Authentic relating means revealing what's already inside you, not learning new skills. The speaker uses a Lake Powell metaphor: lowering the water level of your unconscious uncovers both beautiful and painful material. A weekend course systematically excavates deeper layers so you know yourself and others more deeply.
Okay, so what is authentic relating? At least, what is our version of authentic relating? The primary aspect of authentic relating for us is revealing what is. It's not about changing anything. It's not about having to learn something that you don't have. It's actually simply revealing what's already there. So, we have our conscious mind, our field of consciousness, And then we have everything that's happening at the unconscious level. The way we describe it is, you guys know Lake Powell in southern Utah? It's this beautiful lake out in the sort of canyon lands of southern Utah, and it's dammed up by the Glen Canyon Dam. So it's an artificial lake. So what they did a few years ago is start to release water down the Colorado River through the Glen Canyon Dam, and it started draining the surface. Of Lake Powell by many, many feet. And as it was draining, it started to reveal all of this hidden stuff underneath the surface. And it revealed all this magical stuff, hieroglyphics from indigenous tribes and all these features of the landscape that nobody knew was there, these species of plants. And it was just all shocking and surprising and delightful. But it also revealed all bunch of tangled branches and all sorts of tangled shit and all this stuff that had been stuffed down under the surface. That was now being revealed. And so it is in this practice of authentic relating, we're lowering the waters of the unconscious, we're revealing more and more, becoming conscious of more and more. And what we may find there may be beautiful and magical and delightful, and it may be disgusting and awful and painful. And it's all there. It's already all there. So all we're doing through the course of this weekend indeed to the course of this practice, is continuing to excavate ever lower into our unconscious selves, knowing ourselves ever more deeply. And as it happens, the same tools that we use to uncover ourselves are the tools that we can support uncovering other people's unconsciousness. As we know ourselves more deeply, it turns out that we can know others more deeply.
