Peter: I spent many decades, not really feeling joy, from the outside it looked as though I had a wonderful life but on the inside, it was incredibly tumultuous. it had been 35 years since I cried.
Chrissie: conflict is normal. And relationships actually end when there is rupture without repair, but otherwise, It's an endless spiral of rupture and repair.
Peter: relationships happen in seven stages. the second phase, is infatuation. And usually within six to 18 months, the infatuation starts to wear off and you enter into the third stage, a challenge stage. You have a choice in that third stage. You can either end you can choose to stay together, and the third choice is collaboration
Chrissie: You're listening to Solving for Joy. I'm your host, Dr. Chrissie Ott.
Hello and welcome to this episode of the solving for joy podcast. I am delighted to be here with my friend and coaching colleague, Peter Kahn. Peter, welcome.
Peter: It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Chrissie: Yeah. Thanks for coming to have this conversation with me on the podcast. Um, Peter and I have been friends for well over a decade. You know, it wasn't planned this way, but Peter was one of the first people that we left Isa alone with when she was a tiny baby. It's one of my favorite and our many favorite memories. Um, so one of the things that I would love to talk about with you, Peter, is your solving for joy journey. Um, among other things, you are an engineer. You are also a teacher. Now, as certified relationship coach, you are turning your energies increasingly towards doing healing work, um, which has been a beautiful transformation to observe. And I hope that we can talk about that and how it intersects with your path solving for joy.
Peter: Yeah. Well, thanks for the introduction. It is true. Um, I have worn many hats in my life. I used to be in advertising, I did construction for many years in Alaska, and then did go back later in life to become an engineer, which I've now done for 12, 13 years. And in the last few years, I've started doing coaching, um, and as you've said, healing work. I, I do a lot of, um, Um, psychedelic preparation and integration work as well. And the journey to get from advertising to, um, coaching and, and hoping being of service is a long one. Um, it starts essentially with my own journey, with my own healing journey. Um, you know, this podcast is about sparking joy and cultivating joy.
And it's, um, it's a hard thing to admit. out loud, publicly, um, that I spent many decades, um, not really feeling joy, uh, from the outside. Uh, that might be surprising to people who know me. At least a cursory knowledge of me that that was the case because from the outside, it looked as though I had a wonderful life, um, highly educated, upwardly mobile, moving around, able to switch careers, all of these privileges.
Uh, but on the inside, it was incredibly tumultuous and, um, all of that exterior facade was exactly that. It was a strategy to, to not actually live, uh, in the presence of that. Tensions and anxieties and tumult that I did feel for all those years. And, um, so it took until my thirties to actually get to a place to admit that to myself. Uh, with the help of others. No one, you know, you can only do the work, but you can't do it alone. It takes the help of others. And it was. In my thirties that I finally realized that I could face what was going on inside of me. And that started a process of my own healing and growth. In the last few years that has really taken off.
It was about a decade of incremental transition, transformation, and then for a number of reasons which we can go in over the course of this conversation, uh, it really sort of hit a hockey stick asymptotic curve in the last four or five years. And the feeling that I had of literally my shoulders dropping, uh, once that type of healing started to integrate into my being, uh, and true transformation started occurring, uh, that feeling of release was so, and so welcome, first of all, to me. But then quickly transformed into a realization that it's no good just to have for yourself. The whole point of any healing or growth that we do, any spiritual path, is to end up in relation to others. Um, and to have a mutual reflection. And that's what happened to me. Um, so I've slowly chipped away and tiptoed into different spaces. Um, very carefully and humbly. I don't have a savior complex. You know, I don't think I have all the answers at all. Um, but I'm very interested in continuing to alter the arc of my life to be of one of service more and more to a larger community. Um, Um, so that's the journey in a nutshell.
Chrissie: No, thank you for sharing that. Um, I think that, you know, the piece in your thirties where you began to admit it to yourself, where you began to consciously regard this, um, maybe it's a joy deficiency, maybe, I mean, I don't know what words you might attach to that state, um, if it was clinical depression, if it was, you know, this and that together. A bit of yes. And I, I think it's first of all, so helpful to model what it's like to, um, notice and decide I need some help. I need some support. I need a change.
Peter: Yeah. It's interesting that you asked that question. I think about this a lot where the first step in any journey is awareness, um, awareness that something is even there to look at. So that would be the initial turning point for me. It was in my thirties, uh, it was the first time that I went to counseling on my own volition. Um, I'd been to counseling several times growing up and whatnot, but that was always forced externally upon me. Um, but in my thirties, I was hitting so many lows.
Um, in so many areas of my life, that was the first time I went to counseling on my own volition. And in those sessions, that counselor said to me that the types of thoughts that I was having, uh, were not universal. And that was a real shock to me. Up until that point, I just Like a fish in water. I just assumed that everyone lived with this level of anxiety or self contempt and So that was the first kind of jolt of awareness that oh my god, there's actually something to look at here But as I said in the intro This description of the journey the next 10 years was essentially a very slow incline Of, of working with that awareness. I would say that the next moment of a, of a further, say, tick of inclination of, of understanding is what is typically the next stage, which is to start learning the ability to tolerate those feelings. And, um, that took 10 years to get to the place of even being able to tolerate them. So I had more and more articulate awareness of what was going on inside of me, but it was always in this antagonistic way.
Um, I don't want these feelings. I want to hide from them, do everything I can to keep them at bay. And I finally started practicing actually sitting with them. And, um, this isn't my model, but, uh, it actually comes from, uh, incredible, uh, psychotherapist named Bruce Tift, but he has seven stages of healing that he sees over and over again, and it turns out that that's the path that I followed. If you start with awareness, then you develop tolerance. And then you try and establish acceptance of those feelings that are going on inside of you. And then this interesting fourth stage happens where you no longer just accept them, but yet still be antagonistic, but you actually start to be kind to them.
You start to see that they're part of you. They're a legitimate part of you. There's a number of reasons why you brought them along with you. People talk about shadow work and what not, this, this is exactly the stuff of your shadow. And in the being kind, what you start to recognize, and this allows you to go to the next stage, is that these moments that arise where you have a feeling of anxiety or fear or self contempt, whatever your version is of your shadow, that by sitting with that feeling is actually the way that you can transform it. And you enter into a stage where you start to actually invite those feelings in because you recognize that there's a gem on the other side of, of processing them, sitting with them. And that's the stage I'm at now, I would say. The next stage is full commitment to feeling all feelings. And, uh, one day I hope to be there. But, uh, I certainly am at a place now where the invitation Seeing these internal aspects of ourselves as opportunity for transformation is something that has only become aware to me in the last five years, I would say.
Chrissie: That is a beautiful model, and we'll share the link to, um, that model and the work in the show notes. So, Peter, I have my, my many different directions that my brain would like to go from that, that you shared. But I think that what our audience might want to know most is about what kind of work got you there. It's the activation energy, right? That we need to solve for first, um, how did you get from, you know, I'm beginning this journey, and even as it took 10 years. Um, what kinds of things do you feel turned the wheel the most effectively for you?
Peter: Yeah, that's a great question. Um, it's not a simple answer, uh, because it's many things that I've done. And, um, I think that's part of a story most people should recognize or, or, uh, recognize in themselves. And I hope people, uh, see that there's no silver bullet. There's no, um, one shot answer. You know, to take and everything gets better. Um, I think in general, I always come back to this sort of paradoxical statement, which is only you can do the work, but you can't do it alone. Um, it requires reflection from other people, uh, to integrate, uh, the lessons along the path.
For example, one of the things I did was I attended a 12 week men's group. And so it was an online men's group, um, that. You know, had a sunset date. We all knew that it was only going to be 12 weeks. We all signed up. Uh, there was a financial commitment, relatively modest, but a financial commitment to get into it in the way that it was structured was every week. There was a group call amongst all the men and there was about 50 men in that call and that was a two hour call. And then you were encouraged to reach out to the other men in between the calls. And that was entirely up to you. So every man could decide for himself how interactive and how engaged he wanted to be. And, uh, in that men's group, there was a particular session that the main topic was about crime. And they asked, would everyone put in the chat, When was the last time you cried? And there was all these men that some men were two days ago, some men, you know, this morning, uh, some men, oh, six months ago, you know, two years ago, et cetera, et cetera. And I had to put into the chat that it had been 35 years since I cried.
Chrissie: Wow.
Peter: And when I typed that in, um, I was nervous. I felt trepidation about typing it, but I didn't actually feel the gravity of that. What made me feel it was I typed it in and then I'm looking at gallery view on a zoom call and I watched, you know, half of the men's faces dramatically change as they read my entry up here into the chat. Um, And so it was through that reflection of all of these other men that whoa, something probably needs to be seriously looked at here. Um, that is not, that is not acceptable. Um, so that was a critical moment for me. And, um, it only took about three, four months after that moment for the first time that I truly bawled.
And, uh, interesting story is it's actually the intro song that we started with was the song that somehow struck the cord inside of me and I just collapsed into pure gushing ugly face, you know, reaching for the tissues. Um, so that's just one example. I, I also did, um, you know, therapy, but I think it's important to recognize that therapy has multiple modalities. There's talk therapy, there's somatic, you know, experiencing therapy, there's now even more touch therapy. And it's important to explore all of these modalities, um, because you never know which one is actually going to get into your, Nervous system and into your particular makeup.
Chrissie: Yes. We each have our own particular nervous system combination lock, and for some people it might be ecstatic dancing and for other people they would never Right. um, your story about this pathway to such a profound, cathartic, weeping, um, reminds me that. In the late nineties and early two thousands, I was involved in a, uh, peer counseling community. It's called re evaluation counseling, and, um, I'm not involved with it anymore. I think, you know, in my path, it served a really important purpose. And one of the, one of the overarching theories is that we have access to our best, most clear thinking. And our inherent zest for life, when we have adequately discharged pent up stored unexpressed emotion. So when people would sit across from one another in one on one or small group settings, or even big conference like settings, like the ultimate end goal was to develop insight after discharging big emotions. Um, I don't want to, you know, hijack into a conversation or critique of this method, but I, I just really see that there is something important about being able to let the emotions move through us. Um, I love the. The point that emotion has the word motion in it, they want to move from the inside out. And when we have blocked them from moving from the inside out, we've often also blocked some type of receiving nourishing, uh, energies as well.
Peter: Yeah, absolutely. And this reminds me of saying that popped into my head when you were speaking earlier, which is. Another, uh, element that is so hard and particularly hard, I think, for males is, um, it's not just wanting to heal and grow and transform. It's actually the ability to ask for the help to do that. Um, and then once you ask for the help, To work on the ability to receive that hope when it is given after asking, those are two elements that were by far the most challenging for me.
Chrissie: Tell me if this is why, because when we shift into a new rule, a rule, like I, I don't ask for help. I don't acknowledge this stuff too. I do ask for help and I do acknowledge this stuff. What's at risk is a very practiced version of ourselves, a very practiced identity. About ourselves. And I, I really believe that one of our missions is to keep shedding these layers of the onion, right? These different identities that we did collect along the way for good reasons to broaden expand, um, the spectrum of experiencing, expressing, you know, and connecting with others, which we can only do when we shed these protective layers.
Peter: Absolutely. Uh, yeah, couldn't agree more.
Chrissie: So high risk though. It feels high risk. It feels existentially high risk to that part. Of you that has known itself as the one who fill in the blank, the one who does not fill in the blank.
Peter: Yeah, absolutely. I think going again with that. There's so many modalities to explore, um, particularly for men. I think it's important for men to engage with other men, um, not exclusively. Uh, because I think there's a lot to learn with the, the different energies of, um, you know, masculine, feminine, et cetera.
Um, but to recognize these moments, you know, there's the classic saying, men, men bond shoulder to shoulder and women bond face to face. That's a gross simplification, but. Uh, I think it speaks miles where men bonds, you know, shoulder to shoulder, they bond by doing things, activities, but they don't actually engage in discussion about that or how that makes them feel to do those activities or anything along those lines.
And to get into a situation, whether that be, you know, with a male therapist or particularly in a men's group. When you see the moment that a man risks shedding the facade, just divulge what is actually going on inside of him, it is the moment that the alchemy takes place that you can't help, but be affected by that.
Chrissie: Yes. And what happened next? How did you move from this powerful men's group into your next adventures of healing and solving for joy?
Peter: Yeah, so I was in my mid 40s when I really took on, say, the responsibility of, of, um, exploring, taking responsibility to actually do the work, as they say, and started seeing the results.
Um, I should mention at this point, um, That for me, and I think for a lot of people, you notice that healing and transformation is happening almost invariably in the rear view mirror. You're not aware of it happening as it's happening. It's only when you say, look in the rear view mirror and think of yourself three months ago and you're six months ago that you recognize, Oh my God, I don't have that feeling with such intensity anymore. I don't struggle with that, you know, particular relationship anymore.
Chrissie: I'm picturing a zipper, you know, like the, the leading edge is not where the stuff happens. It's the trailing edge.
Peter: Yeah. Yeah. Or I think of like the long arc a lot of times where. For me, none of this has been epiphanic. None of this has been revolutionary.
Chrissie: I need help. What does epiphanic mean?
Peter: Epiphanic. Like having an epiphany.
Chrissie: Epiphany. Okay.
Peter: Yeah. No, it's, it's these long yards of just stacking good, stacking good. And over time, the arc, you know, the trajectory of your life is now pointed in a different direction than it was before. You speak a lot about atomic habits, you know, James Clear, that would be in the habit behavior way, but it's also true in my experience for personal and psychological healing. Um, but to your question, as the last, you know, five, six years were happening, I, I started believing that it was working because I could notice the stuff in the rear view mirror changing and I was approaching my 50th birthday and a friend suggested that I Ask my 55 year old self what I should do as a 50 year old to start the process of becoming the 55 year old self that I want to be. And it wasn't a clear, that vision exercise did not result in a clear answer, right? You should do X or whatnot. Um,
Chrissie: invest in, exactly.
Peter: Um, but what did come back from that exercise was a very felt sense that just running my engineering firm the way I had been for the last 10 years, uh, for instance, was not going to lead.
To the results that I wanted five years from now. And as I started exploring that kind of like negative answer, um, what started appearing in the space was, Oh, it's the service. It's this, it's the engagement with a larger relational community is what is missing. I have lots of friends. I have family.
That's not what I'm talking about. It's a knowledge that while you are constantly filling your cup. It's only worthwhile if you share the contents of that cup back out.
Chrissie: It's contributing to the field of healing. Contributing to the field that we all share and draw from, in some esoteric way that I can't language or fully conceptualize.
Peter: Yeah, exactly. It's a, it's a grander, Um, meaning just bigger sense of what you were just speaking about when we were talking about the men's group and whatnot. It's this willingness to actually divulge yourself, but you're just doing it on a practice daily basis, all trying to essentially become that consistently.
Chrissie: Yes, in some schools of thought, that is actually what is meant increasingly by moving toward emptiness, is emptying ourselves of our fixed stories and identities so that we become more available to merge with whatever we believe it is that's greater and universal. I remember in one of our early and Not early in our relationship, but our early recent conversations, as we have only recently really been relating to one another in this professional coaching space, that something you've shared with me was about the previous blueprint being me focused and the new blueprint was about providing pathways to relieving suffering for others.
Is that, did I get that somewhat right?
Peter: Yeah, I think I think that's a spot on way to describe it. I, I think it's important to say though that I'm very conscious about what I don't know. So yes, I am very purposefully and intentionally transforming what I do on a daily basis slowly over time to orient my activities towards.
The larger relational community and trying to increase a felt sense of healing. I say all that in the context that it is an attempt.
Chrissie: Yes, yes, your humility is appreciated and noted. It's, um, such an important aspect, I think, of an equation when you're trying to hold space for healing work. Obviously, we, we want to not mix the ego with what is being offered, and it's a very tricky space for many, many people, including highly accomplished, well known people. Tell me about your favorite moments now, uh, as you are contributing to this field, especially in the narrow field of relationship work. What do you love bringing light to?
Peter: Yeah, that's a great question. Um, I mean, the, the, the most exciting, the most fulfilling, the most energetically enticing, uh, aspect of relationship coaching in particular is when you see the client's body Literally transform in front of you, their facial expression, the glint in their eye, et cetera, when they've actually integrated something that you've been working on, you know, for some period of time, sometimes it can happen quickly.
Sometimes it takes a while, but the moment that that occurs and, you know, or I know from my own experience that it is the embodiment of, of these moments. And that creates the change. So when you see it happen in front of you, it's just so exciting.
Chrissie: That is so exciting. And I know that you've recently given some presentations about healthy conflict in relationship as well. I wonder if there are, you know, just like one or two. Takeaways from that that you'd like to share in this context while we're talking about it.
Peter: Yeah Mainly that conflict in relationships Is something that is unavoidable and that it is also absolutely normal and that it is Um, a place in which to actually have positive transformation.
And so what I mean by that is, is that most people think of conflict in relationship as a fight. And they typically blame someone else for creating that fight. You know, you did that to me and that's why I reacted, etc. And the more you get into the subtleties of what's actually going on, the conflict is actually not the problem.
Because you're always going to have conflict. I read a statistic recently regarding parents to children that it's 70 percent of the time there's actually a disconnect from what the child needs and what the parents is providing. 70 percent of the time you get it wrong. So what that tells us is that it's not the fact that we get things wrong.
That's the problem. Yeah. It's that we don't then quickly, as quickly as possible, move to the next phase of what you might call the conflict repair cycle, is to reconnect. It's the reconnection that matters, not the fact that the disconnection happened in the first place. And so relationship coaching and my own work for my own relationships and just the way I try to be in the life generally with the larger community is to more and more be aware that moments of tension, uh, between people is not the problem.
Um, it's what you do right after that moment or as quickly as soon after as possible. Do you move towards reconnection or do you participate in habits that you've developed?
Chrissie: That is so profound. I just, I just wish that, um, for all of us that that information could be deeply seeded in our brains early in life.
Um, conflict is normal. And it doesn't mean all the things that your brain or your family of origin might have caused you to believe that it means that in fact, being in relationship over time necessarily implies cycles of rupture and repair, whether it's tiny ruptures with tiny repairs or big ruptures, big repairs, uh, relationships actually end when there is rupture without repair, but otherwise, It's an endless spiral of rupture and repair, or, you know, maybe there's rupture and we don't acknowledge the rupture. Um, and it, you know, cycles. I'm just, you know, sort of improvising here. So this is not a well thought out philosophy.
Peter: Yeah, absolutely. Spot on. Um, yeah, I mean, I think I can. Bring even some more pointed clarity to that, which is I've learned over the years that relationships happen in seven stages, but it's, there's other models, but this is a model that I think is very true, which is basically you start with courtship, which is you putting on your best clothes, peacocking arounds.
It's dating the early parts of dating. And if the two people, if the courtship works, you end up in the second phase, which we all know, which is infatuation. And that's when your brain has released all the love chemicals and the other person can do no wrong. They are absolutely perfect. This is, you know, what every rom com is, is, you know, playing off of, uh, on us.
Um, that stage will always be. And, uh, and move into the third stage, usually within six to 18 months, the infatuation starts to wear off and you enter into the third stage, which is a challenge stage and the challenge can look a million different ways, but it will always happen. And it always involves the fact that the, the person that you are now partnered with cannot live up to everything that you want them to be, what your projected vision was, et cetera, et cetera.
So you have a choice in that third stage. You can either end and go try and find someone else who's not going to challenge you in those ways. And we all, maybe not all, but many people find out that you will just repeat that cycle over and over and over again. Um, or you can choose to stay together, but not rise to the challenge.
Just sublimate all of the, the issues. Many people have many decades long relationships like this where you never actually deal with the challenge. And the third choice is actually moving into stage four, which is collaboration. Do you actually want to collaboratively address the challenges that are coming up in your relationship?
If you do that, that will allow you to. Um, and entering the stage five, which is establishing actual security with each other. And the interesting thing is, is that you, the model sort of spells it out in a linear fashion as though you go from stage to stage and once you establish stage five and you have a security, you're done.
But that's not actually true. What, what it is, is that you constantly cycle back to other types of challenge. And these can be those micro moments of conflict, or they can be larger structural things that need to be addressed. But for the rest of your relationship, you're going to constantly cycle through.
challenge. Do we have a choice point? Do we want to sublimate at that point and not address it? Or do we want to collaboratively, you know, address it? The more you do that, just to finish the model, the more you do that and the more established security you have, you can have stage six, which is unfortunately pretty rare, which is expansion.
And it's interesting because the expansion is essentially you get back the things that you compromised or gave up. Uh, in order to have partnership when you were single, you're so well established, you're so secure that you have a known freedom that you can explore the world with all of your glorious individuality without threatening the relationship.
And so both partners end up in this expansive stage where they go out into the world, um, from a safe launching pad of, of that relationship. The seventh stage is just there to, to honor that all relationships end, whether through, you know, a terminal of ads or whatever, but all relationships end.
Chrissie: That's a really beautiful model. Where is that model originated from?
Peter: Uh, I first learned about it, um, through my relationship coaching school, which is a Jason Gaddis at the relationship school. He was the first one to give that to me, um, but I've come across it in several other contexts as well.
Chrissie: Wow. It's a, it's a beautiful art. It's very rich and I'm looking forward to how you develop it and offer it perhaps in some ways within Joypoint Solutions in the not too distant future.
Peter, thanks so much for this meaningful and very insightful conversation today. I've really enjoyed having you here and getting to visit all these topics with you. What final thoughts do you have to offer to our audience as we begin to wrap up?
Peter: Hmm. Well, to, um, we pretty, we went all over the place in that conversation. I think to summarize, uh, would be the conversation itself is a microcosm of everything, which is. You can't actually, um, better your interpersonal relationships without working on yourself. Uh, simultaneously, you can't better yourself without understanding that it's always in relation to other people.
Chrissie: I love it. And I couldn't have this conversation without you. And likewise, you could not have this conversation without me. And as one of my teachers, James Olivia says, more you is always better. So I'm speaking of more you, please tell the folks who are listening where best to find you if someone is interested in doing individual work or curious about the future 12x12 on relationships. Principles.
Peter: Yeah. Currently the best way to find me is through joy point solutions. Um, I am available for individual coaching, you know, that's in the context of joy points offerings. Um, but also specifically on relationship work. If someone was interested in that, they could sign up and I'm more than happy to work with you. Um, And then, yeah, we've little teaser we're in the process of starting to develop a 12 by 12. That's very focused and specific to, uh, interpersonal relationships.
Chrissie: And I am really excited to see how that turns out as it develops. So wonderful. Thank you so much for being with us, Peter. And thank you all for listening. Keep taking care of yourselves and others and keep solving for joy. We'll see you next time.
Please join us next week as we are honored to spend time with world renowned neuroscience researcher, bestselling author, and meditation teacher, Dr. Dawson Church, author of The Genie in Your Genes, Mind to Matter, and most recently Bliss Brain. It's sure to be a very rich conversation and we can't wait to share it with you..
I want to take a moment to acknowledge my incredible team. Our music today is by Denys Kyshchuk,, cover photography by the talented Shelby Brakken. This podcast is produced by the amazing Kelsey Vaughn. Post production and more are handled by Alyssa Wilkes and my executive assistant, Rachel Osborne. A special shout out to my steadfast friend and director of operations, Denise Crain, and to the one and only loyal champion number one fan, Suzanne Sanchez. Thanks again for tuning in. May we continue caring for ourselves and others, and may we continue solving for joy.
