A Pew Research poll from 2021 found that nearly 70% of adults rated their dating lives as “not going well,” and a little over half said dating has gotten harder in the last 10 years.

Be it dating apps, post-COVID society, consumer capitalism, political polarity, or the looming deterioration of our social safety net, something is making love very hard. And setting aside the potential for recency bias, it’s only getting harder.

Love still flourishes in the modern day; I hope you won’t mistake my critique for cynicism. But something’s changed. In nearly every way, our world has been turned over and inside out in the last few decades. Everything exists in context. Love is no exception. Love is just like us: struggling to find its footing in this new world. And ours is a world rife with too much. A constant overload to the system.

Too much, too many.

Too many appointments to keep. Too many bills to pay with too little money. Too many screens and ads vying for every millisecond of our attention. And in turn, too few mental and emotional resources to dedicate to any of it. Painful, overwhelming landscape we have. In this landscape, for the sake of ease, everything gets steamrolled into a product we can consume. A product that can make life a little easier.

Because what is a product marketed to do? Provides a solution to a problem (at least that’s what they try to convince us of!). And to solve a multitude of modern problems, love comes as a neatly packaged solution, heralding connection and meaning and promising the banishment of isolation. Watch any rom-com. You get it!

Love becomes a product we must shop for with the savvy eye of a practiced saver (in this economy!?). A product to hold up against our pros-and-cons list. A product to run through the sieve of our cost-benefit analysis.

Forgive the analogy, but why do we analyze the products we consume? Humming beneath this desire, there looms a question: Will this best meet my needs? And shifting to our connections with other people, one more question beneath that: Will this person meet my needs, and can I meet theirs? And beneath that one, perhaps another two, buried a little further down: Can I do everything in my power to be certain? And can that certainty protect me from pain?

Anyone presented with that question would indignantly respond, “Of course that’s impossible!” The reason being, this is not a conscious drive. Pain avoidance and pleasure seeking are the knee-jerk reactions of a nervous system evolutionarily designed to help us survive. Thankfully, now we have plenty of neurobiology research to validate what Freud (that asshole!) once postulated as the pleasure-pain principle.

So avoid pain, we do. Seek certainty, we will. And to do it, we will mold ourselves and our partners into need-meeting products for each other’s consumption. We attempt to make ourselves and each other understandable and knowable to protect ourselves against the ultimate knowledge that love is beyond our control.

So instead of accepting, we consume each other. We disappear into each other, expecting the other to meet us where we are, to know us fully, and to be known by us.

In Love’s Executioner, Irvin Yalom describes this phenomenon with the language of existential isolation. “Many a marriage,” he writes, “has failed because, instead of relating to, and caring for one another, one person uses another as a shield against isolation.”

But, something so enigmatic as love cannot be pounded into the shape of a shield. So love resists. We push back on the other’s demands; we rebel when the other doesn’t love us the way we want them to. We lob Why can’t you just understand? at one another like hand grenades in the war against our fears. Our relationships become ensnared by this entanglement of our own making. Then nearly seventy percent of us throw our hands up and say, “It’s not going well!”

In Greek mythology, the story of the god Eros (or Cupid) and the princess Psyche (whose name means soul) tells the story of the unknowability of love. Eros and Psyche are arranged to be married; then they fall in love. With one caveat: Eros only visits Psyche in the dark. Theirs is a love that requires mystery, separateness. But the deeper Psyche’s feelings grow, the more she relies on him, the more anxious she becomes to see the face of her lover. One night, while Eros is sleeping, Psyche lights a lamp and holds it up to finally see his face. But nearly instantly, he disappears.

Forcing love into a box of certainty (Psyche’s need to understand, to close the unknown distance between them) made love vanish.

Jean-Luc Marion, a modern French philosopher, writes about this phenomenon. He says, “To love is to accept that one might be loved without being able to return it, and above all without being able to understand it.”

In couples therapy, the concept of “differentiation” is a steady undercurrent of the work. I said up top that much of the work of therapy is acceptance of what we cannot control. Differentiation in this context refers to each individual’s ability to maintain a strong sense of self—thoughts, ideas, identity—outside of the other person while still maintaining their relationship. A couples study conducted in 2021 found that a high sense of differentiated self in both partners was the strongest predictor of overall relationship health. Our ability to allow one another the room to meet our needs (or not), to give to us (or not), to be a whole, complex, imperfect person, not an object, can predict our ability to sustain love.

Try as we might (and we try!), we cannot force the distance between us closed by flattening love into a knowable product or by molding our partners and ourselves into something that will meet needs or solve problems.

In the story of Eros and Psyche, after Eros’ disappearance, Psyche sets out on an epic, painful solo quest of transformation (even descending into the underworld!) to eventually reunite with her lover as her own person. A person who has grappled with the end of certainty and wrestled the ultimate unknown of death and come out on the other side.

It is the shattering of a fantasy that makes way for the real work of love. Because good love is what happens after the bubble pops, after the illusion of certainty completely fades. It is the humble work of self-exploration, of accepting the labor of transformation, and of differentiating.

Because the anxious need to flatten love into a known entity is not the end. It’s the beginning. It’s the door finally opening to a path where love becomes not a solution or a shield against the dark, but instead a liberated acceptance of the wild, untamable unknown.

About the Author: Taylor Arroganté-Reyes is a Licensed Professional Counselor Candidate and the owner of Congruence Psychotherapy. In individual work, she specializes in existential therapy and parts work. With couples and partner systems, she specializes in consensual non monogamy and non-normative relationship structures. Her work seeks to invite an open-handedness to the ever-unfolding mystery of life. Her practice is grounded in the belief that genuine relational contact between us and within us can heal, change, and liberate— allowing us to become who we hope to be. If you are interested in working with Taylor, please visit https://congruencepsychotherapy.com/ or email her at taylor@congruencepsychotherapy.com. 

During any trying time in my life, it drops in for me that adequacy and interdependency are two sides of the same coin. And during those days of COVID, I saw this coin being flipped in every moment, with one word or the other, each coming up about 50% of the time.

For adequacy, on a macro level, there was a lot of failing, from government to social structures to “what does the science say now?” However, on an individual level, what abounded on the internet was the ingenuity of people everywhere to take care of themselves, their families, their community. I loved the grandparents who plastic-wrapped themselves so they could hug their grandchildren; I marveled at the private 3-D printer owners who voluntarily made parts for face shields; I laughed at the Tik-Tok videos; sang the hand washing songs; and cried at the online concerts. The list goes on and on with hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions of examples of people turning to the thought, “well, what can I do given these new parameters?”

I project the human species didn’t survive and get to where it is today by sitting down with fire in a cave and calling it quits. I mean, fire in a cave must have felt yummy after no fire in a cave. The truth is, we humans are inventive, filled with creative energy, and we actually can’t stop ourselves from trying one more thing that might improve an experience (really, pour over coffee is the bomb, such an improvement over drip, French Press, and yes, espresso).

And yet, as many inventors find out, creating includes mistakes, wrong turns, back steps, riffing off past successes, which leads me to the definition of “adequacy.” What a relief to find it does not include “doing it perfectly, or originally.” Adequacy means, according to Merriam-Webster, “sufficient for the need,” “good enough,” “acceptable.” What I sense can happen for many people during trying times is that they are making the situation they are in acceptable, not perfect, not necessarily original, simply adequate. Again, back in COVID, we saw that with healthcare workers, essential service workers, people who had been laid off, and students graduating into a world of who knows what. It sorta sucked, it was sometimes not fun, and yet, they did it anyway.

Which leads to interdependency. Beyond being a “lone wolf,” the way many people experience adequacy is 1) they accept help, or 2) they ask for help. When we do the latter, we automatically understand we can not do anything alone (and asking the Universe for help is a very viable option). Again, during COVID I saw this starkly in my NextDoor app search for the latest sightings of toilet paper on store shelves. When that proved dicey, I found on Amazon an ebook to make my own toilet paper. Intrigued, I wondered if it would have me collect wood scraps, chip, boil, and mash them, and roll the paste between … something … to create a paper-ish substance that might work (turns out, it was reusable toilet paper made from t-shirts, yikes!).

When I found that unappealing, I flipped the coin and came up with interdependency (or adequacy, crap, either one is good here) and picked one morning as a “treasure hunt” and just drove store to store (finding places I never would have gone in before, real treasures!) looking for toilet paper, and lo, at the fifth one, scored some Charmin (I purchased my allotted 2 packages which is an entire other blog about self-worth, a “spiritual” mindset of not being greedy, yada, yada, yada). And it struck me … the Charmin didn’t magically appear on the shelf. Someone, somewhere cut down a tree. Someone drove it to a processing plant. Someone pushed some buttons on some huge machines that did what I was going to do in my bathtub. And these folks relied on the plastic people to supply the clear wrap. Then someone delivered it to the store where I bought it. Oh, and the checkout person, masked, gloved, and behind a plastic window, sold it to me.

The more I heard from people about their experience during those COVID years, the more I saw how the little linings of silver appeared — the sparks of ingenuity, the new space of time to attend to passions, or simply cleaning the house; the new-found love for family members they can’t see (how many of us thought absence was a blessing and found out we didn’t like that either?!) Many people discovered they were stronger, more capable and wholly adequate. And even those who had a desperate, despairing, miserable time, I propose, they too are still adequate to it because … they made it through.

We can’t have one without the other. Our interdependence works because we each are adequate. And we are most adequate because we are wholly interdependent. With everything going on in the world today, now is a good time to bring out that coin, and start flipping it again.

About the Author: Beth Hinnen came to the spiritual path from the corporate world. After experiencing impermanence and greed, she left to study Yoga and has over 1,000 hours in Yoga teacher training, and ended up specializing in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, spiritual scripture that closely aligns with Buddhism. From there, she studied Zen Buddhism for over ten years, including in-person, month-long monastic retreats, until she earned certification, in January, 2023, as a Mindfulness and Meditation Teacher with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach. Currently, Beth is a co-leader of the IMCD Council, and on the Teachers Collective, as administrator. She hosts a Meetup group called Yoga Meets Buddhism, and for the past three years, has held an online Dharma Wednesdays class that discusses the Yoga Sutras while also bringing in Buddhist teachings, along with Sufi poets, Christianity, Judaism and other spiritual paths that reinforce the words of Sri Swami Satchidananda, the founder of Integral Yoga where Beth studied. “The truth is one, the paths are many.” More information about Beth is at www.samayaco.org.

They say when we’re ready, the challenge arrives, because we’re strong enough to face it. But this time, I wasn’t so sure. I felt exhausted from the last storm, already worn thin. I had begun to isolate, slipping quietly into the shadows of my own mind. Depression crept in. I felt disconnected, unsure how to move forward. I craved connection, yet feared closeness. I didn’t feel like myself.

I’d learned about conscious, or ecstatic dance through clients who shared stories of healing, release, and joy through movement. (Being a mental health therapist has its perks!!) And, thank goodness, curiosity tugged me forward. I hadn’t truly danced in two decades, but I was really struggling. So, I gave it a try. 

My first taste of ecstatic dance came from Taspens in Conifer, a beautiful and welcoming space nestled in the mountains. Fifteen of us gathered in a yoga studio, moving together to tribal rhythms with few words and deep presence. The music buzzed through the space, primal and alive with passion.

When I discovered Denver Ecstatic Dance, which presented an even larger community everything opened. Music lit up the dance floor with a live DJ called Alkemizer.  I felt like I was home. My curiosity heightened for this group with the barefoot dancing, the unfiltered joy, and the freedom to move without judgment or expectation. It was extraordinary. I was surrounded by kind, open-hearted people. Some danced with playful abandon, others wept quietly, and many simply moved in stillness. And all of it unfolded somatically, without a single word exchanged.  

As I moved, I imagined myself stepping into different archetypes: the High Priestess, the Hindu Goddess, the Playful Child, the Shaman, and the Free Spirit. My creative nature was allowed to soar, as the music guided me through a 90 minute journey. There’s a moment in ecstatic dance when time dissolves and the room moves as one.  Movement flows not from thought, but from an intuition of sacred expression. 

I could move through sadness, joy, rage, bliss, all in one set. No choreography. No expectations. Just an unbridled somatic expression. It felt like an ancient spiritual ceremony unlike anything I’d experienced before. I was used to dancing at clubs or weddings, where movement was more about entertainment. This was something else entirely.  I left that event with a spark ignited, already craving more of this community.  

Why Community Heals: The Therapeutic Power of Belonging

Human beings are wired for connection. Community is not a luxury; it is a core need.

Here’s what the research tells us:

• Social connection is one of the strongest predictors of long-term health and emotional resilience (Harvard Study of Adult Development).
• Our nervous systems co-regulate in the presence of attuned others, and in a dance space, this is felt deeply through nonverbal rhythms and movement.
• Group movement increases oxytocin, the bonding hormone, which reduces pain and symptoms of trauma and depression.
• Music and collective movement create a shared altered state, not unlike ancient rituals around the fire. Healing, once communal, is reborn in these spaces.

In short: dancing with others is therapeutic. It is community-based medicine.

When Rhythm Sanctuary’s beloved founder, Ahva acquired an injury, she was treasured and treated with care. With adoration and love, the community passionately rallied together to raise support. It was inspirational to witness dance groups across the region stepping in. Meals were delivered, donations poured in, and people showed up. That movement reminded me: we belong to each other.  

Witnessing that compassion was deeply corrective. It stirred a kind of hope I hadn’t felt in a long time. Through ecstatic dance, I had found a tribe I could want to lean into.

What Is Ecstatic Dance?

Ecstatic dance is a free-form, intuitive movement practice, where music becomes the medicine and the body becomes the oracle. There are no steps to follow, no mirrors, no judgment. Just movement that arises from within.  It’s a conscious dance that integrates heart, body and soul.

Core principles often include:

• No booze
• No shoes
• No talking
• No phones 
• Radical inclusion and respect for all bodies

It’s a space to drop the masks and let your inner voice be expressed through movement.

As a therapist, I believe in the power of talking things out, but I’ve also come to know its limitations. Some pain lives beyond words. Some healing can only be accessed through the body, expressed through movement and healed with sound.   

Why It Works: The Neuroscience of Somatic Movement

• Polyvagal Theory shows that dance can activate the ventral vagal state—the physiological foundation of safety and social connection.
• Trauma research (Bessel van der Kolk, Peter Levine) reveals that healing happens when the body completes its stress cycles. Dance allows that process.
• Bilateral movement supports emotional integration, like EMDR.
•  Deep breathing + movement = increased oxygen, lymphatic flow, and endorphins.
•  We build new neural pathways when we move freely. We begin to rewrite our stories from the inside out.

The body remembers trauma, but it also remembers joy. Ecstatic dance helps awaken that memory.

Unlike exercise or performance-based dance, ecstatic dance isn’t about achieving something. It’s about being. No audience, no judgment, just presence.

Final Words

I didn’t know how much I needed ecstatic dance until it found me.

It gave me a way to express what I didn’t know how to articulate. It gave me a community when I felt most alone. It gave me joy in a time of grief. It gave me back to myself.

If you’re reading this and wondering if you belong in a space like this ~ you do. 

Want to Try It?

• Search locally for “ecstatic dance,” “conscious dance,” “5Rhythms,” or “Dance Church.”
• In Denver/Boulder: check out Rhythm Sanctuary (Thursdays), Denver Ecstatic Dance (Sundays), Ministry of Movement (Wednesdays), Boulder Ecstatic Dance (Sundays), Ecstatic Movement Tribe (Tuesdays), and more.
• Or create a sacred space at home: dim the lights, light a candle, press play. Let your body lead.

Let yourself shake. Let yourself cry. Let yourself laugh. Let yourself come home.

About the Author: Laura Hogzett MA is a Licensed Professional Counselor who blends clinical expertise with soul-centered healing. Trained in Internal Family Systems (IFS) and EMDR, Laura helps individuals navigate trauma, self-doubt, and disconnection by reconnecting them to the wisdom and love within.  Inspired by shamanic traditions and rooted in the belief that healing happens when we bring compassion to every part of ourselves. 

Drawing from both psychological insight and intuitive guidance, she supports others in returning to self-love, empowerment, and wholeness.  Laura’s mission is to help others awaken to their innate worth and multidimensional nature—with grace, humor, and radical compassion.

In the last blog, we identified the importance of objectively observing our experience and circumstances and then connecting it very specifically to how we feel (previous blog link here). In this blog post, we’ll move onto the third component of the nonviolent communication framework – identifying our core needs.

Review of Key Components

For review, Rosenberg’s framework, nonviolent communication has four components that when used together create connection and foster collaboration. The four components are: 

1. Observation – Separating observations from evaluations. This means describing what is happening without judgment or interpretation.
2. Feelings – Expressing how you feel in response to the situation, rather than how you think or what you interpret.
3. Needs – Identifying the unmet needs that are causing the feelings. This helps to express what’s driving the emotion.
4. Request – Making a specific, actionable request that might fulfill the need.

Identifying Needs

If we are able to observe our interactions with others and identify how we are actually feeling, then the next logical step is to identify the need beneath the feeling. Our emotions often arise when a core need is not being met. 

We get angry because our need to be heard and understood is not being met; we get sad and overwhelmed because our need for stability is not being honored; we feel anxious because we need reassurance.

Rosenberg breaks down our core needs into six categories: autonomy, connection, meaning, peace, physical well-being, and play. I’d encourage you to click on this link and look over the list to familiarize yourself with each category and the needs within them. 

Just like with emotions, expanding our language to identify our needs is a vital skill in compassionate communication. The more words we have for our emotions and needs, the more precise we will be able to communicate them to others,

Roadblocks

However, it is a complex task to be able to take the time and space to actually identify the need beneath the feeling. In fact, when someone communicates harshly or directly with us we can resort to blaming ourselves or the other person. Blame is a defensive reaction when we are confronted with difficult truths or hard conversations; and although it may feel valid at the time, blame, judgement, or criticism all alienate us from our own needs and values.

For example, we might say out of frustration, “You never understand me.” In framing our communication this way, it places blame on and defers responsibility to the other person. It is also an indirect way of expressing our needs, which are more likely to cause you or the other person to shut down and react defensively. In the example above, the real need is the desire to be seen, heard, and understood. 

The Vulnerability Inherent in Expressing our Needs

Blame, guilt, or criticism are all indirect or passive-aggressive means of communicating what we actually need. And although well-intentioned, they usually create more harm, confusion, and disconnect. 

Yet there is a certain vulnerability to acknowledging and identifying our needs. By acknowledging our needs, we invite the possibility that our needs are worthwhile; and more importantly that we are worthwhile. 

Many of us were taught that needs don’t matter and we must always look after the needs of others to the neglect of ourselves. It takes a great deal of bravery to create enough space within yourself to acknowledge, identify, and communicate these needs to others.

The silver-lining in all this is that the more direct and precise we are in communicating our needs, the more likely we are to be met with compassion and the more likely our needs will be met. It is certainly a risk to communicate our needs, but the connection it can cause is absolutely worth the discomfort and vulnerability.

How to Communicate Your Needs

Communicating our needs, like our emotions, may feel like a foreign language to you right now, so it’s best to start with a simple, easy to remember formula. Basically all you do is connect your feeling with your need: “I feel … because I need…”

Some examples:

• “I feel angry when you say that I’m not reliable because I need to feel heard and respected by you.”
• “I feel discouraged because I would have liked to have progressed further in my work by now.”
• “I’m sad you won’t be coming for dinner because I was hoping we could spend the evening together.”

Conclusion

Good communication takes practice and self-awareness. It arises through observing what’s happening, identifying what you’re feeling, and then communicating the need beneath that feeling. It may feel choppy at first, but over time compassionate communication will become automatic as you lean into a more enhanced way of connecting and relating to others.

In this four-part series, I will be exploring the topic of communication and expanding on ways you can foster compassionate communication that will enrich your lives and relationships. I will be using Dr. Marshall Rosenberg’s framework of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) and highly suggest the reader pick up a copy of Rosenberg’s book Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. 

For this first post, I will be exploring ways our language can get in the way of compassionate communication. In subsequent posts, I will unpack the four components of NVC and ways you can effectively apply these principles in your life and relationships. 

Roadblocks to Compassionate Communication

Moralistic Judgments 

According to Rosenberg, one of the primary ways we prevent compassionate communication is when we impose moralistic judgements on others. This way of perceiving others is deeply impersonal and seeks to categorize others into what we evaluate to be “right” or “wrong.” 

By reacting this way, we implicitly criticize and dehumanize the other, making them feel undervalued. And when one feels undervalued, they are likely to respond from a place of resistance and defensiveness, making it difficult to foster authentic connection.

In some instances, people will respond to our judgment and will change their behavior. But this change is motivated by fear, guilt, or shame and is not conducive towards personal growth or enrichment. 

We’ve all likely been criticized and have felt the negative impact  of other’s judgment (e.g., “You’re lazy,” “You don’t listen”, “You’re too controlling.”). And the tragic irony of these expressions is they actually communicate our needs in an indirect, albeit harmful way. For example, the judgement, “You don’t listen” may actually be communicating, “I feel sad and frustrated when we speak and am wanting to feel more understood and seen.”

Comparison

A second barrier occurs when we compare ourselves to others. Comparison causes us to pick apart and analyze, leading us to feel miserable about ourselves and critical of others, leading to a mutual block in compassion and understanding. 

Denial of Responsibility

A further barrier is when we communicate in a way that denies our personal responsibility. It is easy to blame others or circumstances when we become frustrated or angry, but when we point the finger we instill feelings of guilt or wrongness in the other, placing the burden of change on them.

Denial of responsibility can also manifest in subtle ways when we divert responsibility to outside forces, pressures, authorities, or expectations. Each of these are beyond our control and are an easy way to justify a lack of responsibility in our actions. 

However, by taking ownership of our words, feelings, and actions, we invite the possibility of change. Rather than submitting ourselves to forces beyond our control, we can actively choose how to respond to the frustrations or difficulties life throws at us; and in doing so, create more space for compassionate communication, collaboration, and change. 

Making Demands

A final roadblock is when we make demands of others. To make a demand communicates the threat of blame or punishment – basically, a demand communicates, “If you don’t do this there will be consequences.” It communicates that certain behaviors are deserving of reward, whereas others are deserving of punishment. 

The reality is we cannot make people do anything. And if we resort to force, punishment, or authority to get what we want, then we isolate the other and dehumanize them. They act according to our will not out of their own desire, but from a place of fear and an avoidance of punishment. Making demands not only alienates us from the humanity of others, but it also alienates us from ourselves.

Conclusion

Rosenberg labels each of these roadblocks as “life-alientating communication” since they separate us from our natural state of curiosity and compassion. By judging, comparing, denying responsibility, or making demands, we end up hurting ourselves and others. 

Yet there is a path forward, a path that allows for compassion, curiosity, and clarity to be cultivated in our communication and relationships. And this path forward will be the topic of my next post.

About the author: Kevin Culver, LPCC, is a professional counselor, published author, and owner of Resilient Kindness Counseling. Kevin has a MA in Mental Health Counseling and a BA in Theological Studies. With a background in spirituality, philosophy, and psychological research, Kevin provides a holistic approach to therapy that seeks to honor each client’s unique personality, worldview, and life aspirations. In his therapeutic work, he helps clients rediscover their humanity and create greater meaning in their lives, work, and relationships. He enjoys working with individuals from all backgrounds, but specializes in working with men’s issues, spirituality, and relationship issues. If you are interested in working with Kevin or learning more about his practice, please visit resilientkindness.com or email him at kevin@resilientkindness.com

Family gatherings, particularly with relatives we’re hoping to maintain a relationship with but feel conflicted about, can be fraught with tension. You may want to approach these interactions with neutrality, but it can be hard when past emotions, unresolved issues, or triggering behaviors surface. Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy offers a powerful tool for navigating these tricky dynamics, helping you process internal reactions and show up as your best self in these situations.

Before heading into a family interaction that feels challenging—like a dinner with a relative you care about but also need to stay neutral with—taking a few moments to check in with yourself can make all the difference. The key is learning to work with your inner parts, the different facets of yourself that hold various emotions, beliefs, and reactions. Here’s a simple visualization exercise inspired by IFS to help you prepare emotionally and mentally before you see that person.

Step 1: Visualizing the Encounter

First, find a quiet space where you can focus inward without distractions. Close your eyes and visualize the person you’re about to meet. See them in a room with you, at a comfortable distance—just far enough that you don’t feel overwhelmed but close enough that you can sense their presence. Allow your mind to settle and observe how you feel towards them. Pay attention to any emotions that arise.

In IFS, these initial feelings are part of your “parts”—different aspects of your internal world that may be carrying past experiences, fears, or expectations. These feelings are often a mix of past wounds, protective instincts, and genuine desire to connect. Whatever emotional response emerges—be it discomfort, frustration, defensiveness, or even warmth—is valid, but it’s important to acknowledge that this reaction is just one part of you, not your whole self.

Step 2: Checking In with the Part of You

Now, ask yourself: What is this part worried about? What are you afraid might happen in this upcoming interaction? What does this part of you think is at stake in the relationship? Take a few moments to tune in to any physical sensations or thoughts that arise as you ask these questions.

It’s essential to give voice to whatever this part is feeling—whether it’s fear of judgment, anxiety about conflict, or a desire for approval. The more you listen to this part, the more you can understand its motivation and its role in protecting you from emotional discomfort. Acknowledge that this part is trying to help, even if its methods aren’t always in line with your greater goal of staying neutral.

Step 3: Creating Distance

Once you’ve acknowledged the worries and emotions of this part, ask it to step behind a glass wall. Imagine this glass wall as a safe barrier that allows you to keep the part’s feelings and reactions in view without letting them overwhelm you. This barrier helps create the space you need to remain grounded and neutral, while also maintaining compassion for yourself.

Next, do the same for any other reactions you might have to the person—whether that’s resentment, guilt, or even affection. Each reaction or part can be stepped behind the glass wall, creating more emotional distance until you can clearly observe each one.

Step 4: Gaining Perspective

After you’ve moved all the parts to a safe distance behind the glass, check in with your overall emotional state. What do you feel now? You might notice a shift towards neutrality, curiosity, or even compassion for the person you’re about to see. This is a powerful indication that you’ve processed the parts of you that were contributing to conflict, and you’ve created space for a more balanced, open interaction.

It’s important to notice how you feel internally once these parts are no longer front and center. With no part needing to step in between you and the person, you may find that you feel lighter, calmer, and more open to the possibility of connection. The relationship is no longer defined by your internal emotional landscape; it’s defined by your ability to be present and neutral, while still being true to yourself.

Step 5: Embracing Neutrality or even Compassion

By the time you meet this person, you’ve cleared away much of the emotional baggage that could have clouded the interaction. You’ve given each part of yourself a voice, allowed them to be heard, and then created the space to step forward with compassion and curiosity. This doesn’t mean you have to ignore past hurt or grievances, but it does mean that you’ve processed those feelings enough to show up with intention and openness.

The beauty of IFS is that it allows us to create harmony between our inner parts, so we can navigate difficult relationships with clarity, presence, and, when possible, genuine connection. By using this approach, you can approach family interactions with a sense of peace and emotional neutrality, helping to foster healthier relationships and a deeper understanding of yourself.

A Note on Safety

While this visualization exercise can be a helpful tool, it’s essential to prioritize your safety. If the person you are interacting with has a history of physical or verbal violence, these techniques may not be appropriate. You are not obligated to engage with someone who poses a threat to your well-being, and your safety should always come first.

Disclaimer

This blog is inspired by Introduction to Internal Family Systems (IFS) by Dr. Richard Schwartz. It is not a replacement for therapy. If you are struggling or feel you need additional support, please seek help from a qualified mental health professional.

About the Author: Annabelle Denmark (she/they), MA, LPCC is a therapist based in Lakewood, CO, They specialize in individual therapy for neurodivergent adults. Annabelle utilizes parts work, EMDR and sensorimotor psychotherapy to support people on their healing journey.  

You can find them at www.renegadecounseling.com

Being me, I couldn’t help but connect this experience to life, relationships, and, yes—sex. It got me thinking about how the human experience mirrors a garden. So let’s lean into it.

In life, we’re constantly planting seeds. With every choice, connection, and intimate encounter, seeds are sown—some we nurture for ourselves and others that grow unexpectedly, touching lives beyond our own. Not every seed sprouts in our presence or in ways we imagine, but each has a purpose, feeding the ecosystem of our lives and those around us.

Sexuality, as a form of intimacy, is also a way we plant seeds. Through these intimate acts, we can sow trust, vulnerability, passion, and even healing. Sometimes, the physical and emotional openness we share leaves seeds of connection and self-discovery, even if the relationship doesn’t last.

The seeds we plant may not always blossom in our lifetime. Especially in relationships, the love, intimacy, or even tough lessons we leave with someone can grow beyond the immediate. Every intimate experience has the potential to be transformative. A moment of vulnerability or a shared revelation can become the spark of growth in a partner’s future. At other times, an unfulfilled relationship or a painful breakup can push us down a path of self-discovery, ultimately leading us to become more whole.

We’re not just the gardeners; we’re also seeds ourselves. Every relationship we experience—including the painful or challenging ones—plants seeds within us. Perhaps you had a “bad” partner, or maybe you were the one who hurt someone else. Rather than seeing these moments as purely negative, consider how they contribute to who we are today. Often, the seeds of sexuality, love, and intimacy become sources of deep personal insight. My own journey, in many ways, has been born out of a need for healing from past relationships. These were seeds that caused me pain, pain I didn’t ask for. But with time and distance, I can see how those difficult experiences led me to healing and understanding, not only for myself but also for others. What would life be like if we stepped back and looked at our experiences like this? What if we saw chaos but knew that it was creating harmony on another level?

When we’re hurt, especially in intimate relationships, we become more mindful of what we need and deserve, developing resilience and self-awareness. Sometimes, being a “bad” partner—or recognizing that we weren’t the partner someone else needed—prompts us to make real changes so our future relationships can thrive. Every difficult experience prepares us for deeper, more fulfilling connections.

Just like any garden, a relationship and sexual connection need rich, nurturing soil to thrive. If you’ve experienced painful seeds, feel uncertain about what you need from love or intimacy, or even feel lost in patterns that keep repeating, it may be time to tend to that “soil.” Talking with a coach or trusted guide can provide the nourishment, clarity, and tools needed for a fertile foundation, transforming past hurts into a source of strength and new growth.

Whether you’re healing from past wounds, nurturing a new relationship, or striving to understand your needs more deeply, consider reaching out for support. Plant your seeds with care, both for yourself and others. And if your garden needs a little help, know that support is just a call or message away.

About the Author: Rick Garcia (he/him) is the owner of Cannabased Coaching & Wellness. Rick started his career in the healing arts as a licensed massage therapist in 2005. Looking for a shift he transitioned to HIV prevention and has worked in sexual health for 11 years. Realizing the gap in sexual health and sexual fulfillment Rick became a certified sex coach and sexologist so that he could help people explore their ideal sexual self while remaining as safe as possible. His sex coaching services are holistic and combine elements such as talk, somatic exercises, the MEBES model, cannabis and a variety of other modalities. When his wellness center opened he decided to have another arm available for massage therapy. To learn more about Rick’s services please visit www.cannabasedcoachingandwellness.com or contact him at cannabasedcoachingandwellness@gmail.com.

Nomads. We’ve become a bit traumatized living in modernization and separation from land. All mammals have emotional circuitry for grief and when we are without our kin, our village, our land, that circuitry goes into full alarm (anxiety, sadness, depression and loneliness are all related symptoms). And then we may shame ourselves for our perfectly natural response to the alienation from the modern world.

We have convinced ourselves we don’t need each other, but in reality our mammal bodies are made for relationship. This is an expression of a deep truth: all of life is relational. We exist in interdependence. We seek relationship from the earliest moments of life and our lives unfold and take shape relative to the nature of the relationships we encounter and create. In fact, all life forms down to the single most cell seek to connect, because we are inter-relational.

We think the world is linear, i.e., that we are going somewhere. Our culture values the heroics of the rugged individualist, In that viewpoint, it’s not ok to admit we are lonely. Loneliness is when we don’t experience being seen for who we are, understood, valued, remembered, or cared for. The linear worldview finds its roots in Western European and American thought. It is logical, time oriented, and systematic, and has at its core the cause-and-effect relationship. The belief is that if we understand the cause, we can find the solution.

Yet, the linear view is narrow. It inhibits us from seeing the whole person. A more holistic viewpoint would see the world as relational. Problems should be seen in terms of its relationship to other events, circumstances or people around them. We have a mosaic of feelings that indicate when our basic needs are being met or unmet. For example, when our need for care is met, we may feel love, affection, calm, happiness, etc. Conversely, when care is not met such as when we lose a friend, we feel grief, sadness, even physical sensations of emotional pain.

These feelings can be common for us when we don’t have real relational understanding. How do we find a way to be seen, understood, valued, remembered, and cared for? That is the inner work we are faced with. So how do we get that connection we’re longing for? What needs to exist for us to feel belonging? 

I first learned to validate my body sensations, feelings and needs. I learned this through working with a Nonviolent Communication (NVC) practice group. NVC was started by Marshall Rosenberg in 1984. Here is where I learned my feelings made sense. They weren’t something to get rid of, they were there for me to listen to myself and what I needed.

NVC created a new way of processing and communicating with ourselves and others. It educated us to weed out our cause-and-effect language. Searching for causes makes us a very blame-based culture, i.e., “Whose fault is it?” We want to let go of cause and look for the needs that are either being met or not met. Only in that way can we resolve the feelings we are having. We had to reframe blame from:

I feel _____ because you _____! (blame!)

Reframe to:

I feel _______ because I _____! (ownership of feelings)

When we reframe our communication, we have greater understanding of what we need and can ask more directly to get our needs met. This is the best way to hold ourselves with more understanding, connection and love.

About the author: Rev. Catherine Dockery, MA, is a People House minister and a trained facilitator in conscious aging, nonviolent communication and resonant healing of trauma. She has an MA in Public Administration and BA in Communications both from the University of Colorado at Denver. Catherine started The Center for Conscious Aging in 2015 where she conducts workshops, personal coaching and support groups for older adults helping them to understand their developmental changes and transform their lives. She has 10 years of experience in individual and group facilitation and presents on aging topics throughout Colorado. To learn more about Catherine’s services please visit www.centerforconsciousaging.org or email consciousaging1@gmail.com

As I went through Yoga teacher training, I heard lots of different aphorisms and sayings, attributed to this and that culture, or this or that spiritual teaching. With the world on fire this year, what with multiple wars, economic chaos, political strife, assassination attempts, this saying keeps coming back to me.

When I first heard it decades ago, I was told it was a “ancient Chinese” curse. And I didn’t believe it. Why would it be a curse to live in fortunate times? Isn’t that what we are all hoping for, wishing for, working toward? To live in a beautiful house with a beautiful family, beautiful possessions and a bank account to support such things? Fortune means comfort and safety and good times. Wasn’t that the whole point of being put on this crazy earth in the first place? After all, even Job, post all his doubt and misfortune, got back his wealth once he was made an example.

Not so, in Eastern philosophy. To me, all the scriptures I’ve read point to one thing: wealth, true wealth, wealth that cannot be taken away, destroyed, or stolen, is the understanding, the recognition that what animates me, animates the Universe. This animation, this being-ness, is the only thing that is truly valuable. And lucky us, that is what we are. When we recognize that, we suddenly want to do anything and everything to maintain that awareness. For without this being, all the “valuables” in the world have no value at all.

Back to the saying. Why would it be a curse to live in fortunate times? Because fortunate times often result in sloth, gluttony, indulgence (think, height of Roman Empire, or the 1980s), which breeds unconsciousness and suffering. The focus in such times is away from being and awareness and instead, is glommed onto the external, possessions, grasping, greed. Which brings what the internet is batting about as the “ancient Chinese” curse, “May you live in interesting times.” And while I agree we are living in interesting times (and have been since at least the pandemic); I choose not to see it as a curse, and hold it instead as a blessing.

Take for instance, nature. It is how it works. The autumn leaves on trees are most colorful after a drier summer; grapes for wine develop much more robust and complex flavors when the weather fluctuates more widely. And from Anais Nin, “There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful that the risk it took to blossom.” Pain, or suffering, is the most compelling way nature, the universe, Life, gives us to risk blossoming.

And so, these interesting times call on us to be our best. These times require courage, honesty, integrity, faith, charity, and selflessness. They call for us to dig deep, to find out that, what we truly are — awareness, being-ness — can not be destroyed, lost, or forgotten. In these interesting times, we don’t have to do something, rather, we allow ourselves to be, and in being we will seamlessly receive the wisdom, love and compassion needed to act in each moment appropriately. This is what happens when we stop focusing on external and come home to the internal wonder of our True Nature of Being. And how Being acts, is through love.

So take a moment, right now, and turn away from the news cycle; take a deep breath; and say “I love you” to the nearest living, breathing being, especially if that Being, is you.

About the Author: Beth Hinnen came to the spiritual path from the corporate world. After experiencing impermanence and greed, she left to study Yoga and has over 1,000 hours in Yoga teacher training, and ended up specializing in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, spiritual scripture that closely aligns with Buddhism. From there, she studied Zen Buddhism for over ten years, including in-person, month-long monastic retreats, until she earned certification, in January, 2023, as a Mindfulness and Meditation Teacher with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach. Currently, Beth is a co-leader of the IMCD Council, and on the Teachers Collective, as administrator. She hosts a Meetup group called Yoga Meets Buddhism, and for the past three years, has held an online Dharma Wednesdays class that discusses the Yoga Sutras while also bringing in Buddhist teachings, along with Sufi poets, Christianity, Judaism and other spiritual paths that reinforce the words of Sri Swami Satchidananda, the founder of Integral Yoga where Beth studied. “The truth is one, the paths are many.” More information about Beth is at www.samayaco.org.

1 – Staying present to your current experience: basically, HOW is your NOW? Your NOW holds valuable information.

2 – A space where we experience Oneness with the Universe, Divine, Higher Consciousness, Gaia, Brahman, Ultimate Reality, Goddess/God, non-God, Light, Love (space limits the ways this concept is expressed), and

3 – Seeking a connection with something greater than ourselves and at the same time, seeking through self-knowledge to live a fully human and integrated life.

So, combining those three items, did you experience anything when you read that last phrase of No. 2, words I used to describe the ineffable, the unexplainable, the Mystery? Did any of those limiting words cause a reaction within you? In your body? Is one of your emotions screaming at the edge of your consciousness? Did you stop reading at that point? Or is one rising gently, peacefully? Did a past memory surface, pleasant or unpleasant? What did I leave out that feels important to your experience? Do you believe that some of those words/images are just flat out wrong?

I encourage you to bring your awareness to WHAT you may be rejecting and WHY.

No one can tell us exactly what—or who—this Ultimate Reality really IS. Mystics and poets down through the eons have described their own experiences and thus have given us intimations of what this Reality may look like, but at the end of the day, all these terms are metaphoric variations.

A metaphor is used when we don’t know what something is in order to give it some sort of meaning that we can connect the concept to.

Feminist Christian theologian Sallie McFague says that to think metaphorically “… means spotting a thread of similarity between two dissimilar objects, events, or whatever, one of which is better known that the other, and using the better-known one as a way of speaking about the lesser known (Note 1, p. 15).

Scholar Ian Barbour first studied science and then religion, eventually drawing comparisons and differences between the two, in particular how both used metaphors, models, and paradigms to explain the unseen (Note 2). Barbour says that “Religious language often uses imaginative metaphors, symbols, and parables, all of which express analogies” (Note 3, p. 119).   

Models & paradigms: Helpful, but not the same as Reality!

Some of these analogies evolve into models. For example, Western Christians are familiar with the metaphors of God as father, king/conqueror, to the point where the Divine is restricted to this patriarchal-defined reality, leaving analogical language behind. In parts of Latin America, the model of God as Liberator informs reality.

But the New Testament scriptures are replete with other metaphors, such as God as the woman seeking her coin. Although that is mentioned in the same Bible verse as the parable of the good shepherd, how many stained glass windows do you see depicting God as Woman seeking her lost coin? Or Jesus as a Mother Hen, gathering up her chicks under her wings (Note 4)? Neither of those metaphors even made it to model stage.

And this is not just true of Western Christianity; I’ve seen and experienced this pattern repeat itself all over the world. Every religion, every sect, for the most part, has definite ideas about Ultimate Reality, leaving little wiggle room— in other words, little room left for Mystery. It’s the mystics who shatter the walls of their respective boxes.

Barbour goes on to explain how a model can then crystalize into a paradigm. A paradigm, whether in science or religion, includes metaphysical assumptions and captures the imagination of its adherents. In the process, a paradigm defines reality, determines what sort of questions can be asked, and what sort of answers we’re looking for (Note 5).

Doubt frees us from illusions of having captured God in a creed.

We have inklings of this Otherness, but our words anthropomorphize this Otherness. When we say, “God is Love,” our human ideas, images, and definitions of love immediately surface. Whatever negative or positive attributes we associate with love are now imputed to the God we defined as love.

When we reject “God”, what we might really be rejecting is the metaphor, the model, or the paradigm presented to us as the only or primary version of Ultimate Reality.  Perhaps it was imposed upon us in our childhoods and it no longer fits our experience. Our world picture changes as we grow and change.

Spirituality conveys the idea of living peaceably with ourselves, with each other, and with our natural environment. The global battle for religious supremacy still rages among us. Thinking metaphorically versus in absolutes (OUR absolutes) about the Divine opens up a space of humility within us where we can cultivate kindness, gentleness, and compassion for our fellow travelers.  

Barbour says that, “Doubt frees us from illusions of having captured God in a creed” (Note 6).

So does thinking metaphorically.

Note 1: McFague, Sallie. Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982, 1987.

Note 2: The atoms subatomic construct cannot be directly observed, but based on theories we’ve developed amazing technology, such as this computer I’m typing on, my cell phone, and information available at my fingertips due to the internet.

Note 3: Barbour, Ian. Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.

Note 4: Luke 15:8-10; Matthew 23:37

Note 5: For more information on metaphors, models, and paradigms, see Barbour, Religion and Science; Barbour, Myths, Models, and Paradigms: A Comparative Study in Science & Religion; Harper & Row, 1974; and Kuhn, T.S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions; University of Chicago Press, 1996 ed.

Note 6: Barbour, Myths, Models, and Paradigms: A Comparative Study in Science & Religion.

Award-winning author Rev. Mary Coday Edwards is a Spiritual Growth Facilitator and People House Minister, and author of To Travel Well, Travel Light. An Adventure Memoir of Living Abroad and Letting Go of Life’s Trappings: Material Possessions, Cultural Blinders, and a Patriarchal Christian Worldview. A lifelong student of spirituality, Mary spent almost 20 years living, working, and sojourning abroad in Asia, Southeast Asia, East Africa, and Latin America before finding her spiritual connection at People House and completing its Ministerial Program. Past studies include postgraduate studies from the University of South Africa in Theological Ethics/Ecological Justice, where she focused on the spiritual and physical interconnectedness of all things. With her MA in Environmental Studies from Boston University, abroad she worked and wrote on environmental sustainability issues at both global and local levels. In addition to working in refugee repatriation, she was an editor for international, English print, daily newspapers in Indonesia and Mexico.