Heidegger

Keeping Care Alive, part 2: Practices for Working with Being

In everyday language, care is often treated as an emotion. We speak of caring as a feeling we have toward people, causes, or outcomes. Sometimes it is framed morally—as kindness or concern—and other times therapeutically, as empathy or emotional availability.

In Part 1 of this series, I argued that something essential is lost when care is reduced to sentiment. I also distinguished between two different ways of understanding care: psychology and ontology. Psychology interprets experience—explaining feelings, motivations, and patterns of behavior. Ontology, by contrast, discloses the structures that shape how experience is possible in the first place.

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By |2026-06-03T14:31:16-04:00February 17th, 2026|Blog, Mental Models|0 Comments

Care Beyond Emotion, part 1: Toward the Structure of Being

A client once told me they were exhausted because they “cared too much.”

They had tried caring less. They set boundaries, reduced commitments, and even stepped back from a role they loved. Nothing changed. The exhaustion returned, now accompanied by confusion and quiet self-doubt.

What shifted the conversation was not a discussion about balance or priorities but a different kind of listening. I stopped asking what they wanted and began noticing what they were protecting. Again and again, they stepped in when others hesitated. Again and again, they made themselves indispensable at the expense of their own coherence.

It wasn’t a failure of DOWNLOAD PDF

By |2026-06-03T14:31:24-04:00February 2nd, 2026|Blog, Mental Models|0 Comments

Relaxation Arises from Integrity: Cultivating a Spacious Being

The holidays can be confusing. They swing between obligations, unrealistic expectations, and the aspiration to “finally relax.” A great deal of this confusion stems from how we view rest.

We use words such as “relaxation” and “rest” casually, as if they simply mean the absence of busyness. Psychologically, “relaxation” is defined as a state free from tension—a release, an easing, a subtraction. In both cases, “relaxation” is framed negatively: as the removal of something.

An Inquiry into Relaxation

On the first evening of a weeklong retreat, David arrived well after the opening session had begun. He burst through the DOWNLOAD PDF

By |2026-06-03T14:31:32-04:00December 8th, 2025|Blog, Practice|0 Comments
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