Justin Patrick Pierce uses David Deida's three-stage relationship model to explain when separation makes sense. He argues that unconditional love without boundaries leads to psychological harm, and that clear, mutually respected agreements must come first. When a partner repeatedly violates boundaries or their toxicity outweighs functional value, discernment guided by sensitivity signals it's time to leave.
Chapters
What this practice is about, what this practice is teaching, is sensitivity and awareness to the present moment, and an awareness that transcends the self and includes the other and includes the greater good. A sensitivity that transcends the self, that is sensitive to the other and sensitive to the world. When you have those faculties, your decision-making is based on those parameters. Most individuals cannot feel past themselves and are not aware of anything but themselves. And oftentimes what they feel and what they're aware of is just their reactivity. They don't even have faculty beyond the reactive functions of the body-mind. So when most people navigate these terrains, they're doing it with not a lot of good information. It's just, that'll get me high, that'll get me off, that'll get me rich, that'll get me famous, and so on. You know, that's the decision-making. It's high-chasing, more or less, and avoiding discomfort. When we start to practice, as you have, We become aware of our own self and reactivity and our own emotions and all of that in the midst of all of this. And we might be with an intimate partner. We might be with an intimate partner who is challenging that part of us at the core, at the greatest depth. So here we are practicing, we're doing good, right? But this person just knows how to get in there and trigger that fucking thing where we go unconscious again, or we just are at our edge. This is too much. This is too— typically a good partner is going to do that to you. It's, it's our wiring. It's how we match one another up. It comes from our childhood. It comes from our neuromuscular armor. It goes, ooh, this person hasn't done this to me yet, but I can feel that they're going to fucking criticize me the same way that I'm, you know, like they're going to deny me love in the exact same way I hate it. And you were going to, and so you're going to have great sex. Shit's going to be awesome. You're like, I met this person. They're the best person in the whole world. And 6 months to 12 months are going to go by. Binary to go, this person's the fucking devil. Like, they're, they're cutting into me in this, in just that right way that has been a pain for me that it feels intolerable. It feels like, fuck this. Now here's where awareness, sensitivity, intelligence really comes into place. Does that feel familiar? Is this denial of love a pattern? Is it something that smells familiar, looks familiar, tastes familiar? If it has a familiarness, like a, like an aching, like I've been carrying this a while, like why does this always happen to me? Why does it always end up like this, it's probably yours. It's probably your work to do. Now, if someone is just simply toxic and bringing toxicity in your life, they might have a number of great qualities. You might have phenomenal sex with them. You know, that happens a lot. You know, we have phenomenal sex, but everywhere else is just there's dysfunction. There's no function inside of this whatsoever. This is not healthy. There's no room for— it's not constructive what's happening here. It's not serving me. It's not serving you. It's not serving the greater good. And of course, in that case, this has got to stop. This has got to not continue. So that comes with discernment. Discernment, your own discernment, understanding. If it feels familiar and it feels achy, it's probably yours. And typically what we find out is most of it's ours. We're attracted to certain people for a reason. We're not attracted to everybody. We're attracted to certain people intimately, and there's good, good reasons for it. Yeah, so The next piece though is something that doesn't get commonly talked about, but I want to use David Deida's model. He has a great model for this that he calls the first, second, and third stage. You're familiar with this, Chris? Yeah. So a lot of people experience this type of work and they just think it's all about the third stage. It's all about third stage. And people are like, I'm third stage. I want a third stage relationship. I'm living in the third stage. And it's just, misinformed nonsense. It's just not the correct understanding of what's actually happening here. Um, third stage is an orientation towards relationship where you are able to give your love truly unconditionally. You just allow your love to flow between you and this other human being. Now, in an ideal scenario, we would all be so enlightened, right? But we're fucking not. It's— we're not. And you can be harmed for doing that to the wrong people. Jesus lived, what, 30-some-odd years doing that to people, and he was crucified for it. You might not be physically crucified for it, but people get energetically crucified all of the time for giving their love too freely with no discernment. You are— you will be crucified in that process. But if not physically, then psychologically, emotionally. Death threats to these types of people happen all the time, all the time. So in a conventional setting in our lives here, if we're not choosing the enlightened saint sage path where we're just going to love everyone unconditionally like that, there's parameters that need to be in place. The first stage takes care of all of your self-needs. I need to eat, I need to shit, I need money, I need a roof over my head, I need to be warm, I need to sleep a certain number of hours every night. So forth. First stage. Second stage is, I've got some needs here, and these needs need to be met such that this is a functional partnership between the two of us. We need function. That's the essence of a business contract or an agreement. That is the essence of therapy. Therapy is largely based on the second stage model. It's about This is what I need. This is what I feel. This is what would need to change in the future. Okay, I understand. This is what I need. This is what I— so forth. And you guys come to an agreement and you say, I respect you. I see you. I agree to this. Let's hold this, these conditions. Okay, good. Second stage, it's completely depolarizing. It is a depolarizing environment, intentionally so. We don't want superiority in this environment. We want mutual respect, mutual awareness of one another, mutual consideration of one another. We don't want polarity here. It doesn't work. So we intentionally neutralize the environment between partners to create those parameters. Say, do you agree to this? Yes, I agree. Do you agree to this? Yes, I agree. Now that we have this, we can play in those third stage or those higher levels of polarity because it's built on a foundation of trust and understanding. We know what the guidelines are for this. And typically from what you're describing, people get into the situation, they've simply lost value or consideration of this second stage, the value of how important it is to be clear with your partner about X, Y, and Z. These are my boundaries. If you fall out of these boundaries, I'm out. And then you have your boundaries, they fall out of the boundary, and you go, you fell out of the boundary. That fucking hurt. It kills me. I really love you. I want this to work. So I really need you to make the adjustment, not fall out of this boundary. And they go, okay, I won't do it another time. Okay, perfect. Here's my boundary. They fall out of the boundary. They fall out of the boundary. They fall out of the boundary. And you just go, you know what? This is toxic. I told you what I needed. This is not it. This is obviously something you can't do. You're not committed to, and I'm moving on. Now, one last qualifier on that. If you are business contract, if your parameters, your second stage parameters, are about keeping you safe, if it's selfish, if it's all about satisfying how you want relationship to look with no consideration of the other, with no interest in overcoming your own wounds and your own traumas and your old stories of unlove, if it's built with no interest in that, it's just patriarchal. It's just, it's just dominating. It's just disgusting. You might as well just get, hire a woman at that point. So these parameters you built are in consideration. You're feeling and aware of self. You're feeling and aware of her. You're feeling and aware of the greater good and all the people it's going to impact. And you make the decision based on there. And that's the highest level we could bring to intimacy. And if it still doesn't work after this, you'll, you'll know the next move. But I would recommend these are all of the things you must first consider to intelligently make that decision.
