Ice Skating v. Scuba Diving

It’s unfortunate how much disruption the media has caused in relationships. I often wonder: how many broken connections are Facebook or Instagram responsible for? Sometimes it’s as simple as hitting a thumbs-up or friending someone your partner doesn’t know. It’s no surprise, then, how much division politics has recently brought into our lives. Once upon a time, discussing politics or religion at the dinner table was a universal no-no. Today, the tension is so high it feels like all the knives should be hidden, partly so no one stabs anyone, but more interestingly, because no one seems able to talk about it anymore. Avoidance sets in, conflict is sidestepped, and everyone eats in silence. While the fight may be avoided, so is connection.

Recently, a client processed her sadness over the loss of a close friendship. She was confused, yet beginning to accept that people change, and relationships sometimes drift apart. Their friendship, she said, had been rooted in a mutual love for the spiritual laws of life and a deep affection for each other. They had shared years of support, like-mindedness, and had witnessed one another’s hardest moments, offering presence and understanding. But differing emotional responses to today’s political climate created a painful misunderstanding, a rift too deep to bridge in the moment. She grieved this loss with me, and, sadly, I could relate.

I said to her, “Maybe you just have to learn to ice skate with her now, no more scuba diving.”

The analogy landed for both of us.

Some people are built to swim in deep waters, navigating discomfort in search of hidden treasure. Others aren’t, and that’s okay.

Scuba diving is therapy: therapeia — “to attend to,” “to heal” — a journey into the emotional, the complex, the paradoxical. It honors the sacred mirror of projection, the way our shadows reveal themselves through relationships. It values those who can see their inner landscape reflected back through people, places, and experiences, and who choose to integrate it with curiosity rather than judgment. In this work, rarely is there one simple answer. Whether it’s politics, caring for aging parents, or wrestling with the wounds of work and livelihood, the truth is always more of a both/and. Therapy teaches us to find rest not in certainty, but in paradox, in the mystery that holds all truths with compassion.

Ice skating, however, is simpler: a lighter, looser conversation, gliding over something cold and slippery, while sensing the deeper possibilities below without plunging into them. I am not an ice-skater. I can be, but prefer the deep waters where mystery lies and treasures are found. Treasures that bond us more deeply to our Self and those who swim with us.

In my own work, I study and practice Real Dialogue and Dialogue Therapy, a structured, short-term approach to psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy for couples and other adult pairs. These methods foster trust and intimacy by helping people break through projective identification and expand what we call dialogical space. The work is highly intimate, and taxing for those unaccustomed to speaking for themselves, being mindfully reflective, or staying curious. Yet these three tenets, speaking for yourself, reflecting mindfully, and sustaining curiosity, are what I find most essential, and most often missing, in difficult conversations.

Real Dialogue removes what I call “the juice”, the addictive charge people get from leaning into righteousness, superiority, anger, or fear. Once that juice is gone, a new space opens: a space for real connection, deeper understanding, and emotional safety. From there, trust deepens. Intimacy grows. And a more equanimous way of being, within ourselves and with others, becomes possible.

I don’t profess to ‘know’ the solution to all of the division occurring amongst family and friends, but I do know the juice I once drank, from the well of righteousness and superiority, only left me feeling more isolated and alone. And in my experience of working with others, they’re experiencing something similar. I also know it doesn’t ‘have’ to be this way, which is why I continue to dive deep and skate when necessary but never losing sight of the treasures available.