Restorative Empathy

Transforming Domination Culture from the Inside Out

What Would You Do with Your Life if You Had More Community?

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I have a really exciting announcement today that’s been brewing inside me for over a year…

In January, I asked you: What you would do with your life if you had more support?

My inbox filled with responses, as you shared your vulnerable dreams: “I would make art.” “I would leave my job and travel.” “I would risk everything for love.”

I’d clearly hit a nerve with this question—a collective nerve worn raw by a collective lack of support.

Many of you took me up on my offer of support, and my one-on-one empathy practice completely filled (you can still email me to get on my waiting list, or if you need a referral).

And yet, while weekly private professional support is invaluable for doing depth healing and attachment repair, it’s honestly not enough to fully meet your needs for empathy and support.

[Read more…]

What Would You Do with Your Life if You Had More Support?

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I’m writing you tonight from the recently reopened community room at Wilbur Hot Springs. I hear some guests cooking their meals in the nearby kitchen and others chatting over their dinner by the fireplace. In the library, folks are reading and napping on overstuffed sofas. The atmosphere is warm and nurturing and familiar, which is quite poignant for me. [Read more…]

The Truth about Your Inner Critic

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Do you spur on your inner critic, hoping that if you can just be harder on yourself, you can liberate yourself from your pain and inhabit your life more fully?

Or do you try to stifle, ignore, or exile your inner critic, believing that the key to happiness is to just think positively and overpower or deny your doubts and judgments?

If you regularly use one or both of these strategies, how are they working for you? Are you genuinely fulfilled? Has your critic really gone away? Or are you feeling frustrated and discouraged, wondering why you’re trying so hard and still not getting the results you’re wanting? [Read more…]

Tackling the Tough Topics

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Never talk politics or religion or sex or race or money, especially in “mixed company.” Our culture has lots of rules around staying silent regarding topics that might raise conflict or incite judgment. But if we habitually choose silence, safety, and harmony, our needs for deep intimacy, true authenticity, personal growth, and social justice may never be met.

The trick is to raise these personal/public subjects in the spirit of seeking mutual understanding, rather than mutual agreement. Because if we can put everyone’s universal human needs on the table, we most definitely can open our hearts to each other and collectively come up with creative strategies that meet everyone’s needs. [Read more…]

Making Nourishing, Accomplishable New Year’s Resolutions Free of Self-Domination, Defeatism, and “Shoulds”

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Every year, an estimated 40 percent of Americans make New Year’s resolutions, but one study suggests that only 12 percent actually accomplish their goals. Why do so many of us start each new year with resolutions, only to drop them once the hope of a fresh start diminishes?

The cultural message about our unsuccessful attempts to stick to our resolutions is that we’re lazy, distracted, or incompetent. But the standard resolutions model we’re given actually set us up to “fail” and thus break trust with ourselves, so that we’re left in doubt of our own ability to act from a place of empowered intentionality. When we fail to achieve our goals with that model, we’re told we lack willpower, and to try again. And again, and again, until we get tired and give up. We may get so discouraged and angry that we resolve never to make another “stupid resolution” again. But without setting and acting on our own intentions—whatever the time of year—how can we ever hope to be empowered, fulfilled, and truly free? [Read more…]