The contrast with the DDDs (Diabolical Distraction Devices) could not be more profound. Giving space rather than taking. Gentle presence rather than aggressively pushing-in. Calming and relaxing rather than activating. Not a good activating though, a passive activation that exhausts with nothing accomplished, like a car engine revved up to max but with the brakes on.

The endless vortex of stories that are being generated in the news are in deep resonance with the highly tuned capabilities of the Diabolical Distraction Devices to present a never-ending sequence of stories. The mind is so highly pullable. The easiest form it is pulled into is a vortex, a whirlpool. “Did you see what happened now” - again and again and again. An infinite sequence of highly important stories. The pace of big stories has quickened immensely - it’s so hard now to sit in the middle of this hurricane and rest the mind.

But this is what we must do. Open the mind to the presence in the space around us. Open to the subtle experiences going on in your own body. they’re actually not subtle but only become apparent with an open mind rather than one caught up in the vortex of other stories.

Those stories are big and important, yes. But your own story is the one that you must bring your attention back to.

Open to the space in journaling. Get extremely intimately involved with your current, present moment experience. Not the infinite story loop on your DDDs. Put your attention on your own story first. If you don’t, then your story will inevitably be taken over by other stories with different agendas, different values than what you truly hold important.

Put down your Diabolical Distraction Devices and go outside and spend time with yourself. Ask your loved ones to be with you in connection and intimacy. Get back in touch with your own story. What do you truly want to live? Who is going to live your story if you don’t?

The whole technology world that we are now immersed in is an echo of our mind itself, and works in similar ways. The rapid expansion of technology is because it mimics and recreates systems already present in how our mind operates.

The Internet, including all our laptops and phones, is a vast system of interconnected apps, all running on operating systems, with all sorts of communication networks sending messages between them. It has energy running through the whole system. Uses water to cool the big data center organs. Sometimes gets viruses and needs downtime to get over them. Sound familiar? It has developed into a copy of how the mind and body operates.

The operating system is the main software that runs on the hardware. It’s the set of instructions that interface to the lower levels, and set up an environment for all our favorite apps to run. Your family app, your work app, your sex app, your be-husband app, your hang-out-with-friends app and so on!

You have created in your mind a complex web of apps, just like the internet! Clicking from one to the other, like you get lost down the YouTube or Netflix rabbit hole - that’s just how our minds operate. We get lost down one app (working), then suddenly click over to another (thinking about how mean our boss is) and then lose ourselves down in that app (thinking about how mean our partner is also, and how awful people in general are, and on and on). We have our favorite apps that we keep going back to, just like we keep going back to scroll on Facebook, or whatever our favorites are.

You don’t see the operating system because you’re almost always using your apps, but it’s always there, running in the background, and without it nothing would work. It fades into the background because you don’t pay attention specifically to it, but it actually defines how everything operates. The way your mind apps look and act is defined in great part by which operating system you are using, and how that is built.

So, back to the question - what is your operating system (OS)?

There are two choices, just like you have a choice of iPhone or Android… The Fear OS, or Loving-Kindness OS. I’ll leave it to you to interpret which one is which!

Here are some of the most popular apps available in the human app store! What are your favorites?

Default Apps on the Fear OS

These come pre-installed until you re-install your Loving-Kindness OS:

• The “They’re-So-Mean” App - runs constantly in the background, even when nobody’s doing anything.
• Why-Does-This-Always-Happen-to-Me - logs every disappointment, syncs automatically with victim-mode cloud storage.
• Compare-and-Despair - endlessly scrolls others’ highlight reels, drains energy fast.
• Should-Upgrade-Myself - pops up updates promising worthiness if you just try harder.
• Angry-At-Traffic - makes the whole world your enemy at 5 p.m.
• If-Only-They-Would-Change - refuses to uninstall even though it never actually works.
• Doomscroll - pulls you down the endless feed of human suffering.
• Future-Catastrophe-Simulator - consumes 98% of CPU when trying to sleep.
• Perfection-Pro - offers the illusion of control while freezing all creative functions.
• Emotional-Avoidance - disguises itself as “I’m fine,” suppresses all error messages.

Premium Apps on the Loving-Kindness OS

Available instantly once you upgrade:

• The “Everyone-Is-Doing-Their-Best” App - auto-translates judgment into compassion.
• Thank-You-Deluxe-Edition - sends spontaneous gratitude notifications to random moments.
• Gentle-Restart - one tap returns you to presence after a crash.
• Curiosity-Explorer - expands awareness bandwidth through wonder.
• Self-Soothing-Studio - generates warmth, safety, and inner touch.
• Kind-Speech - autocorrects harsh inner talk to tenderness.
• Shared-Humanity - syncs your heart with the collective.
• Breath-Messenger - delivers calm straight to the body network.
• PlayMode - reintroduces joy as your default workflow.
• Update-Now: Loving-Kindness OS v∞.0 — continuous background upgrade, no download required.

Some of the apps run on both operating systems, which do you prefer?

• Productivity
  • On Fear OS: runs on anxiety and self-criticism. Automatically syncs with the the other most popular Fear OS apps, especially Compare-And-Despair, and Should-Upgrade-Myself
  • On Loving-Kindness OS: becomes Creative Flow, outputting from the heart.
• Relationships
  • On Fear OS: keeps score, waiting for the moment you can get them back.
  • On Loving-Kindness OS: continuous flow of connection and intimacy

What’s your Personal Cosmos? It means taking your own personal expression of the wisdom and altruistic lineages into reality.

All of us are individual essences that have a true, natural way of being. A way of aligning ourselves in altogether chaotic and creative, exciting explosions of creativity. Explosive creation of the concepts of play, loving kindness, peaceful equanimity, passionate curiosity, loving intimacy, light heartedness, and all sorts of altruistically-inclined notions of help and being of service to others.

These are what our heart wants - your personal combination of altruistically inclined and individually expressed creations.

In my own Personal Cosmos, my creation, loving-kindness is the natural state of being, and so within it are all sorts of orchestrated aspects of loving-kindness. And so Loving-Kindness Wins is both a true statement, and a call to action.

Your calling may be to gentleness, it may be to movement, it may be to intimacy, to compassion, to masculinity, femininity, art, love, wisdom. It may be to be expressive in some particular way, to be seen and understood. To nurture, to inspire, to use power for change. These callings are callings of the heart. They don’t necessarily require huge life changes. It’s deeper and more simple than that.

Telling yourself you need money, or time, or to change your circumstances to achieve this is a trap. An easy one to fall into, but a trap nonetheless, You telling yourself that you need money to do the things that will make you happy is an artifact of the world you have created for yourself in which there is suffering.

For me the phrase, the teaching “Loving-Kindness Wins!” has been revealed to me from higher realms for a long time now. And there has been resistance to exposing this, to choosing into it. What will people think - people don’t want a “Loving-Kindness Coach”. They won’t sign up for that. They want help with their relationships, their body, their jobs.

And while that is likely true, it is also true that the path to shift all of those things, is to practice loving-kindness. I know this at the core of my being now, in every cell of my body. And I’ve written a “My Philosophy” page to begin to explain this, and begun to share more and more the truth of this.

Letting go of who I want to be seen as, to be in alignment with what I really am, what is in my heart, is the path I choose. And I have faith that people will step into this with me, so we can help them in their relationships, their body, and their jobs.

So it has been a journey for me to step into being “the loving-kindness guy”. But here it is, I am, I have been, and now it’s front and center in very big letters at the top of my new website!

Discover what is in your heart, and then choose into it. The alternative is giving up once more. Once more on top of the hundred thousand previous times. It doesn’t take too much choosing into what the heart wants to start to feel the energy moving again. The energy of coming into alignment with the calling of your heart.

It is simply happiness on Earth, in place of suffering on Earth.

It is achievable, in some cases relatively easily, in others not so easily, with diligence, discipline and structured practice.

The world we have created to live in is quite an insane one. A veneer of civility hides the deep force of separation, born of fear, that is really driving us.

So much of what we keep creating is generated from lack, fear, survival instincts, aggression, domination and subjugation. It is on full display all around us now.

It has been growing for a long time, in the shift away from focus on human values to corporate inhumane values. But now this has spilled out everywhere and has become immensely visible in so many areas globally.

But what is truly at the heart of what I am here for is to enlighten souls into their true calling, which is ultimately what all of us are seeking.

What is our calling and how can we be in alignment with it?

Creating what you want is not about achieving money or success in a corporate world. This could be a byproduct, but when we align with lack and aggression, then it comes at a deep cost to our self.

What we really want is about achieving an ease in oneself, an ease in the way of being in this world.

Our calling is what our heart is wanting. It is not defined externally. It is an internally created motivation.

If you can listen to it, you can align with it.

In order to listen to it, you need to put away your fears of what it is telling you.

Putting away your fears is a long spiritual journey, a process, an unfolding of evolutionary and habitual tendencies of creating safety against external attacks.

At our heart level, external attacks are not what is unfolding. It is always about connecting to the spirit of change, of growth, of unfolding, of energetically aligning with one's aligning force.

Aligning oneself with one's calling is all there is to it.

Be in alignment with your calling, and you will be happy.

And then you will be enlightened!

This article is the first of many about a wisdom concept transmitted to me through the channel. Being a channel, the beings I speak with sometimes work with me over a long time to transmit a deep concept. Sometimes they use the method of giving me a new name for something instead of using an existing one. In this case it took a long time to get to this name, I couldn’t hear it well. Eventually as close as I got was the word linkatvi - pronounced Line-Kat-Vi. And then we both began to use that as the name to reference this developing concept.

If they used an existing word, I would have existing concepts that would automatically come with it. Using a new, basically nonsense word (although it turns out perhaps it’s not total nonsense), then there is a blank slate. And we develop the concept fresh, through repeated application of wisdom and insight developed through inquiry.

Challenging and time-consuming though it is to do it this way, I think it develops the concept more fully, from first principles, rather than being built in relative form to existing concepts.

More accurately - it allows for wisdom to shine brightly as itself, rather than comparatively.

What is Lin-kat-vi

It is an aspect of the fabric of the universe of the mind. It represents the force of nature that destroys - specifically destroys union. In other words, it builds walls to separate. We think of wall-building as a creative endeavor, but really it’s a destructive one from the point of view of togetherness. Building a wall of separation destroys togetherness.

What happens is that we are in some experience of togetherness. But we fear some aspect of what is in that togetherness, and so our reaction is to build a wall to separate. On one side of the wall is us, together with some of the things we don’t fear, and on the other side are the things we fear. The energy or force with which we build this wall this is lin-kat-vi.

Togetherness vs Sameness

Togetherness is not sameness. Togetherness can include all sorts of different elements that are together. Togetherness is about alignment, coming-together, not about sameness. And this underpins much of what gets created by linkatvi. In togetherness, we will see difference.

Fear

It is the fear of this difference that causes us to create a wall, from linkatvi, which will separate.

And so having created separateness and division, then on our side of the separation we will have sameness, defined by us, by our fear. Because we have excluded that which we fear, our fear abates.

We can relax, to a point, within the land we have divided out from togetherness, safe behind our wall.

Fear Castles

But then of course, because no wall is perfect, we will at some point see some difference now even within our land. And the fear of this causes linkatvi to build more. A wall gets created to divide again. And again. Smaller and smaller our land gets, and we end up inside a fear castle. With moats and walls and battlements. A curtain wall maintained by fear of difference within togetherness. Instead of seeing and embracing difference while remaining together, we choose - unconsciously and consciously - into destroying the togetherness., to try and see only sameness, because we believe that is the way to deal with fear. We remove from our sight that which we fear.

For example - I am afraid that my partner is going to leave me, because I fear not being wanted, deep down that is a huge core fear of mine, that really I am not want-able. So "my partner doesn't *really* want me" is the fear as experienced in relationship. But of course it shows up in all other areas of my life too. My friends don't really want to be with me, I'm too much / little / fragile / weak / stupid / intense / ugly. So, in order that I don't experience that fear any more, I work over a long, long, long time to create a world in which I don't experience that. In other words I constantly worry about whether my partner and I really are a match, that we should probably break up because of this and this and this. And then eventually, we will break up. Which will mean that I don't have to feel the fear of being unwanted by my partner, because I won't have a partner. I will have to go through the sadness of the breakup, but at least now I will have removed the partner from my life, in other words created a world in which I live without a partner. Then I won't have to feel the fear that he doesn't want me. Safe!!! And desperately sad and lonely but at least I won't have to feel that fear any more, that deep down I am not wanted.

In society - people have fear of economic insecurity, that they will become homeless and die if they lose their job. They fear when they imagine two men being together that their own sexuality is wrong, or what they have been taught is wrong, that their worldview is not the only one. This is destabilizing. So, politicians help them create a world in which gay people don't exist, and immigrants that are the ones taking their jobs don't exist. That means they won't have to feel their fears.

The creation of this world in which the thing we fear doesn't exist is like constructing a tall impenetrable wall around us. Like North Korea, China, and the United States literally build walls around them in order to block outside influence. Within the walls we can have a world without gays, or liberals, or democracy, or partners who say they love us but really will reject us someday. We do exactly the same within our mind and therefore within our actual physical world, the one made up of our relationships, community, home etc.

We have an argument with our partner, and because of how they acted, really they are not the one for us. They refuse to understand us and are entrenched in their view, so really it's not a good match. Better to break up now. Makes sense. And, what are we doing but creating a world in which we don't have to feel the fear of being broken-up-with.

Of course, ultimately it's easier to put on a pair of shoes than wrap the world with leather (Shantideva, Chogyam Trungpa). But instead we involve ourselves constantly in wrapping leather around the world, constantly creating one in which we don't have to feel the fear by removing what we think is the source of it.

The way through this is to break down the walls. Smash them, like the Berlin Wall in 1989. Open up to the outside. What's outside? Loving-Kindness. Larger Self. Smash the walls down. Be brave. Face into the fear itself. I am afraid that nobody wants me. It's a horrible feeling. I can feel it now as I think it. I recognize it, an old old deep knowledge that below it all, nobody wants me. And so I practice. Take down the walls. See this fear. Feel it in my body, it's a tightness in my chest, like the sides of my chest wall want to cave in. An elastic band tightening and tightening. Feel it feel it feel it. Smash the walls down. Let the outside in.

Come out come out come out. Be the man they want you to be. Be the guy your dog sees you as. Be vulnerable, be brave - not by going to war to defend your walls, but by facing this dark fear, put your head in the mouth of the dragon. Take your armor off. You are beautiful just as you are, wrinkles and shortness and fatness and anxiety and fears and intensity and not-enoughness. All of it.

Open to the help all around within you. When we are wrapped up in our fear it's like it being a thumb we are holding right in front of our eyes. Wherever we look, all we see is this thumb. It's everywhere. My partner doesn't want me, my friends don't want to spend time with me, my boss doesn't like me, the guy in the coffee shop looked at me and looked away because I'm fat. So, let's leave the partner, quit the job, stop going to the coffee shop, don't call my friend. That's safer. I'm lonely as hell but at least I don't have to feel the thousand paper cuts of a thousand people not wanting me all day long.

I feel for you. My heart cries for you and for me. Smash the walls down and come into the warmth that is outside. It's cold inside the walls. There is warmth outside.

I choose to face into this fear and feel it, practice with it, share with my partner what I've learned so he can know me better and continue to give me the beautiful love he does. He needs only to support me as I feel this fear and not take it on as his. And I open to the amazing larger self that I am, full of loving-kindness for myself and all beings as we take on the challenge of facing and feeling our fears, rather than building a wall to exclude them. Pull the thumb back from in front of your eyes and put it back where it belongs, farther back where we can see it for what it is. A fear, sure, but not something that dominates our entire world-view.

The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.
Rumi

If you are experiencing anxiety, depression, worry - about the external state of the world, society, politics, or internal about something - fear and worrying are all around us. Is this what you’re going through? I feel for you with all my heart. If you give me a few minutes to slow down and read this, this is my mission: to help you come back home to your loving kindness nature, and to be less fearful, less anxious, less angry, less confused and scared.

It’s not that there aren’t bad, difficult, challenging things happening, there are. But the answer to this cannot be to live in fear and worry and anxiety about each and every one. To spend every opportunity you find to engage in it, to prolong it, to scroll and scroll the stories, to read all the comments to find the most outrageous ones, to seek validation from others about it, to constantly recreate the worry over and over and over. Not if you want to be healthy, and be of real benefit to yourself and others.

In a very practical way each and every one of us can shift our own experience of this. Away from anxiety, and towards peaceful being, equanimity, and beneficial action. How? Loving Kindness Wins.

Practice this, and I mean yes right now, today! Many times today. Whenever you notice that you are in the middle of a rant about whatever the bad thing that is going on based on some article you read written by someone about something that someone said somewhere in the country in a speech sometime…… interrupt yourself. Become willing to do something different.

Connect with your own true nature of loving kindness. The loving kindness you feel when you pet your dog and they look at you with eyes of deep unconditional love. Or when you stroke the arm of your lover. Or what you feel for your family. Or when a friend says something about how they appreciate you that makes your eyes water with love and the feeling of being seen. Or wherever you feel the leap of your heart, the aching vulnerable powerful love in your heart.

That is your true nature. It lies underneath everything, all the fears and anxieties and layers of contraction that we build up as defense mechanisms. Come back to your true deep nature as loving kindness itself. For an instant you will know that loving kindness wins. Revel in that!

And, a moment later you might hear in your head “yeah but”. Yeah but, what if this happens. Yeah but, that’s pointless. Yeah but, that doesn’t accomplish anything. Yeah but they’re so wrong. Yeah but, yeah but, yeah but. The next time you read an article and then jump into another one and another one. Or you read some ignorant angry comment on a post.

Breathe. Stop.

Rather than engage in that, interrupt yourself again, and repeat the practice - come back to the feeling of loving kindness deep in your heart.

It is a deep wide nurturing cradle, this loving kindness. It pervades everything. It is wide and powerful and beautiful. But we don’t trust it, we forget it, we abandon it in favor of the fear. It is much bigger, more fundamental than the fear. But we bring the fear close, we wallow in it, we recreate it over and over. And so it becomes all we see. We think that is what is really fundamentally there. But it’s not.

Our fundamental nature is loving kindness. We need to pull back from our unconscious commitment to keep recreating fear and anxiety, and recognize that loving kindness is outside, surrounding everything.

Use Loving Kindness Wins! Use it as a mantra, a practice, an instruction, a truth to come home to. Commit to being more of yourself, your nature as a being of loving kindness, rather than the being of fear that another wounded human is unconsciously trying to get you to be.

Then you can do whatever is helpful and useful. Being in equanimity and vibrating with loving-kindness is not passive inaction. The actions you take from a place of loving kindness will have a very different, more beneficial outcome than the ones you take from fear and anxiety. So before you act out, throw the hateful comment onto a post, or keep reading the stories someone created about all the horrible stuff someone has done, first come back to Loving Kindness Wins. Then from that place, choose what you want to do, where you want to put your precious attention and time.

What path do you want to choose? You might choose to spread the message of Loving Kindness Wins instead of repeating and spreading hate, confusion and fear. Which path is going to help you more, and help our community navigate these times?

You could choose, instead of repeating the actions that are creating your anxiety and fear, to shift your attention to sharing your loving kindness with your friends and loved ones in the simple beautiful ways of your awakened heart. The core thread of love, affection, joy that is underneath your fear. Trust this, cultivate this, share and give this to everyone in your life.

In order to share your loving kindness with others it requires that you cultivate and grow your own connection with it, and so in sharing it with others your own experience of life will change, and move towards one of pure loving kindness all the time. Practice this every day, all day, every time you can remember, over and over and over, and loving kindness will win.

I challenge you to create this as a daily practice for the next week as you move through your life towards the elections and beyond. Practice Loving Kindness in your thoughts, in your words, in your actions at least once a day consciously choosing into this as a daily practice. Visualize it, feel it, connect with it, and share it with your family, friends and neighbors. And tell them to share it with theirs!

Thank you for reading. Thank you for being courageous in these difficult times. Thank you for choosing to try and do something different even if you try and fall down 1,000 times. Loving Kindness Wins.

His sobs and his pain were so unfiltered, he had absolutely nothing left to cover himself up with.

He asked for help: some cleaner clothes. A pair of boxer shorts. A way to charge his phone. All of these I could provide easily, simply needing a short trip home and back to get him some of the clothes I have plenty of, and a USB charger, which are just lying around, unused. Thinking of how much we have lying around unused brings tears to my eyes. How much we consume, not for the joy of its use but for the consumption itself.

In picking out the clothes for him I found myself noticing with a new eye the brands, the logos, the design of the shirts, the things we mostly pay attention to rather than the shirt itself. In this moment I found myself asking instead what function the shirt provides, whether he needs a warm shirt or a light one rather than what color it was, or what logo design it had on it.

It showed me all the layers of consumption we build on top of the abundance we have. We actually contract away from what is really here, which is abundance, into scarcity. In order that we can consume, we create lack and scarcity for ourselves, so we can fill that lack with consumption. Then we do it again, create more lack in order that we can fill it with consumption.

It’s such a reflection of the mind within – we do the same thing “out there” as inside. Inside we believe we’re not good enough, that we are lacking, and so we project that lack outside and try and fill it with something, in order that we might feel good enough inside even for just a few seconds.

In looking at the closet we say “I have nothing to wear, I need to buy something,”, ignoring the 30 shirts that are there, they are not the “right” ones. How consumed by our self-created lack we are! We love to create artificial scarcity – we must have the expensive thing, the pretty thing, the most up-to-date thing, the fashion for this season, or the rebellious anti-fashion thing.

A large portion of our economy has been built from this internal self-created lack, which we call advertising. We all buy into this trap, this contraction away from abundance. We forget ourselves into agreeing with the premise that we are lacking something, in order that we can buy it.

It comes at a very high price however, and I don’t mean the money. It perpetuates our own beliefs about ourselves, that we are lacking, that we are not good enough. It creates isolation, separates us from others, and leads to the polarized political landscape and destruction of community many of us are experiencing. In order to sell advertising, media shows us things that we will watch, which are essentially 100% the “awful” things, so that we can consume this and get a little hit of self-validation by creating enemies of our human brothers and sisters. And around the circle we go.

To change this, to live in a different world, one of abundance, the practice here is always the same three steps. This is “The Reality Creation Loop”:

1. Notice. Notice when you are contracted into lack. Notice who you are being in this moment. Notice when your attention is on what you don’t have, or how terrible things are. The first step is always noticing. Until we do this we can’t change our experience.
2. Become Willing. You have to have the willingness to change, to do something different, rather than allowing the pull of how you have been thinking to suck you back in.
3. Place Your Attention on What You Want. Instead of putting your attention on the lack, place it on the abundance. Notice what there is, instead of what there is not. Soak it in, really see that you are surrounded by an incredible abundance of everything you need. Become what you want, which is a person living in the abundant world of loving-kindness.

Then, do it again. 1) Notice you are in lack, 2) become willing to do something different, 3) put your attention on abundance.

Repeat this consistently, with diligence, and you will completely change the experience you’re having of your life.

The pure simple feeling of awakened heart energy I felt, in the very ordinary thing of bringing some clothes to a man who needed clothes because his were soiled – this is what there really is at the core of our experience here. Not because it showed me how better off I am than him, although that ego judgement is also there. But more powerful is the simple loving-kindness energy of giving something to someone that needs something, witnessing another human going through their experience, as I am going through mine.

Simply, consistently, repeatedly come back to this fundamental truth. Loving Kindness Wins!

This time we find ourselves in is intensely difficult. We are suffering. Anxiety and fear abounds. There are so many stories of dire consequences, of terror over our direction, stories of the terrible horrors of war, democracy and civilizations collapsing, consequential policy choices being fought over. Aggression everywhere. 

In the face of this what ought we do? Fight, collapse, attack, run, hide?

I offer this: Loving Kindness Wins!

The hearing, the knowing of this provides relief as we let it in. Adopt it. Align to its energy. 

But fundamentally it is a practice instruction. Something we can tangibly do. We can practice loving kindness in the face of whatever it is that we struggle with. Our fear, our anxiety, our caught-upedness. Loving Kindness Wins.

I’ve heard so many stories from people who are experiencing the intense pull of these mind-states. They engage in spats and fights online, they talk politics with friends but it’s not really about politics, the issues, it’s about all the awful things that somebody is doing or saying. We constantly look for agreement and validation about how awful it is.

We must recognize what we are doing to ourselves, that there is very little healthy benefit to be gained from engaging our precious and powerful attention in this swirling vortex of negative thoughts. 

I’m not advocating for ignoring what’s going on. But I am advocating that we take full personal responsibility for our own well-being and for what we are feeding with the power of our mind. In any given situation, conversation, what world are you standing for? Are you – right in that moment – creating one in which the landscape is desolate, polarized, a Mad-Max landscape with warring factions destroying each other and our own loving nature? Or are you creating one in which Loving Kindness Wins? 

If you find yourself caught up in the endless stories of what’s going wrong, what he or she has said now, please choose to care how you feel. Really, really, care how you feel. The ignoring of this is highly damaging. It’s so important to notice what it’s doing to you, your body, your energy, your health, your loved ones, your community. Please, with all the loving kindness I can muster, I ask you to stop. Instead, remember, loving-kindness wins! Please choose, in every moment you can remember, to practice being in loving kindness. Then act from there. For yourself, and your loved ones, and all beings. You are worth it.

Repeat this consistently, with diligence, and you will completely change the experience you’re having of your life. Loving Kindness Wins.

Friendships.

• “Why does it always have to be me that reaches out?”
• “Shouldn’t they also put in the effort?”
• “I called them last time so it’s their turn now.”
• “The phone works both ways you know.”
• “Texting is just easier.”
• “If they wanted to talk with me they would reach out.”
• “If they loved me they would know I’m mad at them.”

One of my best friends has often told me I am the most difficult friend he has. Because I listen to what he says and I respond, and I tell him what I feel as a result of what he says. So he has to change how he behaves when he’s with me. He has to think and say what he actually means. He also says it is completely worth it. I’m ok with this.

The same friend told me some time ago that his life is better with me in it, and I said the same. It is beautiful and simple, and we have made it a practice to make this the ground that we always come back to. When one of us feels separated or miffed or misunderstood, we can come back together through the practice of conversation, of sharing with each vulnerably how we feel, because we always have that ground to stand on. 

Isolation, friendships and relationships during this intensely polarized, online and post-covid world can be challenging experiences. Like many other things, the fast-food version – comments and texts – are being much more consumed instead of the more involved practice of creating the whole-food version: conversation. Especially the difficult ones where you share how you’re really doing, or the impact of your friend’s words and actions. 

The bandwidth required to have vulnerable conversations is much higher than what’s available in texts & messages. And it needs both a speaking and a listening. To share what’s really going on in your internal life, not just your external one, requires a powerful listening be present. A listening into which you can speak your truth, your secret internal experience. And it requires that the speaker choose into honesty and say what’s true for them even when that is difficult.

But messaging usually does not have a listening. When we send just a text it will get read or listened to at some point. Perhaps. There is no real listening into which we are speaking. The recipient generally doesn’t say to all those around them – “oh wonderful, I just received a message from my friend. Please let me go away for a while so I can focus on reading this message to understand what they are saying and respond.” Hardly! It is skimmed at a glance while we are engaged in doing several other things. And this makes all the difference.

The vulnerability of sharing what is really going on in your life is the crux of how perhaps all spiritual paths work to create growth and transformation in people’s lives. Whether it’s the fifth step of AA, the confessional of the Catholic tradition, the spiritual friend or guru in Buddhist and other Eastern traditions, or the honesty and depth of conversations taking place in the listening and reflective container created by a good coach – all wisdom traditions teach that the path to connection and clear-seeing of the sacred world all around us is vulnerability, openness, acknowledging and sharing what is really going on and asking for help. 

Last night I lay on the rug in the living room, face to face with my boyfriend, and we talked for two hours, about what we were going through, about life, about our intentions, our practices, listening to each other and how we impact each other. Engaged in the deep co-operative conversation that is the lifeblood of a relationship. Vulnerable truthful speaking into powerful undefended listenings.

Vulnerability requires diving below our automatic reactions, using the skill of noticing. Noticing our reaction, and then bringing awareness and examination to our experience. 

To see through our resentments and defenses against getting hurt, to go past “Why should I call, it’s up to them to call me?”, we must remember the key question – “what do I want?”

Do you want a friendship, and the powerful experiences of being seen, understood, fulfilled, joy and fun that it brings? Then what does it matter, at all, who calls? What if it is you that calls every single time – does that actually matter? What if you enjoy your conversations, your time together however that is whether it’s in-person or on the phone, then why does it matter whether they ever call you or initiate coming to see you, if you are doing that? Someone has to of course, but who and the exact count of who does what, does this matter?

If them not calling you is actually them too afraid to tell you that they don’t want to spend time with you, then of course that is a different thing. But if it is a difference in your communication frequency or mobility of actions – if you are simply more likely to reach out and call, then why not honor that gift you have? Why not bring your ability to initiate conversation to your friendship and give it freely to your friend? If you are the one feeling disconnection, then isn’t it your responsibility and commitment to yourself and to what you want to create connection?

Whatever path we are on, when we are feeling lost, we can always come back to the common ground, to the trailhead. The ground of my relationships is wanting to help my friends grow into being fully themselves, it is myself wanting to be seen, it is wanting to co-operate in creating shared experiences, it is wanting to listen to what this beautiful human is going through, and wanting to share my inner and secret experiences so that I feel the heart connection and clearly see this other beautiful human. So, whenever we have wandered off this path, have got totally side-tracked, or gone backwards, whatever resentments we are feeling, we can choose at any point to come back to this starting point, this ground. Remember what we want, and then speak from there.

Of course it’s not about bypassing whatever has happened, what I or they have done or said – quite the opposite. We get to talk through everything that needs to be talked through to get to the clear space. It is however about doing that speaking from the common ground of relationship, of co-operation, of wanting, rather than from the fog of fear, mistrust and resentment. And creating a listening of openness, non-defensiveness, trust, and confidence in relationship.

I’ll end with one key instruction that I received recently: “Continue The Conversation.” This is one of my main practices today, and I am working with it in various ways to unpack it and practice it.

Continue the conversation.