Having A Trauma Response To Love (Why Do We Run From What We Desire Most?)

Having A Trauma Response To Love (Why Do We Run From What We Desire Most?)

Nearly one year ago, I approached a lone woman sitting at a table in the restaurant where I work as a waiter. She was waiting for a few friends to join her, and I offered to bring her some water. There was a profound, quiet beauty to this woman that shook me. I felt something far beyond a mere physical attraction to her - I felt some kind of energy radiating from her that might be best described as a pure, quiet, dignified grace.

She was understated, humble, and elegant in our brief interaction, which I walked away from in a state of dizzying euphoria. It is a rare thing for me to feel so moved by a woman’s presence.

What was perhaps even more noteworthy than my instant, full-on infatuation with this attractive stranger, however, was my awareness that everything I was feeling seemed suspicious. Maybe all those months of isolation and introspection had given rise to a new self-awareness, because although I’d felt this kind of reaction in response to women before, I’d never noticed how terrible it felt.

What Does It Mean To Open Your Heart? (A Quick, Practical Guide)

What Does It Mean To Open Your Heart? (A Quick, Practical Guide)

For many years, phrases like “Just open your heart,” or “You need to listen to your heart,” felt like little more than empty motivational platitudes to me. They sounded nice, but fluffy and insubstantial. I’ve had the privilege over the past decade of learning that the difference between what is often referred to as an open heart, and a closed heart, is actually an incredibly tangible, palpable, practical phenomenon. When one understands what this means and what to look for, it’s as noticeable and real as the shifting temperature of a room. Rather than an esoteric, spiritual concept, it’s as tangible as the difference between an open hand and a closed fist.

The Practice Of Vulnerability: Finding Safe Places To Be Open, And Becoming That Safe Place Ourselves

The Practice Of Vulnerability: Finding Safe Places To Be Open, And Becoming That Safe Place Ourselves

I have something slightly embarrassing to admit. It’s probably not the most unusual mistake to make, and I truly didn’t understand what I was doing while I was doing it. For a while, I tried to create a world of emotional safety for myself. Having grown up in a world that seemed to be full of wounded, closed-hearted, cynical individuals - in a society that sometimes felt estranged from the grounding influences of empathy, understanding, kindness, and tenderness, I did what many others like myself have done - I sought refuge.

How To Know When You Are Triggered (And Do Something Beautiful With That)

How To Know When You Are Triggered (And Do Something Beautiful With That)

Scrolling through the social media profiles of successful young men, an all too familiar feeling overcomes me: I notice my jaw tighten, a tingling on the top of my tongue, a tightness throughout my body, and a procession of thoughts that bounce between feeling alien and worthless relative to all the perfect individuals I’m witnessing, and a compulsion towards seeing their flaws or weaknesses and being superior to them (two polar responses coming from the same place of insecurity).

Outgrowing The Need To Be Right - On The Path From Insecurity To Powerful Imperfection

A few months ago, I was deeply immersed in the process of writing (and rewriting) my new book, when a friend asked me if I was finding the creative process itself to be therapeutic.

I hadn’t thought about this, and although I’d written through streams of tears at several points during the preceding months, I wasn’t sure how to answer the question. As I paused and reflected on it, one very notable thing came to mind: During the entire writing process, I was aware of, watching, and unravelling a deeply entrenched habit of mine that has at times been my undoing (both as a writer, and as a man) - the impulse to prove myself. The impulse to prove myself right, better, smarter, more worthy, or in any other way superior to others. There is an insecure part of me that habitually wants to puff out its chest, and either knock others down or build itself up in a rather dubious way, to compensate for its deep sense of unworthiness.

My New Book Is Available Now!

Hi everyone, 

I’m incredibly excited to share with you that I have written a book, and it’s now available as a paperback and ebook through Amazon (find links at the bottom of this post). Its title is How To Open The Heart: An Incredible Journey Into Vulnerability, Empathy, And The Transformation Of Consciousness. If you would like to hear a few of the details surrounding this book’s creation and contents, read on.

At the beginning of 2020, I formed a very clear vision of what I wanted to focus on this year: I wanted to push myself out into the world in new, challenging, and meaningful ways, both personally and professionally, and I planned to do so quite aggressively. Well, I didn’t get very far into that endeavour before the world essentially shut down completely, and I received the message from life loud and clear that my plan was not actually on the agenda for this timeframe. At least not in the way I’d been conceiving of it. 

In early spring, during the initial, strict lockdown here in Vancouver, I began playing with a book idea that I’d had in the back of my mind, but had been avoiding going into over the past year. In a state of isolation with absolutely no distractions, it was a pretty ideal time to dive into writing.

Fast-forward to today, and I’ve now spent the past eight or nine months completely immersed in writing and shaping this book. It has been an all-consuming, joyous, painful, and gratifying process. I’ve never given so much care and attention to a creative project, and I can honestly say that I never imagined creating a book that I feel so proud of and in love with.

My initial goal with this project was to write something that held parts of what I’ve been blessed to learn about in relation to working with emotions and energy over the past nine or so years. The form that this took is that of a story - the first hand account of a young man (me) whose heart has become closed and cynical to life, the world, and humanity, and the extraordinary process of tearing down the walls around his (my) heart.

The book chronicles about eight years of my life, during which I had the fortune of learning from a very gifted, empathic spiritual teacher, as well as engaging in my own explorations.

The book’s title: How To Open The Heart, pretty much holds its central theme completely. It’s a book about opening the heart, and navigating all the places within oneself that might be blocking that opening. 

For now, I think the only thing I will add is that I am incredibly grateful to have been a part of creating this book, and equally grateful to be sharing it with you. It’s a real honour, and I’ve been truly blessed by all of the people and forces that have come together to help shape it over these years. Some real genius souls have touched me and have their fingerprints all over the pages of this book. If you read it, you’ll know what I’m talking about. The entire creative process over these past months has felt very much ‘guided’ - in the sense that some invisible force has been present the whole time, moving things along, stopping things up, inspiring certain ideas and directions. The period of my life that the book covers feels very much the same.

It’s been an amazing journey, and a part of me can’t believe I actually made it here. But here we are, and onward we go.

If you’d like to get a copy (or download it), here is a link for Amazon (US), and Amazon (Canada). It is also available on most all other Amazon platforms worldwide.