woke about it.

I for one won’t be reaching out to ex-friends who went nutter and became Trump supporters. This has nothing to do with politics. And it’s not really even about values or beliefs, however delusional those beliefs may be. It’s about their behaviors and the effects of their behaviors. I hold them accountable for their actions. To offer some form of healing is just foolish at this point.

Such people didn’t wound me. They just caused me to lower my assessments of them. They violated my boundaries for friendship, and so they got tossed out of my social circle. I’m not going to invite them back in if the boundary violations would remain unresolved.

This isn’t about holding a grudge, and it’s not about forgiveness. It’s about the importance of maintaining healthy boundaries and intelligent standards. I’m not going to reach out just to be re-exposed to such people’s misaligned behaviors and fanciful conspiracy theories. They’ve shown me how low they’re willing to go, and I accept that as their choice.

It’s not even really accurate to say that I don’t trust them. I do trust them to continue behaving as they’ve been behaving. I trust that they’ll continue promoting conspiracy theories, being okay with lying, promoting racist ideas, voting in support of racist policies, and taking irresponsible actions that will result in more infections and deaths. I trust that what they’ve shown me is likely to continue in some form, and I’d rather remain aware of this instead of pretending that it isn’t there.

I will not be an enabler for such people, so I won’t invest in relationships with them. There is nothing to heal because this isn’t a wound. It’s simply part of reality to be accepted.

Truth alignment is empowering. Start by looking at the USA and acknowledge that yes, a whole lot of Americans really have gone full-tilt nutter. Let that sink in. There’s no need to resist this realization.

Even though it may seem otherwise, my relationship with such people is still rooted in compassion. That’s because I was raised as a religious nutter myself. I can look at the Trump supporting nutters today and still recognize something of myself in them. I don’t feel like it’s impossible to understand them. But that doesn’t mean I’ll let them drag me into the nutter abyss with them, and it doesn’t mean I want to invest in listening to their daily nonsense; I’ve done enough of that to last a lifetime.

When I was a religious nutter (and a different kind of nutter a bit later, like a shoplifting nutter), it didn’t serve me when non-nutters swept my nuttiness under the rug and still tried to relate to me based on our commonalities. That just empowered me to remain in nutter land. They might have thought they were being tolerant, but they were just being short-sighted and foolish. They weren’t doing what was best for me.

What really helped was when I encountered people who stood firm in non-nutter land, and they made it clear where I was standing. Their certainty (which was really truth alignment) nudged me to start having doubts, which led to reconsideration of my beliefs, which led to a whole lot of growth and transformation. This in turn eventually led to helping more people escape nutter land, people who expressed gratitude for this afterwards.

Nutters don’t need hugs and handshakes to patch things up. They need constant and unwavering reminders that they’re standing in nutter land. They need truth, not denial and pretending.

Being a Trump supporter is stupid, plain as day. The reasons people use to justify such behavior are irrelevant. Voting for Trump is a stupid action, no matter the reason. We can assess its stupidity based on the results alone, which are measurably dreadful.

Being a Trump supporter was stupid four years ago. It was stupid a week ago. And it’s stupid today. If you are a Trump supporter, your behavior is stupid, no doubt about it. You don’t have to remain in nutter land though. There is an exit door. Walk through it when you’re ready.

I’m here to support, encourage, and serve the non-nutters of the world. The only service I offer to the nutters is to doggedly remind you that you’re still in nutter land, but you must choose to leave. That’s the gateway that shifts you from unconscious growth to conscious growth.

If you choose to stay in nutter land or if you pretend you’re not there when it’s pretty damned clear that you are, then I’ll just keep reminding you how dreadfully stupid you’re being. And if you don’t banish me from your life for good – if you keep that door open just a tad – then we both know you’re eventually going to leave nutter land and come play with the smart people. It’s only a matter of time.

Personally I don’t think nutter land should be abolished. I think it serves a worthwhile purpose. Its presence can be healthy for us, especially as a reminder. The presence of nutter land raises the stakes and helps us gain clarity about what we’d like to create and experience instead. If supporting Trump is ridiculously stupid, where is the ridiculously smart path? I think it’s good to be aware that nutter land is always nipping at our heals, challenging us to dream bigger and bolder and to not get complacent.

Nutter land woke me up too during the past four years. The sheer lunacy of that last four years got me feeling more engaged in the game of life. It got me to finally register to vote for the first time ever. And I must say that it was fun casting one of the votes that kept Nevada blue. I picked a good time to start voting. It really did feel like my vote mattered. I loved being part of the team that said to the nutters, “You shall not pass!”

They also helped me see the importance of being anti-racist (not a passive non-racist), including participating in a diversity committee in an organization I belong to, which is still ongoing.

The nutters reminded me of the importance of full engagement with life. And for that I actually feel grateful. I’m still going to stand firm against their various insanities though.

So I don’t think polarization is a problem. I think it’s good and healthy. The more extreme the nutters become, the more their behavior encourages me to sculpt my character in different ways – if only to counter-balance their nuttiness. The more they assert their insanities, the more they encourage me to grow in ways I may have been overlooking.

So the healing offer is declined. There’s nothing to heal. There is a lot of work to be done, but the nutters can’t stop us from doing it. They’re just going to make everyone else stronger, more attentive, and more resolved. And many nutters will soon leave nutter land because nutter land is becoming a dreadful place to stay.

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