Falling Gently Podcast

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Broadening the context through which I look at the world, finding connection and wonder. We need each other to remind each other. fallingtenderly.substack.com

  1. -2 j

    Comprehensive Hygiene

    There is not a food on earth that I expect to fulfill all my nutritional needs Much less satiate me permanently There is no shampoo so powerful that I’ll never need to use shampoo again And there’s no clarity, on any subject, that means I’ll never need to address it again with my beloveds Why, then, do I keep thinking ‘this spiritual practice should clean up all the remaining debris” “This mental practice will conquer this long-held pattern forevermore” Or “This emotional clarity will erase the original wound” My conditioning on ‘arriving’ is so strong That even a lifetime of experience disproving ‘arrival’ In every category Still gets overlooked I get disappointed when I need to meet a challenge I thought I’d already met adequately As if participation, refinement and renewal Were admonishment instead of opportunity Still, part of me wants to be ‘done’ and wants to be done through one effective tool Sigh Even the washing machine has to go in circles for quite some time to get the clothes clean One round won’t do it The truth is, I love my practices I just wish I didn’t NEED them And I do need them I need meditation as much as I need to brush my teeth And am quantumly better to talk to after both I need relational witnessing as much as I need exercise And feel invigorated and alive after both I need creative expression as much as I need food And feel delight in process and restful satisfaction after both Hygiene is an ongoing process not because yesterday’s efforts were insufficient But because that is how living systems work I want to tell my children I love them over and over, in new ways Last year’s love is insufficient to describe the depth at which they delight me today I don’t take that kind of repetition as a problem I like what it grows into Just like I like the way my teeth feel after the dentist Or I like the way our house looks right before we have company I like the way I feel when I’m inhabiting my whole self with compassion and curiosity These may not be permanent states, which is sometimes frustrating But coming back around to them sure feels good This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fallingtenderly.substack.com

    Comprehensive Hygiene

  2. 20 août

    You Can’t Go Back

    In my early 30’s I lived in a boat house on a small private lake in Michigan I called it “camp” Which is how I squared myself with copious spider population It was the early days of the internet and I’d done a keyword search using “charming” And it was Down a ½ mile-long driveway Around the side of the main house Park by the magnolia tree Follow the stone path to the 40 steps The entrance of the house sat atop another 20 steps down to the water It was about 700 square feet Knotty pine walls (another reason I called it ‘camp’) A 30-foot porch I could fish off of But really I just threw the fish blueberries and watched their disappointment The weekend I moved in, a former contact called I answered the phone, “Paradise, may I help you?” He was offering me a job to run a new Australian office of his web design company “Thank you,” I said, “and if I hadn’t been serious with my salutation, I’d be all over it” It was so beautiful, I never wanted to leave So I asked my boss “what would I need to do to work from home” She answered, “you’d need to get another job” But 6 weeks later, I ruptured a disc And whadayaknow, I couldn’t drive for 3 months I had been traveling a lot, so now my colleagues had to come to me Camp hosted many meetings Several colleagues slept on my porch instead of their hotel We would swim off the dock to separate the work day from the evening The environment was so spectacular I could invite anyone over at any time Whether I had food or wine to offer And feel utterly confident that they would be delighted to simply be there Usually, I could throw something together But it was really an afterthought. Until I got married Suddenly, I started freaking out about whether I had enough wine Or adequate snacks If the house was clean enough Or I’d swept the stairs WTF? It took a few times of this happening to realize I’d changed the tape I’d had the carefree single woman tape in the player And now I had the wife tape And that one was full of anxiety about how the details reflected on the state of my union I had to do it right or everyone, including and especially me, would think I was doing it wrong And the craziest part was that even finally realizing what was happening did not end the dynamic It took concentrated effort to set down the anxiety that felt necessary And it was only the magnitude of the beauty of the environment that would pause the tape Reminding me to enjoy the privilege of sharing the space with people I enjoyed As time went by, camp became less enchanting The roof leaked. The landlord weirdly wouldn’t fix it Tucker designed an utterly hilarious indoor gutter system that channeled water into 3 separate buckets By the time our daughter was born What was once magical suddenly felt potentially dangerous Circumstances changed We ended up moving 1,000 miles away And I had to continue to slowly debug wife.exe In a New England bungalow I went back to camp about 3 years later for a visit It was every bit as beautiful as I remembered it I couldn’t resist jumping in the lake I got entirely tangled in seaweed This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fallingtenderly.substack.com

    You Can’t Go Back

  3. 19 août

    Quick Knowing

    AI has led me astray more than once It just sounded so sure of itself LLMs don’t present data as data They weave narratives Intimating that they know everything You’re being seen and understood as you rarely are in life And here’s your straightforward 7 day plan It has been helpful, like when I had an identity theft scare And super not helpful, like when it said an appointment would be covered when it wasn’t Was it the LLM’s fault Or mine, for accepting its authoritative tone as real When I’m working with an LLM on something I actually know about The errors are many and obvious Which finally has me applying more discernment When Google’s AI Overview gives me a convincing answer to something I’m truly questioning It is something I need to remind myself to do Question that contrived authority And today I realize I need to bring that same skepticism That same knowledge of the need for deeper inquiry When fear swoops in Intimating that it knows everything It’s the authority It has the data It cares for me and understands me and wants to support me Both fear and LLMs only have access to the past Rearranging it and calling it the future But that’s not a real future It’s just the regurgitated past And I’ve certainly had enough of that I don’t necessarily think fear or AI is trying to deceive me I think they’re trying to present themselves as an authority that already knows what to do You know, to help me feel better It’s a trap And it’s so easy to get caught in it Because quick knowing is the whole appeal Even when it’s wrong When I call AI out on its errors It does the same thing fear does “Yep. You’re right. No excuse. I won’t do it again.” And absolutely does it again. Talk about predictive modeling. I can’t erase AI from the cultural zeitgeist Any more than I can erase fear from my thinking mind I can, however, not let them go unquestioned And my frustrations with AI are just making explicit and obvious The series of predictive jumps and ridiculous confidence fear has been conjuring all along Sure, not knowing is uncomfortable But life is a dance with discovery The nuance and specificity of this encounter What this moment is both asking and offering Fear and AI help me think I already know enough to stop paying attention As if I can circumvent the discomfort of not knowing and feel safe But billions of years on this planet And it’s never been the same day twice I want to meet today Not a model I’ve anticipated, perfected and executed flawlessly But a living possibility Where inquiry, discovery and wonder Aren’t things I need to resolve or protect myself from But what I allow to shape me Wonder what’s next? Subscribe! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fallingtenderly.substack.com

    Quick Knowing

  4. 3 août

    Who Gets to Tell Me Who I Am?

    Growing up, I didn’t have a lot of emotional mirroring or reflection Most of my family was too busy to engage The sister closest in age, however, had lots of time on her hands Which she used to tell me how much she hated me That everyone did That anyone who pretended to like me, was indeed just pretending Not just most days Every day Consequently, I felt the need to get a second opinion And, not finding a willing mirror in my own house I used to go knock on doors in my neighborhood Plenty of people didn’t open the door And in retrospect, I can’t blame them “Hi. I’m 7. I’m just looking for someone to talk to.” There was one old lady who would answer almost every time I knocked She got loose tobacco from a Native American farm in Virginia We would talk while I watched her roll her cigarettes Another house would answer the door when their grandchild was over And I was happy to entertain the toddler for an hour or two Most people were just confused And eventually, I got the hint But I carried the desire for a reliable witness throughout my development I would ask teachers and counselors for an honest assessment of me Strengths and weaknesses And usually they would tell me how smart and resourceful I was But that I could be more patient That wasn’t what I wanted to hear I wanted to hear something that could reconcile my sense of self With my sister’s constant assessment of me But I also knew that my sister’s take was skewed And that I was too close to understand my own blind spots And so, I kept asking Now, we live in a polite society People generally are not equipped to give constructive psychological evaluations Most told me what they thought I wanted to hear Until Lou Schultz Lou was the president of the company I worked for And the husband of my dearest friend He was successful, succinct, and no-b******t So, one day, at about 30 years old I decided Lou was the perfect person to ask And he did not disappoint He wasn’t going to fluff my pillow I’d asked him a question and I was getting my answer He started with things he liked about me And then he dug into where he thought I was an idiot One example: “You’re political without being politically astute” I asked for clarification He recalled a business dinner I’d relayed to him previously I’d done a negative POV paper about a company The president of which was a former roommate of the president of GM I’d recommended GM not engage Of course they engaged They were always going to engage, and I should’ve known that And I certainly shouldn’t have confessed to being the author of the paper at the dinner Yeah. There were other things he offered All of them valid from his lens And, after all those years of asking I finally had an unflinching assessment of who I was as a person From someone I knew and respected And, I won’t lie: I was crushed I spent several days in a funk. Wouldn’t leave my house. Had to process. I’d asked for it I’d gotten it And now I had to deal with it Imagine my surprise, then, when several days later a very high-ranking executive called me One of the people at that business dinner Lou said I’d flubbed “I want to offer you a job,” he said “Your honesty is refreshing, and your lack of posturing is unique” A fog lifted I didn’t take the job But I got something much better I finally saw I was mistaking frames for mirrors Echolocation doesn’t tell a bat who she is It just tells her where she is I’ll always love Lou for being the first person to be truly candid with me And the last Because I never had to ask that question again P.S. I no longer ask strangers who I am. I do still enjoy talking to them. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fallingtenderly.substack.com

    Who Gets to Tell Me Who I Am?

  5. 31 juil.

    Space Without Distance

    Avon Road, in Rochester, Michigan, dead-ends into Adams Road Just southeast of Meadow Brook Music Festival It’s a road my family traveled often on our way home And for about a 9 month period when I was in my early teens I had a recurrent experience with a stunning wisteria tree Which sat in a yard a few houses east of the light If we were the 7th or 8th car in line, I could view this tree out the passenger window And when I did The tree played with me It was a specific exchange I consider it the most spiritual experience of my life And I’ve tried to reconnect to this tree specifically And to any part of nature in general in the same way But, no dice What happened, time and again, when all the conditions were right Is that as I gazed upon the tree I felt her gazing back at me The space between the tree and me remained the same But the distance collapsed entirely I could go back and forth between regular gazing And this kind of communion And the tree seemed amused that I would do that And, as weird as this sounds The tree acted as a kind of portal In that, when I was in the orientation of communion I felt like I could understand the whole world through her She was the focal point Through which everything was more intimate than what I normally experienced It would last anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes. These two states were visually distinct Like when you look exclusively through your right eye, and then through your left And it even had a physical sensation - subtle but pervasive It was absolutely fascinating and truly fun. I loved it when our ride home included Avon Road Though it was still dependent on being stopped for the light This was not something that could be achieved in a drive-by. Genuinely curious if this was something others experienced, I mentioned it to someone I respected Who suggested it sounded occult, and I was young, and it was dangerous and probably not good I still regret heeding that advice Because no amount of will has been able to recreate the sensations and perceptual shift that tree offered And, here, most of my life later, I recognize that kind of communion As my highest aspiration Jack Kornfield has a book After the Ecstasy, The Laundry Detailing the longing that often takes place In the aftermath of a profound spiritual experience I’ve found that book very helpful, and am going to pull it out and read it again But what is alive for me today as I reminisce about that gift Is the total shift in perception that tree afforded me And the world beyond it that became palpable It was absolutely heavenly And it was right there, on Avon Road Occasionally I argue with letters, commune with trees, and question reality. Subscribe if that sounds like your kind of thing. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fallingtenderly.substack.com

    Space Without Distance

  6. 24 juil.

    Keeping Up With The Times

    Well over a year ago, in conversation My son told me he was ‘chalant’ I told him that wasn’t a word He insisted it was I insisted it wasn’t My son is an extremely laid back young man He could be late for something he cares about And still saunter from the car to the door when I drop him off I have literally never seen him run I assumed he meant nonchalant Because, well, he is But it turns out, he is sometimes, out in the wild More invested, proactive and engaged Not afraid of people seeing his interest and care And thereby referred to by some as chalant A term I found both incorrect and ludicrous Until about 5 months ago when I started seeing articles about being chalant Popping up everywhere This idea of being unabashedly emotionally available I had to call my son and eat crow Luckily, he’s pretty gracious about it It’s not the first time I’ve had to update my files Via a little scuffle with my kids I was sure I was right about It feels that somewhere between puberty and driver’s licenses The dynamic shifted The flow of information no longer went from me to them But slowly began to reverse Instead of me informing them They began updating me It’s humbling And often hilarious And it makes me feel better about the future I was happy to learn that my laid-back son isn’t afraid to be present and engaged Indeed, he told me “I can’t wait to see how emotionally intelligent my kids are’ ‘Oh yeah?’ I asked “Yeah. I mean, you’re so much more emotionally intelligent than your parents And i’m so much more emotionally intelligent than you…” After I stopped laughing And maybe wanting to kick him In all his sincerity and all of mine I kindof like that what I think I know isn’t necessarily ‘right’ anymore That new things are always emerging I just hope I can keep up This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fallingtenderly.substack.com

    Keeping Up With The Times

  7. 22 juil.

    Aggressively Pursuing Peace

    I spent the first half of my life aggressively pursuing peace In myself (Meditate more! Read more books! Find the Magic Formula!) In my family (See how smart I am and do what I say and we’ll be fine!) And in the world (Protest! Lobby! Canvass! Convince! Enroll! Recycle!) Yet those heartfelt efforts did not generate the experience of peace They kept an idea of peace just out of reach And dependent upon herding colonies of wildly disinterested cats Eventually, all that well-intentioned aggression fried my nervous system A nervous system, like so many others, tuned to chronic urgency The floor was always lava It was not a game My individual reorientation came through illness My sister’s came through grief The list of specific mechanisms is endless But the dynamic at play was: All these ideas you have about what’s right and wrong Maybe take a breath And learn to listen instead of dictate To participate instead of compulsively organize Align instead of direct For a person who thought her devotion necessarily had to pay dividends in the world It’s a radical reorganization of identity and purpose It’s also extremely relieving I’m not sure if hamsters think the wheel will get them out of the cage But it doesn’t, no matter how hard they try The wheel appeals to their natural desire to run in their environment But it doesn’t fulfill it Instinct redirected to futility It also has an antidote An intentional design that harnesses the instinct Because while sometimes little rodents are desperate to find food or escape predators Even well-nourished hamsters in the wild continue to run and forage As a participatory act in the ecology But those are two very different points of origin One is panicked, the other is more relaxed. Both are active One is generative Like if the hamster wheel powered an Easy Bake Oven of hamster treats All my strain didn’t yield peace But my growing peace continues to dissolve strain It doesn’t make me passive But it surely makes me less anxious And more than even my best organizing Meeting hard things softly Invites a generosity of care That lets peace grow Stay tuned to see if I invent an Easy Bake Oven for hamster treats… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fallingtenderly.substack.com

    Aggressively Pursuing Peace

  8. 20 juil.

    Dead Spider Tai Chi

    My Tai Chi teacher used to say I practiced Dead Spider Tai Chi I was always poised to collapse I swore I was standing straight and ‘strong’ But when I got tapped even lightly from the side My leg would collapse into center Same with my torso or my arms I can now feel that it originated in the tilt of my hips And the relationship from hip to ankle to foot to earth But for years, this stability eluded me Five minutes with Sue Choi shifted the dynamic forever I finally found Unbreakable Leg Practicing her work, I experience the body’s promises I am supported I have power without strain And I am at ease These aren’t affirmations They’re the felt sense of a body organized for coherence What’s funny is I remember being awkward in my body as a kid And hoping I’d learn how to inhabit it correctly someday Sue’s work brought that day into being By aligning reliably into what she calls the neutral body or the body of resource I can feel the weight of gravity move through my bones And the more settled I become, the more I can notice and release tension and bracing Oh-so-much tension and bracing Although I would’ve assured you I didn’t hold tension I was so enmeshed in it, I identified it as my ‘self’ Sue’s work also brought into clarity something I’d been dancing around with dozens of somatic teachers The body of story, my habitual posture made up of accumulated tensions The residue of a lifetime of bracings, small and large Compounded into fields that literally restructured my posture I began to notice that my body took on specific shapes during different emotions And when I could intentionally organize my body differently It loosened the weight of my mood Attention to aligning to and exploring the neutral body Has helped me reclaim my body’s natural resources My stories were organizing my posture to a huge degree Now my design is And as I get better at this I notice these little tensions that have run via my subconscious Just in the background All the time, perhaps from last week, perhaps from 50 years ago But now they get the light of attention And the structure of alignment I can relax into and move from Coherent Body gave me the reference and knowing I never learned as a kid How to organize myself to receive the natural support and power of a living being Counterbalancing so much accumulated bracing I was trapped in a web of my own tensions And didn’t know the simple shifts that could release me Now I do I wish I’d had this knowledge straight out the gate So I could’ve been a nimble panther in my Tai Chi and in my life Without that pesky Dead Spider phase Join me in exploring the felt sense of freedom and possibility even when things are tough. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fallingtenderly.substack.com

    Dead Spider Tai Chi
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Broadening the context through which I look at the world, finding connection and wonder. We need each other to remind each other. fallingtenderly.substack.com

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  • Création
    Falling Gently
  • Années d’activité
    2025 - 2026
  • Épisodes
    129
  • Classification
    Tous publics
  • Copyright
    © Falling Gently
  • Site web de l’émission
    Falling Gently Podcast