Relationship Matters: Claiming & Honoring a Core Truth
Driving home on a Tuesday, a little after 5 p.m., my one-year-old looking out the window, I was thinking about the great sessions I’d had with wonderful couples and individuals earlier that day. Everyone had shown up for the work, which was energizing and clarifying. So I said to myself in the car, out loud, “Relationship matters.” I hadn’t, of course, been thinking about this phrase as a name for a business; it was a fitting reflection on a fulfilling day. But two days later, I was imaging a new logo, tinkering with a new business name, and embracing a core value standing as a direction arrow for where my work is going.This stuff—relationship—really does matter.
Knowing When to Shift
Whether I like it or not, I am an aspirational being. The upside of this is that I'm always creating and evolving. The downside is that there are always things that are falling away. This means that the path I follow is like the thousand petal lotus, always blossoming and always dying.I started my HoloBeing Wholeness Center + Healer’s Space in 2011. I was fresh out of grad school and was holding the adage “Think globally, act locally” close to my heart. I built something that was needed, special, and profoundly generous. HoloBeing was a journey and a brick-and-mortar place. It was a space of growth for me and for everyone who touched it, and it was very much rooted in its physicality. This was challenged in many ways over the past few years—the pandemic, rising rents, the constant reminder that some day the building would sell—and while I took it online, what consistently rose to the top was the relationship work. And that too was evolving: my practice grew beyond the act of relational work, and it now inquires about the value of relationship itself. Relationship Matters is a concept, a huge one. It is clear that now is a moment to embrace the process of blossoming and dying—making not just a name change but a fresh rededication to that core of my practice: relationship. Relationship has always been my obsession, but it hadn’t been clear that I could claim this as my work—because it felt so general—until now. I see us all doing relationship, and I want to know everything there is to know about it. I want to help you ask every question there is to ask about how you do relationship.
Verb
I am excited about what the name “Relationship Matters” suggests about relationship, how it hints at the expansiveness of the concept. As human creatures, we're “doing relationship” as an action. There are all kinds of patterns, decisions, and movements we make in relationship that are active, all of which make up our unique ways of doing relationship. I think what we do here matters more than any other thing that we do in our life. We're social animals, and how we succeed is through healthy relationships, through doing relationship in a way that is holistically validating and growthful.
Noun
One of the meanings of “Relationship Matters” is: what’s involved in relationship. The details, the nuts and bolts, the little moments in everyday social living. In terms of purpose, we're here to talk about relationship matters, matters of relationship. We get curious about what’s at play. We're here to do the deep work.
Value
I am obsessed with relationship, relationship health, helping people, and exploring what it is to do relationship. Why?Relationship is the foundation of our lives as humans. We do relationship with self, with other, with nature, and with the world as a whole. Our cultures are built around embracing relationship; we emphasize the meaning of friendships, sports teams, marriages, having kids. So, "Relationship Matters" is a value statement and a core truth. Relationship matters! It does! It’s an exceedingly important collective value, despite rarely being called out that way. I am honored to have found this space of inquiry and exploration, to do and facilitate the work that grows our collective understanding of relationship matters. Do you think of relationship this way? I want to hear your story, how your life is built around this value, this work, this action. And if you value your own relationship matters, join us in Parenting Matters or couples work where we center and explore relationship.