Recently, we got into an argument. Something felt off; there was an unaddressed conflict in the air. Something wasn’t getting expressed between us. We were both holding back.
It just so happened that this occurred on the same weekend that we decided to do a juice cleanse to detox our bodies.
Realizing what was happening, we decided to say the strong things that we each seemed to be holding back. In order to do that in a way that would not injure, in a way that would further our understanding and intimacy, we made a safe container to do this by speaking in the form of a role play.
We practiced saying the strong things even stronger, wilder, freer, and more extreme. This led to bumps that were uncomfortable at times, but this also led to experiences, feelings, and declarations that had been previously hidden. We heard each other and we heard ourselves.
We let these parts of ourselves get even more extreme…
David said, “You should always follow me! I know better!”
Lisa responded, “I will never put myself second to you! I have my own authority!”
Other issues arose through our ‘new’ empowered voices—things that had been held back for too long. It was important to not try to resolve these things too quickly: money issues, tiredness, stress, and longings. If we did, we would be trying to make them go away instead of furthering the support of our voices and feelings.
Though it was bumpy at times, we both started feeling closer—in fact, that was the point.
And Relationship Detox was born.
In this class, you will:
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Make an embodied connection with your sense of safety in conflict.
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Discover what you are holding back, what you typically don’t say, in your relationship.
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Learn to express the parts of yourself and the energies that you’re holding back beyond the content.
We’ll be teaching this in a way that’s different than how you have previously approached tensions and hot spots in relationship.
Most people focus on their inner experiences, their own personal psychology—their traumas, their attachment styles, their parent issues, their communication issues. We’re focusing on making intimacy which requires you to come as you are—with all of your difficulties, your partially healed and unhealed self, and making a dance together out of that.
What do you hold back in relationship?
What parts of yourself do you censor?
What do you not express?
When do you focus on your inner work, your psychological issues, and
NOT bring yourself forward in relationship?
Who doesn’t hold back in relationship at times? We all have feelings, experiences, thoughts and even fantasies that we don't share with others. That’s normal. There’s even good reason to, at times, suppress ourselves, keep thoughts and feelings inside, like when we decide not to express our anger until we're more settled and solid within ourselves. Or when we don’t want to bring issues to others so as not to burden them with some of our difficulties.
Many of us have learned to meditate, do inner work, regulate our nervous system, work on our triggers, release our anger, punch pillows, or simply suppress our feelings. While these approaches can be healing and are excellent tools for our self-care and relationship toolkits, they are insufficient when it comes to creating sustainable resolutions or building a deeper intimacy. That is because these strategies often serve to gaslight or deny our full experience, aspects of our whole selves. In other words, we often use these strategies to chill ourselves out or get rid of our feelings.
For example, I may be feeling critical. But I think this is not okay, or not useful, so I hold back. Or I may be feeling angry and think it would be wrong to bring it forward. Or if I'm feeling confused, I may believe I should wait until I get clear before I speak. Essentially, I am marginalizing parts of myself. I’m waiting for a ‘more cleaned up’ version of myself.
What happens when we follow that paradigm?
Working with clients over 20 years, we have learned that practicing holding back doesn’t lead to deeper intimacy. In fact, if there are hurts, or wounds, it may even lead to creating scar tissue which can prevent intimacy for years to come. Instead of a clear and clean conflict, we feel long-term tensions, resentments, or moods. We refer to these as a form of “chronic relationship depression,” putting distance between us and others—a distance that can grow into an insurmountable chasm.
And now, you’re wondering how you arrived at this place and what on earth you can do to bridge this ever-widening gap.
Conventional conflict strategies seek to “resolve” our differences, not highlight them and celebrate them.
Conventional conflict strategies seek to return relationships to the status quo instead of fostering true transformation.
Conventional conflict strategies focus on the content of our conflicts instead of the deeper underlying feelings, dynamics, and energies.
Conventional conflict strategies forward conciliation and compromise instead of helping us meet each other in a more empowered, embodied, and energetic truth.
In short conventional strategies rely on suppression, forms of denial, fixing, and individual work rather than intimacy-making.
We’re offering you a new paradigm—a true diversity-oriented approach to conflict based on David’s Unshaming way.
To follow the unshaming way, you will need tools to access what you hold back, including those things you aren’t even aware of holding back. The unshaming way deepens and unfolds conflict by going beyond the words and content of our differences. And then, the unshaming way requires a consensus around processing these experiences in a container that both people are going to do their darndest to bring their awareness to what’s happening.
This isn’t just venting. This is conscious and intentional, but not only controlled. There has to be a shared sense you're each caring about yourselves and each other. And, while holding this intention, you must also take the risk to go beyond where you normally go.
To move beyond the content, you will need somatic tools, what David calls Radical Soma—body feelings, movement, and voice. You will need to learn to hold conflict as a role play (emphasis on PLAY). This new paradigm focuses on deepening connection, exploring the shadow, and practicing relational alchemy where the problem is actually a doorway to intimacy.
Using these strategies, following the unshaming way, not only lets the “shit” come out but clears away stuck feelings, moods, and scar tissue. In other words, IT’S RELATIONSHIP DETOX.
How do you typically deal with forbidden
feelings and expressions in your relationship?
What would you say during a conflict
if you felt free to speak openly?
What if expressing these things led to feeling closer
to your partner rather than more distant?
What would that mean for your relationship?
It’s not just our bodies that benefit from a detox.
When we're in a relationship that “stuff,” that “junk,” that doesn't get expressed, gets suppressed and overtime, those things build up becoming kind of like a toxin. Our bodies are not separate from our feelings and experiences, which include being in relationships, so suppressing these aspects of ourselves also gets loaded onto the body and onto our organs.
The concept of a Relationship Detox is where we create this container to use the metaskills of play and curiosity in order to more freely express ourselves through a filter of awareness so that things don’t just explode out but the pressure still gets released.
Please note: This class is not intended for abusive or violent relationships. Working with abuse or violence requires a different set of skills and support than this webinar can provide. Please seek therapeutic support.
MEET YOUR FACILITATORS
Lisa Blair, PhD
Lisa Blair, PhD, is a scholar, writer, and educator whose work explores emotional intimacy, relational conflict, and romantic partnership. Her peer-reviewed research—among the first to examine the intersection of AI, digital technology, and intimacy—has been published in the International Handbook of Love (2nd edition), World Futures, the Journal of Conscious Evolution, and a forthcoming volume on STARA and the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Springer Nature).
She holds a doctorate in Transformative Studies from the California Institute of Integral Studies and is a Certified Process Work Diplomate—the Process Work Institute’s highest level of clinical certification—trained under Drs. Arnold and Amy Mindell.
Drawing on 17 years of clinical practice, depth psychology, and a highly sensitive attunement to the inner lives of the women she works with, she now focuses her teaching and private practice on emotional and erotic intimacy with women—including the territory of erotic sovereignty: a woman’s aliveness, desire, and self-belonging, and what it takes to inhabit them fully. She co-hosts In Two Deep, a podcast on emotional intimacy, conflict, and connection from a depth psychological perspective, and teaches online and internationally, cultivating what she calls sacred community—a space where depth, vulnerability, and genuine connection are central to the learning.
David Bedrick
David Bedrick, J.D., Dipl. PW, is the founder of the UnShaming Way—a depth-psychology approach built on one conviction: your symptoms, struggles, and survival strategies carry intelligence, not pathology. He is the author of five books, including The Unshaming Way (North Atlantic Books), endorsed by Gabor Maté, MD. He has trained hundreds of clinicians and taught thousands of individuals. Before psychology, he practiced law; before law, he survived the home that taught him everything the books later confirmed. That is his deepest credential: he knows both harms—the violence, and the denial of it—from the inside. His work has appeared in Psychology Today and reaches hundreds of thousands of readers through his essays on trauma, shame, and the witness.