So this starts slow and disorganized - but stick with it?!
Making an evolving/open list of “meta-resources” (eg, the things our spirit needs to have access to its whole humanity, its liberation, its relational relaxation):
Agency/autonomy
Sovereignty
Integrity
Integration (time + space + permission + possibility)
Acceptance (read Carl Rogers)
With-ness (defined in my parenting course)
TRUST (today I’m on a TEAR about examining and tracking TRUST in your system, relationships and ecosystem)
?
Examining relationships and relational behaviors/strategies through the lens of trust/mistrust
Me sharing my own mental wonderings/wanderings around examining my relationships with my guides/Nature and how that helps expose my survival relating patterns.
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My hypothesis:
The more trust there is in an individual for another person and in the relationship, the MORE LIKELY that person is to reach for a relational strategy that is collaborative and explorational vs. coercive, manipulative, threatening or controlling.
(Often, the amount of dysregulation in our system is the other variable that skews us towards reaching for one strategy over another.)
And the opposite is true: the less trust there is, the MORE likely we are to reach for coercion, manipulation and threat.
Sometimes, we lack trust due to relational history. Sometimes we lack trust due to a lifetime marinating in a cultural consciousness of extreme mistrust.
I just recorded a podcast that explores trust - through personal anecdote and also relational examples.
Here are my biggest takeaways:
1) When a relationship feels "insecure" or when shame is showing up in a relationship (I want to hide/quit) or when I'm trying to gauge how secure vs. how survival based a relationship is, exploring how trust shows up (or not) in that relationship is a shortcut to insights and clarity.
Exploring your relationships to more-than-human kin can be a good access point into human relationships - if those feel too confusing or blindspotty. (I give examples in the episode!)
2) When I'm worried about whether or not I'm "contributing" enough to a relationship, I can examine how much of my "rules" around politeness or goodness come from interjected colonialism/capitalism, eg, are there elements of immediacy, accounting, urgency, scarcity and reciprocating for the sake of being "fair" and of not being seen as a "taker" or is the reciprocation actually needed by the other in a real way?
I am wondering if TRUST is the ultimate relational offering. (And relational "glue")
3) When I take a moment - in the middle of conflict, dysregulation, overwhelm, etc. - to reflect on how trusting I do (or don't feel) about a certain outcome/person, this can be a powerful ventral tether that can - in the moment - yield a much needed expansion of capacity, curiosity and detachment, even if it yields no exciting insights.
If you're interested in going on a deep dive into nervous-system informed parenting and how to manage capacity + dysregulation (yours and your kiddo's) in a much more informed, empowered, supported, and resourced way, check out:
Nervous System Summer Camp (for parents!)
- 100% virtual + self-paced (ZERO live calls)
- that being said, a BONUS of signing up for this course (dripped through email, with LIFETIME access) is free, perennial membership to my parenting container (Burrow: A Parenting Guild) where you WILL have access to live monthly coaching + community calls.
- We begin in June! Understanding nervous systems is SO FOUNDATIONAL and SUPPORTIVE to sustainable + skilled parenting - and I mean that as BOTH supporting your kid but also YOURSELF.
- LASTLY: the first 4 spots claimed in Nervous System Summer Camp get FREE access to 3 months of the Self-Regulated Safe & Sound Protocol - use your access for one of your kids or for yourself! I love the SSP as one of the many tools to reach for when rehabilitating a fragile nervous system.
- $359 (goes up to $499 soon)
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