Lifeletter #170: The Light of True Apology: Unwinding the Past
I have been interested, for a long time, in what it actually takes to heal the past. Not just to stuff it away and pretend that it’s gone, but to actually dissolve its power over us. If we can do this, we stand in a radical place, a fresh beginning. To transform our relationship with the past is to create a new future. But, how do we do it? One essential part of this healing is learning to express a true apology. When we behave in ways that are unkind, unskillful and uncaring, we leave...
Read MoreLifeletter #169: Gleaming and Beaming
Last week my partner Jonathan had a dream in which I led him to an old dark house. We went inside together, and up some stairs. At the top of the stairs we came to a long dark corridor. I stood and watched as he walked down the dark corridor. At the end of it he entered a kitchen, full of warmth and light, and a group of people who drew him into the space with the energy of ‘gleaming and beaming.’ I love this dream. It illuminates how we can support the ones we love, and be...
Read MoreLifeletter #168: Stoking the Fire of Our Intent
I had a very powerful moment last week, when I was working with a beautiful young woman. She was exploring her capacity for true intimacy, and how that intimacy depends on a deep commitment to staying present when she is with her partner, even when she wants to run away. I told her that I had recently been seeing, for the first time, many of the subtle ways that I still ‘leave the room’ when things get uncomfortable for me in the field of relating. I said that seeing these...
Read MoreLifeletter #167: Unflinching Kindness
I have taken a long and winding journey in this life, digging down into the truth of what love really is, what kindness is, and how we can learn to care for each other in a whole new way.
Read MoreLifeletter#166: A Global Initiation
Jonathan and I sat with two friends the other day who do ground-breaking work with young people. The man, whom I’ll call Jed, went to Haiti with a group of high school students in 2010. The earthquake struck shortly after they arrived. Jed described what happened to those young people as a rapid coming of age, a growing up process that was visceral and immediate. It was so powerful that when they returned home their parents found it difficult to relate to them. They were not the same...
Read MoreLifeletter #165: A Life Changing Conversation
“It’s basic common sense. Each one of us has to learn how to feed ourselves first, on all levels. It’s part of becoming a fully functioning human being.”
Our conversation really got to me. It became what I sometimes call a ‘life changing conversation’.
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