A Return to Wholeness
1-Month Initiation
Six months ago, I had an insight that completely transformed my relationship with my wife Gabriella.
She was sharing something really painful and vulnerable, about something I had done in the past that hurt her. It's a conversation she tried having with me many times before, but I was very defensive when she brought it up, and she felt she had to tip-toe around the topic.
As she began to cry and express her pain, I had a moment of awareness. In a split second, I could see me shifting my attention from her pain, to what it meant about me. I began collapsing into shame, and shutting down. I was in the room, but I had disappeared from the conversation.
I heard the stories my mind was making up. "You're a bad person, you don't deserve her, see what you've done? You've hurt her..."
Something inside of me felt called to speak to the part that was shutting down. I said: "We're not going to do that right now."
To my surprise, the shame, the freeze, the collapse, it just released and I came back into presence with her. As if her pain was my pain. Then instead of feeling shame, I felt remorse. I felt bad for hurting her, and I saw that how I behaved was not ok.
That moment completely changed how I show up in my relationship. From that moment onwards, I was able to consciously respond instead of unconsciously reacting. I was able to be present and empathetic, instead of collapsing into shame.
It opened up conversations between us that she wanted to have for years, but couldn't because I was defensive.
It was such a profound realization that I often look back and feel it was a divine intervention. It healed parts of our relationship and repaired things that I didn't even realize needed healing and repair. It brought us closer together, and allowed us to truly be ourselves and be vulnerable with each other without being afraid of how each other would react.
That insight became the relational practice that is now The Reset. It has been the most impactful practice I have discovered in the domain of relationships. It has the power to break the vicious cycle you and your partner stay stuck in that causes so much suffering.
In The Reset, 1-month initiation, I will be sharing it as both a self-regulation practice you can do on your own, and as a relational practice that you can use during conflict.
It will allow you to go from fight, flight, freeze or fawn, back to vulnerability. From protection, to connection.
I will also be teaching a much deeper practice called The Liberation Process, which will allow you to return to a feeling of wholeness and bliss through presence.
Both The Reset and The Liberation Process will allow you to make lasting changes in your reactive behaviours where other methods haven't. They work with the root of the problem, which is an unresolved wound beneath the protective pattern.
The Reset created a safety in my relationship that allowed my wife to fully surrender. From that moment, everything changed.
"If the only thing people learned was not to be afraid of their experience, that alone would change the world."
Sydney Banks
You aren't reactive at your core. Reactiveness is just your protector keeping your wounded child safe.
Your body moves into a survival reflex before your conscious mind can realize. It shows up whenever there is a threat. But it also creates damage in your relationships because its reaction is not calibrated to who is in front of it.
In relationships, your nervous system protects you at all cost from two main threats.
Being rejected, being left, being sent off to your room, not having your emotional needs acknowledged or met by a parent, being dismissed, made unimportant or insignificant.
Being hurt by someone who was supposed to be safe. Being tricked, manipulated, abused, stabbed in the back, cheated on, by someone who claimed to love you.
These are the two primary wounds that get activated when you are triggered. They are what create the attachment wound, and its protective pattern. An anxious attachment's protector moves toward the threat. An avoidant attachment's protector moves away from it.
Read through the four protectors below. Identify the primary and secondary ones that show up when you feel threatened.
You confront the threat head on.
You raise your voice and become aggressive. You posture, or become intimidating. You try to win, you dismantle what the other person says. You defend your position and character. You defend your position, and try to weaken your partner's. You argue, you dominate, you try to get the other person to submit. You try to win, even though there is no prize for winning an argument with your partner.
You try to fix your partner, yourself, or the situation so the threat goes away.
You smooth things over way too soon. You abandon your needs and boundaries for peace. You over-explain, over apologize, and scan the room for what will make the other person happy with you. You are uncomfortable with people being disappointed or upset with you. You become a chameleon and morph into whatever the person in front of you will accept.
You run from the threat, you leave physically, or into your imagination to escape.
Your body shakes with agitation and anxiety in tense conversations. It wants to run away. You find a reason to leave the room, end the call, or change the subject, anything to create distance between you and what's triggering the fear. You escape into fantasy and imagination, have a hard time staying present when there is a difficult conversation.
You shut down, collapse and go numb to minimize the intensity of the threat.
You freeze, go quiet, go blank and don't know what to say. You try to wait out the storm. You make yourself small, invisible, non-existent. You feel helpless, powerless, and you want to say something, but the words don't come out of your mouth.
When the protectors disengage and the body relaxes, you return to vulnerability, openness, authenticity, connection and presence.
And in presence, you are fully yourself.
How do you respond under pressure?
How do you react when you are triggered?
THAT IS THE REAL TEST.
Being able to meditate in a quiet room by yourself.
Regulating your nervous system when you are out for a walk.
Staying calm when everything is going well.
These are crucial first steps to start regulating yourself.
But they aren't training your nervous system for the real thing. They aren't creating more capacity for you to stay calm under pressure and be with the intensity of your relational experiences.
The Reset is a relational practice. It trains your nervous system to stay present under pressure, and during conflict.
It will give you the embodied awareness you need to shift out of unconscious reaction, into conscious response when "shit hits the fan."
"I was able to really get into my body and into the practice, peeling off each layer of protection, each one masquerading as the root, until I finally had the most amazing breakthrough. Getting to the root of a lot of my behaviours. The abandonment wound. Not feeling worthy, not feeling good enough. Being able to do this by myself, alone, and go that deep. This was priceless."
Michael, Cohort 1"Hate, anger, blame, sadness, disgust and sorrow. It was heavy. It was emotionally draining and painful to sit in each emotion that surfaced. And then it happened. It all dissipated and softened. There was a clarity and an understanding about my dad. About what I made it mean about me. The process has begun."
David, Cohort 1"A lot of anger came up, good anger from deep within, in my belly area, anger with life energy in it. A door opened. There was neglect, and I had built an identity above it. I didn't know this part was there. Makes sense to me now."
Sarah, Cohort 1All three calls are recorded. You'll have access to the recordings and the group container, so missing a live call will not reduce the impact of the process.
No. The Reset is a complete process. If you have done prior healing work, coaching, or therapy, it will help to bring together the various modalities into one, integrated approach. If you haven't, it will allow you to begin with a fully self-contained practice.
Both. If you want to participate with your partner together, we have a special rate for couples. Regarding The Reset, it's a relational practice, that can also be done on your own. By relational practice, we mean something that you do with another person. So even if you are not in a relationship, this can work with your friends, your clients, your colleagues, and so on.
You continue the practice, and join the alumni community via our WhatsApp group. The practice will continue to deepen the more you do it. This is a mastery path, there are deeper levels of embodiment that eventually allow this practice to become a part of your life. Instead of laying down to do the meditation, you notice that it happens naturally during your daily interactions.
Three live 90-minute calls where I walk you through the practice directly, plus a group space between calls for questions, support, and integration as you start using it in real situations.
1-Month Initiation
Joining with your partner?
Register as a Couple — €900Questions? support@devotionallove.com
This is where you remember.