Healing is one of the themes that runs through Nectar of Time. Below is everything in the Nectarium that touches on it.
Where it comes up 12
Within this theme 105
Concepts 26
- Shadow work
Jungian practice of bringing the repressed, denied, or avoided parts of the psyche into the open and meeting them with compassion rather than trying to eradicate them; the core of Ian's…
- Remembering Process
Ian's framing of inner work: not becoming something you're not but coming back to who you truly are, the self from before conditioning, trauma and stress piled up.
- Alchemizing fear
Samantha's term for facing a fear fully so the energy trapped in the body from resisting it is released. Dreams are the safest arena for it because the conscious mind's defenses are down.
- Fiction as a Tonic for Empathy
Tamir's case that fiction, not just self-help, distills emotions with sincere empathy, and that libraries and novels are portals and time machines where others have already overcome your…
- Death Salon
Gatherings, also called death cafes, where strangers talk about grief, death and loss and share book excerpts and poetry. Mia borrowed the term from a Brooklyn therapist and is piloting…
- Functional Freeze
Nev's term for a common modern state: highly functional at work and in daily tasks, but cut off from the body, chronically stressed, sleeping badly and deeply unsafe underneath. She says…
- Metaphor as coping tool
Salih's central takeaway from Murakami: recasting real threats and difficulties as metaphors (a small Commendatore in the corner) makes them less overwhelming.
- Men's Work
Group and individual inner work for men (retreats, men's groups, mentoring) that Ian facilitates. Its aim is for men to show up for themselves, partners, kids, communities and businesses…
- Closure Is an Illusion
Mia's claim that closure doesn't exist; what people actually seek is the inner power to say 'enough, I'm done, I'm putting that to bed.'
- Conditioning Basement
Ian's metaphor: through life we throw 'crap' (upbringing, stress, trauma, betrayal, tragedy) into a basement year after year, and it shapes how we think, act and see ourselves. None of it…
- Holding Space
Mia's term for being a 'clean mirror' who listens, observes and asks questions without shock or judgment. She argues most people outsource their therapy to hairstylists and Uber drivers who…
- Kintsugi
The Japanese art of repairing broken ceramics with gold. Tamir's intro uses it as an image of authenticity: imperfections are 'the true hallmarks of beauty' and asymmetry is magical.
- Mental Plaque
Tamir's metaphor for beliefs and conditioning that build up like plaque on teeth, setting invisible limits that hurt performance in every area of life. You can't simply think your way out…
- Nervous System Regulation
Calming the body's stress response (adrenaline, cortisol) through breathwork, grounding and body work. Nev treats it as the foundation that has to be in place before deeper shadow work.
- Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy
The focus of Mia's Harvard research and future vision: psychedelic-assisted therapy 'voyages' for grief. She notes initiatives using MDMA to mediate conflict between Israelis and…
- Unprocessed Grief
Mia argues much Western addiction, substance abuse, PTSD, depression, anxiety and even physical disease is unprocessed grief, because we say goodbye to things all the time without actually…
- Breathwork
A somatic practice Nev facilitates, often with supportive touch (with permission). On Instagram it looks to Tamir 'like an exorcism' or 'a physical incantation'.
- GRF Methodology
Mia's grief methodology, developed as a response to the five stages of grief, which she uses at grief dinner parties and death salons and will unveil in full in her memoir, with exercises…
- Physiotherapy of the Mind
Ian's analogy for why years of therapy alone often don't change men's lives. In physio the injury heals through the exercises done at home, not in the hour at the clinic. Meditation…
- Self-acceptance
Ian: compassion and self-acceptance only happen when you accept everything, including the dark parts; Tamir adds that, like confidence, it can't be produced on command.
- Original sin framing of self-help
Ian and Tamir observe that self-help often starts from 'I'm broken, therefore I need X', which Tamir likens to Christian original sin; Ian prescribes self-compassion instead.
- MDMA
Mia is excited about sessions using MDMA to mediate conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
- Self-Help Fatigue
Tamir's observation that self-help books lift you beautifully the first time you're sad or face adversity, but once you've read many they all say the same thing and stop working, and that…
- Somatic Work
Body-based healing modality Ian has practiced extensively, along with embodiment work, shadow work and cognitive behavioral therapy.
- Cognitive behavioral therapy
Tamir notes you can't do exposure-style CBT for a fear like being committed to a psychiatric hospital in waking life, which is why the dream became Samantha's arena.
- Embodiment Work
Part of Ian's training history. He says even after all these modalities, simple daily sitting is what makes him feel most connected.
Books 3
- Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Tamir loves the scene where a friend tells Tsukuru a strange story about a man his father met at a mountain inn, an example of Murakami's one-on-one conversations that feel like portals.
- Man's Search for Meaning
Raised as a non-fiction touchstone on choosing your response to circumstance. Tyler read it in university; for him, as a closeted teen who felt locked into a bad fate, it taught that…
- Sputnik Sweetheart
In both guests' top five. Tamir's most indelible visual is Miu on the Ferris wheel seeing herself in her apartment; also the pan-flute music on the Greek island. Salih reads the Ferris…
People 5
- Ian Coll
Squamish, BC based entrepreneur, former cinematographer, and men's wellness facilitator who runs men's groups and retreats and uses shadow work to help people overcome lifelong obstacles…
- Nevena
Nevena (Nev), Instagram @iamnevenag, is a Toronto-raised shadow worker and guide of Serbian/Balkan descent who works mostly with women. She combines shadow work with nervous-system…
- Mia Cosco
Research assistant at Harvard working on psychedelic research, specifically how psychedelics can help with grief; hosts grief dinner parties, death salons and death cafes, and is writing a…
- Carl Jung
Swiss psychiatrist; Tamir says Hesse and Jung were neighbours and friends, which shows in Hesse's work, as an example of novelists absorbing non-fiction knowledge.
- Mike Tyson
Logan watched the Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul fight ('because I hate myself'). It was a huge deal and forgotten days later, his example of ever-shorter news cycles.
Quotes 22
If you have something menacing in your life, just imagine this is a small Commendatore sitting in the corner trying to threaten you, but actually it's not real. You see it, but you don't need to take it too seriously.
The sooner that you can accept that, you can start to integrate it, and you can start to be like a friend to it, start to become friends with the devil.
What is repressed and suppressed is the most harmful for us. That which we bring out into the light, and that we actually look at with our two eyes and we consciously acknowledge, is so much less of a big deal. ... Once it gets brought into the light, it just dissolves.
It doesn't matter what you learn. If you're in a state of overwhelm, there's nothing you can do with what you've learned. You're just going to freeze and it's going to turn into shame.
We heal in kind of a field of connection. There's really a field of healing that's created when people share in a group.
Anxiety softens when you face it. You don't need to cold plunge your way through trauma.
We say goodbye to things all the time. Are we choosing that goodbye every time, or are we letting things happen to us? I'm choosing this, and this too I'm also choosing. I'm here and I'm choosing it.
It's about not trying to make it go away. Bring the devil with you, because we are that. That's how you create wholeness.
Closure is kind of an illusion, which is a terrible thing to say to some people, but closure is really an illusion. What people are really seeking with closure is the power within to just say, okay, enough, I'm done, I'm putting that to bed.
Curiosity is an ascension from depression. Even if you just have the motivation for one more breath or one more moment, that's better than just being like, I want to end it all.
The best thing that a teacher can do, that has been shared before, these are not my words obviously, is just to lead the student back to themselves.
They don't want to talk about that. It's kind of like puking in public. But I actually think that that is why we need to do it.
Stories are useful, and in particular novels are portals into the multiverse. Imagine that your problems in your life have already appeared to other people before, and they have overcome it, and they can liberate you from the burden that you think is so unique and so your own.
Silence still means you're participating, because even if you're just energetically participating, you're still there, you're still present. You don't have to be saying anything to be present.
All of that crap that's being shoved into the basement is not yours. It was taught to you, it was modeled to you, things happened to you.
The highest form of self-respect is sit down and just give yourself 10 minutes to be with yourself every day in your breath, and just see what happens.
I didn't even realize how heavy my body had felt until it was gone. I think we just get used to what the heaviness of fear feels like.
You don't need more podcasts, you don't need more books, you don't need more strategy. What you need is compassion for yourself.
I was taking lessons out of it of how to get through when the best I could do was just dog paddle to keep my head above water, and it even actually just taught me sometimes that's good enough, because sooner or later something's going to shift.
Something dies in you, and you can use that to dissolve that ego and destroy it and build something new. Of course the ego always regenerates in a new terrible devil, but going through it is useful.
Like you go to physio. That hour that you're there, that's not where the injury is healed. It's when you're doing your exercises at home for 15 minutes three times a day.
When I write, it's like an exorcism. I'm trying to remove something from my body.
Insights 17
- Naming what's repressed dissolves it
What stays repressed does the most harm. Saying it out loud and looking at it directly makes it far lighter, which is why talking openly about sexual shame brings breakthroughs.
- Compassion only comes from accepting everything
You can't decide to be more compassionate or confident; self-acceptance only becomes real when you accept all of yourself, including the parts you're ashamed of.
- Metaphors shrink what menaces you
Recasting a real threat as a metaphor (seeing it, but not taking it too seriously) makes it easier to cope with; this is the most practical gift of Murakami's fiction.
- Modern life rewards us with the opposite of what we need
We need more space, silence, and nature, yet we're drowned in noise and offered an endless menu of distractions to avoid feeling discomfort and uncertainty.
- No one can integrate your shadow for you
Repression runs unconsciously and protects itself, so shadow work can't be forced. The person has to be fully willing and, above all, feel safe, or the mind won't open.
- Public forgiveness is selective
Tamir argues that society has a system of penalties, and once paid you should be allowed to move on. Yet some people, like Mike Tyson, are embraced while others, like Sheela, are kept…
- Regulate the body before excavating the mind
Deep inner work done from functional freeze pushes the stress response over the edge and feels overwhelming rather than healing, and then it turns into self-blame. Breathwork and grounding…
- Suppressing the shadow costs more than facing it
It takes more energy to keep the darker parts of ourselves buried than to bring them into the light, and those unexamined parts drive the very behaviors we're trying to stop.
- Therapy is a means, not an end
Therapy and programs are tools for learning to see yourself. For many people the therapy becomes the end and they obsess over it, instead of using it until they can be their own mirror.
- Consuming wisdom isn't doing the work
Podcasts, books and conversations about growth are as good as unread until you internalize them and act. People massively overcomplicate inner work. Free, simple, consistent sitting beat…
- Lessons live in the conflict's resolution
Fiction must resolve its conflict somehow, even in a downer ending, and the way an author resolves a character's trap is where the reader finds a usable lesson about getting through.
- Tragedy-to-comedy time shrinks with age
A sign of growing wiser is that the gap between something awful happening and it becoming a funny story shrinks, from months or years to a day.
- A dying plant may need new soil
A plant dying in one bed can flourish when moved to another. Sometimes the fault isn't in us but in our surroundings and influences, so we should pay close attention to our environment.
- Healing starts with asking about yourself
Real change began when Mia stopped analyzing why others were the problem and asked why she was so angry and needed control.
- Meditation works like cardio
Like running, meditation feels like torture after a break and effortless with daily practice, the way 5 km stops feeling like anything. It also improves focus and emotional reactivity.
- Therapy without home practice stalls
Men who have done years of therapy and are still unhappy usually do nothing between sessions. Healing happens in the daily 'home exercises' of meditation, breathwork and sitting with…
- Fit with your therapist matters
If you don't connect with your psychologist, that isn't your failing: you share more with them than with a spouse, so they must be someone you trust, not a random name from the Yellow Pages.
Practices 14
- Daily No-Agenda Sitting
Set a timer for 35 to 45 minutes daily, with no phone and no agenda, and simply sit (not necessarily meditate), exploring what is happening in your internal experience. Ian sits on a…
- Grief Dinner Parties
Mia's first pilot of grief support groups: hosting dinners in her West Point Grey home where people cook, eat and share their innermost pain, because 'we heal in a field of connection' and…
- Embodying your shadow
In a group, describe a shadow trait, give it a character's shape, then deliberately become it for about 60 seconds, improv-style; returning to a normal stance afterward leaves you feeling…
- Facilitated breathwork with supportive touch
Nev uses breathwork, grounding and body work, with supportive touch given with permission, to lower adrenaline and cortisol and bring clients out of functional freeze before deeper shadow…
- Choose your goodbyes
Actively choose each goodbye ('this I'm choosing, and this too') instead of letting losses happen to you, so grief doesn't go unprocessed.
- Face your worst fear in a lucid dream
Following Charlie Morley: once lucid, deliberately create and walk into the scenario you fear most, and let yourself discover you are safe, so the fear trapped in your body is released when…
- Naming your shadow
Give your shadow a name (e.g. 'Brad') so when the neediness or compulsion arises you can greet it, 'Hey Brad, I see you', rather than mask the discomfort.
- Speak your shame out loud
Bring repressed shame, including sexual shame or trauma, into the open by naming and talking about it: 'giving it a name and a face'. Nev says this alone often dissolves it.
- Turn threats into metaphors
When a person or situation feels menacing, picture it as a Murakami-style metaphor (a small Commendatore in the corner) so you can see it without taking it too seriously.
- Be a clean mirror
When someone shares grief, reflect it cleanly by listening, observing and asking questions, rather than reacting with shock ('Oh my god, really?') or telling them how they should feel…
- Practice gratitude and letting go
Gratitude and letting go feel dumb or empty at first; practiced repeatedly they become tools available to you.
- Talk to your younger self
When old anger flares, Mia addresses her teenage self directly ('Mia, I hear you, I get it') and asks who she is really trying to prove herself to.
- Change your environment to flourish
Like moving a dying plant into new soil, change your surroundings and influences when they keep you from growing.
- Start meditating at two minutes
Forget the image of hours in a cave. Start with two minutes, then three, four, five, building like cardio, until ten minutes with your breath is a daily act of self-respect. Parents can…
Stories 18
- Facing the mental hospital in a dream
Samantha shares, for the first time anywhere, her deepest fear: being committed to a psychiatric hospital and disbelieved. She deliberately dreamt being taken there against her will and…
- A closeted kid in 1980s rural Alberta
Tyler had a great childhood, with a huge extended family and great parents, but was in the closet with no role models, living a dark double life and feeling locked into a bad fate. Frankl…
- Ghosted by three close friends
About three years earlier, three of Tyler's nearest and dearest friends cut him off. He was bewildered and feared something about him was 'too much'. What finally smoothed him out was…
- Ian's Gollum shadow at a retreat
A year and a half earlier Ian noticed a grasping, needy energy with clients (over-following-up, feeling owed). At a retreat he traced it to an unmet childhood need, shaped it into a…
- Mentor laughs at 'one trough of sorrow'
In his early twenties, after surviving a gut disease, a hospital stay, and a breakup, Tamir told a business mentor in his 50s he'd come through the trough of sorrow. The mentor laughed…
- From turbulent reactivity to neutrality
Nev says she began her journey very turbulent and reactive in romantic relationships and friendships, set off 'at the drop of a dime' by comments. After years of shadow work, conflicts now…
- Murakami helped Salih cope with threatening people
Salih says certain people in his life felt like threats, and turning them into Murakami-style metaphors made them much easier to cope with. Reading Murakami also changed his habits: he now…
- Tamir opens up to therapy
Tamir sees a therapist every couple of weeks. His hardcore Ironman and ultramarathon friends find it crazy that someone else could give you answers about yourself. It took him a while to…
- Cried for months over her fear
At the end Samantha recalls crying for months, afraid of being committed. Now she says 'bring it, if it happens it happens', and notes it is the fear itself that creates the dysfunctional…
- Ian launches his first men's group
After four years in men's groups as a private part of his own growth, Ian felt called this summer to launch his own in Squamish, driven by seeing men struggle in silence with work, money…
- Ian's Tourette's, OCD and collapse
Ian grew up with a 'very dysfunctional nervous system', severe Tourette's and OCD, and a lot of shame. In his mid-twenties his life crumbled, and he realized he had no tools to regulate…
- Called a black cat
Before about 2019, people close to Mia called her defensive and on guard, and a 'black cat'; she hugged in a distant, cold way. She worked deliberately to become the open, safe person…
- Childhood control as coping
From seven to about thirteen, Mia coped with her mother's death by becoming 'incredibly OCD', planning every minute and acting as 'the woman of the house' and master of her domain. Later…
- Escaping into books during hard times
In tough periods Tyler escaped into books instead of 16 hours of TV. A great story woke up his slowed-down thoughts and energy, and he came back with ideas he hadn't had the day before.
- Illness that broke Tamir's ego
Tamir had ill health for a while and had to drop out of university; looking in the mirror he realized he wasn't 'all that' and didn't like that person. Something died in him through…
- Newly orphaned adult: want to dance?
When someone arrives saying both parents died tragically and they are now an adult orphan, Mia meets whatever energy they want ('do you want to dance? let's do this') or stays solemn…
- Turning the questions inward at 18
Working with a psychiatrist she finally connected with, Mia stopped trying to figure out why other people were 'stupid and weak' and began asking why she was so angry and controlling, at…
- Dad meditating with his son
Ian has seen videos of a dad meditating with his eight-year-old son and predicts the boy will grow up successful because he is learning to calm his breath and nervous system.