Now bear with me on this. It is a bit meandering, but I made a connection the other day that I don’t know how to explain in any other way, and it is important.
According to Dungeons and Dragons (I believe the originator of the concept) and most video game usage: True Damage is a description of a type of damage that cannot be hindered by armor, magical protection, or any passive defense. To get into the weeds a bit in case any of you are not gamers: If you have a character that has 60 points of health, and you get hit by a sword that will deal 45 points of damage, this is often offset by. things like: Your armor protects you for up to 25 points of damage, and your magic resistance will defer 40% of slicing damage. In this scenario, the 45 points of slicing damage from that sword instantly gets 25 points removed due to the armor, which brings it down to 20. Then the magic resistance you have will defer 8 points of damage. So you actually receive 12 points of damage which is essentially a really uncomfortable scratch. If the weapon deals true damage, it will ignore your armor, it will ignore your magic, and it will deal 45 points of damage which would bring you critically low on health. So you can see how devastating it can be.
From something I realized the other day when talking to a friend, I don’t think True Damage is actually given enough weight in these games.
Let’s talk about my martial art. As you probably know, I train in a samurai art called Nami Ryu Aiki Heiho. This roughly translates to Wave Style Magic Strategy. Translating Aiki is not inaccurate to say Magic, but it is not the clear either. We would say Aiki is anything you cannot do to a chair. You cannot trick a chair, you cannot make a chair think you are striking from the left so you can strike with the right. Deception is a VERY important part of warfare that you cannot perform on a chair. But Deception is also not a good word for it. It is like the rectangle/square scenario, Deception is Aiki, but Aiki is not deception. Think of a bully on the play ground drawing a line in the sand, and saying they will give you a dollar if you can just cross the line. But once you get there, they have backed up and drawn a new line. They are being very honest with you (while also not being honest with you. ~ but you know there will never be a win.). But why did all of us try 3 times before we got frustrated and quit? We weren’t really being deceived, but we were doing what they wanted. This is like Aiki.
Fact: Did you know that when the average person punches, they will keep reaching until they feel like they have hit you?
This means that if I am being punched at, I have a couple of options to trick them, as long as they don’t see me move. I can put my hand in front of their fist. Slapping their fist tells their brain that they have connected and they should pull back. Or I can move directly backwards just before they connect, causing them to reach further. These both give me great options, but let’s discuss the latter because I think it is easier to see. If the attacker will continue reaching, there is a point in me moving backwards that they will be very off balance. And once they are, I can strike.
This might still be hard to see how this impact is more than if I had simply hit in the first place. Imagine you are walking in your attic, you see a half wall protecting you from falling down the stairs. If you see it, you will slow down before you hit it. Even if you were out of control and hit it, you probably wouldn’t get hurt. Now think about that one time, you either stood up under an angled ceiling that you didn’t realize was going to be so close. Do you remember how hitting your head on that ceiling shook your world? That ceiling, and the half-wall, are made of the same material. They both intended you no harm. But one you were prepared for and slowed down, the other you just kept trying to stand up without thinking about slowing down. The fact that you KEPT MOVING caused 100x the amount of pain for you. This is what Aiki can do. If I can convince you to keep reaching at me, so you could hit your head on that ceiling, I will have hit you so much harder with that ceiling than had I just thrown a punch at you.
I am good at punching. But even so, the average person would not be afraid of me striking them. If you are prepared, I cannot hurt you too badly, or maybe at all. But every time you think back to that ceiling, you think about the pain and repel the idea of doing it again. This is why I say True Damage isn’t given its true weight in these games. True Damage not only bypasses your defenses, it causes a change in your brain and physiology to remember the experience and be afraid of it happening again.
True Damage is the heart of Trauma. And this brings me back to the connection I made when my friend was talking. They were describing how a sibling would lash out at them with very specific words and how it would literally break them down for days about what an awful person they knew themself to be. Logically, my friend knows that they are an incredible, kind, and competent person. But those words hurt so badly… I think back to other stories I have heard from this friend. Interactions with their parents, previous interactions with their sibling, and I can so clearly see the kind of emotional abuse they survived. And when you survive abuse, you develop coping mechanisms to let you continue surviving. Now, siblings, parents that are aware of the damage they inflict, and manipulative people in general have the ability to see that. If my friends coping mechanism was to always be vigilant to peoples moods, and try to adapt themself to minimize conflict before it happens (I call this being a spiritual chameleon), you could leverage that information to hurt them. By saying the precise words you know will trigger them, make them feel like they are not adapting fast enough, make them feel like they are not good enough at what they do: You have the ability to leverage their previous trauma, to not only give True Damage, but to also trigger the sense of life threatening danger they experienced to cause such a dramatic coping mechanism to exist in them. And to top it off, if you see that they are a chameleon as a means to minimize pain, you can intentionally swing your mood so boldly from kind to angry to love to venom. This means the attacker can also take away the power of protection that their coping mechanisms have offered them.
True Damage is so much more damaging than bypassing your armor. It is not just getting past your armor and magic. It is getting past those things, and then targeting a very specific scar from a previous life-threatening wound that you are still recovering from, and somehow having time to add salt to your blade before bringing it in.
Trauma gives us so many tools to get by in the moments we need them. I know that in my own experience, after I have left that space, and started to do some healing, those coping mechanisms no longer serve me and I need to find a way to unlearn them. While we may never see the downside to keeping those tools, I can tell you clearly, that the tools you used to calm that life threatening situation, are now tools that someone else can use to cause you the deepest of True Damage.
An important note here: The Misa is my Medicine Bundle that was created throughout my training and continued learning. As I continue to learn and grow, my Misa changes and grows. Like most traditions, there is a means of divination. And for me, this comes forward as clarifying an existing situation and clarifying connections between seemingly disconnected things vs telling the future. Also, my Misa Readings with clients are confidential. Any reading you see here is a reading down for myself, about my own work.
We are on our 20 year wedding anniversary trip to Spain. And in Barcelona, where spent almost a week, I was noticing some real struggles with the language. I was getting frustrated and I felt myself shutting down, and then also acknowledging that my crappy Spanish is the best option we have. On that first night in Barcelona, I woke up at 4am for no reason at all. I didn’t want to move or get up because I was afraid of never being able to go to bed again, so I just sat, and let myself process. And the language thing kept coming to mind. When I felt sadness, shame, guilt, frustration, hopelessness about learning a language that is so important to me, I realized I have tools for this. I remembered my brother and sister-in-law teaching me about EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique, also called Tapping.) And I decided to try. I was tapping on a point in my hand, and thinking through those hard feelings. And each time I would come up with a feeling I was having, I would tap, repeat it in my mind, and then remind myself that I am okay. I have seen some incredible success from EFT but I always struggle to use it as a tool. That night, I could. I processed all of the feelings that came to me, until the only things that were coming up were things like, I really like my wife. (Which is a pretty awesome thing to know is still true.) Funny side note: after I fell back asleep, I dreamt about how much I like my partner, and was thinking about proposing to her, and eventually realized that we were already married.
While walking around Barcelona we saw a store called “Inca” with a bunch of products that looked “Native”. I HAD TO GO IN. I was fully expecting there to be almost offensive level of appropriation and “authentic” knick-nicks. And while I did see many of the things I would assume to be appropriated, I also then saw a keychain with a chakana on it. The chakana is a symbol of Peru, and it has also become a symbol of my path to me, and also is a large part of my personal logo. But it is the first time (in person) I have seen a chakana for sale. It got me thinking that this might be something. I saw some cool flutes, bags, jewelry. And I saw some in-expensive rings with symbols carved in them. And while I wanted some of the items, I realized I tend to get over excited and just bought the chakana keychain.
In another shop, I saw something about the Inca. Near our apartment, I saw a Peruvian Restaurant, and finally I needed to understand about the connection between Peru and Barcelona. After searching online and reading for a bit, I learned that there have been large waves of immigrants from Peru to Barcelona for over 150 years. And understanding the feeling of cultural and literal genocide by a larger power ~ Barcelona opened their arms to the Peruvian immigrants. Which means that, The Inca store I was in, was authentic. There really were Peruvian natives that were carrying forward their culture and faith in Barcelona. And my Misa told me, that if I made it back downtown, I needed to go to that store, and buy one of the rings with a chakana pattern. (We did end up going back and purchasing one.)
Let’s fast forward to San Sebastián. When I arrived in our apartment here, my Misa wanted to be opened. When I opened it up, it was being very specific on how each pieces was to be placed. I did not intend to set this up for a reading, but simply how I open it up in a new space as a bit of a welcoming. My Misa told me to place a specific Khuya on top of another Khuya, but rotate it specifically to point towards the East. It told me to stack several other pieces. It told me to put a flat item to stack on top of a spherical item. And I was like, this is honestly not going to work. And they said, Why else did we ask you to get that ring? And that is when I realized that this was a reading for me.
Before I tell you about the reading, let me tell you about the trauma I now know it is about. I would like to preface this story with: my shadows are not other people’s responsibility. I know that my parents were doing the best they could, with what they had.
When I was 7, I learned I had a dad because my father showed up on our apartments door step. Within a few days, we left my mom and sister for me to go away with him for a year. I did not recall anytime in my life that I had left our tiny city. (Compared to today, 1987 Traverse City feels tiny.) We left in a car I had never seen with a guy I met a few days before to visit places far past where I had ever been. We were planning to go to the military base he lived on in Heidelberg, Germany. But as my father was so excited to see me, and to introduce his only son to his family, we went to Puerto Rico first. In Puerto Rico, nobody but my father seemed to speak English. My grandma, her partner, my aunts and uncles, and my cousins. I remember that a couple of my cousins spoke English well enough to include me in some things, but overall, I felt more disconnected from anything safe than I ever had in my life. I learned that this part of my family, who were so welcoming and kind, and wanted so badly to invite me in, felt to me like they were behind a sheet of glass, because I could neither speak to nor understand them. I was determined to learn this language. And promptly, we left for Germany.
I remember that when we got onto the military plane, I was handed a plastic baggy with a fruit roll up, ear plugs, and some ibuprofen. My father and I were sat in a strange row of seats next to the TANK that the US was flying to Germany. And when we landed in Germany, I met my step-mother, and step-siblings. They were from Atlanta, Georgia so we spoke the same language, but goodness did we have different outlooks on life.
This was probably the most traumatic year of my life. Nothing felt stable, nothing felt safe, nothing felt solid. I made friends on the military base, I went to school, I was a kid. And outside of the tiny bubble that was our base, nobody spoke English.
I remember a couple of times where I would go on Volksmarches. Looking it up now, I see that this term is for a non-competitive peoples march across Germany originally set up in the 1960’s. We would go miles and miles and miles. But I wasn’t a runner, and no matter the level of competitiveness intended, my dad wanted to win. (To be fair, he did win the several marathons in Germany that year.) But I remember walking from town to town, knowing my dad would meet my at the finish line. There were a couple that my step-siblings went with me on, and then a couple where they refused. So there was a 7 year old me, walking across the German countryside, with hardly a word of German, and looking for the end of the path. (People were very kind even if they couldn’t speak to me, people fed me in the towns.) I also have a very powerful and fond memory of one time that I was still with my dad on one of these volksmarches, and we stopped along side a country road and ate pears that were growing on a tree there.
The school did slowly teach us some German. Kind of crazy that within a month’s time, I went from not knowing that there were other languages, to feeling like I needed to learn 2 more to simply survive. My father has a very nonchalant feel about many things. I call it, “The Cabrera Crazy.” If you believe it strong enough, it is true. “Learning German was easy. I was shipped here, and I learned. That is also how I learned English.”
While it was not his intent, he made it feel like a competition. It was so easy for him to learn these languages, it was so easy for him to live life wherever he needed to. And each time he would note his skill, I would feel like it was a dig on me that I didn’t instantly pick up these languages. I started feeling the shame, guilt, powerlessness, hopelessness when I was 7 because I learned of these new skills that I needed to survive and couldn’t pick them up fast/good enough. When I tried to speak Spanish, or German from the little bit I was learning, he would interrupt me to correct me. Almost every interaction with my dad, was him trying to show how well we could connect, and make it exciting for me to want to be near him. And I often could only see that he could do so many things I couldn’t, which would amplify my shame.
We lived together for that year, and through out my life after that, I traveled with him a couple of times to see Disney World, or go to Puerto Rico to see his family (my family). And each time, it amplified my shame. It amplified my fear. It amplified my inability to learn the language(s) that I felt was a live or die paradigm. Between the ages of 7 and 14, there wasn’t exactly great places for a poor kid in Traverse City, MI to learn a language. But I felt like I was expected to know it since the last time we had met. Until one trip where my dad seemed to finally decide that I would never learn Spanish and he would just do the communication for me. This really amplified the fear and shame that I had as it confirmed their validity.
While I was back in Michigan, my junior high school started offering Spanish classes. I tried to take a class every semester because I was so determined to learn it. I nailed the accent, I nailed the composition. Actually, learning Spanish in class helped me understand the structure of English a lot better. But I couldn’t do homework. Anytime I would try to sit at the dining room table to do my Spanish work, my mother would tell me to “Stop that, you sound like your father.” So I would go to my room. I would practice from my room, and my step-father would come into the room and yell at me because “your mother told you to stop that.” ~ This was a special kind of ironic cruelty because I frequently would get punished if I get less than A’s on my report card. But this took something I already felt so awful about, and added on the feeling of sounding like my dad is clearly a BAD thing. I felt like I must be bad for speaking my dad’s language, and sounding like my dad.
Between them, I got the overall feeling that I was in a competition that I didn’t consent to join, nor did I know the rules, and I had no basis to start. By the time I had a chance to start learning, my only stable adult figure told me that I sounded bad for trying. But I was still so persistent on learning because I was so excited to know my family better, and my teachers were so amazing. I remained quite conflicted.
Then there were times that I would travel. I have been to several Spanish speaking countries. And each time I tried to speak Spanish, it was like I had to have an internal duel with these voices cutting me off to correct what I was saying, tell me I was bad, and that they people wouldn’t hear me anyway. As I had the accent, and clearly look hispanic, people would look at me like I was really stupid when I would start speaking, and then not know a very basic word. This amplified everything.
I continued taking Spanish classes. I got to the point where there was nothing new I was learning in the classes. I knew all of the words, but couldn’t speak. I didn’t realize that I was blocked, only that I couldn’t do it. (This is probably also amplified by the fact that I am dyslexic and I always simply assumed I was dumb with learning.)
Continued learning. I had a 500 or 600 day streak on DuoLingo until something glitched and my streak went away. I gave up, I picked up again a year later. Got a 365 day streak. I started to see how the errors I would get in the lessons were not because I didn’t know the words, but they are the same errors I would make on a test in my native language, and I lost it again. Then I noticed all of the “once funny” emotional manipulation that the stupid application and icon gave me. I simply deleted it from my phone. And I gave up. I refused to try any longer. And when I say I gave up, I mean that despite trying to learn Spanish for almost 35 years, I am just not trying anymore. I can accept that I will never speak to my family, I can accept that I will not be open to all of those connections and relationships that I want because I am simply too angry and hopeless.
Now, I cannot teach you to read a Misa. Reading a Misa is a skill onto itself that is learned through the process of becoming a Paq’o. But this particular Misa is built with and from me and my experiences. It speaks to me on a deeper level than it can others. Reading a Misa is most often a process of starting where I am drawn in the Misa and starting to explain the pieces I understand from looking at each piece, how it is connected to the rest and where energy appears to be flowing to tell a story. With this reading, it was almost like it just told me the full story. I guess this is kind of like when you first learn to read, you have to look at the letters, sound them out, and then understand there is a word, and then put the words together to form a sentence. Up to when you look at a page of text and scan to get the contents so you can quickly get to the next page. But let me break out the smaller pieces to help the you understand. I would like to start in the south of the reading. (Bottom of the image above.)
The relevant stones we see here are:
(1) Anger Stone (Lapiz Lazuli)
(11) Love/Condor (Blue Peruvian Opal)
(13) Mystery/Jaguar (African stone)
(18) Persistence (Amethyst Crystal)
(C) Younger child/Student/Mentee (Stick)
1 leave of the Kintu (prayer leaves) increasing energy towards the stones
End of the beaded cord. (Divider between in-body and celestial affect)
From this, I read: With the increasing energy flowing from the center (Cuzco), the connection to (C) those who need the skills I have to use and teach is helping to heal the (1) anger and (13) pieces I don’t understand about language and connection to the greater world (physical and metaphysical) through (11) love. I read this as directly, my family here with my on this trip, and less directly, those mentees and students I have, any members of our coven that wish to learn from me, and all of the possibilities beyond are working towards opening up while I battle the shadows I have around language.
With a flash back to the EFT session I noted above, I saw that this process was working towards allow me to release this shadow. (FINALLY!) From here, I looked to the north where the Release Khuya was sitting to read the north.
(E) Mentees/Students/Children (Toy Saxophone with world marble)
1 leave of the Kintu (prayer leaves) increasing energy towards the stones
End of the beaded cord. (Divider between in-body and celestial affect)
The energy is slowly flowing to the (15) Release stone because clearing this shadow is rolling a bolder up hill and nothing in a person WANTS to do that. But where does the energy come from? (9) Vulnerability has been conflating (16) Stress/Anxiety energy for a long time. But with the energy from those (E) who need me, (9) Invulnerability is allowing (2) Relationships to help diffuse (16) Stress/Anxiety and as that is abating, the energy from this teaching and divine space is starting to flow slowly to the (15) Release stone. The (A) Larimar is helping to uplift the efforts of all of this from a teaching space, to a divine space, where it used to simply be a blockade to that energy.
This two above really illustrate 90% of the message, but most of the remaining Khuya that were part of this reading were in the East.
The relevant stones we see here are:
(3) Fear (Black Agate)
(8) Space/Time (Beige Igneous)
(10) Elder/Teacher (Michigan White Alabaster)
(6) Hero/Leadership (Citrine)
End of the beaded cord. (Divider between in-body and celestial affect)
The flow of energy coming from (15) Release is cascading down through fear, lightening the weight of (8) Space/Time and starting to improve my abilities with teaching and leading, which are all empowered by love.
All of this goes back to the basic reading I had initially. You now have the capacity to deal with this shadow, and with the EFT I released it. And this is a huge step towards helping me, my immediate family, my greater family, and the world in which I choose to offer up my energy.
Semi-frequently people will ask me about dating. Recently, a good personal friend asked me if I had any advice on stepping into a poly relationship. And here is the thing: I feel like I have never dated, and I know almost nothing about poly relationships. I met my partner when I was a senior in high school. They were a sophomore. We have been together since I was 17, and they were 15. So there is a whole world (particularly with modern internet connections/dating apps) about the intro to relationships that I have almost 0 context to.
Dating is about putting out feelers and trying to understand how the man/woman/human across from you can go from a beautiful face and witty yet kind charm, to someone you would be happy to offer a cup of tea when you know there is nothing more you can do to ease their suffering. And other than the potential number of people involved and how/when they are part of the relationship, poly relationships** are no different.
The aspect of relationships that I have been… studying?… are about how to maintain and grow them over long term. AND my suggestion is that the rules I put forward for relationships can only be true here too.
My partner and I are currently traveling as part of a commitment we made on our honeymoon. On our honeymoon, we agreed that in 20 years, we would come back to Spain with our children. (One of our children ~ who is now a legal adult ~ didn’t want to come, so out of our control.) So, after 20 years, where we have both done our personal work, we are still working at growing and improving, and we try our best to achieve our agreed upon commitments, here are some of the things that we have come up with.
If you would like your relationships to last, and I suspect that these are true for dating or opening yourself up to a relationship in any way:
Learn about and understand the concept of CONSENT deeply.
Put down your mask and be as honest as you can. We all have masks that we may not even know we are wearing. Don’t let this hinder you. Be as honest as you can, right now.
If you worry about things about yourself that you fear might not allow this relationship to work, which we all do: Relax. Everyone has their skeletons. I do recommend being honest in sharing concern and offering vulnerability ~ This is always a recommendation, however; as a matter of safety, it is ok to get a few dates in to see if that vulnerability feels potentially safe. (Reminder: situations where you are incredibly vulnerable are NEVER easy to share, so you have to decide a time that you are willing to take the leap.). When you can share your vulnerability, a partner worth having will be aware of the gift you have given, and feel safer in sharing their vulnerabilities with you.
Listen. Actively listen to what they are saying, and what their body language is sharing. Listen to hear their meaning, and any time you have something come up that you want to comment on or refute, hold onto it, keep your mouth closed, and listen. When they are done sharing, it is worth asking if they are willing or able to hear your input. This will make things SAFER for them to be honest. And if they say they are NOT able or willing to hear your input. Drop it. Do not find a way to share your input anyway. Honor their consent.
Feel your fucking feelings. This is our second house rule. And yes, we keep the swear word when we share this with our kids. It is an important part of the sentence. We, ourselves, need reminders that it is hard to acknowledge, feel, and process our own feelings. Even with this much work, it is still difficult. And we need to do it anyway. Happy? Do a cartwheel. Sad? Sulk on the couch with a cozy blanket. Angry? Let people know you are feeling anger and clarify that you are going to scream into a pillow and see if you can let it out. Then go do it. (I have added the let people know part because I am always afraid that my anger shapes the people around me in a way that feels abusive to me. If I can say, “I am feeling angry, and it is not about you, I need to go process.” can give me space to feel my big emotions without affecting others.) Also be very careful, You need to feel your feelings, but you may NOT abuse people with them. Even if you are angry at your partner, they actually cannot make you do anything, even feel anger. If their actions are causing you anger, Feel your feelings, and after you have felt your feelings, then have a clear conversation about what happened. Their action did not cause anger in you, the anger comes to you because the way you perceive or speculate about their action brought the feeling to you. Re-read that sentence, it is important. If you feel they caused it, you will be guilty of bludgeoning them with your anger when you try to talk, as you will undoubtedly raise your voice.
Feel comfortable in your discomfort. Other people experiencing their big feelings prompts most of us to want to fix it. (Dudes and chameleons, I am especially talking to you.) The best thing you can do to “fix” it, is let them be, and know that it is not about you. It is ok to say something like: “I see you are in your feelings, if/when you would like, I would like to be available for you.” This is so hard. But seriously, take that time to think about why you automatically assume it is about you when someone near you is processing big feelings. Let them feel, don’t make it about you. What if it IS about you? Trust that after they process, they will bring it to you to address.
The hardest thing to say is the thing you need to say first. Often, we get bent out of shape because there is something that we are feeling that we don’t feel safe sharing for one reason or another. This creates a breeding ground for miscommunication. I will often start the conversation with (as it will never have an easy-in to the conversation it feels like I must blurt it out.) “As we agree that the hardest thing to say is the thing I need to say first: … … … (say the thing)… … …” Then I let them process it. Then we talk. THIS SUCKS EVERY TIME. But, now we know the same things and understand each other’s feelings on the topic. It is amazing how much pressure this diffuses in our everyday.
Create and communicate a Safe Word. One thing that the Kink community does beautifully is work with Safe Words. This talks about consent, and a safe space to push past potentially uncomfortable situations, but always have a safe way to back up. Oh, I don’t actually like this, I would like this to stop right away. Then you can experience something you want to try, without guilt or pressure or anger about another persons involvement. You get to consent to everything. So, agree upon a word that you agree to use, and agree to the terms of using it. It must be a word that is not an everyday word as to avoid confusion. For us, it is a word you speak and everyone in the situation stops, steps back, and thinks about what is going on. Preferably, trying to see what you might not have already heard. Once you have a moment where you have stepped out of your initial emotion or response, you have a much clearer means of stepping back into conversation (or whatever) allowing you to approach it being who you wish to be. If there is conflict, being able to step back feel your fear or anger, understand why it is there, and then stepping back to the conversation can allow everyone to safely communicate their feelings and experiences in a way that others can hear. As a group, you get to consent to hearing the positive and negatively judged emotions that people around you are having. Our kids tested this for a long time to know it was real. Imagine a tickle fight with a 3 year old. They scream and laugh, and they say “No” or “Stop” and you stop, and they are like, why did you stop? The words “No” and “Stop” are part of the game for them. But if they say “lamppost”, “lunchbox”, or “tofu” (whatever your safe word is), everything stops. We would be in the middle of a WWF style all-out-tickle-battle-royale and they use the safe word. Everyone freezes. Then they say go, and after 2 seconds, they say it again, and everyone freezes. Basically, we had a lot of tickle fights that were like someone hitting pause and then play again 15 million times because they needed to know that it would work all the time.
Care/Be Authentic. It seems like it doesn’t need to be stated, but it does. If you do not really care, you cannot do any of the above from a place of authenticity. Being authentically you allows you to show your consistent self, and let them decide if they feel safe with who you are. To do this, you must care enough for them, to be honest with them… And even more difficult, you must care enough about YOU, to be honest with yourself.
Because this list is crying out to be rounded up to 10: Act everyday so your partner chooses you again tomorrow. Remember, even if you are married, you are not required to stay together. Your partner could leave. My partner could choose to leave. And as I do not wish that to happen, I try to grow every day. I try to be the partner they need every day. And I do it all with the hope that they will choose me again. If I can do this, and she chooses another way tomorrow, I will be sad, but I also know that the authentic person that I am, is not what they need right now.
And this brings me to the point that no relationship fails. It continues or it doesn’t, and you learn from it.
While this is not a clear list that is directly applicable to your first date that you coordinated from the Internet, I think that reading it through can help you to see what you really want from this date. Assuming you are interested in this dating becoming something more than a 1-night situation, I feel as if this list can help you understand who you are hoping to meet, where growth is possible, and if this is a person you want to spend time with. While laying the ground work for sharing with them who you are, and letting them understand that you have hopes and boundaries.
This list is the clearest words currently know to help a relationship last long term. Wishing you all the best.
** Foot note, I asked a friend of mine some details on poly relationships. While he might have feared I was fishing for potential partners, I really simply wanted to understand. I have a full life, full time job, several hobbies, a partner, 2 kids ~ I do not have enough time to spend with the single partner I have. So I wanted to understand how one can offer the dedication and connection to multiple partners, when I cannot even figure out how to do that well enough with my 1 partner. His answer was so incredible. It came down to communication about boundaries, being clear about what you are hoping for from each partner, and above all else, desiring nothing more than for your partner(s) to be happy. Enjoying the process of them being happy. Them being happy as a high priority for you and a fulfilling part of your connection. I was simply blown away. Basically, he described a perfect relationship. Boundaries, and offering joy without the complexity of your own ego obstructing the way.
In 2018, I wrote a post about Personal Mission. Re-reading this post I see that my mission changed shortly after that, and recently, it changed again. As it stands right now, my mission is: “I offer up energy to build reciprocal relationships and create the community in which I wish for my grandchildren’s grandchildren to live.” While my mission changed, the reason it is important hasn’t.
It is like a budget. Before the month begins, you are the boss. You decide where every penny goes. Once the month starts, you look to the budget to tell you what is ok to do. I decide my mission, and then I live by it, up until I realize that my mission needs to adjust.
I have been reading, following tutorials, looking into the why’s and how’s of making a logo for one of the groups I volunteer for. And when following the process of making a logo, I was reminded of the North work on my path where we reviewed the roles we have in life.
One of the things that is said to be helpful in making a logo, is to make a Mind Map of key terms. If your logo is for a company that roasts coffee, we shouldn’t be too literal. It is better to look at various ideas that are similar to find some key phrases/ideas that get your mind in the right direction.
Then we could look at a larger group of ideas to produce a logo that is simple and memorable. In North Work, we do something similar with the Roles we carry in our life. We want to look at all of the Roles we hold, review them, and make some decisions about what we want to keep, need to keep, and do not wish to keep. This process is hard. For the ones we do not want to keep, and we do not need to keep, we have to find a way to respectfully, and carefully set them down.
This got me thinking about all of the various things I have been doing to uphold my mission, I realized that I would love to have some way to identify me in context of that. And after a lot of trial and error, I found something.
What terms would I want to use?
Looking at these terms, I went through many ideas. And here is the logo I landed on. And I love it!
This symbol fits so much of who I feel like I am trying to be. The main outer shape is called a Chakana. It is also called the Andian Cross. This talks to my shamanism. It talks to faith. It is a symbol of ancient Peru, and symbolizes balance, light and heavy energy, the three (lower, middle, upper) worlds, the 5 elements (Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Ether). It talks to me about caring, connection, and reciprocity.
The 2 colors of that background are white and black, and those two colors are selected because I want it clear that I honor both light and heavy energy without judgement. Good and Evil are only judgements on things that have factually occurred. And they are balanced.
The Cherry Blossom, or Sakura, in the middle is a symbol of Samurai. It symbolizes impermanence and fragility, but also of strength and beauty. Did you know that kamikaze jet pilots from Japan would put a Sakura (Cherry Blossom Petal) some where on their jets when they flew out? It symbolizes my love for culture, and also has some symbolism for my home town of Traverse City.
It is not perfect. But neither am I. So in a way, that is also a great symbol. This was a great exercise for me, and it might be a cool thing for you to try. What would your logo look like?
Caveats: Most of my friends are not neurotypical. And sometimes, it is hard to not call out things that are not 100%, to the letter, accurate. I generally call this pedantic, but in reality, it is like an unexpected bump in the road. When you are listening to an amazing story, and they use a word or reference that doesn’t fit, it can be incredibly jarring because it is out of place. For those of my friends who are here, let me clear.
I am not a Samurai. A samurai was a person that fit into a specific class of people in Japan in a certain time period. They were often supported by a lord and were the best warriors they could be to defend that lord. I do train in a martial art that comes from a Samurai Family Style. I have my black belt in this art. If we can equate things back to Samurai times, I would say that at the age of 15, after 10 years of study, a person from a samurai family would have the “Moku Roku”. Or the curriculum of the style. They could teach most of it, but it would take their lifetime of effort to become their best. So, as a black belt, I am the equivalent of a 15 year old student in a Samurai Family. (Which I am pretty pleased with.) I use the term Samurai because people pretty quickly hear it and associate with the meaning I have.
I am not a Shaman. A shaman is a person who does very much what I do, but the term comes from Mongolia. My path is not from Mongolia, nor Asia at all. My path comes from Peru. The official label is Paq’o. I am roughly the equivalent of what people would associate with a Shaman. I use the term shaman because people pretty quickly hear it and associate with the meaning I have.
Sit down as you do to meditate. Please remember to do this in a space where you feel safe so that you can allow your awareness of your surroundings to drop. You do not have to sit on the floor. If you are unable to sit on the floor, sit how you can be comfortable for a while. I personally feel better about sitting directly on the floor ~ Just do not let that slow you down.
Once sitting, check in with your body, and give yourself permission to let go. Know that nothing outside of this room, or this moment has to matter for a short time.
Close your eyes. Take a moment and focus on your heart. It doesn’t matter if you choose your physical heart, or energetic heart. Imagine a bubble appears in the center of you. It is so small that nothing can fit in side of it. Can you see it there?
Some things you should know about this bubble, it is absolutely impervious to anything you don’t allow through.
Once you see your bubble, hold it in mind; but switching your thinking to your breathing. When you inhale, imagine the not only is air coming into your body is energy, but in this same moment, the intake of breath is drawing energy from the earth below you. When you inhale, you visualize are coming into your chest, and the energy is coming up from the earth through your root chakra and resting in your belly. Think of the energy from both are becoming your energy. Energy that you now control and can give it permission to enter your bubble. You will notice that, as your bubble is so small, the only way it can fit this new energy, is to grow. Visualize your bubble growing with the energy you are permitting in. As this bubble is impervious to anything you don’t allow through, it will push out anything clinging to you that is not your, and should not be there. (Your physical body is safe)
Breathe in through your nose, draw energy from the earth, Watch your bubble grow. Breathe out through your mouth, release any tension you find.
Visualize the outside of your bubble. What does it look like? Can you see through it? How thick/thin is it? Does it have a texture or design? What color is it?
Breathe in through your nose, draw energy from the earth, Watch your bubble grow. Breathe out through your mouth, release any tension you find.
Now, repeat the previous two instructions. Don’t stop until you can see that your bubble is larger than you are.
What are your intentions for this bubble? What do you want to make sure it holds out? What do you want to make sure it holds in? How long do you want it to last?
Be very conscious when setting your intentions. These are boundaries you are declaring. Give yourself a specific time limit, it will fade if not tended to, so be specific. “I want this shield to last until tomorrow morning, when I will do this again.”
Some of the most hurtful things that most of us experience come from relationships ending, being abandoned, kept away, or exploding. I have heard and been asked so many questions either directly about relationships, or are at the heart of those same questions. I often say that my religion is relationships. It is important to say that all of the times I have said this, I have not really been joking.
Relationships, as in a connection you hold either another individual or individuals, are something I find so incredibly fascinating. I spend a lot of time contemplating aspects of relationships and how they can grow or be grown to help people be a healthier version of themselves (by their reporting, not my judgement.). This means that I am still not perfect. I struggle. I still have certain people with whom we seem to have slightly different languages or our various individually held traumas present in ways that we cannot quite solidify the relationship I want – even when I might be able to see the holes in that relationship. The pieces I understand though, seem to hold truth in each relationship, even when the connection goes sour and people cannot reclaim it.
I see 5 rules for each person in a relationship to follow for success.
You must care for yourself
You must consent to picking up and holding onto a connection
You must maintain your own boundaries
You must be willing to give to this connection without expectation of return
You must be willing to grow
You must care for yourself enough that you can invest energy into a connection that will not bring your energy reserve to or below empty. I remember my youngest coming home from kindergarten and sharing with me that he has to fill his cup before he has anything that he could use to fill someone else’s cup. (Thank you Mrs. Larrea.) It never ceases to amaze me how our children see and say things that simply cut through all the complications and simply nail the important sentiment.
In order to be in relationship with another person, you must commit to fulfilling your needs. This is NOT selfish. This is not a situation where you should: “get rid of some of your needs.” As George Carlin put it. If you have ever built anything, let’s say a house out of building blocks, you cannot build an epic skyscraper if you have no foundation. If your garage is technically standing up but you know how poorly it is constructed, you cannot build a fancy mother-in-law suite over it. And each of us have our own set of needs, and those cannot be questioned or compared to another’s needs. Yes, we all have physical needs like food, water, and sleep. But there are essential mental/emotional needs too. Some people need alone time, some people need the opposite. Some people cannot feel awake or connected without a cup of coffee, a morning routine, or even a walk in the woods. If you can take a few moments to think about the things you do that allow you to feel better, more connected, and stronger in the day, what happens if you make sure those exist in your everyday life? You find that you have the resources to be the person you want to be in the world. You find yourself capable of being part of a caring relationship.
You must maintain your own boundaries. Many of us don’t know what boundaries are in this context. Or feel like they need to be given permission to have and hold them.
My favorite description of a boundary is: the distance in which I can love you, and still love myself. A boundary is a rule that people must agree to follow to be in your life. For instance, you must be 4’ 11” to ride this roller coaster. This is a boundary. You must pay $10 to gain access to the fair. This is a boundary. What is your price of admission? How tall does someone need to be to ride this ride? Please delightfully take that as dirty as you need. The idea is actually quite simple though.
What are realistically some boundaries you might set? To be in my life…
a person will not intentionally cause me physical, mental, or emotional pain.
a person will not actively support someone who will cause me physical, mental or emotional pain.
a person will listen when I identify that something they are doing is harming me.
And maybe you have some more specific boundaries (a higher bar) above and beyond the previous for people who are closer to you. A partner or inner circle. To be in my inner circle…
a person must hold trust with me.
a person must be willing to do the work to come back into integrity if something is broken.
a person must consider my welfare in scenarios that affect me (within reason)
All of these seem very basic and simple to me. And while I do not want to over simplify a complex situation or blame a blameless victim, how many people would never tolerate a person on the street to hit them, but don’t speak up or hold the boundary for someone who is supposed to love them?
Take time to think about and define your boundaries. Be honest with yourself and the person with whom you are in relationship if a boundary of yours is being pushed or breached. Defend your boundaries: do not allow ANYONE to push you past where you are comfortable. This seems like a battle cry when I read it to myself. It is not. It is actually very basic self care. I am saying that if you are writing a paper, and are using your last pen, don’t let someone take your pen from you. Also, one thing that comes up every time when discussing boundaries is that people are hesitant to contest with a friend over something that you could just let go. This is always an option. But know that there are consequences to this route. If you let someone cross your boundaries, you are actually being unfair to them, and building a scenario to destroy your relationship. If you try to defend it later they are curious why it is “all of the sudden” bothering you. If you never defend it, you build resentment until you snap and explode the relationship. If you cannot be honest about your boundaries with your friends, and have support, you and that person are not honoring the rules of relationship. If they are not harming you on purpose, a simple “Can you please not do this thing, it hurts me.” should never be a conflict.
You must consent to picking up and holding onto a connection. I look at relationships as being a third-party entity between 2 people. For instance, I consider my marriage as being an individual that is a third party to the relationship between my partner and I. I invest in her, I invest in our marriage, and she does the same. This helps me to remember that there are tasks and energy that has to be given to something for our relationship that is not a task I am picking up for her. I am picking it up because I consent to, and want to continue this relationship. Everyday we have a choice. And I want her to choose me again when she wakes up in the morning. This is made easier if she doesn’t have to do all the work to maintain our marriage while also doing stuff for me.
What is consent? By definition, it is “permission for something to happen or agreement to do something.” I think that is clear enough. But so many people do not understand consent. Or perhaps, they understand consent, but not how frequently you are going along with something and not giving consent, or how frequently you need to verify that someone is offering consent.
Everyday, every hour, every minute: someone can take away consent. If someone lent you their car yesterday, that does not give you permission to take their car today. Consent is always temporary.
So what does it mean to consent to pick up and hold onto a connection? It means that you are consenting to try. You are consenting to re-evaluate at a later date to decide if you still consent to this relationship. (Which, of course, means reviewing this whole post again each time.)
You must be willing to give to this connection without expectation of return. When I refer to “giving” please know that I am not only talking about items. I am talking about gifts, money, time, energy, or care. You are always responsible for making sure you are only giving what you are able and willing to give. But when you give something that you can give, you do so without expectation that they will return something to you, or that they owe you something. How often do you hear someone make a comment about how someone feels like their friend or family member owes them for all they have done. This is not reciprocity. This is a transaction. And it is a transaction that is not communicated, nor is it consented to. This is the same as going to a coffee house and saying, you owe me a coffee because I tipped you extra last time. Basically, in this scenario, if you cannot give something freely, do not give it. If you can give it, and are willing to give it, but will be upset if they decide to promptly give it away, do not give it. Once you give a gift, you are showing your care and offer by bringing it to them. Once they own it, your opinion no longer matters. Your care was shown. They received the energy from your gift. If you cannot accept this, please deeply consider this in regards to the gifts you give.
You must be willing to grow. You must be willing to “do the work” to heal or grow this relationship or even yourself when your own trauma or triggers negatively impact the relationship. Once again, you are responsible for honoring your boundaries, and someone asking you to change, might always cross them. But when you see a relationship struggling that you want to succeed… Sometimes the answer to your introspection needs to be that your own issues, challenges, or trauma are not allowing you to receive what this person is offering. And you cannot expect someone to receive what you offer them, if you cannot do the same.
This is a big and deep piece. First of all, what is a shadow? In summary, it is a part of yourself that you judge poorly so don’t want to admit to. So often, a relationship struggles due to communication. Problems in communication can come from you saying one thing, and it being interpreted as something else. Sometimes this is just miscommunication. Sometimes, this is because you are triggered by an innocent word your friend used.
They are talking about an experience they had at their doctor’s visit, and you are triggered due to your negative experiences with doctors and you can only hear that she is gloating over you for her good experience. While this is a fictional example, it is actually an accurate representation of this problem.
Looking at it from the outside you are like, why on earth is this a big deal? And I am sure you have felt this before. From both sides. This complex internal situation is often coming up because you have some real, deep, and probably harmful experience with whatever that trigger word was. Example above might have been “doctor”. Doing the work here might be looking into your memory and trying to find the situation that brings this to mind and has you experienced that emotion. It might be a single experience, it might be a series of experiences. It is also, most-likely, an echo of something that happened prior to this issue. This can be time you spend thinking about your past. This could be some real deep emotional processing. Please do not hesitate to request help here. If you have a good shaman or counselor or therapist. It is important to have support because sometimes, you are not ready for what you find. When you block out memories from the past, it is because you didn’t have the tools to process them safely. When you re-open that door, you still need to process that stuff. If you do not yet have the tools, it can be incredibly traumatic.
And to be a friend worth keeping, you must be willing to participate on the reciprocating end.
You must be willing to offer your friends you wish to keep: 1. the space to care for themselves, 2. the opportunity to give and take back consent, 3. the space for them to hold their boundaries, 4. the ability to receive with grace, 5. Stand up and ask for the work you need of them.
I once had a client that spoke openly to his wife about our sessions. She asked if he could still even be christian if he was working with a shaman. His answer still sticks with me today as something I have pride in. He said, “Working with my shaman has helped me to be a better christian.”
This is at once very simple, and complicated. The clear and simple answer is “Yes, Absolutely.”
Being a shaman is a job, it is not a faith. So, in this way, it is like asking if you can be a Grocery Store Clerk and a Christian. I am a shaman (I would like to remind people that I use the word Shaman because people know it, and it is so similar to the truth “Paq’o”.) and I consider my religion to be relationships, but was raised catholic.
The complicated longer part of the story, requires me to dive into touchy topics around the current state of the christian church. If you look at the large number of types of christianity you can follow, they are all different for some small reason. But the church itself (in a perfect world) follows the teachings of christ, and builds a culture around it that makes their church unique. The teachings of christ are to love, feed, teach, by kind to, and help people. He cared about people above of all other things, including his own safety. For me, this is what it is to be christian, and I think that any church that doesn’t have a culture that seems to confuse the core message would agree with me.
What I do in my job of being a shaman, I do my best, within my boundaries, to help everyone who asks me. I try to help those around me to work towards my personal mission of helping our greater community grow to be healthier and more connected.
There are also challenges around things that appear in the Bible that appear to go against some of the core aspects of my shamanism. For instance, I work with different spirits to help me process my thoughts and efforts. And from the readings I have done of the different bibles, I see many things that could be interpreted as working with spirits could be considered bad, or not christian. The reason I don’t see this as a conflict is that working with Jesus is working with a spirit to grow forward. And there is a book of the Bible that says you should put no gods above that of the Christian god. And I don’t put any god above any other. I think there is also something to be said here about the different books of the Bible being written by men who followed God. I would really says that much of these messages can shape what your church look like, but should never take away or change the message of Christ, which is: to love, feed, teach, by kind to, and help people.
So, to sum it up, if you want to be a shaman, or thrown under the bus to pick up the work, you get to choose how you move forward with it. And if you follow christ in your actions, you are still a christian.
Satsujinken – This is the Japanese phrase that translates to “The Life-Giving Sword.” But when you hear that, does anyone else feel like it doesn’t quite make sense? Like there is something that doesn’t quite compute.
That is because the statement foreshadows that there is something hidden, and this is only part of the truth. It took our Sensei a long time to get someone to write out the full statement for us.
The scroll I photographed above is painted by my friend Josh Ross, Sensei.
The full scroll says (Left image) The Killing Sword is (Right Image) The Life-Giving Sword. This is SO important to the way I look at the world. But I realize that even hearing: The Killing Sword is The Life-Giving sword is not always immediately clear. Let me give you the more poetic translation to allow you to grasp what the means.
The Sword that cuts down evil is the Sword that gives life.
This idea that we need to shed the heavier parts, or the parts we don’t like to highlight the brighter side of things is a trend I find to be incredibly destructive and it NEEDS TO STOP.
There is a trend in Neo-pagan and modern spiritual communities that highlights Love and Light as the solution to all our problems. There are many very powerful and skilled practitioners that have moved to this paradigm and I fear that because it is so enticing, it can be incredibly insideous.
My training and experience only shows me the dangers of ignoring and shunning the parts that people are struggling with.
I have seen EFT sessions where people ignore the heavy or hard parts and only state the positive parts. I have seen places where someone start sharing the depth of their struggles, and the practitioner stops them to ask them to phrase it in a more positive way. I could go on for a long time with the ways I have seen this cause trouble.
When we work to actively limit the shadows, we amplify the message that it is not safe to share, and that those messages should remain hidden. No matter the intention, the mind is really good at finding reasons to hide things that are hard to deal with. And if you have amplified the message to hide something heavy, then it is harder to bring out later.
Dodging the parts we don’t like amplifies the problem, and amplifies peoples pain.
I would invite you to honestly think about what it means when people say Toxic Positivity. This is where the phrase comes from.
When you are looking at a situation and your tendency is to push away the heavy part, ask yourself why it scares you so much. Think about how incomplete the phrase “The Life-Giving Sword” is. Try to limit your hesitation in looking at the heavier part. Feel free to reach out if you need help.
One of the things that I find it hardest to do when you feel stuck, is to find a way that allows you to connect to the world around you and start letting go of the things that are holding you down. (You know, getting unstuck.)
This is an exercise/meditation I came up with that really felt like a fantastic way to approach resolution to this very problem. For those of us who have a hard time when we are out in public stepping into spirituality, this process allows you to appear as of you are simply leaning on a tree. No one has to know what else is going on.
First of all, I invite you to find a place you feel safe. A place you can walk, be in nature, and still with a tree for a while. You get to pick the tree, but I also invite you to listen, and see if you can find one that is calling to you.
As this process requires you to be focused in on you, and your direct physical surroundings, I strongly advise building a strong shield first, and if you have someone that is safe for you, invite them to come with you. (You may need to be very specific that energy from the tree and the earth are allowed through.)
Once you have found your tree, please place your feet firmly on the ground, and place one hand on the tree.
Remembering that consent is ALWAYs the way, please ask the tree for consent to draw upon its energy.
Once you have its permission, I want you to draw your attention to your breathing. When you inhale, I want you to imagine that your breath is tied to energy drawing in from the tree, through your hand, and into your chest. Let it sit there a second, and simply be with you.
When you exhale, I would like you to think of that energy in your chest, and with your breath going out, I want you to visualize that energy leaving your chest, going down your legs, and offer it to the earth below as a gift of energy.
You make breath in this way as long as you need. With each inhale, you draw energy from the tree. Hold it in your chest, and then offer it to the earth on your exhale.
Once you have this process flowing, I invite you to think of where the weight of your heaviest energy lives in your body. And when you inhale, drawing that energy from the tree, visualize that a small bit of that heavy energy comes from wherever in your body it is holding on, and meets up with the energy in your chest. If this is something that you need to feel, hold it for a couple of breaths in your chest, and give yourself permission to feel that energy. And when you feel ready, let the built up energy in your chest leave you as an offering to the earth through your feet.
I imagine that after you have done this breathing for several rounds, you will see how you are creating a cycle between the tree, yourself, and the earth. The energy you are offering up to the earth is being drawn back into the tree for you to draw in.
When you feel ready, ask the earth for consent to draw energy in from it. When you have that consent, draw energy from the earth on your inhale, and offer that energy up to the tree on your exhale. The reverse allows the energy to flow in the opposite direction. This process is simply a reverse of the original instructions, so please to remember to draw that energy into your chest, and offer it up from there.
I wish you the best of luck, this is one of my favorites.
This is another term I use semi often that people don’t fully have context for. For this to make sense, it is really worth understanding The Work and Shadows.
The Shadows we have all come from places in our life where we didn’t feel like we were up to dealing with the situation in front of us. And for them to have been such turmoil, we clearly didn’t have the confidence or skills we needed at that time to deal with the situation properly.
I think an example is really required for me to explain this properly.
When I was 16, I moved out from my mother’s house. When it seemed like my tiny little paychecks were getting more and more important, I found that my bank account got completely cleared out. I found that all conversations about potential raises, or new positions, were adapted to make sure someone else got the thing I was asking for. When I tried to organize my money in a way that would be safe, I was taken advantage of. Time and time again, people were happy to “help” me ~ directly into them making more money off me.
I realized that I kept being taken advantage of, because I didn’t have the information I needed when I walked into a room. (Read this as the problem statement)
The only way I could think to resolve this problem was to go to the library (or later the Internet) and I looked up and read everything I could about the situation I went into. (This is “The Tool” I created for myself to resolve the problem statement.)
When I went to get my first apartment, none of the stuff that the manager said to me that would have taken advantage of me held weight because I had memorized Michigans laws around apartment rentals, and I knew that the maximum Security Deposit was 1 months Rent, and they needed to store it in an account, and I could request the banks and account information on where it was stored. I was able to shoot down every attempt she put in to get more money from me.
This Tool served me so well. There are so many situations I was in where knowing the information I needed before I went to the meeting, allowed me to speak from experience when something came up. I saved a lot of money, I solved many problems before they started.
The “Tools” I refer to, are things we put on ourselves, or do, to solve problems that come up for us. In this instance, the tool I found, was to study everything I could to not get cheated. This worked well for me (for a while). But there are other solutions. Each person will come up with their own. And now, having to take the time to learn everything I need about everything before I join a meeting is so overwhelming as to be crippling. The reverse edge of every tool, is that there becomes a point where you have grown and it no longer serves you.
The tools we have built ourselves are sometimes as hard to find as our shadows. But they are important to know about. And when you do know about them, it is important to see which ones still actually serve you.
Send to Kindle
