Discomfortable

Productivity   Though logically I am completely on board with the growing sentiment that needing to be busy all the time and measuring my worth against my productivity isn’t really healthy, on a deeper level I have clearly been conditioned into it nonetheless. It demonstrates the difference between what I consciously value in my Prefrontal Cortex, and the latent values that are ingrained into me o...

Isolation   When the self-isolation measures of the pandemic first began, digital technology, and especially video conferencing, felt like a lifesaver. There was a flurry of activity and experimentation as everyone attempted to recreate their old lives, their old hobbies, their old businesses, and their old relationships, online. And it was fun at first! There was a convenience and novelty to vide...

Death   We’re all thinking and talking and speculating and worrying about the COVID-19 pandemic. But really, deep down (or not so deep down), I think one of the real issues we are concerned with is death. Of all the things that every human experiences, death is probably the one we talk about the least. This makes sense, of course. It is our primary value, at least on a physical level, to sur...

Uncertainty   In these uncertain times, I find myself going back to a micro-ideology I came up with a few years ago, basically reminding myself, “Everything works out in the end, even when it doesn’t!” This little bit of self-advice came about when I realized that I was walking around with a chronic sense of worry that if I wasn’t always careful, everything would go horribl...

PANIC   What is the correct way to feel about waking up one day inside a surreal dystopian science fiction film? There’s no right answer, of course. But if you’re anything like me, it’s probably a mix of panic, fear, anxiety, grief, sadness, shock, confusion, but also curiosity, excitement, fascination, hope, awe, and much much more. You feel what you feel. The problem isn’...

Narcissism   Contrary to popular belief, narcissism isn’t really just about self-obsession. Nor is narcissism synonymous with sociopathy. Narcissism is a specific strategy to battle chronic shame and deep feelings of unworthiness. And it’s a strategy that we’ve all employed at times. But when it becomes persistent, you get labelled as a “narcissist” or a “toxic...

Sex Addiction   As promised in the last episode, this week I look at the way many of us conflate sex and attraction with connection and belonging. I think this explains why sex can be so addictive, because it appears to meet so many of our basic needs around human connection, but it only does so in a temporary way. Sex can meet our need for sex, of course, as well as our need for intimacy, pleasur...

Proto-Friends   Inspired by another recent Twitter conversation , this episode looks at the concept of a “proto-friend”, someone you feel certain you would really connect with if only you had the chance. The Twitter discussion reminded me of a special proto-friend I made at World Domination Summit over the last two years and the surprising impact that non-friendship had on me. I m...

Crying   If you’ve been listening to the podcast regularly, you’ll probably know that learning to cry has been one of my goals over the last year. I had some luck crying at the Nonviolent Communication retreat I did last year, but it still seemed like I had more to learn. So when I noticed the hashtag #sobsquad making the rounds on Twitter over the last few months, I started to get cur...

Boundaries   When I first encountered the term “boundaries” a few years ago, I had no idea what it meant. Most of the references to “boundaries” in the self-help books I was reading at the time seemed to assume that the reader would already know what they were. Not only that, but it seemed like these boundary things were really important — that they were something I “...

Liv Larsson   Last summer, I attended a 9-day International Intensive Training in Nonviolent Communication on an island off of Stockholm, and to my lucky surprise, one of the trainers at the retreat happened to be Swedish shame expert Liv Larsson .  Liv is an author, educator, mediator, and certified NVC trainer who has written over 20 books. During the IIT in Sweden she  led us in several shame r...

The Interpersonal Bridge   While studying shame over the last few years, I kept coming across clinical psychologist and shame pioneer  Gershen Kaufman’s  definition of shame, “The breaking of the interpersonal bridge”. But I never understood what it meant. What is the “interpersonal bridge”? And how does it get broken? It wasn’t until I started do...

Call-Outs A few months ago I attended a symposium called The Problem of Shame put on by the Menninger Clinic in Houston, Texas. With speakers like Brené Brown and Harriet Lerner , it was an illuminating and amusing conference. But perhaps the most interesting thing that occurred was when another participant stood up in the middle of one of the presentations and called-out another table of particip...

Non-Monogamy   I met Emma (not her real name) at World Domination Summit this year and as usual, I brought up the topic of shame and it led into a discussion about the shame she has had to navigate around her non-monogamous marriage. Emma and her husband Fin opened their relationship over a decade ago when they were dating in college, and through trial and error have successfully learned how to in...

Microaggressions   This episode looks at the concept of Microaggression and how this phenomenon has shown up in my life in both big and small ways. Given that most microaggressions seem to be largely unintentional, I think the term “micro-stress” might actually be a more appropriate and less shaming way to frame it. It’s important to own that the way we interpret any given s...

Clarity   On my recent adventures in dating, I’ve discovered that we are living in an epidemic of Ghosting , ambiguity, and a general lack of clarity. And I am just as guilty as anyone else! As I said in one of my recent  Instagram  polls, “Ghosted people ghost people.” This culture of ambiguity is self-reinforcing, spreading like a virus, turning innocent victims...

The Shame-Back   This week’s podcast is actually a video! You can still listen to the podcast version if you prefer, or you can watch the video version below (or here ) complete with footage ripped from the classic teen comedy, Mean Girls (2004). Watch Part 1 here . Watch Part 2 here . https://youtu.be/07X_cW0S71c Part 3: The Fall of Regina George. In this episode, we see how Cady has not on...

Slut-Shaming   This week’s podcast is actually a video! You can still listen to the podcast version if you prefer, or you can watch the video version below (or here ) complete with footage ripped from the classic teen comedy, Mean Girls (2004). Watch Part 1 here . In Part 2, Cady develops a hopeless crush on Aaron Samuels, the ex-boyfriend of her frenemy Regina George. Regina...

Shame is the root of all evil... I mean comedy.

Embodied Beliefs   It all started when I made an offhand joke to my young nephew that monsters lived in the basement of his cabin. Apparently, he believed me and refused to go into the basement after that. My brother texted me, not impressed, but I didn’t even remember having said it (though it certainly sounded like something I probably would say). So the next time I saw my nephew...

Shaming   This episode compares and contrasts two different experiences I had with shame recently, each affecting me, my body, and my reactions in distinct ways. It helped me understand the difference between the natural feeling of personal shame and the feeling of being shamed by another person. Shame and shaming are two very different things, and the degree of guilt involved, as in the degr...

Honesty   I teased this subject several episodes ago, but I’m finally ready to release my treatise on honesty. Unlike most religions, I don’t see any moral imperative for being honest. In my mind, honesty is beneficial for purely selfish reasons. As social animals, we are designed to connect with other humans. In fact, many scientists think belonging is the most powerful and...

World Domination Summit   World Domination Summit (or WDS) is an inspiring conference that brings together 1000 open-minded misfits from around the world under the slogan, “Living an unconventional life in a conventional world”. I first heard of WDS because my boo Brené Brown (who I’ve never actually met) spoke there in 2012 and I’ve had my eye on the conference ever since. Last year, I finally ha...

Privilege   I took a rare break from podcasting last week to attend my second World Domination Summit in Portland, OR. I’ll do an episode all about that experience in the coming weeks ( here it is ), but beforehand I finally decided to address a highly uncomfortable subject I’ve been putting off confronting for quite some time: privilege.   I think that privilege is real and that being aware of on...

Annoying People   One of the biggest misconceptions in our culture is the belief that other people cause our emotions. The truth is, given the same stimulus, everyone reacts differently. What produces anger in one person, produces laughter in another. So it isn’t accurate to say that a given situation, person, or behaviour “makes” us angry, our anger...