In this episode
All January long here at the Yes Collective we’re working on new beginnings, fresh starts, and new year renewals. For us this means setting aside time to step back and think about what do we really want to focus on? What do we really want to commit to? Spend our time on? In considering these questions, I thought about Chris Gray, authentic relating trainer, coach, and conscious leadership consultant. Chris has many perspectives on new beginnings. He worked in silicon valley at one of the biggest names in tech and then left it all to start fresh as an authentic relationship trainer and coach. And today he helps companies make fresh starts as emotionally healthy workplaces. Today we dig in to Chris’s story, how he made his fresh starts, and how he helps companies and people around the world slow down and rethink how they relate to each other and themselves.
If you care about making a real, authentic fresh start then you're going to love this episode with the amazing and insightful Christopher Gray.
Yes Collective is co-hosted by Justin Wilford, PhD and Jenny Walters, LMFT.
Justin Wilford, PhD, is a co-founder of Yes Collective, an educator, a writer, and an emotional health coach. He earned doctorates from UCLA (cultural geography) and UC Irvine (public health), and specializes in translating complex, scientific ideas into actionable programs for mental and emotional health.
Jenny Walters, LMFT, is a licensed marriage family therapist and senior expert contributor to the Yes Collective. She is a graduate of the Pacifica Graduate Institute and is the founder and director of Highland Park Holistic Psychotherapy in Los Angeles, California.
Listen here
Listen on Apple Podcasts
Listen on Google Podcasts
Listen on Spotify
About our guest
Christopher Gray is an authentic relating trainer, coach, and conscious leadership consultant. He worked at one of the biggest names in Silicon Valley before walking away and making a completely fresh start to focus on the ideas and practices behind building deep and authentic relationships.
Show Notes
Christopher's personal website is here.
ART International, the organization for which Chris is a senior trainer, is here.
Transcript Highlights
JUSTIN
In the spirit of authentic relating. I just want to reveal for the listeners our or my experience of what just happened. So we were we are 10 minutes late rolling into this and we had multiple technical glitches. And throughout this, though, I got to share with Chris some of the parts inside of me that were activated and are still a little activated.
But that's what's happening for me. So let's just go around and just see how everybody's doing today. Jenny, I'll go with you next. What's it like for you?
JENNY
I'm just grateful that I genuinely feel compelled to laugh at the repeated technical issues that I have the last the last like three podcast recordings. And I'm just glad to be at a place in my life where I can laugh.
And I also it makes me grateful for you. Justin, because I have a colleague who I am not scared I'm going to, you know, the the young part of me growing up, you know, it's like freedom and get criticized and judged and in trouble. And it's like, she's not here right now or she's not activated because I know that you're a safe person and those things going wrong and mistakes that.
So I'm actually having a great time, even though everything went wrong. So and I'm I'm glad to meet Chris, too. So Chris, what's up now?
CHRIS
It seems like it's been going right. Me? Yeah. You know, before I joined, I had a little bit of nerves. It's a strange, unfamiliar setup for me. This experience. And so because of these technical glitches, I just noticed myself relaxing.
It was a soft entry into the experience and really getting to feel both of your, you know, humanity expressed in the reactions. It feels like we're in a warm hot tub now. So yeah, I think it could have gone better.
JENNY
Really? Yeah. Oh, so Mercury is not in retrograde. This was meant to be.
JUSTIN
Oh, beautiful. Oh, my gosh. We have so much to dig in to today with Christopher Gray. But before we begin, I do want to just touch on something that I think will need a little definition for the audience, because we are going to discuss authentic relating.
Eventually, after this, we're going to get into Chris's journey and we're going to talk about fresh starts and new beginnings. Oh, but Chris, could you just give us your like, elevator pitch definition of authentic relating because it's going to come up in all It actually already has come up.
CHRIS
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for asking. I think of it as two things. One is a type of relational meditation, so even now I'm slowing down to tap into what is it like for me to be with the two of you. So there's a kind of meditative quality to it. And then the other way I think of it is daring to reveal what it's like for me to be with both of you in this moment while being open to receiving from you what it's like for you to be with me.
And that's probably the simplest way I could describe it. I think connection tends to be encouraged if I'm more welcoming and less rejecting of what's here, and if I notice that I'm rejecting what's here, if I'm welcoming it like, Oh, well, I'm really rejecting this tends to open up connection. If I let you know what's happening in me, there's more of me to connect with.
I'm more connectable. And if I think I know something about you, I question my assumption and get curious about it. I can relieve myself of the burden of thinking I know anything and discover what's really happening. So there's some fundamental practices to being with someone in the present moment and really welcoming what we discover in service of greater connection and in service of greater expression and inclusion of more of us than we might normally reveal.
So let me pause there. I'm curious, what is it like to hear this?
JENNY
Well, I found myself sort of having a co regulating moment. I just find myself slowing down as well. And also you're very small on my little phone screen, so I'm like trying to see you and and hear your voice and just it just felt like an invitation to just really listen and be present.
So I can completely feel the, the energy of the meditative aspect that you're talking about. Yeah.
JUSTIN
And Chris, having known you from one authentic relating training series that oh no, actually a few I know that it that well, at least for me what you're talking about when I when I when I hear you share that I feel inside a big yes, a big opening.
And then what comes next is I don't know how to do that. I feel like I've I've got I've got parts, I've got stuff coming in. I'm like racing. And then I relax back and it's like, well, I've I've learned a little bit about how to do this because like Chris has taught me and some of the, the I've taken actually it up like I think I've taken about four or five authentic relating training courses.
And so but I'm just having a recognition of how much this is a skill. Like this is not something that I was well, maybe I was born with the I mean, I, of course, was born with the capacity to do it because I can do it. But I certainly did not grow up in a social environment that encouraged this and in fact, I grew up in a social environment that pushed me in the opposite direction.
So I'm so that's that's all that's all that's happening for me right now.
CHRIS
Yeah. I'm feeling a lot of love for this, this part that I hear that's like, But how do I do this? How do I do this part? And I'm imagining that I might be operating from time to time and yeah, like I'm really kind of want to hug that.
But how do you do this part? I like the impact on me is more warmth.
JUSTIN
Yeah. So I have another part coming in here that well, I have a part that I expressed earlier that wants to do things right, that wants a gold star, that wants to get 100% on the test. And so this part is also the part that organizes the podcast and writes the questions.
And so I want to honor this part by bringing in this idea of how or the question of how this meditation of social, the social meditative practice can or is connected to emotional health or is itself an emotional health practice. So I can imagine on first glance, it sounds very calming. It sounds very soothing. So there's there's this grounding, regulating aspect.
But I'm wondering if there's more there around just mental and emotional health that that that when we can really learn these skills and put them into action that there's even more work going on here.
CHRIS
Well, I could tell you growing up I was allowed to have one emotion and that emotion was happy. So as long as I was happy, then everything was cool. So I got happy really quick and I stayed happy until I was 25. Happy, happy, happy, happy. Through gritted teeth. Happy. And then I started to get into some work and get some help and started to discover that I was a lot of things, but I never really had the experience of I was so afraid to express the whole rainbow of emotions because I was convinced that the other person would leave.
So I was living in this really narrow band of emotion out of fear of abandonment or being rejected. So the first time I did any authentic relating, it was this type of practice where a group of people get in a circle and there's a kind of a leader with the questions like, like you're doing. Justin and everybody focuses on one person and just gives them their present and is curious about what's happening.
No fixing, changing coaching therapies, adjusting, improving, just being with. So when they experienced this, I was actually at an Enneagram conference and for some reason they had this mixed in. I didn't know it seemed like an anomaly, so I was the one getting the attention. I volunteered to get the attention. So everything got a little still and the person said, Well, what's it like to be you sitting here with us?
And I said, I'm cranky and I don't want to get to know any of you. And they said, Oh yeah, what's it like to be cranky with us? Nobody turned away. They may have even smiled more like you're doing. And I think for me it was the first time I felt like I was allowed to be how I actually was.
And so when I when I remember this experience, I can feel the emotion of that moment, especially if it was anger, cranky, displeased, unhappy. Anything in that spectrum. So I never did much of anything that, to be honest with you, I went directly into this thing and I didn't stop. And I was probably about eight years ago now.
And, you know, I've been in therapy and I've been in recovery 12 step recovery. But that was a profound experience to me. So answer your question about emotional health. I think what's healthy about it for me is it's a way for me to be with everything that's here, to have the experience and to stay with it when I myself.
So it's not different, so much different than IFRS in that way. A matter of fact, I would consider IFS internal authentic relating.
Chris
And the practice of it is now just external. So I can get together with people and we can do this specific practice. I can be this way with a person at the checkout stand. Does it really require anything from anyone else? But it sure is nice to sometimes have experiences of people who are also, you know, up on the, you know, the practices.
Jenny
Yeah. I have a question, Chris, about your experience with them. Thank you for sharing that profound shift. I'm wondering what part of it being a group of people and a group that were not therapists, do you think played into that being kind of a transformational moment of really being heard, if at if at all?
Chris
I think that's a really astute question. I appreciate that question. Jenny. Sure. Yeah, I think I think my expectation is that in a therapy session, that's what happens. I mean, if the therapist said get happy, I mean, there might be like, you know, confrontational therapy methods that do that. But I would be very surprised. But yeah, I think the context was normal.
Everyday people in a circle having agreed to practice really two things welcoming what's here and assuming nothing, that's it. And that's pushing back on someone who wasn't paid to be with me as I push back. That had a different quality.
Jenny
Yeah, I could imagine there's a there's a power dynamic in therapy that we try to speak to, but, but also an expectation, a role, a persona, you know, those kinds of things that I could imagine sort of are counter to authentic relating in some ways now that they can't be named and worked through therapeutically. But as you describe that moment, I can just imagine the power of being with people like you said, that aren't paid to mirror and reflect, you know, that aren't paid to that isn't part of their training and they're just in their humanity and that their humanity is in this and it becomes this very reparative experience.
So that's really that's really cool.
Chris
Yeah. And and sometimes it's not all like features and love. Sometimes the person will say like, wow, hearing that, I'm starting to feel disgust and I'm I'm curious about why this is coming up in me, this strong reaction. What's it like to you for you to hear me say this? So there's a way to share the truth about my experience that might not be lovey dovey.
It could be, right. Wow. I'm really constricting. I'm getting I had a flash of anger when I heard that. I notice I'm angry and what I can kind of hold it up. Like I notice I'm angry. Like, let's look at the anger together. What's it like for you to hear me say this? So it's it invites everything.
Jenny
Well, it sounds like that invites not to get to like, speak, but it invites differentiation, right. Where we can be difference and but yet we can still be connected, which is such a such a such an uncomfortable thing when you've not had any modeling or teaching of that. It's so uncomfortable, but it is so liberatory and so liberating.
You actually get to feel it of like, Oh, this person's feeling disgust and I am okay and I feel differently and we can still be here with each other. So it seems like such a wonderful invitation for that to get to experiment with that and have a lived experience together.
Chris
Yeah, Yeah. It is. I get excited when you say that. I would almost say that there is no connection without differentiation. Without the differentiation. It's not connection, it's enmeshment or something. It's like even, you know, like when people do ballroom dancing, they come together. But if the person who's following isn't pushing back a little bit, the there's no dance.
And if they push back too much, it goes this way. So each person has to push a little bit and have a boundary for contact to occur. So it's like, that's what I love about it. The more my uniqueness is expressed, the more contactable I get. It's almost like the more connection possible. More of me, more of you, more of us.
Justin
Yeah. This is this makes this so well with your statement about ifs internal family systems being an internal form of authentic relating. Because in internal family systems, Papa's work, which we've talked about on the podcast and will talk about again there is this phenomenon of blending. We can be blended with parts and then we're not in connection with these parts.
It's just the, as you said, some enmeshment. There's something else, but it's not connection. And we can feel inside when when we get that space that differentiation, and then we make connection with a part and it has a totally different quality. And and that's a hallmark of emotional health, at least for me.
CHRIS
Yeah. I mean, we could talk about IFRS for quite a while and I see it so similar, like, okay, here's an angry part. I can turn and look at it. How do I feel towards this part? Any version of loving, curious, you know, it's being with welcoming what is getting curious what's it like for you angry part the angry parts like I'm pissed at you.
I'm angry at you. That's yeah, that makes sense. Makes sense.
Justin
And then this leads to one question that came up, actually, and I'm sorry, I just had this flash in my days in academia at academic conferences. It was the worst thing for somebody to come up to the microphone after your talk and say, this is more of a comment and a question, but when you talk. So what struck me is this pivotal moment you express that you're cranky and this was, you know, leads to eight years of this deep, authentic relating work where you are opening consistently to opening space inside to feel whatever's here and then express this as well.
And you talked about, you know, you grew up in a context where was only okay to feel one thing. And what I was hearing there, and this is an assumption, is that because you were forced to feel that one thing you didn't even really feel, it's not that you really felt happy that it wasn't it was something different than than like real, real happiness.
I guess where I'm going with this is that as you have been able to open up and feel the the the more challenging, more difficult, more unacceptable emotions that on the other hand, have you experienced that there's been this whole range of these emotions that might sometimes be categorized as happy, this kind of more joy, more connection?
CHRIS
I think you're right. I wasn't happy. I was scared with a fake smile on my face. But I didn't know what I was in fear. And so, yeah, I mean, it makes sense. I'd like to make it. It seems like it should be linear. I'm not sure that it is, but I don't know. When we got on the call and there was all that technical difficulty, I was filled with like a warm joy.
I wouldn't call happy, but it was this internal like, I don't know, tender love, joy ish sort of thing that just occurred. So like subtleties like that and more and more of that's available to me more and more of the mix between different emotions. Like what's the mix like, You know, more like things coexisting at the same time, loss and excitement and more range, More capacity, more.
Justin
Range, Yes. Yeah, that has that has been my experience. Yeah. That like we we can't just shut down some emotions that we end up shutting them all down and then as we open up then yeah, we get that range and I think authentic relating is such a powerful set of tools and skills for opening up that range. And so we're going to talk more about this, but I want to hear so the theme of this month in the Collective is new beginnings, fresh starts renewals, and I know a little bit about your story.
And so I thought, Oh, this is just a great excuse just to have Chris on the show. And I would love to hear about your fresh I mean, we already heard about like about a really important one at this Enneagram workshop, but I would love to hear about your move out of working for one of the biggest tech names in Silicon Valley and then moving into this new space of being an authentic relationship trainer, a coach, a consultant.
What How did this journey begin? What is it like.
CHRIS
Just checking in on Jenny? How are you doing?
JENNY
Jenny I'm just engrossed. I was excited for this question. I love I'm excited to hear your story.
CHRIS
Okay. Yeah. I wanted to make sure I heard your voice in here.
Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I think for me, I would say in my adolescence and teens, I look back at it as a brutal time just full of fear and self-hatred. This is what I'm remembering back to that time. And then for me, like the first made your transition, it's probably in my later teens. And I started I had I started drinking kind of drinking alcohol.
And for me, that was the best thing that ever happened at 16. And that transition was like from a scared hating person to like some sort of like social, you know, this is what it was in my head, probably not to the people around me, social liberated, uninhibited. And that was like this big liberation. And I never forget it.
And you know, over time it became more of a jail than a liberation, you know? But in the beginning, that was like a first major transition. And then in my twenties, when that didn't work anymore and I know I stopped that, you know, I was 26 and it was I was I had no idea how to function in the world and like, how to get along at all.
I mean, it was just raw. So a lot of my adult life has been kind of learning again, like a new from my mid twenties. What's it like to walk around the block grocery store, connect with people, show up in a work environment, have a relationship, be physically intimate. And so this has been a big driver for me underneath everything.
And that is like more exposure to what's really happening on me and a desire to suffer less and give more. And coming out of where I came out of, I was like, I came out of a family where I would say that it was kind of like preordained, that we would be failures. So when I started working, I was like, I was so committed to being a success in the corporate world.
I absolutely committed and I worked like crazy till I was about 32 and I got to the level in the organization. Then that looked like a success. It was like my benchmark for success. I proved it. I proved I could do it to my dad, really, you know, and then I realized, Oh my God, like, I don't want to be my boss.
Like, I was kind of done, you know, at 32. And so I left. And I think for me, what ensued since then is still the case, is that I like to try new things. I like to always be learning to be in environments where I feel like I have some fluidity and being creative and I don't really want to do anything that I already know how to do.
So, you know, I'm in my fifties now and for the for most of those years I did consulting and then other things consulting and other things work really hard and then have some sort of experience somewhere else. And that really worked well for me. And then, you know, in the recent history, probably around 2010, I joined a tech startup.
I mean, my careers in tech and I loved this small company was great for years. Did that after that got recruited by Facebook. At the time I was like, Whoa. Like, I feel like I can't say no to work at Facebook. You know, this is amazing. And I took the job and it was really like it wasn't a good fit for me for a lot of reasons.
I'm a little hesitant to share many details about that in this format, but I'll say that the environment wasn't good for my nervous system. Some people thrived, so it was more of a bad match and I attempted to resign after six months. I knew it, but you can file this under. I already knew it. Why did I stay there?
Bucket and I kind of like myself get convinced to stay. And I did for two years. And at the end of it, I was just limping along. You could probably hit me with a baseball bat, and I wouldn't feel it. It just was a bad, bad thing for me. And then I left and I really spent four years just kind of recovering from that.
And during that time I got really into authentic relating and really into coaching. I got certified in a certain coaching discipline over those years, and it was a period of just like, I don't know, healing or kind of bruised and I'm really not putting this on any particular company. It's like I, you know, I kept myself in a situation I shouldn't have, just an authentic relating.
It was a great time for that and I loved it. My career was in product management, which if you don't know what that is, it's like a tech typical tech job, sort of figuring out what people want. And then, you know, after about four years, I got a call from a friend who I used to work with and said, Hey, I took over the People Development Department, the Leadership Development Department for this company.
Do you want to come and work with us? And I said, Yeah, that sounds good. I really like the person. I trusted the person and I wanted to do more of what we're talking about here in the work environment because I've suffered so much largely self-inflicted suffering, but it has been an environment of suffering for me. So I went back and now I'm working in the people development function and I'm like a technical person, a product person.
So it's been a big transition coming into this and I couldn't be more engaged because everywhere I look in the company, there are humans and all the humans are under pressure. Humans pressure equals interesting to me and that's kind of where I am. So that was a bit part. A little bit.
Jenny
No, thank you for sharing and I love hearing about circuitous life pacts because I think it's really normalizing for those of us that have circuitous life. That's, you know, it's it's very easy in this world and culture. I think it's the I'm hoping is becoming more easy sorry less active but it's this pressure to have one thing and have a straight line to it and for a lot of us, that's just not in the cards or in the stars or in our heart or in our spirit.
And so I really appreciate you sharing that. My question, I'm just curious how this shows up, how how in a work environment in the corporate world, how do you do this? How do you bring this in and and facilitated invite people? What does it look like? What what's it sound like?
Chris
Yeah, it is. I think it's a challenge. I've done this work one on one. I've done it through public courses, I've done it in prisons, I've done it with people who just got out of prison. And the corporate world is, I would say is might be the toughest one in my estimation. And I believe it's because the stakes are so high, the perceived stakes are so high, and there's so much pressure and historic.
It's not an environment where you come I would say it's not a context where you come in and would expect to be like, we've been being together perhaps you can generalize it. So it's a big contextual shift. The way I work with it are couple of things do the best I can to be with each person I'm connecting with in the hallway, just in the life with presence.
Sometimes I'm able to do, sometimes I'm not. So be the stuff where the other is to meet people, where they at, where they're at. I like, I make mistakes all the time. I just try to iterate. And one mistake is I've been so used to facilitating in this way that when I started I would facilitate and just like, like in this deep present place, which is, you know, it's such a shock to the system.
So I've gotten much better at, which is such a core part of coaching discipline and likely therapy as well, seeing meeting people where they are, where they would expect to be in these different settings. And then if I can bring it just a little bit more awareness of what's happening in the present moment, just a little bit more revealed, just a little bit more welcoming then I think a little bit is good.
Justin
Yeah, it's a little yeah, yeah. The steps. And I'm wondering if there is anything that you see now in the corporate world that you didn't notice at all before, before your authentic relating journey. And now that you're back in it, that is just obvious to you that, oh, like here, here is this thing I never saw before, but now I see it.
Chris
You know, the environment stays. In my experience, it's like some companies I work at a company now that is more open to this sort of thing culturally. So this is nice. It's like getting ahead a bit, but I see less difference in the environment. Actually, the biggest difference is seeing how much I'm participating and generating my consistent misery and seeing how much it's me that is not creating an opening for the connection that I'd rather have so much more awareness of my participation in the dynamics, the dynamics of the dynamics.
In this episode
All January long here at the Yes Collective we’re working on new beginnings, fresh starts, and new year renewals. For us this means setting aside time to step back and think about what do we really want to focus on? What do we really want to commit to? Spend our time on? In considering these questions, I thought about Chris Gray, authentic relating trainer, coach, and conscious leadership consultant. Chris has many perspectives on new beginnings. He worked in silicon valley at one of the biggest names in tech and then left it all to start fresh as an authentic relationship trainer and coach. And today he helps companies make fresh starts as emotionally healthy workplaces. Today we dig in to Chris’s story, how he made his fresh starts, and how he helps companies and people around the world slow down and rethink how they relate to each other and themselves.
If you care about making a real, authentic fresh start then you're going to love this episode with the amazing and insightful Christopher Gray.
Yes Collective is co-hosted by Justin Wilford, PhD and Jenny Walters, LMFT.
Justin Wilford, PhD, is a co-founder of Yes Collective, an educator, a writer, and an emotional health coach. He earned doctorates from UCLA (cultural geography) and UC Irvine (public health), and specializes in translating complex, scientific ideas into actionable programs for mental and emotional health.
Jenny Walters, LMFT, is a licensed marriage family therapist and senior expert contributor to the Yes Collective. She is a graduate of the Pacifica Graduate Institute and is the founder and director of Highland Park Holistic Psychotherapy in Los Angeles, California.
Listen here
Listen on Apple Podcasts
Listen on Google Podcasts
Listen on Spotify
About our guest
Christopher Gray is an authentic relating trainer, coach, and conscious leadership consultant. He worked at one of the biggest names in Silicon Valley before walking away and making a completely fresh start to focus on the ideas and practices behind building deep and authentic relationships.
Show Notes
Christopher's personal website is here.
ART International, the organization for which Chris is a senior trainer, is here.
Transcript Highlights
JUSTIN
In the spirit of authentic relating. I just want to reveal for the listeners our or my experience of what just happened. So we were we are 10 minutes late rolling into this and we had multiple technical glitches. And throughout this, though, I got to share with Chris some of the parts inside of me that were activated and are still a little activated.
But that's what's happening for me. So let's just go around and just see how everybody's doing today. Jenny, I'll go with you next. What's it like for you?
JENNY
I'm just grateful that I genuinely feel compelled to laugh at the repeated technical issues that I have the last the last like three podcast recordings. And I'm just glad to be at a place in my life where I can laugh.
And I also it makes me grateful for you. Justin, because I have a colleague who I am not scared I'm going to, you know, the the young part of me growing up, you know, it's like freedom and get criticized and judged and in trouble. And it's like, she's not here right now or she's not activated because I know that you're a safe person and those things going wrong and mistakes that.
So I'm actually having a great time, even though everything went wrong. So and I'm I'm glad to meet Chris, too. So Chris, what's up now?
CHRIS
It seems like it's been going right. Me? Yeah. You know, before I joined, I had a little bit of nerves. It's a strange, unfamiliar setup for me. This experience. And so because of these technical glitches, I just noticed myself relaxing.
It was a soft entry into the experience and really getting to feel both of your, you know, humanity expressed in the reactions. It feels like we're in a warm hot tub now. So yeah, I think it could have gone better.
JENNY
Really? Yeah. Oh, so Mercury is not in retrograde. This was meant to be.
JUSTIN
Oh, beautiful. Oh, my gosh. We have so much to dig in to today with Christopher Gray. But before we begin, I do want to just touch on something that I think will need a little definition for the audience, because we are going to discuss authentic relating.
Eventually, after this, we're going to get into Chris's journey and we're going to talk about fresh starts and new beginnings. Oh, but Chris, could you just give us your like, elevator pitch definition of authentic relating because it's going to come up in all It actually already has come up.
CHRIS
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for asking. I think of it as two things. One is a type of relational meditation, so even now I'm slowing down to tap into what is it like for me to be with the two of you. So there's a kind of meditative quality to it. And then the other way I think of it is daring to reveal what it's like for me to be with both of you in this moment while being open to receiving from you what it's like for you to be with me.
And that's probably the simplest way I could describe it. I think connection tends to be encouraged if I'm more welcoming and less rejecting of what's here, and if I notice that I'm rejecting what's here, if I'm welcoming it like, Oh, well, I'm really rejecting this tends to open up connection. If I let you know what's happening in me, there's more of me to connect with.
I'm more connectable. And if I think I know something about you, I question my assumption and get curious about it. I can relieve myself of the burden of thinking I know anything and discover what's really happening. So there's some fundamental practices to being with someone in the present moment and really welcoming what we discover in service of greater connection and in service of greater expression and inclusion of more of us than we might normally reveal.
So let me pause there. I'm curious, what is it like to hear this?
JENNY
Well, I found myself sort of having a co regulating moment. I just find myself slowing down as well. And also you're very small on my little phone screen, so I'm like trying to see you and and hear your voice and just it just felt like an invitation to just really listen and be present.
So I can completely feel the, the energy of the meditative aspect that you're talking about. Yeah.
JUSTIN
And Chris, having known you from one authentic relating training series that oh no, actually a few I know that it that well, at least for me what you're talking about when I when I when I hear you share that I feel inside a big yes, a big opening.
And then what comes next is I don't know how to do that. I feel like I've I've got I've got parts, I've got stuff coming in. I'm like racing. And then I relax back and it's like, well, I've I've learned a little bit about how to do this because like Chris has taught me and some of the, the I've taken actually it up like I think I've taken about four or five authentic relating training courses.
And so but I'm just having a recognition of how much this is a skill. Like this is not something that I was well, maybe I was born with the I mean, I, of course, was born with the capacity to do it because I can do it. But I certainly did not grow up in a social environment that encouraged this and in fact, I grew up in a social environment that pushed me in the opposite direction.
So I'm so that's that's all that's all that's happening for me right now.
CHRIS
Yeah. I'm feeling a lot of love for this, this part that I hear that's like, But how do I do this? How do I do this part? And I'm imagining that I might be operating from time to time and yeah, like I'm really kind of want to hug that.
But how do you do this part? I like the impact on me is more warmth.
JUSTIN
Yeah. So I have another part coming in here that well, I have a part that I expressed earlier that wants to do things right, that wants a gold star, that wants to get 100% on the test. And so this part is also the part that organizes the podcast and writes the questions.
And so I want to honor this part by bringing in this idea of how or the question of how this meditation of social, the social meditative practice can or is connected to emotional health or is itself an emotional health practice. So I can imagine on first glance, it sounds very calming. It sounds very soothing. So there's there's this grounding, regulating aspect.
But I'm wondering if there's more there around just mental and emotional health that that that when we can really learn these skills and put them into action that there's even more work going on here.
CHRIS
Well, I could tell you growing up I was allowed to have one emotion and that emotion was happy. So as long as I was happy, then everything was cool. So I got happy really quick and I stayed happy until I was 25. Happy, happy, happy, happy. Through gritted teeth. Happy. And then I started to get into some work and get some help and started to discover that I was a lot of things, but I never really had the experience of I was so afraid to express the whole rainbow of emotions because I was convinced that the other person would leave.
So I was living in this really narrow band of emotion out of fear of abandonment or being rejected. So the first time I did any authentic relating, it was this type of practice where a group of people get in a circle and there's a kind of a leader with the questions like, like you're doing. Justin and everybody focuses on one person and just gives them their present and is curious about what's happening.
No fixing, changing coaching therapies, adjusting, improving, just being with. So when they experienced this, I was actually at an Enneagram conference and for some reason they had this mixed in. I didn't know it seemed like an anomaly, so I was the one getting the attention. I volunteered to get the attention. So everything got a little still and the person said, Well, what's it like to be you sitting here with us?
And I said, I'm cranky and I don't want to get to know any of you. And they said, Oh yeah, what's it like to be cranky with us? Nobody turned away. They may have even smiled more like you're doing. And I think for me it was the first time I felt like I was allowed to be how I actually was.
And so when I when I remember this experience, I can feel the emotion of that moment, especially if it was anger, cranky, displeased, unhappy. Anything in that spectrum. So I never did much of anything that, to be honest with you, I went directly into this thing and I didn't stop. And I was probably about eight years ago now.
And, you know, I've been in therapy and I've been in recovery 12 step recovery. But that was a profound experience to me. So answer your question about emotional health. I think what's healthy about it for me is it's a way for me to be with everything that's here, to have the experience and to stay with it when I myself.
So it's not different, so much different than IFRS in that way. A matter of fact, I would consider IFS internal authentic relating.
Chris
And the practice of it is now just external. So I can get together with people and we can do this specific practice. I can be this way with a person at the checkout stand. Does it really require anything from anyone else? But it sure is nice to sometimes have experiences of people who are also, you know, up on the, you know, the practices.
Jenny
Yeah. I have a question, Chris, about your experience with them. Thank you for sharing that profound shift. I'm wondering what part of it being a group of people and a group that were not therapists, do you think played into that being kind of a transformational moment of really being heard, if at if at all?
Chris
I think that's a really astute question. I appreciate that question. Jenny. Sure. Yeah, I think I think my expectation is that in a therapy session, that's what happens. I mean, if the therapist said get happy, I mean, there might be like, you know, confrontational therapy methods that do that. But I would be very surprised. But yeah, I think the context was normal.
Everyday people in a circle having agreed to practice really two things welcoming what's here and assuming nothing, that's it. And that's pushing back on someone who wasn't paid to be with me as I push back. That had a different quality.
Jenny
Yeah, I could imagine there's a there's a power dynamic in therapy that we try to speak to, but, but also an expectation, a role, a persona, you know, those kinds of things that I could imagine sort of are counter to authentic relating in some ways now that they can't be named and worked through therapeutically. But as you describe that moment, I can just imagine the power of being with people like you said, that aren't paid to mirror and reflect, you know, that aren't paid to that isn't part of their training and they're just in their humanity and that their humanity is in this and it becomes this very reparative experience.
So that's really that's really cool.
Chris
Yeah. And and sometimes it's not all like features and love. Sometimes the person will say like, wow, hearing that, I'm starting to feel disgust and I'm I'm curious about why this is coming up in me, this strong reaction. What's it like to you for you to hear me say this? So there's a way to share the truth about my experience that might not be lovey dovey.
It could be, right. Wow. I'm really constricting. I'm getting I had a flash of anger when I heard that. I notice I'm angry and what I can kind of hold it up. Like I notice I'm angry. Like, let's look at the anger together. What's it like for you to hear me say this? So it's it invites everything.
Jenny
Well, it sounds like that invites not to get to like, speak, but it invites differentiation, right. Where we can be difference and but yet we can still be connected, which is such a such a such an uncomfortable thing when you've not had any modeling or teaching of that. It's so uncomfortable, but it is so liberatory and so liberating.
You actually get to feel it of like, Oh, this person's feeling disgust and I am okay and I feel differently and we can still be here with each other. So it seems like such a wonderful invitation for that to get to experiment with that and have a lived experience together.
Chris
Yeah, Yeah. It is. I get excited when you say that. I would almost say that there is no connection without differentiation. Without the differentiation. It's not connection, it's enmeshment or something. It's like even, you know, like when people do ballroom dancing, they come together. But if the person who's following isn't pushing back a little bit, the there's no dance.
And if they push back too much, it goes this way. So each person has to push a little bit and have a boundary for contact to occur. So it's like, that's what I love about it. The more my uniqueness is expressed, the more contactable I get. It's almost like the more connection possible. More of me, more of you, more of us.
Justin
Yeah. This is this makes this so well with your statement about ifs internal family systems being an internal form of authentic relating. Because in internal family systems, Papa's work, which we've talked about on the podcast and will talk about again there is this phenomenon of blending. We can be blended with parts and then we're not in connection with these parts.
It's just the, as you said, some enmeshment. There's something else, but it's not connection. And we can feel inside when when we get that space that differentiation, and then we make connection with a part and it has a totally different quality. And and that's a hallmark of emotional health, at least for me.
CHRIS
Yeah. I mean, we could talk about IFRS for quite a while and I see it so similar, like, okay, here's an angry part. I can turn and look at it. How do I feel towards this part? Any version of loving, curious, you know, it's being with welcoming what is getting curious what's it like for you angry part the angry parts like I'm pissed at you.
I'm angry at you. That's yeah, that makes sense. Makes sense.
Justin
And then this leads to one question that came up, actually, and I'm sorry, I just had this flash in my days in academia at academic conferences. It was the worst thing for somebody to come up to the microphone after your talk and say, this is more of a comment and a question, but when you talk. So what struck me is this pivotal moment you express that you're cranky and this was, you know, leads to eight years of this deep, authentic relating work where you are opening consistently to opening space inside to feel whatever's here and then express this as well.
And you talked about, you know, you grew up in a context where was only okay to feel one thing. And what I was hearing there, and this is an assumption, is that because you were forced to feel that one thing you didn't even really feel, it's not that you really felt happy that it wasn't it was something different than than like real, real happiness.
I guess where I'm going with this is that as you have been able to open up and feel the the the more challenging, more difficult, more unacceptable emotions that on the other hand, have you experienced that there's been this whole range of these emotions that might sometimes be categorized as happy, this kind of more joy, more connection?
CHRIS
I think you're right. I wasn't happy. I was scared with a fake smile on my face. But I didn't know what I was in fear. And so, yeah, I mean, it makes sense. I'd like to make it. It seems like it should be linear. I'm not sure that it is, but I don't know. When we got on the call and there was all that technical difficulty, I was filled with like a warm joy.
I wouldn't call happy, but it was this internal like, I don't know, tender love, joy ish sort of thing that just occurred. So like subtleties like that and more and more of that's available to me more and more of the mix between different emotions. Like what's the mix like, You know, more like things coexisting at the same time, loss and excitement and more range, More capacity, more.
Justin
Range, Yes. Yeah, that has that has been my experience. Yeah. That like we we can't just shut down some emotions that we end up shutting them all down and then as we open up then yeah, we get that range and I think authentic relating is such a powerful set of tools and skills for opening up that range. And so we're going to talk more about this, but I want to hear so the theme of this month in the Collective is new beginnings, fresh starts renewals, and I know a little bit about your story.
And so I thought, Oh, this is just a great excuse just to have Chris on the show. And I would love to hear about your fresh I mean, we already heard about like about a really important one at this Enneagram workshop, but I would love to hear about your move out of working for one of the biggest tech names in Silicon Valley and then moving into this new space of being an authentic relationship trainer, a coach, a consultant.
What How did this journey begin? What is it like.
CHRIS
Just checking in on Jenny? How are you doing?
JENNY
Jenny I'm just engrossed. I was excited for this question. I love I'm excited to hear your story.
CHRIS
Okay. Yeah. I wanted to make sure I heard your voice in here.
Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I think for me, I would say in my adolescence and teens, I look back at it as a brutal time just full of fear and self-hatred. This is what I'm remembering back to that time. And then for me, like the first made your transition, it's probably in my later teens. And I started I had I started drinking kind of drinking alcohol.
And for me, that was the best thing that ever happened at 16. And that transition was like from a scared hating person to like some sort of like social, you know, this is what it was in my head, probably not to the people around me, social liberated, uninhibited. And that was like this big liberation. And I never forget it.
And you know, over time it became more of a jail than a liberation, you know? But in the beginning, that was like a first major transition. And then in my twenties, when that didn't work anymore and I know I stopped that, you know, I was 26 and it was I was I had no idea how to function in the world and like, how to get along at all.
I mean, it was just raw. So a lot of my adult life has been kind of learning again, like a new from my mid twenties. What's it like to walk around the block grocery store, connect with people, show up in a work environment, have a relationship, be physically intimate. And so this has been a big driver for me underneath everything.
And that is like more exposure to what's really happening on me and a desire to suffer less and give more. And coming out of where I came out of, I was like, I came out of a family where I would say that it was kind of like preordained, that we would be failures. So when I started working, I was like, I was so committed to being a success in the corporate world.
I absolutely committed and I worked like crazy till I was about 32 and I got to the level in the organization. Then that looked like a success. It was like my benchmark for success. I proved it. I proved I could do it to my dad, really, you know, and then I realized, Oh my God, like, I don't want to be my boss.
Like, I was kind of done, you know, at 32. And so I left. And I think for me, what ensued since then is still the case, is that I like to try new things. I like to always be learning to be in environments where I feel like I have some fluidity and being creative and I don't really want to do anything that I already know how to do.
So, you know, I'm in my fifties now and for the for most of those years I did consulting and then other things consulting and other things work really hard and then have some sort of experience somewhere else. And that really worked well for me. And then, you know, in the recent history, probably around 2010, I joined a tech startup.
I mean, my careers in tech and I loved this small company was great for years. Did that after that got recruited by Facebook. At the time I was like, Whoa. Like, I feel like I can't say no to work at Facebook. You know, this is amazing. And I took the job and it was really like it wasn't a good fit for me for a lot of reasons.
I'm a little hesitant to share many details about that in this format, but I'll say that the environment wasn't good for my nervous system. Some people thrived, so it was more of a bad match and I attempted to resign after six months. I knew it, but you can file this under. I already knew it. Why did I stay there?
Bucket and I kind of like myself get convinced to stay. And I did for two years. And at the end of it, I was just limping along. You could probably hit me with a baseball bat, and I wouldn't feel it. It just was a bad, bad thing for me. And then I left and I really spent four years just kind of recovering from that.
And during that time I got really into authentic relating and really into coaching. I got certified in a certain coaching discipline over those years, and it was a period of just like, I don't know, healing or kind of bruised and I'm really not putting this on any particular company. It's like I, you know, I kept myself in a situation I shouldn't have, just an authentic relating.
It was a great time for that and I loved it. My career was in product management, which if you don't know what that is, it's like a tech typical tech job, sort of figuring out what people want. And then, you know, after about four years, I got a call from a friend who I used to work with and said, Hey, I took over the People Development Department, the Leadership Development Department for this company.
Do you want to come and work with us? And I said, Yeah, that sounds good. I really like the person. I trusted the person and I wanted to do more of what we're talking about here in the work environment because I've suffered so much largely self-inflicted suffering, but it has been an environment of suffering for me. So I went back and now I'm working in the people development function and I'm like a technical person, a product person.
So it's been a big transition coming into this and I couldn't be more engaged because everywhere I look in the company, there are humans and all the humans are under pressure. Humans pressure equals interesting to me and that's kind of where I am. So that was a bit part. A little bit.
Jenny
No, thank you for sharing and I love hearing about circuitous life pacts because I think it's really normalizing for those of us that have circuitous life. That's, you know, it's it's very easy in this world and culture. I think it's the I'm hoping is becoming more easy sorry less active but it's this pressure to have one thing and have a straight line to it and for a lot of us, that's just not in the cards or in the stars or in our heart or in our spirit.
And so I really appreciate you sharing that. My question, I'm just curious how this shows up, how how in a work environment in the corporate world, how do you do this? How do you bring this in and and facilitated invite people? What does it look like? What what's it sound like?
Chris
Yeah, it is. I think it's a challenge. I've done this work one on one. I've done it through public courses, I've done it in prisons, I've done it with people who just got out of prison. And the corporate world is, I would say is might be the toughest one in my estimation. And I believe it's because the stakes are so high, the perceived stakes are so high, and there's so much pressure and historic.
It's not an environment where you come I would say it's not a context where you come in and would expect to be like, we've been being together perhaps you can generalize it. So it's a big contextual shift. The way I work with it are couple of things do the best I can to be with each person I'm connecting with in the hallway, just in the life with presence.
Sometimes I'm able to do, sometimes I'm not. So be the stuff where the other is to meet people, where they at, where they're at. I like, I make mistakes all the time. I just try to iterate. And one mistake is I've been so used to facilitating in this way that when I started I would facilitate and just like, like in this deep present place, which is, you know, it's such a shock to the system.
So I've gotten much better at, which is such a core part of coaching discipline and likely therapy as well, seeing meeting people where they are, where they would expect to be in these different settings. And then if I can bring it just a little bit more awareness of what's happening in the present moment, just a little bit more revealed, just a little bit more welcoming then I think a little bit is good.
Justin
Yeah, it's a little yeah, yeah. The steps. And I'm wondering if there is anything that you see now in the corporate world that you didn't notice at all before, before your authentic relating journey. And now that you're back in it, that is just obvious to you that, oh, like here, here is this thing I never saw before, but now I see it.
Chris
You know, the environment stays. In my experience, it's like some companies I work at a company now that is more open to this sort of thing culturally. So this is nice. It's like getting ahead a bit, but I see less difference in the environment. Actually, the biggest difference is seeing how much I'm participating and generating my consistent misery and seeing how much it's me that is not creating an opening for the connection that I'd rather have so much more awareness of my participation in the dynamics, the dynamics of the dynamics.
In this episode
All January long here at the Yes Collective we’re working on new beginnings, fresh starts, and new year renewals. For us this means setting aside time to step back and think about what do we really want to focus on? What do we really want to commit to? Spend our time on? In considering these questions, I thought about Chris Gray, authentic relating trainer, coach, and conscious leadership consultant. Chris has many perspectives on new beginnings. He worked in silicon valley at one of the biggest names in tech and then left it all to start fresh as an authentic relationship trainer and coach. And today he helps companies make fresh starts as emotionally healthy workplaces. Today we dig in to Chris’s story, how he made his fresh starts, and how he helps companies and people around the world slow down and rethink how they relate to each other and themselves.
If you care about making a real, authentic fresh start then you're going to love this episode with the amazing and insightful Christopher Gray.
Yes Collective is co-hosted by Justin Wilford, PhD and Jenny Walters, LMFT.
Justin Wilford, PhD, is a co-founder of Yes Collective, an educator, a writer, and an emotional health coach. He earned doctorates from UCLA (cultural geography) and UC Irvine (public health), and specializes in translating complex, scientific ideas into actionable programs for mental and emotional health.
Jenny Walters, LMFT, is a licensed marriage family therapist and senior expert contributor to the Yes Collective. She is a graduate of the Pacifica Graduate Institute and is the founder and director of Highland Park Holistic Psychotherapy in Los Angeles, California.
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About our guest
Christopher Gray is an authentic relating trainer, coach, and conscious leadership consultant. He worked at one of the biggest names in Silicon Valley before walking away and making a completely fresh start to focus on the ideas and practices behind building deep and authentic relationships.
Show Notes
Christopher's personal website is here.
ART International, the organization for which Chris is a senior trainer, is here.
Transcript Highlights
JUSTIN
In the spirit of authentic relating. I just want to reveal for the listeners our or my experience of what just happened. So we were we are 10 minutes late rolling into this and we had multiple technical glitches. And throughout this, though, I got to share with Chris some of the parts inside of me that were activated and are still a little activated.
But that's what's happening for me. So let's just go around and just see how everybody's doing today. Jenny, I'll go with you next. What's it like for you?
JENNY
I'm just grateful that I genuinely feel compelled to laugh at the repeated technical issues that I have the last the last like three podcast recordings. And I'm just glad to be at a place in my life where I can laugh.
And I also it makes me grateful for you. Justin, because I have a colleague who I am not scared I'm going to, you know, the the young part of me growing up, you know, it's like freedom and get criticized and judged and in trouble. And it's like, she's not here right now or she's not activated because I know that you're a safe person and those things going wrong and mistakes that.
So I'm actually having a great time, even though everything went wrong. So and I'm I'm glad to meet Chris, too. So Chris, what's up now?
CHRIS
It seems like it's been going right. Me? Yeah. You know, before I joined, I had a little bit of nerves. It's a strange, unfamiliar setup for me. This experience. And so because of these technical glitches, I just noticed myself relaxing.
It was a soft entry into the experience and really getting to feel both of your, you know, humanity expressed in the reactions. It feels like we're in a warm hot tub now. So yeah, I think it could have gone better.
JENNY
Really? Yeah. Oh, so Mercury is not in retrograde. This was meant to be.
JUSTIN
Oh, beautiful. Oh, my gosh. We have so much to dig in to today with Christopher Gray. But before we begin, I do want to just touch on something that I think will need a little definition for the audience, because we are going to discuss authentic relating.
Eventually, after this, we're going to get into Chris's journey and we're going to talk about fresh starts and new beginnings. Oh, but Chris, could you just give us your like, elevator pitch definition of authentic relating because it's going to come up in all It actually already has come up.
CHRIS
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for asking. I think of it as two things. One is a type of relational meditation, so even now I'm slowing down to tap into what is it like for me to be with the two of you. So there's a kind of meditative quality to it. And then the other way I think of it is daring to reveal what it's like for me to be with both of you in this moment while being open to receiving from you what it's like for you to be with me.
And that's probably the simplest way I could describe it. I think connection tends to be encouraged if I'm more welcoming and less rejecting of what's here, and if I notice that I'm rejecting what's here, if I'm welcoming it like, Oh, well, I'm really rejecting this tends to open up connection. If I let you know what's happening in me, there's more of me to connect with.
I'm more connectable. And if I think I know something about you, I question my assumption and get curious about it. I can relieve myself of the burden of thinking I know anything and discover what's really happening. So there's some fundamental practices to being with someone in the present moment and really welcoming what we discover in service of greater connection and in service of greater expression and inclusion of more of us than we might normally reveal.
So let me pause there. I'm curious, what is it like to hear this?
JENNY
Well, I found myself sort of having a co regulating moment. I just find myself slowing down as well. And also you're very small on my little phone screen, so I'm like trying to see you and and hear your voice and just it just felt like an invitation to just really listen and be present.
So I can completely feel the, the energy of the meditative aspect that you're talking about. Yeah.
JUSTIN
And Chris, having known you from one authentic relating training series that oh no, actually a few I know that it that well, at least for me what you're talking about when I when I when I hear you share that I feel inside a big yes, a big opening.
And then what comes next is I don't know how to do that. I feel like I've I've got I've got parts, I've got stuff coming in. I'm like racing. And then I relax back and it's like, well, I've I've learned a little bit about how to do this because like Chris has taught me and some of the, the I've taken actually it up like I think I've taken about four or five authentic relating training courses.
And so but I'm just having a recognition of how much this is a skill. Like this is not something that I was well, maybe I was born with the I mean, I, of course, was born with the capacity to do it because I can do it. But I certainly did not grow up in a social environment that encouraged this and in fact, I grew up in a social environment that pushed me in the opposite direction.
So I'm so that's that's all that's all that's happening for me right now.
CHRIS
Yeah. I'm feeling a lot of love for this, this part that I hear that's like, But how do I do this? How do I do this part? And I'm imagining that I might be operating from time to time and yeah, like I'm really kind of want to hug that.
But how do you do this part? I like the impact on me is more warmth.
JUSTIN
Yeah. So I have another part coming in here that well, I have a part that I expressed earlier that wants to do things right, that wants a gold star, that wants to get 100% on the test. And so this part is also the part that organizes the podcast and writes the questions.
And so I want to honor this part by bringing in this idea of how or the question of how this meditation of social, the social meditative practice can or is connected to emotional health or is itself an emotional health practice. So I can imagine on first glance, it sounds very calming. It sounds very soothing. So there's there's this grounding, regulating aspect.
But I'm wondering if there's more there around just mental and emotional health that that that when we can really learn these skills and put them into action that there's even more work going on here.
CHRIS
Well, I could tell you growing up I was allowed to have one emotion and that emotion was happy. So as long as I was happy, then everything was cool. So I got happy really quick and I stayed happy until I was 25. Happy, happy, happy, happy. Through gritted teeth. Happy. And then I started to get into some work and get some help and started to discover that I was a lot of things, but I never really had the experience of I was so afraid to express the whole rainbow of emotions because I was convinced that the other person would leave.
So I was living in this really narrow band of emotion out of fear of abandonment or being rejected. So the first time I did any authentic relating, it was this type of practice where a group of people get in a circle and there's a kind of a leader with the questions like, like you're doing. Justin and everybody focuses on one person and just gives them their present and is curious about what's happening.
No fixing, changing coaching therapies, adjusting, improving, just being with. So when they experienced this, I was actually at an Enneagram conference and for some reason they had this mixed in. I didn't know it seemed like an anomaly, so I was the one getting the attention. I volunteered to get the attention. So everything got a little still and the person said, Well, what's it like to be you sitting here with us?
And I said, I'm cranky and I don't want to get to know any of you. And they said, Oh yeah, what's it like to be cranky with us? Nobody turned away. They may have even smiled more like you're doing. And I think for me it was the first time I felt like I was allowed to be how I actually was.
And so when I when I remember this experience, I can feel the emotion of that moment, especially if it was anger, cranky, displeased, unhappy. Anything in that spectrum. So I never did much of anything that, to be honest with you, I went directly into this thing and I didn't stop. And I was probably about eight years ago now.
And, you know, I've been in therapy and I've been in recovery 12 step recovery. But that was a profound experience to me. So answer your question about emotional health. I think what's healthy about it for me is it's a way for me to be with everything that's here, to have the experience and to stay with it when I myself.
So it's not different, so much different than IFRS in that way. A matter of fact, I would consider IFS internal authentic relating.
Chris
And the practice of it is now just external. So I can get together with people and we can do this specific practice. I can be this way with a person at the checkout stand. Does it really require anything from anyone else? But it sure is nice to sometimes have experiences of people who are also, you know, up on the, you know, the practices.
Jenny
Yeah. I have a question, Chris, about your experience with them. Thank you for sharing that profound shift. I'm wondering what part of it being a group of people and a group that were not therapists, do you think played into that being kind of a transformational moment of really being heard, if at if at all?
Chris
I think that's a really astute question. I appreciate that question. Jenny. Sure. Yeah, I think I think my expectation is that in a therapy session, that's what happens. I mean, if the therapist said get happy, I mean, there might be like, you know, confrontational therapy methods that do that. But I would be very surprised. But yeah, I think the context was normal.
Everyday people in a circle having agreed to practice really two things welcoming what's here and assuming nothing, that's it. And that's pushing back on someone who wasn't paid to be with me as I push back. That had a different quality.
Jenny
Yeah, I could imagine there's a there's a power dynamic in therapy that we try to speak to, but, but also an expectation, a role, a persona, you know, those kinds of things that I could imagine sort of are counter to authentic relating in some ways now that they can't be named and worked through therapeutically. But as you describe that moment, I can just imagine the power of being with people like you said, that aren't paid to mirror and reflect, you know, that aren't paid to that isn't part of their training and they're just in their humanity and that their humanity is in this and it becomes this very reparative experience.
So that's really that's really cool.
Chris
Yeah. And and sometimes it's not all like features and love. Sometimes the person will say like, wow, hearing that, I'm starting to feel disgust and I'm I'm curious about why this is coming up in me, this strong reaction. What's it like to you for you to hear me say this? So there's a way to share the truth about my experience that might not be lovey dovey.
It could be, right. Wow. I'm really constricting. I'm getting I had a flash of anger when I heard that. I notice I'm angry and what I can kind of hold it up. Like I notice I'm angry. Like, let's look at the anger together. What's it like for you to hear me say this? So it's it invites everything.
Jenny
Well, it sounds like that invites not to get to like, speak, but it invites differentiation, right. Where we can be difference and but yet we can still be connected, which is such a such a such an uncomfortable thing when you've not had any modeling or teaching of that. It's so uncomfortable, but it is so liberatory and so liberating.
You actually get to feel it of like, Oh, this person's feeling disgust and I am okay and I feel differently and we can still be here with each other. So it seems like such a wonderful invitation for that to get to experiment with that and have a lived experience together.
Chris
Yeah, Yeah. It is. I get excited when you say that. I would almost say that there is no connection without differentiation. Without the differentiation. It's not connection, it's enmeshment or something. It's like even, you know, like when people do ballroom dancing, they come together. But if the person who's following isn't pushing back a little bit, the there's no dance.
And if they push back too much, it goes this way. So each person has to push a little bit and have a boundary for contact to occur. So it's like, that's what I love about it. The more my uniqueness is expressed, the more contactable I get. It's almost like the more connection possible. More of me, more of you, more of us.
Justin
Yeah. This is this makes this so well with your statement about ifs internal family systems being an internal form of authentic relating. Because in internal family systems, Papa's work, which we've talked about on the podcast and will talk about again there is this phenomenon of blending. We can be blended with parts and then we're not in connection with these parts.
It's just the, as you said, some enmeshment. There's something else, but it's not connection. And we can feel inside when when we get that space that differentiation, and then we make connection with a part and it has a totally different quality. And and that's a hallmark of emotional health, at least for me.
CHRIS
Yeah. I mean, we could talk about IFRS for quite a while and I see it so similar, like, okay, here's an angry part. I can turn and look at it. How do I feel towards this part? Any version of loving, curious, you know, it's being with welcoming what is getting curious what's it like for you angry part the angry parts like I'm pissed at you.
I'm angry at you. That's yeah, that makes sense. Makes sense.
Justin
And then this leads to one question that came up, actually, and I'm sorry, I just had this flash in my days in academia at academic conferences. It was the worst thing for somebody to come up to the microphone after your talk and say, this is more of a comment and a question, but when you talk. So what struck me is this pivotal moment you express that you're cranky and this was, you know, leads to eight years of this deep, authentic relating work where you are opening consistently to opening space inside to feel whatever's here and then express this as well.
And you talked about, you know, you grew up in a context where was only okay to feel one thing. And what I was hearing there, and this is an assumption, is that because you were forced to feel that one thing you didn't even really feel, it's not that you really felt happy that it wasn't it was something different than than like real, real happiness.
I guess where I'm going with this is that as you have been able to open up and feel the the the more challenging, more difficult, more unacceptable emotions that on the other hand, have you experienced that there's been this whole range of these emotions that might sometimes be categorized as happy, this kind of more joy, more connection?
CHRIS
I think you're right. I wasn't happy. I was scared with a fake smile on my face. But I didn't know what I was in fear. And so, yeah, I mean, it makes sense. I'd like to make it. It seems like it should be linear. I'm not sure that it is, but I don't know. When we got on the call and there was all that technical difficulty, I was filled with like a warm joy.
I wouldn't call happy, but it was this internal like, I don't know, tender love, joy ish sort of thing that just occurred. So like subtleties like that and more and more of that's available to me more and more of the mix between different emotions. Like what's the mix like, You know, more like things coexisting at the same time, loss and excitement and more range, More capacity, more.
Justin
Range, Yes. Yeah, that has that has been my experience. Yeah. That like we we can't just shut down some emotions that we end up shutting them all down and then as we open up then yeah, we get that range and I think authentic relating is such a powerful set of tools and skills for opening up that range. And so we're going to talk more about this, but I want to hear so the theme of this month in the Collective is new beginnings, fresh starts renewals, and I know a little bit about your story.
And so I thought, Oh, this is just a great excuse just to have Chris on the show. And I would love to hear about your fresh I mean, we already heard about like about a really important one at this Enneagram workshop, but I would love to hear about your move out of working for one of the biggest tech names in Silicon Valley and then moving into this new space of being an authentic relationship trainer, a coach, a consultant.
What How did this journey begin? What is it like.
CHRIS
Just checking in on Jenny? How are you doing?
JENNY
Jenny I'm just engrossed. I was excited for this question. I love I'm excited to hear your story.
CHRIS
Okay. Yeah. I wanted to make sure I heard your voice in here.
Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I think for me, I would say in my adolescence and teens, I look back at it as a brutal time just full of fear and self-hatred. This is what I'm remembering back to that time. And then for me, like the first made your transition, it's probably in my later teens. And I started I had I started drinking kind of drinking alcohol.
And for me, that was the best thing that ever happened at 16. And that transition was like from a scared hating person to like some sort of like social, you know, this is what it was in my head, probably not to the people around me, social liberated, uninhibited. And that was like this big liberation. And I never forget it.
And you know, over time it became more of a jail than a liberation, you know? But in the beginning, that was like a first major transition. And then in my twenties, when that didn't work anymore and I know I stopped that, you know, I was 26 and it was I was I had no idea how to function in the world and like, how to get along at all.
I mean, it was just raw. So a lot of my adult life has been kind of learning again, like a new from my mid twenties. What's it like to walk around the block grocery store, connect with people, show up in a work environment, have a relationship, be physically intimate. And so this has been a big driver for me underneath everything.
And that is like more exposure to what's really happening on me and a desire to suffer less and give more. And coming out of where I came out of, I was like, I came out of a family where I would say that it was kind of like preordained, that we would be failures. So when I started working, I was like, I was so committed to being a success in the corporate world.
I absolutely committed and I worked like crazy till I was about 32 and I got to the level in the organization. Then that looked like a success. It was like my benchmark for success. I proved it. I proved I could do it to my dad, really, you know, and then I realized, Oh my God, like, I don't want to be my boss.
Like, I was kind of done, you know, at 32. And so I left. And I think for me, what ensued since then is still the case, is that I like to try new things. I like to always be learning to be in environments where I feel like I have some fluidity and being creative and I don't really want to do anything that I already know how to do.
So, you know, I'm in my fifties now and for the for most of those years I did consulting and then other things consulting and other things work really hard and then have some sort of experience somewhere else. And that really worked well for me. And then, you know, in the recent history, probably around 2010, I joined a tech startup.
I mean, my careers in tech and I loved this small company was great for years. Did that after that got recruited by Facebook. At the time I was like, Whoa. Like, I feel like I can't say no to work at Facebook. You know, this is amazing. And I took the job and it was really like it wasn't a good fit for me for a lot of reasons.
I'm a little hesitant to share many details about that in this format, but I'll say that the environment wasn't good for my nervous system. Some people thrived, so it was more of a bad match and I attempted to resign after six months. I knew it, but you can file this under. I already knew it. Why did I stay there?
Bucket and I kind of like myself get convinced to stay. And I did for two years. And at the end of it, I was just limping along. You could probably hit me with a baseball bat, and I wouldn't feel it. It just was a bad, bad thing for me. And then I left and I really spent four years just kind of recovering from that.
And during that time I got really into authentic relating and really into coaching. I got certified in a certain coaching discipline over those years, and it was a period of just like, I don't know, healing or kind of bruised and I'm really not putting this on any particular company. It's like I, you know, I kept myself in a situation I shouldn't have, just an authentic relating.
It was a great time for that and I loved it. My career was in product management, which if you don't know what that is, it's like a tech typical tech job, sort of figuring out what people want. And then, you know, after about four years, I got a call from a friend who I used to work with and said, Hey, I took over the People Development Department, the Leadership Development Department for this company.
Do you want to come and work with us? And I said, Yeah, that sounds good. I really like the person. I trusted the person and I wanted to do more of what we're talking about here in the work environment because I've suffered so much largely self-inflicted suffering, but it has been an environment of suffering for me. So I went back and now I'm working in the people development function and I'm like a technical person, a product person.
So it's been a big transition coming into this and I couldn't be more engaged because everywhere I look in the company, there are humans and all the humans are under pressure. Humans pressure equals interesting to me and that's kind of where I am. So that was a bit part. A little bit.
Jenny
No, thank you for sharing and I love hearing about circuitous life pacts because I think it's really normalizing for those of us that have circuitous life. That's, you know, it's it's very easy in this world and culture. I think it's the I'm hoping is becoming more easy sorry less active but it's this pressure to have one thing and have a straight line to it and for a lot of us, that's just not in the cards or in the stars or in our heart or in our spirit.
And so I really appreciate you sharing that. My question, I'm just curious how this shows up, how how in a work environment in the corporate world, how do you do this? How do you bring this in and and facilitated invite people? What does it look like? What what's it sound like?
Chris
Yeah, it is. I think it's a challenge. I've done this work one on one. I've done it through public courses, I've done it in prisons, I've done it with people who just got out of prison. And the corporate world is, I would say is might be the toughest one in my estimation. And I believe it's because the stakes are so high, the perceived stakes are so high, and there's so much pressure and historic.
It's not an environment where you come I would say it's not a context where you come in and would expect to be like, we've been being together perhaps you can generalize it. So it's a big contextual shift. The way I work with it are couple of things do the best I can to be with each person I'm connecting with in the hallway, just in the life with presence.
Sometimes I'm able to do, sometimes I'm not. So be the stuff where the other is to meet people, where they at, where they're at. I like, I make mistakes all the time. I just try to iterate. And one mistake is I've been so used to facilitating in this way that when I started I would facilitate and just like, like in this deep present place, which is, you know, it's such a shock to the system.
So I've gotten much better at, which is such a core part of coaching discipline and likely therapy as well, seeing meeting people where they are, where they would expect to be in these different settings. And then if I can bring it just a little bit more awareness of what's happening in the present moment, just a little bit more revealed, just a little bit more welcoming then I think a little bit is good.
Justin
Yeah, it's a little yeah, yeah. The steps. And I'm wondering if there is anything that you see now in the corporate world that you didn't notice at all before, before your authentic relating journey. And now that you're back in it, that is just obvious to you that, oh, like here, here is this thing I never saw before, but now I see it.
Chris
You know, the environment stays. In my experience, it's like some companies I work at a company now that is more open to this sort of thing culturally. So this is nice. It's like getting ahead a bit, but I see less difference in the environment. Actually, the biggest difference is seeing how much I'm participating and generating my consistent misery and seeing how much it's me that is not creating an opening for the connection that I'd rather have so much more awareness of my participation in the dynamics, the dynamics of the dynamics.
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