DISCONNECTION:THE NEW PANDEMIC

I’m finally home from 3 long days and evenings of doing the work I do in two different states…2 days in Utah in two different places, and one day in Orange County. Happy and worn out...I'll recover. Grateful to be working in person again at full tilt.

During the lockdown, when for the first time in 30 years I was not on the road for an extended period, I really pondered whether the Universe was telling me it's time to retire. My body hadn’t felt so unstressed in a long, long time. My daily and only ‘job’ for 15 months was getting up at 6AM and riding my bike 25-30 miles. It was a lovely job.

Between the men’s work, boy to men work, blackfolx work, prison work and corporate high-performance leadership and team consulting I’ve been passionately committed to, I’ve been in motion pretty much most of the time the last three decades. Too many to mention of 80-100 flights a year and about the same amount in some strange hotel room somewhere in the world.

I accepted that price because once I got where I was going, I had a chance to engage some humans in very life altering and transformational ideas…ideas that would alter the very paths of their lives almost immediately. Being able to witness them changing their lives and relationships, as well as sharing from my own journey and from my body of work was a divine pleasure. Still is. 

As my work rapidly switched from live, where a respiratory based virus could kill us all, to Zoom and such, which I wasn’t enjoying nearly as much, I looked at my age, finances, health, mental acuity, and all those other key factors of such an important life decision and was mulling over should I just pull the plug on the work thing and start trying to figure out what I'd do next. I even remember pondering some of the 'do next' ideas. Travel the world hitting hot springs anyone?

Then I really started paying attention to all the loss and suffering around me, around all of us that came with this pandemic, this new bug that came for us outa nowhere, pulled up on us all gangsta like and it was not fucking around. I noticed and felt not just the suffering from the loss of folks important to us, which was great for so many, but also the suffering of disconnect from the work we love, the people we love, the relationships we love, the places we love, the freedom of movement we love, the hobbies and avocations we love, the daily, predictable rhythm of our lives we love, and more. 

I noticed that we were all eyeing, talking about, and treating the other humans differently now…mostly with great suspicion, many of us secretly and openly operating from a new belief that getting too close to these humans, especially those unknown to me...can kill me. And I ain’t ready for that.

We are a tribal species. We have hard wiring that unconsciously speaks to us and controls us to stay connected to the other humans. It whispers to us that our safety and very survival, individually and collectively, is in the close connections to the other humans. We’ve known and lived that truth since birth.

There were many impacts, known and unknown, of the pandemic, the lockdown, all of it. Things that impacted all of us. One was the building desperation to reconnect, for close contact and connection with the other humans again, with the tribe again. Even for us hardcore introverts, such as myself, we knew, we all knew, we are not supposed to be this distant from the other humans...physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, soulfully, sexually...all of our realities were being impacted by this distance, this counterintuitive lifesaving distance...and we knew deep inside that the distance we had to create to stay safe, to stay alive...was the new 'pandemic'.

We all also figured out quickly that the new 'pandemic' could have life altering consequences if we didn't administer the 'vaccine' for it. The ‘vaccine’ being restoring our connections across all our realities with the other humans that matter to us...and to all humans generally speaking. 

It was my puzzling over all of this that led me to the decision to keep working for a while longer.  Not sure how much longer…but not to stop now. Maybe take less work. Fo’ sho’ only work with folks and companies I truly want to work with. Fo’ sho’ sho’ charge more. But continue working most of all.

The work that I do is based on creating a deep and profound workshop or retreat experience, in the presence of others also working on themselves, with life giving ideas like authenticity, vulnerability, emotional honesty and connection, trust, truth, openness, personal vision of who and how I most want to be in my many roles and lives, of an abiding awareness the Sacred Journeys we are on with the humans that really fucking matter to us, and…and…that the Dirt Nap is coming for us. The work is about finally understanding we don't have all the time in the world to do those things for and with ourselves and with others that matter to us. We don't. I give folks the tools and frameworks to live their Sacred Journeys to their fullest while we can. 

As I pondered this over that week or two mid last year, it hit me that my work, and work like it by others, is EXACTLY the ‘vaccine’ we humans will need to get thru this. To withhold the life restoring part of the vaccine that I could administer through my good works that might begin to set things right again humans to humans…would be irresponsible at best and immoral at worst. 

Not from a place of arrogance or anything like that, this ‘human connecting’ work that I do and some of you do and those that connect powerful and vulnerably in your own personal and work circles…this is what is most needed right now. As in right now. Vaccinate as many other humans as possible with your medicine. To save us all. I commit to do the same with my medicine for a while longer. 

This new bug tried its best to take us all out. More will arise and try the same. Reconnecting deeply with the other humans is a preventative medicine for the next battle. And it is coming. There’s always a next battle with these bugs. Before, during, and after each we must stay connected to the tribe. That is the ‘glue’ that will get us through in the long haul. 

This past week, in each of the three full day sessions I facilitated, I had the privilege to watching humans connect, reconnect, and connect again more deeply to the others in these sessions. And by extension using the experience and tools of the session to connect more profoundly with those they most care. 

F**k those bugs! We’re vaccinating ourselves every day to ensure that we and the tribe survives! 

My mission: To create sacred spaces where individuals, teams, Forums, and groups build vulnerable and deep relationships that can encourage, support, nurture, and mentor them, a space where they can tell the compassionate truth to themselves and each other in order to further their own and each other’s learning, growth, transformation, and success.

Uncle TukTuk. April 29, 2022