blogpost

I think FEP will let me formalize in what sense this is true

If it was stupid you might just ignore it

If it seemed like a good idea but turned out to actually be mysteriously hard to apply... well, that would happen

if it sort of seemed right, but also sort of not, well, now you have a new conflict

or maybe, as you try on the new principle, the choice resolves - the situation unsticks and there's not even a sense of needing to apply the principle

and of course we have other desiderata, other screening mechanisms before we even thoroughly consider it

me realizing I needed to hand over BGI with no strings

the hypothetical "wow this is the best I can do" of the mating dance

arranged marriage never had the illusion that you were supposed to choose in the first place. you could influence it a bit but the commitment was barely even something YOU were doing

chosen marriage in a context where divorce is impossible except abuse...

jan7bgi.slack.com/archives/C06CMCR70BV/p1704658296230999 - link Jacob

S > what do your clients, co-workers... think about the way you conduct your operation ?

J > Haha, that's the worst part! It's all positive. Everyone says that they appreciate the way I do things, that I am brilliant in this regard, and that I have "a gift" for this type of work.
The conflict is entirely internal. I don't trust myself for some reason or another. I think the issue is knowing that I have limitations and wanting to be proactive about finding them and hedging against them rather than finding them through failure.

M > I've often found that these two go hand-in-hand, they're not a coincidence

part of the REASON others trust you is that you have a strong sense internally of wanting to be proactive about your limitations

I had a conversation with my wife about her nonprofit, where she was like "I feel like I'm letting my donors down, by not doing more stuff" but she's like, come up with a dozen potential strategies for solving mental health crisis care and clearly all of them won't work. and I'm like "literally your donors are paying you to be the sort of person who DOESN'T just pick a random solution that seems plausible. that's part of your genius."

if you see what I'm pointing at here, it may be possible for something to release—like if you see that the part of you that cares so much about this is going to keep caring about it, no matter what, then a kind of additional layer of neuroticism or worry may be able to relax (and maybe not)

J > yep. That tracks completely.
I really appreciate the insight. It sort of recontextualizes the neuroticism as a gift rather than a stumbling block.
It's whole idea of mutual arising phenomena. I wouldn't be feeling this way if I weren't in this position and I wouldn't be in this position if I wasn't the type of person who feels this way.
Seriously appreciate the perspective.

in re flirting, I think

> What's a concrete situation where NNTD has resulted in better handling of problems/situations?

Like what kind of thing does/has it affected in practice?

So one thing I've found encouraging about it is that it's made me way better at navigating everyday apology situations. My two main case studies are one situation with a family member, and another with someone who lives in my building. In both, I was able to approach a conversation where I knew someone was upset with me, and very easily listen to their perspective, empathize & reflect the validity of their concerns, without taking on a blame narrative, and end the conversation with them feeling very connected, appreciative, seen, etc. And all of that flows naturally from me grokking the principles of trust implied by the NNTD frame—I'm not doing any particular technique or form, I just literally show up and non-do a very satisfying reconciliation with zero effort.

(It actually kinda feels like a weird superpower—Eric made the analogy "like going and fighting level 1 baddies with loot from level 10" which resonated!)

I had figured it should smoothly generalize to such situations but I wasn't actually sure that it would. Now that I'm 2/2 on these fairly substantial ones, and lots of littler moments I don't remember, it's pretty clear that if you grok it it does generalize. I've long been fairly charming and good at defusing conflicts, but these experiences felt very different. The fact that it does interoperate with people who aren't doing anything meta or frameworky or "collaborative" or "noncoercive" or "postblame" or whatever, is HUGE. And was a huge part of the whole point of the NNTD (as contrasted with a more dualistic conception of a cultural operating system shift) is that it wants to be backwards compatible to the extent possible.

Another thing is just like, literally anytime someone says (in these words or in some other way) "I don't trust you [to X / in this way]" and I respond with the kind of classic core NNTD move: "I respect that you don't trust me—I wouldn't ask you to pretend or to try to trust me if you can't" it nearly always results in increased meta-trust, and often a lot of stuff opens up. Ofc, if the person doesn't buy that I actually respect their distrust, then we may need to recurse or find another approach, though so far that's been rare. At that point I might need to find a way to demonstrate that respect, which would depend on context.

Another related classic simple move is "if it feels like someone is asking you a question (implicitly or explicitly) whose answer should be so obvious that you're offended that they don't already know (because of what that would imply about you or the relationship if they were in doubt about this thing)........ just say the fucking thing that should go without saying." Sometimes people legit have doubts, and it helps to hear it stated explicitly. Sometimes another part of them knows, but that part isn't active, and isn't there to tell the part you're talking to in this moment. I've experienced this as profoundly transformative in many difficult conversations. Need to collect more examples.

You might find it helpful to self-validate that you feel like you shouldn't have to say the thing. You can also use a preface like "Maybe this is obvious, but..." or "I feel like this should probably go without saying, but someone recently told me it can be helpful to say the obvious..."

those are moves though... in terms of "what situations"... NNTD as I've constructed it is a lot about reconciling after misunderstandings and betrayals, so those are the main situations that it's been helpful...

trust-dancing tho is happening between people before any such breakdowns have occurred, including that people are usually somewhat sussing out whether they expect one another to betray them in ways they've been betrayed by others before

should be more of a poem, a song

needs to bleed a little out of conventional speech

~ litany of gendlin

thinking that rejects other thinking relates to this

I think that choice only makes sense in relation to problem-solving or something

I came up with an articulation that I'm not totally satisfied with but it points at something decent

/ every entity has a blindspot at all fractal scales