Relational Conversations

This episode’s guest, Robbie Carlton (host of The Sane and Miraculous podcast), met host Michael Porcelli over a decade ago at a workshop where they explored expressing themselves more authentically. Together, they explore the meaning of authenticity, how it develops, and how it connects to personal growth and healthy relationships.

Does authenticity simply mean being oneself? If so, how can one be anything else? Yet we sense whether someone is genuinely comfortable in their skin or is trying too hard to manage their image. Learn the signals that indicate you have more to learn about truly being authentic and how easy it is to avoid. If peeling back layers feels vulnerable yet inspires trust, how does one go about it?

Authenticity sounds good, yet not many of us work to develop it. Those who make the effort eventually bump into some natural limits. Have you wondered, “Do I always need to be self-expressed? Is revealing more always better? Do I need more people to get me? What does authenticity mean? Who am I, really?”

Are there limits to authenticity? What lies beyond? Joining Porch and Robbie to find out more.

• The Vulnerable, Virtual World of Circling
• What is Authentic Relating? - Authentic Revolution
• What is Authentic Relating - ART International
• How 'Authentic Relating' Made Vulnerability a Movement - The Atlantic
• NLP Marin
• Authenticity: Novel Insights Into a Valued, Yet Elusive, Concept
• Be Yourself, but Carefully
• Authenticity Under Fire - Scott Barry Kaufman
• Rebirth (Buddhism) - Wikipedia
• Anattā - Wikipedia
• Martin Heidegger - Wikipedia
• Existentialism - Wikipedia
• The Sane & Miraculous

Our guest, Dr. Susan Campbell’s pioneering “Getting Real” work in communication and relationships shaped the field and influenced many practitioners and facilitators, including our host, Michael Porcelli.

They discuss communication and facilitation, sharing personal reflections, professional insights, and applications for intimate relationships and organizational settings. Susan reflects on her changing perspective on the importance of psychological safety. As organizational consultants, they discuss essential differences in addressing relational issues in our personal versus professional lives. Susan draws wisdom from her direct experience with encounter groups from an earlier era that emphasized less restricted self-expression, as well as today's trauma-informed approaches and the trade-offs involved in this development.

The episode has something for everyone, whether you're new to relational practices or an experienced facilitator.

Key Takeaways:

• The importance of psychological safety in addressing relational issues
• The role of both individual and collective responsibility in fostering psychological safety
• How personally understanding and experiencing one's emotions support healthy relationships
• How letting go of the need to control allows for discovery
• How expressing anger cleanly can add to the aliveness of a relationship
• Essential differences in addressing relational issues at work versus our personal lives.
• The difference between communication in service of a relationship versus authentic self-expression for its own sake

Select References:

• T-groups - Wikipedia
• Susan's Substack
• What Does it Mean to Be Trauma-Informed? | Psychology Today
• Psychological safety - Wikipedia
• Susan Campbell

This episode’s guest, Robbie Carlton, is the host of The Sane and Miraculous podcast. 

Robbie and our host, Michael Porcelli, were one-time colleagues who trained facilitators in the relational practice called Circling. Robbie and Porch also bring their long-shared interest in computing, science, philosophy, and consciousness to this wide-ranging conversation exploring the influence of artificial intelligence on economic sectors reliant on human relationships, such as therapy, coaching, and education. They also speculate on future ethical dilemmas, including AI sentience and rights.

They delve into how increasing digital interactions through remote work and social media are changing our social world, especially as AI agents become more prevalent in our daily lives. Do we risk further isolation and loss of human connection? What constraints on these trends are needed to preserve the essential aspects of our humanity? 

On the flip side, they discuss how AI could relieve us from mundane tasks, allowing more time for enjoying human connection, creative expression, and solving engaging problems. Are there limits to how much of human economic activity can become experiential and relational? 

• The future of work may involve a shift towards the experiential and relational economy, where people find meaning and value in human-to-human interactions.
• Automation has the potential to disrupt the economy and lead to a redistribution of wealth, with professions focused on human connection becoming highly valued.
• The economic and governance systems may need to evolve to ensure a fair distribution of resources and to support the growth of the relational economy.
• Relational work has the potential to become primarily what most people do for a living.
• While AI has the potential to enhance certain aspects of human interaction, there are limitations to its ability to replicate the depth and complexity of human connection.
• How the unpredictable nature of relationships is essential to what makes them fulfilling..
• Automating rote work can free up time for more meaningful activities and human connection.
• The possibility that AI will perform rote forms of emotional labor
• In a screen-mediated social world, it is important to develop and prioritize relational skills.

• International Circling Federation
• The Google engineer who thinks the company’s AI has come to life. Nitasha Tiku. 2022 Jun 11. Washington Post.
• A Conversation With Bing’s Chatbot Left Me Deeply Unsettled. Kevin Roose. 2023 Feb 16. The New York Times. 
• Startup Uses AI Chatbot to Provide Mental Health Counseling and Then Realizes It “Feels Weird.” 2023 Jan 10. Vicecom.
• Mukbang. 2024 Jan 8. Wikipedia.
• Beauty YouTuber. 2024 Jan 21. Wikipedia.
• How AI can save our humanity. Kai-Fu Lee. 2018. Tedcom.
• AI Superpowers. Kai-Fu Lee. 2023 Oct 7. Wikipedia.
• ELIZA. 2023 Dec 27. Wikipedia. 
• The Right to Be Lazy. 2023 Nov 13. Wikipedia.
• In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays. 2024 Jan 21. Wikipedia.
• Fully Automated Luxury Communism. 2023 Jul 26. Wikipedia.
• Rental family service. 2023 Nov 20. Wikipedia.‌
• Hikikomori. 2024 Jan 21. Wikipedia.
• ‌Replika. 2024 Jan 5. Wikipedia.
• Why AI Girlfriends Will Be More Popular Than You Think. 21 Jan 2024. Psychology Today.
• Culture series. 2023 Dec 15. Wikipedia.
• AlphaGo Zero. 2023 Aug 11. Wikipedia.
• We’ve Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy – and the World’s Getting Worse. 2023 Feb 19. Wikipedia.
• Panpsychism. 2024 Jan 12. Wikipedia.
• Luddite. 2024 Jan 13. Wikipedia.
• ‌ChatGPT. 2024 Jan 22. Wikipedia.
• Andrew Yang. 2024 Jan 13. Wikipedia.
• Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. 2023 Dec 3. Wikipedia
• Co-counselling. 2023 Oct 28. Wikipedia. 
• Emotional labor. 2024 Jan 20. Wikipedia.
• Compassion fatigue. 2024 Jan 10. Wikipedia.
• MrBeast. 2024 Jan 21. Wikipedia. 
• Cryptocurrency.  2024 Jan 22. Wikipedia.
• Platform cooperative. 2024 Jan 2. Wikipedia.
• Web3. 2024 Jan 15. Wikipedia.
• The Matrix (franchise). 2024 Jan 10. Wikipedia.
• Minecraft. 2024 Jan 21. Wikipedia.
• Star Trek. 2024 Jan 13. Wikipedia.
• Borg. 2024 Jan 14. Wikipedia.
• Predictive coding. 2023 Dec 21. Wikipedia.
• Westworld. 2023 Dec 28. Wikipedia.
• Global catastrophic risk. 2024 Jan 9. Wikipedia. 
• NLP Marin

Kendra Cunov is a long-time friend and collaborator with host Michael Porcelli. Together, they share lessons from years of developing relational training and leading communities of relational practices, particularly in Authentic Relating. They reminisce candidly about experiences from their own relationship as colleagues. And they reflect on the potential blind spots in Authentic Relating culture and practices. They examine what it takes to create what you want to experience in both personal and professional relationships. Their conversation illustrates some of the factors in the evolution of Authentic Relating into MetaRelating.

Key takeaways:

• Navigating both similarity and difference is crucial in relationships.
• Self-inquiry is essential for understanding personal desires and growth.
• Embodiment is key for making an impact and being receptive to others
• Expanding the capacity for intensity increases the options available in relationships
• The importance of sensing what a relationship needs beyond individual desire
• Creating relational contexts and agreements enhance communication and understanding.
• Processing tensions one at a time can lead to more effective resolution.

https://kendracunov.com/

Do you want to experience more effective collaboration and more fulfilling relationships? Join Michael Porcelli & Melody Markel and learn about MetaRelating, an approach to communicating about relationships effectively. Hear our personal stories and how we got into relational communication practices.

Welcome to Relational Conversations with Michael Porcelli, the official MetaRelating podcast. Join my guests and me to stimulate dialogue about relationships, communication, and the many ways they intertwine. Have a listen to find out more.