UNEXECUTIVE

Unconventional coaching for extraordinary people

I’m Losing

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I’m losing the ability to see people as perfect women only gorgeous in my eyes men with the perfect way of being the idea that some version of me

will be seen as a perfect knight in perfect shining armor what I’m left with

is just us messy humans pooping and sweating getting older making mistakes trying to love one another and doing a piss poor job of it most of the time

us messy humans being scared with our pasts and history our reactions our wounds and anger

us messy humans trying and failing giving into temptation spending all day watching tv and polishing off a bag of chips

this world is made new in its messiness in its ordinariness in its boringness

I’ve never seen it this way without the rose colored glasses the streets have more homeless people your face has more pimples my body isn’t as thin as I would like

but in losing that layer of fantasy and dream I’m finding something new to fall in love with

a kind of love closer to my heart and the truth of what it means to be human this life is so unsatisfying even in the present moment and yet it’s more than enough so much more than enough

Can You Help Me Meet Myself?

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Can you help me meet myself?
Because that’s what you said
That we could never hope that someone would meet us
Not fully
That we could only
In the slow tenderness
Of long nights
And long cries
Meet ourselves

And so
If we’re no longer looking

For an empty piece
For a heart to match our own
For a forever person
Because nothing is forever

All we can ever really hope for
Is for someone to help us

Pick up the broken pieces of the mirror
That we’ve been cutting our fingers on
For so long
That we don’t even remember what a hand
Not covered
In dried or wet blood
Feels like any more

Can you help me?
Pick up these fragments
So softly
That I no longer cut myself

And turning the image
Towards my own tired eyes
Red from grief
Full on longing
And a glimmer of hope

So I can see myself
As you see me
As my friends see me
With love
And understanding

Can you help me?
Reach through
This shard of an image
To touch my own hand
And feel the softness of my own skin
And the warmth of my own heart

Can you help me?
Meet the me
That will show up with love
And give it
Even when I’m certain I’m not worthy
Even when you’ve left me
If even it’s simply to go on a trip
Or to the bathroom
Or for someone else
Or for a destination beyond the beyond

Can you help me?
As I help you
Arms entwined
Each with our own jagged edges
Looking at ourselves

Until we look up and notice each other
Meeting those me’s
Together
And smile

The Four Stages of Change: Navigating Change

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Change in people follows a predictable pattern. Understanding this pattern can help you understand where you are in the change process and how to move to the next stage.

Stage 1: Unconscious to conscious

The first stage is going from unconscious to conscious.

In recovery work it’s called admitting you have a problem. In meditation, it’s called noticing when you’re thinking.

Sometimes this happens because you’re forced to wake up to something you didn’t notice before. Sometimes this happens because you want to change and you start looking. No matter how it happens before you can shift something you must become conscious of it.

How to know if you’re here: There’s a problem you’ve been avoiding. You know you need to deal with it, but you’re afraid to admit it to yourself or someone else.

How to move on: Share what’s going on with someone you trust. Ask them just to listen and reflect. Sometimes telling someone else can be really powerful and healing.

Stage 2: Fixing to Facing

The second stage is going from fixing to facing.

Once you notice something you’ll start seeing it everywhere. You’ll want it to be different but you won’t really know what to do about it. You’ll try to control, suppress, or hack your way around the problem. This generally doesn’t work very well. Some of these solutions will work for a little bit but usually you are just fixing something in the short term. It doesn’t really change things.

A lot of people get stuck here, just noticing something and fixing it so they can forget. This is why beer was invented.

If you’re really committed to change and you’ve got good support you’ll eventually move beyond this. You’ll realize that you can’t just fix what’s happening, you have to actually look at what’s causing it. You’ll have to change how you relate to it and address who you’re being that’s making this problem show up again and again.

How to know if you’re here: You see repeating problems showing up in your life. You try to stick a bandaid on it but the problem keeps coming up.

How to move on: Get some support to distinguish the problem and what’s actually causing it. Work to figure out how you have tried to fix it and what it would mean to stop creating this problem in the first place.

Stage 3: Problem to a Possibility

The third stage is going from a problem to a possibility.

Once you have fully faced your problem you have a chance to truly transform it and yourself. Most people who are stuck in fixing are focused on what they don’t want. They don’t want to smoke anymore, they don’t want to be single, they don’t want to have a cluttered inbox. All of this not wanting has you fixated on the problem.

Something magical happens when you start to think about what you DO want. You want to feel healthy and vibrant. You want to create an incredible relationship. You want to answer people in a timely manner.

When you start to focus on what you want instead of focusing on what you want to avoid, things begin to shift. You’ll start to realize that there are many ways to start creating what you want. You’ll get inspired by what your goal is instead of discouraged by your setbacks. You’ll start to get supported in creating what you want and things begin to feel a bit easier.

How to know if you’re here: You have a problem you want to resolve and you’ve begun to look at what’s been causing the problem, but you notice yourself focused on what you don’t want rather than what you do want.

How to move on: Get clear on what it is you’re creating. If you can’t let go of anything you’re averse to and try to figure out what your true desires are. If you need to get support to start coming up with some ways you could create what you want.

Stage 4: Proposing to Practice

The final stage is when you stop proposing dreams, visions, and ideas and you start taking action in alignment with what you want.

You don’t just talk about doing it tomorrow, you start doing it today. You are willing to do it imperfectly. You are willing to gesture towards what you want to do. You start doing it (whatever it is) because you know nothing changes by thinking about it. Things only change when we’re in action, when we live into our commitments one awkward step at a time.

How to know if you’re here: If you’ve come up with lots of possible solutions, but you’re not implementing them or you do implement them but as soon as you hit a bump in the road you backtrack. You find yourself looking for new tools and techniques in the hopes that by acquiring some sort of new knowledge you’ll be able to overcome the problem.

How to move on: Get into action! Find an accountability buddy or hire a coach to keep you accountable. Think of all of your actions like an experiment, your #1 goal is to try things so you can learn what does and doesn’t work. Try to respond to failure with the phrase, “How fascinating!” instead of “I suck”. Finally, keep going until you find a way through, this phase is all about persistence, persistence, persistence.

These 4 stages are what I’ve seen myself and others go through again and again. Sometimes people jump a stage, sometimes they fall back, but no matter where you are, learning how to see what you’re missing, face what you’re avoiding, focus on what you’re desiring, and practice what you’re creating can help you achieve way more than you could ever possibly imagine.

Go forth and get to work!

Receive Her No With Grace and Graciousness

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The true test of a man shouldn’t be how many women he can bed, or how much money he can make, but rather how much grace and graciousness he can show in receiving a no.

No one likes to be rejected, shut down, or told no.

It can give you a feeling of being stifled, shamed, judged, or even of having your worth denied.
But even though you can do a lot to impact the no that’s offered, what really matters is how you react to it.

A no is not something to be worked around. To be cajoled. To be pushed past.

A no is an invitation to pause, to get curious, to reflect, and to lean in with an open heart.

This is especially true when a woman tells you no.
And even more true when she tells you no gently.

It’s brave for a woman to say no.
Because we live in a world where no from a woman is a dirty dangerous word.
So if she gives it, gently and with love it means she trusts you or hopes to.

She is asking with hope that you will be the kind of man who honors this no, feels the fullness of its gift, and is willing to swallow any pain that might arise and simply be with her.

A no isn’t personal anymore than a fenced yard is, or a keep off the grass sign.
No is the simplest unit of a boundary.
No is a line that helps you see where your desire hits her comfort or willingness.

Her no is a gift because it tells you exactly where you are.
It gives you a ground to stand on and explore with her or within yourself.

Sure you can ask about the no, get curious about what might have it be a yes, work through nos that want to be changed, but you can only do this with honor, if you can receive it with grace and graciousness.

The grace to hear it and really feel its power.
The grace to let it land and to pause before you react.
The grace to own what it brings up, while also honoring how it was offered.
The grace to learn from this no and to hear the no behind any yes so that you can feel where the chance for growth (mostly yours) lies.

And alongside these graces, graciousness.

The graciousness that she trusts you to tell you no, (esp directly)
The graciousness to be strong enough to not collapse in the face of it.
The graciousness that she doesn’t want you to step over an edge that might damage your connection.
With a graciousness that she is offering you a chance to honor and even heal her with your loving reception.

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This is a true test of what it means to be a man.

Because a man who is strong in himself, truly honors the one he’s with and is capable of accepting challenges with dignity and courage, is a man all men should all work to be.

The Desire To Die — Explained

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I remember at one point last year in the isolation of the pandemic where the grief of my failed relationship and the acute sense of isolation felt unbearable.

There was one night where I rubbed my eyes and stared at this horrible racing game I had been playing for hours. My mouth felt stick and dry from the sugary cereal I’d been eating. Part of me wanted to trawl the internet for porn, but I knew that on some level would only give me a few moments of relief.

I wanted to sleep and forget about everything, but as soon as I’d tried to close my eyes the thoughts and feelings came flooding back.

I felt hopeless, life felt meaningless, and I wasn’t sure why I wanted to keep going.

This feeling of not being able to bear my life, emotions, and everything else that was happening was a familiar one. It was something I felt a fair amount of times in high school and even more in college.

For a long time I used pot to cope with these feelings to various levels of success. When I lived in the monastery the feelings were still there. I took it (just like everything else) into meditation and to interviews with the teachers. But despite years of meditation this feeling still existed in me.

It’s the feeling of not knowing how to go on.

It’s taken me a few years to recognize it, but this feeling almost always arises at the tectonic edge of two parts.

One part is an old way of being in the world. Some people call this part a survival mechanism, an old belief system, or a breakdown. I call it historical gravity.

It’s like this phantom limb that keeps grasping for some comfort it can no longer have.

The other part is the new way of being. Some people call this an essence, a higher self, or a breakthrough. I call it spiritual momentum.

When my historical gravity and spiritual momentum meet, it can feel like I’m getting squeezed in the middle. Very often the version of myself in that moment knows I have to keep going, knows that something needs to shift, knows I need to let go, but that same part of me also doesn’t know how to keep going, is unwilling and unable to shift, and feels like letting go will mean losing everything it ever cared about.

The pressure of this moment when it arrives is intense. It’s a moment that will make anyone long for escape. It’s this kind of moment that can drive a relapse into drugs, the reaching for meaningless sex, and even the desire to die.

If you don’t know how to go on, but you can’t stay where you are, what else is there to do?

THE LIE AT THE CENTER

The other thing I’ve learned is that this moment also has a lie at the center. The lie at the center of this moment is that it will last forever.

You will be forever caught between an unstoppable force and an immovable object.

Your survival mechanisms are trying to keep the old you alive, but that you can’t live in the environment you’re in anymore. And I think it’s why some people choose to jump out of a building (life) that’s on fire (in the midst of a tectonic call to change).

The problem is that the lie of this moment convinces us there’s no escape. And what I’ve learned is that there is ALWAYS an escape and that escape is found by sliding down the chute of time.

While these moments feel endless they always shift given time.

One plate (hopefully the future/more conscious plate) slides on top of the other. And the other plate (hopefully the past/less conscious plate) presses into the earth and gets turned into molten energy.

THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS !!! I know it may not seem like it’s going to. And trust me I’ve been CONVINCED that it won’t but it always does. This is the process of transformation, of deep and meaningful growth in life, but it rests entirely on a combination of two things:Pressure and time.

The feeling of total crisis, of spiritual death, that’s the pressure. So all you really need it to add time to the equation and you’ll be fine. Your life will shift, you will be able to become the thing life is demanding of you to become. It takes some time, but it will happen.