…then nothing to rest on 🤿

Writing feels so inadequate to address the wild complexity of experience in all of its contextuality. If any of this writing comes out as preachy, I apologize for my projection—my unseen need to be preached at. I apologize for not making the time to properly distill this ramble into its essence, and therefore the ungodly number of ellipses...

What to say? The simple stuff feels the most true, but perhaps the least helpful. Love is. Virtues are great. When people are upset, listening and compassion are usually extremely helpful. Giving advice tends to miss them.

But while there are broad generalities, there’s hardly ever anything we can rest on. When people are upset, sometimes advice is the best. Sometimes just listening is an amazing defense against the vulnerability of showing up. Everything, absolutely everything, can be used to avoid. When it comes to growth, we often forget to ask what we're even growing for—what's motivating us, not what's the end goal, since the goal is a product of the motivation, let's go to the source. But even with a clear goal (good luck), the "to-do" changes based on the frames we place on happening...

When it comes to facilitative leadership, some people need to learn to express themselves more. Some people need to learn to be quiet. Some people seem like they need to learn to be quiet but they really just need the right venue for their flavor of genius to be appreciated and helpful to others. Compassion can disguise codependency, innocence can disguise enabling, patience can be waiting, and humility can be hiding from embracing the truth of one’s power and brightness. I’ve done all of these. Probably today.

Sometimes I liken “best practices” of relateful communication to the rules of English grammar. They only work like 70-90% of the time. Often useful. Mostly right. But with a heck of a lot of exceptions.

With love, Jordan