Hi Daniel. I have been a big fan of your podcast, and was also in the first level training of Planetary Dharma with you. I want to tell you that I feel that the radical transparency and courage that is now being transmitted through your voice here feels rare and valuable. It feels like some kind of turning, a sacred reversal, in which you who listened so beautifully to so many people for years, are now allowing your own unique and irreplaceble voice to find its place in the world. I celebrate this, and I give thanks.
Shayla, this lands deep. Thank you for being seeing this shift with such generosity. You're naming something I am only starting to see myself—this turning from listener to voice—and your witnessing it helps me trust it's real. So grateful you're here for your reflection. ❤️
This is amazingly and poignantly written. Even though I am much older and not a child of screen time the symptoms of emptiness and inability to be fully present as well as an inability to remember childhood clearly, are the same for those of us who had to live through childhoods where trauma was present. Be it that our parents experienced undiagnosed post war trauma and therefore could not fully be present for their children, but also as a child who experienced the fallout of living in a household of psychiatric disorders, and therefore with my own trauma. I am only sorry to hear that younger people are going through this from a very different source. But I have always suspected this to be true as I watch society, with people buried in their devices and not communicating with an actual human beside them. It is especially heartbreaking when that is a child seeking their parent’s attention.
May we all strive to heal as this author has so we can be more fully there for others.
Thank you for your courage and this beautifully written peace.
Oh I love this. Your latest articles have been particularly poignant for me. I wonder though, given the current cultural attitudes towards screen, whether your message might be slightly lost into the default “screens bad” narrative.
The way I see it is that the body in its infinite wisdom will always find a way to dissociate from pain when attunement is not available. Before screens, children had other ways to dissociate. Often for older generations that would have been through body tension, or any number of things really, but that are maybe less obvious than screens.
My partner’s grandmother recently came to visit us, when I see her and that generation I see effectively a lot of powerlessness, a lot of disconnection from themselves. Their whole world is made up of judgements and shoulds and have tos.
In a way I think they do feel less pain at the conscious level but there are so many ways in which I see myself as so much more “here” than my grandparents generation and my parents who didn’t grow up with screens. Mainly because I have so much more actual awareness of my pain, of my needs, of true my yeses and noes (in your words, so much more clarity on what is mine to do).
An exquisitely sensitive, wise and insightful post. I’m touched and grateful for the sake of your readers. I was in my 60’s before the implicit memory work I was blessed to engage in freed me from the cloak of shame I carried over the decades. Blessings on your practice and the benefit you bring🙏🏻
Gorgeous. Relatable to all at one point or another… “It feels like watching your life from behind glass. Like being a character in a movie. Like there’s a thin membrane between you and everything—other people, your own emotions, the texture of being alive.”
Thanks, Daniel. I'm the same generation as you but didn't get so much exposure to screens. However, I experienced an extreme lack of attunement and learned to dissociate in other ways. Having "succeeded" on the world's terms in my twenties, everything fell apart at thirty. Now I'm almost 42 and the deconstruction of the false self is still going - to a very deep and very difficult level. I imagine this is common too - with so little self built up in childhood, there's so much undoing. I find Almaas' Diamond Approach to be the only place I consistently find precise descriptions of what I'm going through in order to digest these layers of false self. It's relieving to know I'm not completely lost, which is what it often feels like on an experiential level. I have to trust that the direction will turn, at some point, towards building a healthy, relational, robust self. I'm glad it did for you.
Thank you, yes! This! There is a small but growing core here. I tie all of this into neuordiversity, but your words are making me realize that there’s a structural and systemic component here too! It’s not just the autistics, we’re the canary in the coal mine. Everything is changing so fast and you’ve named the thing.
I talk about this as “identity trauma”, but yes! There are tools for helping people navigate this space, I’d love to chat about this!
I felt held reading this - thank you for reminding me to come back into attunement with my soul, my relationships & life itself. Wonderful, poignant writing. ❤️
Hi Daniel. I have been a big fan of your podcast, and was also in the first level training of Planetary Dharma with you. I want to tell you that I feel that the radical transparency and courage that is now being transmitted through your voice here feels rare and valuable. It feels like some kind of turning, a sacred reversal, in which you who listened so beautifully to so many people for years, are now allowing your own unique and irreplaceble voice to find its place in the world. I celebrate this, and I give thanks.
Shayla, this lands deep. Thank you for being seeing this shift with such generosity. You're naming something I am only starting to see myself—this turning from listener to voice—and your witnessing it helps me trust it's real. So grateful you're here for your reflection. ❤️
This is amazingly and poignantly written. Even though I am much older and not a child of screen time the symptoms of emptiness and inability to be fully present as well as an inability to remember childhood clearly, are the same for those of us who had to live through childhoods where trauma was present. Be it that our parents experienced undiagnosed post war trauma and therefore could not fully be present for their children, but also as a child who experienced the fallout of living in a household of psychiatric disorders, and therefore with my own trauma. I am only sorry to hear that younger people are going through this from a very different source. But I have always suspected this to be true as I watch society, with people buried in their devices and not communicating with an actual human beside them. It is especially heartbreaking when that is a child seeking their parent’s attention.
May we all strive to heal as this author has so we can be more fully there for others.
Thank you for your courage and this beautifully written peace.
Thank you. 🙏
Excellent, Daniel. I feel seen and a little less alone.
Thanks Mike. It means a lot to hear you say that, that was exactly my hope with this piece. ❤️
Oh I love this. Your latest articles have been particularly poignant for me. I wonder though, given the current cultural attitudes towards screen, whether your message might be slightly lost into the default “screens bad” narrative.
The way I see it is that the body in its infinite wisdom will always find a way to dissociate from pain when attunement is not available. Before screens, children had other ways to dissociate. Often for older generations that would have been through body tension, or any number of things really, but that are maybe less obvious than screens.
My partner’s grandmother recently came to visit us, when I see her and that generation I see effectively a lot of powerlessness, a lot of disconnection from themselves. Their whole world is made up of judgements and shoulds and have tos.
In a way I think they do feel less pain at the conscious level but there are so many ways in which I see myself as so much more “here” than my grandparents generation and my parents who didn’t grow up with screens. Mainly because I have so much more actual awareness of my pain, of my needs, of true my yeses and noes (in your words, so much more clarity on what is mine to do).
An exquisitely sensitive, wise and insightful post. I’m touched and grateful for the sake of your readers. I was in my 60’s before the implicit memory work I was blessed to engage in freed me from the cloak of shame I carried over the decades. Blessings on your practice and the benefit you bring🙏🏻
Gorgeous. Relatable to all at one point or another… “It feels like watching your life from behind glass. Like being a character in a movie. Like there’s a thin membrane between you and everything—other people, your own emotions, the texture of being alive.”
Grateful for your powerful prose. 🙏
Beautiful said Daniel, thank you for expressing how I feel better then I ever could 🙏
Thanks, Daniel. I'm the same generation as you but didn't get so much exposure to screens. However, I experienced an extreme lack of attunement and learned to dissociate in other ways. Having "succeeded" on the world's terms in my twenties, everything fell apart at thirty. Now I'm almost 42 and the deconstruction of the false self is still going - to a very deep and very difficult level. I imagine this is common too - with so little self built up in childhood, there's so much undoing. I find Almaas' Diamond Approach to be the only place I consistently find precise descriptions of what I'm going through in order to digest these layers of false self. It's relieving to know I'm not completely lost, which is what it often feels like on an experiential level. I have to trust that the direction will turn, at some point, towards building a healthy, relational, robust self. I'm glad it did for you.
Excellent, so complete, thank you. This deserves being shared wide and far, and can and will be through one attuned nervous system to another.
Thank you! Yes I very much hope this piece finds its way to folks who might feel seen and supported by it.
Thank you, yes! This! There is a small but growing core here. I tie all of this into neuordiversity, but your words are making me realize that there’s a structural and systemic component here too! It’s not just the autistics, we’re the canary in the coal mine. Everything is changing so fast and you’ve named the thing.
I talk about this as “identity trauma”, but yes! There are tools for helping people navigate this space, I’d love to chat about this!
This was absolutely beautifully written, Daniel. Thank you for bringing words to this 🙏
Thanks Ravi! Appreciate the kind words, glad it resonated.
Wow… just wow. This was extremely on point, beautifully and terrifyingly so
I felt held reading this - thank you for reminding me to come back into attunement with my soul, my relationships & life itself. Wonderful, poignant writing. ❤️
Beautifully articulated, Daniel.... This really touched my heart and named parts of my own journey. Thank you for sharing.