Cultivating the 'sustained courage' to love
A conversation with Daniel Garner about the Grounded Connection program
Hangin’ with Daniel Garner of O.G. Rose
I don’t formally identify as Christian, but it’s funny to watch myself, a former atheist, become more and more convinced that the teaching “love thy neighbor” is literally the most important practice we could all be working on right now.
My way of talking about this, stemming from my training in somatic movement and subsequent immersion in various meditative and interpersonal practices, is the framework of the 4 Postures of Love.
In short, I believe that each one of us could more skillfully love our “neighbors” (not only our “next door neighbors”, but all of our earthly co-inhabitants) by consciously practicing to show up kinder, more connected, curious and playful - in every kind of situation we can imagine.
To be kind - or enact any of the 4 postures - is something I do at every level of my being: it involves my body, mind, heart and soul.
When one person loves their neighbor, the impact in the world can be difficult to see from a distance. Yet, for me, one of the best inspirations to motivate this practice on a “micro-level” is to imagine what would change on the “macro-level” if this intention was enacted at scale by millions of people.
My conversations over the past couple of years with Daniel Garner (who does identify as Christian, but studiously does not evangelize his faith), have given me a much deeper understanding of what it means to “love thy neighbor.” In particular, his ideas about the current state of the world and what changes are needed at the social level to move towards a future of human flourishing, have helped me to better understand the “macro-level” challenges that show their face each time we seek to love our neighbors.
(Highly recommended: Along with his wife, Michelle Garner, Daniel writes under the pen name O.G. Rose. Crucial contributions for understanding our current moment are the books Belonging Again and The Map is Indestructible.)
I recently had the pleasure of talking with Daniel about both the micro and the macro of enacting a conscious practice of love in our lives. This is not simply a question of morals, but also of metaphysics, of grasping more precisely how the interconnectivity of all things shows up in our shared experience in every waking moment.
Something Daniel said that I loved is that, along with the various skills we need to cultivate that help us bring more love into our lives, we need the “sustained courage” to come back to this practice again and again and again.
The full conversation with Daniel is included at the bottom of this post along with links to resources for learning how to bring the 4 Postures of Love into your life as an ‘Anytime Anywhere Awareness’ practice in service to both your individual - as well as the greater collective - wellbeing.
I am also including here some shorter clips of the conversation as teasers.
How the simple act of slowing down invites embodiment of the 4 Postures of Love:
Practicing presence anytime & anywhere:
Why radical kindness sometimes feels counter-cultural in a society fixated on willpower:
Thinking of ourselves as “radio antennas” as we move through the interpersonal “field”:
Bringing ‘soul’ into our vocabulary to connect individual and collective well-being:
How questioning our spiritual (dis)beliefs opens new potential for thriving in a complex world:
The full conversation:
Learning to embody and enact the 4 Postures of Love in daily life to experience more bodily comfort, peace of mind, skillful emotional regulation and meaningful social connection is at the heart of the curriculum of the Grounded Connection program.
There are two ways to engage with Grounded Connection:
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