The breakdown
I was going through the most painful breakup of my life. Just crumpling into a heep of tears a few times a day; suddenly falling to the floor like I was having a seizure. I’d be down on my knees or doing the fetal, sobbing like a baby or full on wailing, pummeling the ground until the intensity faded. It took about 9 months for that shit to stop happening daily.
But like a long rainy stretch that seems like it’ll never end, a brighter point arrived, the zero-ground-pummel-point, around two years in. I know I wanted to know other people’s recovery times a lot, so maybe you do too.
There were loads of tools which came together to help me to see myself, the relationship, and my path forward more clearly, and ultimately levelled me up in a way I might never have been able to otherwise. Authentic Relating (AR) is up there with the most crucial of them.
Authentic Relating is a set of practices and games based around principles that help us to get more into connection
It’s about bringing mindful attention to what’s happening right now in relation to each other, really noticing it, and then sharing that experience in service of deeper understanding, empathy, and connection. It’s also about noticing when you don’t want to share — and then sharing that lack of desire… if you want to. Either way, it’s about knowing your experience more clearly, then doing what you can to consciously create the deepest connection your want.
The things we notice might be unspoken thoughts, unnoticed thoughts, resonant emotions, or even physical sensations in our bodies; expectations, desires, judgements, self-judgements (!), observations. The list goes on. Anything that is or can be noticed right now.
AR events draw from a vast orchard of activities that train us to do this noticing and sharing more proficiently. Some of the “games” are fun or funny, some are deep and emotional, some encourage vulnerability. It’s hard to find a games night that doesn’t have some raucous laughter or cathartic watery eyes. This all leads to deep new bonds and strengthened old ones, both in and out of the practice space.
The first event I went to was 3 months into that break up I mentioned. The first thing I shared was “I notice I’m burying a lot of sadness right now”. The warmth, curiosity and openness I received from the whole group made sharing not only easy but comforting. I cried hard. It was cathartic AF. Another person shared they were annoyed by some little thing. Someone else shared they had a sore leg. The sharing was the reality of each person’s experience at that moment.
That was just the check-in to an event with a wide range of activities. I’ll share more about specific games and approaches in other posts.
We want connection, right?
Even the introverts and the loners. Feels like opportunities don’t come that often, but actually there are ways to connect deeply with anyone, any time.
By developing the skills of noticing what’s going unspoken when two or more people interact, and speaking that unspoken thing in a way that creates empathy rather than division, a powerful shift in the “relational space” can occur. Obviously, you’ve had them before. You may be saying, as I used to, “Yeah, I’m great at connecting already actually. I find it very easy. Don’t see the need for this.” But hold up: because this seemingly simple shift can take things to a whole new world, in both the difficult relationships and the great ones.
You know those moments when your heart fills with sparkle and you feel electricity and connection between yourself and another. Well, when Authentic Relating isn’t helping smooth the cracks in difficult relationships or interactions, it’s helping train people to be able to bring more of those magical moments in their lives.
But what’s it like?
As with tennis, watching a movie, or some amazing new cuisine, it’s quite tough to convey what it’s actually like without trying it.
From the people I’ve seen practice and from the ways it’s impacted me, I describe it as being to relationships what exercise and diet are to health. It is the gym for the relational realm. That relational realm is with other individuals, with groups, and with ourselves.
In addition to my real world and online Zoom workshops, I’m creating content on how you can practice AR to move into deeper understanding or connection when you want to, or to convey without risk of conflict when you need to hold your own space or share something that might seem like it would actually harm connection.
I’ll share games and exercises for you to try. I’ll also be writing “post-match analysis” on my real world experiences. I’ll include both things that went wrong and how they could’ve been improved as well as how some magical moments were created.
I’m here for your theory and practice, so we can keep levelling up, side-by-side.
An invitation from me
If you liked the post and want to learn some practical techniques to build deeper connections, join the email list so we can spread these skills together to make a more connected, empathetic world. Thank you!