by Sara Ness
What if “you did it wrong!” could be a compliment?
Our culture tends to penalize mistakes. When someone does a “wrong thing” – hits on a woman who doesn’t want it, lies, fails to keep a commitment – they are likely to end up in...
Caring for your nervous system when everything is falling apart
Feb 25, 2022
by Sara Ness
The world has, by all accounts, gotten more polarized in the last few years. Polls by More in Common and the Pew Research center show that since the 90s, people have gotten steadily more identified with strict party lines and sweeping, identity group-based beliefs. This means that...
The 3 Most Important Books for Authentic Relating
Feb 02, 2022
Very few things emerge completely out of nothing.
There's a process of mapping the territory, experimenting, documenting and cataloging, and always always continuing to learn.
The practice of Authentic Relating was born from a cocktail of personal experience, studies, social...
Life and Death: A Games Night Plan
Oct 19, 2021
I planned to write, this week, about the Authentic Leadership and Facilitation Training. Of anything I've created that is the most involved and Sara-esq program, a synthesis of 3 years of facilitation experience. My underlying hope was that some of you might even want to attend. We were meant to...
The Relating Languages Part 2: Stress and Safety in Connection
Apr 08, 2021
by Sara Ness
Why is it that sometimes we can be our “best selves” — grounded, connected, and aware — and sometimes, we’re a total relational mess?
Personality typing systems give us a general concept of who we are. I’m an “Enneagram 7” —...
The Relating Languages Part 1, or Why We Don’t All Just Get Along
Apr 07, 2021
by Sara Ness
Hi, I’m Sara, and I am an awkwardvert.
An awkwardvert (self-titled) is a mix of extrovert tendencies with a lot of social anxiety. I want to meet you, but I also want to run away. I have always struggled with, and searched for, answers to the following questions:
What are...
What does “Authentic” mean?
Sep 04, 2020
by Sara Ness
“It isn’t normal to know what we want. It is a rare and difficult psychological achievement.” — Abraham Harold Maslow
What does authentic mean?
Is authenticity total honesty in all your words and actions? Is it following your impulses, your...
The Process of Authenticity
Jan 22, 2018
by Sara Ness
After 3 years of leading communities, and encountering every sort of capital-T bolded-letters you’re-wrong-if-you-don’t-agree TRUTH, I’ve discovered that authenticity – as in, “my TRUTH is paramount for me to bring to the world” –...
The Pain of Presence
May 27, 2014
by Sara Ness
I never know how to start an article.
I have practiced authenticity and transformational work for years now, and I still don’t know how to begin a sentence that will touch people to their bones. I don’t know what to say when a friend tells me that their parents have...