Learning that other people are real..

Learning that other people are real..

I recently found myself reflecting on one of my earliest attempts at empathy. As a child, I once gave my younger sister a birthday gift that consisted of the contents of my bedside drawer: a worn charm necklace, a collection of charms, and some fake money. I was thrilled with my own thoughtfulness. She was… less impressed. Looking back, I’ve come to realize that the lesson wasn’t about gift-giving. It was about perspective. At that age, I was trying to care for someone else using the only map I had available: my own. Over time, I learned to understand other people’s worlds more deeply. I became fascinated with empathy, relationships, and the ways people make sense of their experiences. Later, Carl Jung’s work introduced another layer: the idea that our strongest reactions often contain information about ourselves. But eventually I discovered that understanding myself wasn’t enough either. In this episode, I explore the relationship between empathy, projection, shadow work, trauma, and boundaries. I share why I think many discussions of projection have become overly simplified, and why true integration may require holding three things at once: 1) My reaction contains information about me. 2) Their behaviour contains information about them. 3) The interaction contains information about the relationship. We often talk about healing as learning to understand ourselves. We sometimes talk about compassion as learning to understand others. But perhaps maturity asks something more difficult: learning to hold both simultaneously. Topics explored: - Childhood lessons in empathy- Carl Jung and projection- Shadow work beyond simple projection- Trauma and emotional triggers- Restoring dimensionality in relationships- Compassion without self-abandonment- Boundaries rooted in understanding rather than condemnation A reflection on what happens when we stop asking only, “What’s wrong with them?” or “What’s wrong with me?” and begin asking what the relationship itself might be trying to show us. Get full access to The Aperture Field Notes at notes.theaperturefield.com/subscribe [https://notes.theaperturefield.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Systems move through rhythms

Systems move through rhythms. Growth, consolidation, release, renewal. Yet culturally, we often treat any pause, slowdown, or restructuring as failure rather than recognizing it as part of how living systems evolve. In this reflection, I explore the cyclical nature of progress, from the seasons themselves to the long arcs of societal transformation, and consider whether we may be standing not at the end of progress, but at the end of a particular phase of it. What if this moment is asking less for relentless expansion, and more for integration, maturation, and renewal? Field Notes is an ongoing exploration of the patterns, tensions, and transitions shaping the world around us, and within us. You can continue the conversation and find more reflections at The Aperture Field on Substack. Get full access to The Aperture Field Notes at notes.theaperturefield.com/subscribe [https://notes.theaperturefield.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

We’ve Been Here Before

I have been spending serious time lately considering the role of empathy and emotional intelligence in the world today. Like many, I find myself astonished by what I’m seeing across the world - acts that seem to disregard the very principles we have spent centuries developing as a human species. In my curiosity, I’ve been returning to the works of thinkers from the past, reading their original texts (there is no shortage of material here), from The Theory of Moral Sentiments to more modern works like Integrity, and of course Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, which helped bring the language of ‘EQ’ into the mainstream As I followed the thread, I kept discovering something interesting: not only are these thinkers describing similar underlying dynamics through different lenses, but we have in fact, been circling these ideas for thousands of years. Empathy isn’t a new concept, it’s something continually rediscovered, reinterpreted, and renamed. And yet, despite this long lineage of thought, it feels as though we have lost something.. perhaps our shared internal picture of what these ideas actually mean in practice. Each work I return to offers another fragment of that image that feels both familiar and strangely absent in how we engage with one another today. So I’ve decided to follow that thread more deliberately. This series is an attempt to piece together connections across centuries of thought and tradition, to revisit texts and ideas that have in many cases been reduced to soundbites or dismissed as outdated, and to see whether something essential may have been left behind in the process. Some of the authors I’ll be exploring may be surprising, as often what they are remembered for today captures only a fraction of what they were actually trying to articulate. I'm very interested in hearing your own reflections as this unfolds, whether they align, challenge, or take the conversation somewhere unexpected. So, with that, consider this an open exploration into the deeper question of how we perceive, relate to, and make sense of one another individually, collectively, and within an increasingly complex world. What I can’t yet reconcile is why something so persistent keeps getting lost.. I suspect that’s where this needs to go next… Get full access to The Aperture Field Notes at notes.theaperturefield.com/subscribe [https://notes.theaperturefield.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

It’s often not the loud changes that matter most.

This is a short audio reflection drawn from a recent piece exploring a subtle shift in how we relate to inclusion, systems, and change. After spending time with a group of senior women leaders and reading a piece by Katrina C. Foster, I found myself sitting with a different kind of question.. not only why it is changing, but on why it feels like the signal is becoming harder to see. In this reflection, I trace a pattern I’ve encountered over time: How ideas emerge, become systems, and then slowly lose coherence as their form remains but their underlying signal thins. I'm not adding another take on what should happen next, but I am instead attempting to make visible the moment we may be in: between systems, where the old is losing legitimacy, and the new has not yet fully formed. You can read the full written piece here at The Aperture Field on Substack [https://notes.theaperturefield.com/p/its-often-not-the-loud-changes-that]. Get full access to The Aperture Field Notes at notes.theaperturefield.com/subscribe [https://notes.theaperturefield.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

The Villainous Hero - Spoken Reading

This is the audio version of the essay: The Villainous Hero You can read the written version here: https://notes.theaperturefield.com/p/the-villainous-hero [https://notes.theaperturefield.com/p/the-villainous-hero] The Aperture Field Notes are reflections on clarity, leadership, and systems in transition, exploring how people and organizations navigate complexity, change, and decision-making. More at: https://notes.theaperturefield.com [https://notes.theaperturefield.com] Get full access to The Aperture Field Notes at notes.theaperturefield.com/subscribe [https://notes.theaperturefield.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]