the last few months I’ve been working with @VividVoid_, training habitual people-pleasers to be more confrontational. it’s been so fascinating to learn the logic of conflict-avoidant people and to find strategies that support them to stand up for themselves

our Fight Wise program is a series of role-play exercises where people practice navigating heated interpersonal scenarios with skill. I observed one particular scene that I want to describe here in detail because it illustrates so much:

Mark is rehearsing a difficult conversation he needs to have with his partner (roleplayed by Jess). he needs to let her know that something about their relationship needs to change. we want him to find that confidence where it feels natural for him to advocate for himself and communicate directly about his needs, boundaries and requests

but all it took to throw him off his game was for Jess to change her body language slightly to show “I’m not receptive to you”. some part of Mark picks up on those nonverbal signals and completely loses track of himself. the confidence evaporates, the clarity is replaced by hedging and compromise

Mark is operating on a logic something like “if I’m always accomodating, we can find a way to get along”. this strategy is certainly effective for maintaining a relationship (either at work or at home), but it comes with psychic damage, it undermines his self-respect, and generates resentment that comes out sideways, as passive aggression or pettiness

I was shocked to see how much power Mark gave to Jess. all she had to do was squint her eyes slightly and scrunch up her forehead and that was enough for him to concede the fight before it had even really started

in the course we go thru repeated cycles of roleplay + reflection:

- before you go into a confrontation: settle yourself & clarify what’s most important for you to communicate
- during: actively regulate your nervous system so you can communicate as directly as possible: “This is what I observed. This is why I can’t accept it. Would you be willing to do XYZ instead?”
- after: settle yourself & reflect on what happened, so you can 1) understand how you habitually respond in moments of interpersonal stress, and 2) get the “update”: what do you want to remember, next time you’re in this situation?

I think we saw the biggest change in Mark when he learned to keep his awareness on himself, not to get lost in his mental modelling and anxious anticipation of what the other person is thinking and feeling, but maintaining some curiosity about his own body, and mindfully maintaining deep breath, neutral voice, straight back, relaxed shoulders. that’s the somatic foundation for straightforward communication

training these new habits of awareness, posture, and nervous system regulation opened up the space where he could practice a new repertoire and develop a new logic in relationships. he’s learning to be loyal to himself in the high-stakes moments, rather than abandoning himself

if you wanna join us in the dojo and practice standing your ground and advocating for yourself, we’re running one more cohort this year, starting October 22nd. sign-up below @VividVoid_ Fight Wise: an online course to practice your interpersonal courage, starting October 22nd

thehum.org/courses-and-ev…

speaking as a specialist in non hierarchical organising, it is very confusing to discover in me a growing respect for hierarchy and understanding of the role it plays in nearly all groups of people groups are tricky because we lack shared context, everyone comes from a different place, grew up with different norms and cultural expectations

but one thing nearly everyone has in common: you were probably raised in a household with 1 or 2 adults and a few kids

I was called in to mediate a conflict today, made me think how crucial & high-leverge this skill is. I wonder how many people would know how to do it?

I’m not a v sophisticated mediator but I’ll share my mental model here in case it is useful... when two parties have escalating tension, when a lack of trust or shared understanding means that they’re exceeding their relationship’s capacity for divergence, thats the time to bring in a 3rd party mediator

I drew this diagram to illustrate a lot of related insights about agency, hosting, community-building, collaborative leadership & social change

come with me now, the thread is long and full of bangers… you can use this map to self-evaluate your level of agency: where are you currently? what group experiences do you feel comfortable to host? what feels very doable? what would feel like a tolerable stretch? what would be overwhelming even to attempt?

ok not to sound dramatic but I used to be kinda dumb and now I'm smarter than like 80% of people and I know when & how it happened & I think the same method would work for most people for me it happened during the Occupy Movement. specifically, participating in lengthy deliberation, with skin in the game, for days on end

higher beings communicate with us: a thread goosebumps is a signal a higher being is in the room with you

(music is the great great grandma of language)

https://twitter.com/RichDecibels/status/1552727492234035201?t=F2tP-0Z-McJM6YPiTZmjbQ&s=19

"I never would have believed how quickly you can develop trust & belonging with a group of strangers" — we routinely get this feedback at the end of a 2-3hr workshop

I wanna explain how we do it... people are lonely because they lack the social context that invites meaningful connections, NOT because the "right people" are so hard to find

for the misfits & awkward freaks who never fit in back home, twitter is the biggest city in the world to move to, find anonymity and, free from the judgement of unloving peers, creative self expression, and eventually, companionship, love, family & self acceptance this is why the discourse around vibecamp & the other meetups we organise in this part of twitter can feel so high stakes: for a significant fraction of participants these gatherings represent a rare chance to experience a real homecoming, sometimes for the first time

I want to design a game to visualise status in a group

maybe use "how many people here know your name" as a heuristic break a group into random pairs, you each get 1 point if you know each other's name. you get 2 points if you don't know their name but they know yours

randomise and take 5 pairwise samples like this

maybe you're lonely because you're fundamentally broken or maybe it's because we spent the last 70 years dismantling social structures that took centuries to develop and we haven't replaced them with anything yet here, have a mass produced microtargeted identity, here's 100,000 people with the exact same values, beliefs, triggers and psychological baggage as you. yummy yummy why don't you enjoy this cozy monocrop community why are you still feeling isolated??

I had a heckin big insight this morning

it's too raw to be able to write about well but I wanna hack out a rough thread while it's still fresh I had a rough couple days, stuck, caught in a loop of feeling bad about a thing, dissociating, feeling bad, dissociating, not getting anywhere

there was a woodpecker outside as I was waking up this morning. until a couple of years ago woodpeckers were mythical creatures to me. it was such a treat to finally meet one in the flesh. I feel like a little kid when I encounter a new animal in the wild: fox, squirrel, falcon the woodpecker goes prtrtrtrtrt in a perfect machine burst of quick taps. cld be a drummer playing blast beats. I can't capture the sound in text. perfectly regular, rapid, a sonic ellipsis with about 7 taps. like a carpenter driving a nail, but sped up so it takes half a second

here's some half finished thoughts about agency as an endlessly accumulating feedback loop and what that means for leadership and spooky action at a distance... when I create a "high agency opportunity" eg an event where all participants create the agenda, it's obvious that people arrive with more or less agency

give someone a lot of freedom, and their immaturity or learned helplessness may cause them to flail around aimlessly

I got up early this morning, the sun obscured by light cloud making the mountain range a monochrome silhouette. as I sat and watched, the sunburned off the clouds and 1, 2, 3 distinct mountains emerged into three dimensions with intense colour saturation and contrast water vapour collected over each summit into 3 lenticular clouds, an echo of the wet sea air meeting the mountain currents. the lens clouds merged into a single rug, pushed and pulled in and out of valleys. all this movement as quick as a human getting ready for the day

if you're thinking about AI apocalypse & unsure how to manage the emotional/psychological impact of contemplating existential risk, there are numerous ecologists & activists who've developed good strategies over decades

examples in thread The Work That Reconnects from Joanna Macy workthatreconnects.org

ritual practices to face apocalyptic crisis, work thru the hard feelings, and come out with a commitment to action

I want to share what happens in the conversations I have with the ppl I'm coaching (without breaking confidentiality) so I'm going to assemble a thread to document some of the themes that come up

if yr a collaborative leader who needs a thinking partner, check the link in my bio 1st thing: space to reflect

I work with ppl who're usually running at the limit of their capacity

can't really learn while you're in fight or flight. so the coaching conversation is a space to breath a little deeper, step back & see more clearly, make better choices on purpose

good writing is clear, persuasive, entertaining

great writing is disturbing, ambiguous, disorienting good writing lays out a sequence of ideas in a straight line, everything neatly packaged and delivered on time

great writing kicks the loose jenga blocks out the bottom of the stack of stories you've been telling yourself for years

years ago my friend told me about Ring Theory, it helped me to be better at taking care of people in crisis

I've never heard it discussed since then, so I'll write up my understanding here bc I think it could be useful person X is in distress. they're in the inner circle, surrounded by concentric rings of people. first ring could be their spouse. second ring, siblings or close friends. third ring, acquaintances, friends of friends etc

we are living sensors equipped to feel the evolution of life directly, without cognitive intervention. the instinct to reproduce is well understood. but evolution is not just happening in the material plane, life is growing through culture & ideas too extending Eigen's theory: you will feel dead inside if you're not spending time with novel ideas that promise new life

https://twitter.com/eigenrobot/status/1625020139342012418

imagine any group experience is a simple game. you earn points if someone in the group:

- knows your name
- looks at you
- speaks to you personally
- is closer to you than the average interpersonal distance
- physically orients towards you

1/x

https://twitter.com/tasshinfogleman/status/1600599004936605702

go into any room and play this game, keep a rough tally of who gets points

most groups have 1, 2, or 3 people who get many more than anyone else

holy shit I just learned in the Haudenosaunee Confederacy the clans cut across nations, so everyone has dual loyalty. genius!

eg wolf clan member of the Mohawk and a wolf clan member of the Seneca nation are considered relatives, shouldn't marry, have mutual responsibilities haudenosauneeconfederacy.com/clan-system/