The Heart of MYL: The 3Chair Model

Mediate Your Life (MYL) began in 2002 as a co-creation with my dear colleague Ike Lasater in our work of Nonviolent Communication (NVC). For me, MYL arose from a deep desire for connection and wellbeing in the midst of intense conflict and shattering loss in my childhood, and later, in a profound existential grappling with the state of humanity and the world.

Today, I see humanity facing looming crises — cascading, interlocking breakdowns across ecological, political, technological, spiritual, and social domains. These crises are not just “out there.” We experience it within ourselves, in our nervous systems, our relationships, our families, our communities, our organizations and institutions. 

At every level, I see the same pattern — disconnection from life and wholeness. 

At the core of the disconnection is a worldview of separation: forgetting that we are individual expressions of a larger living field of unity and interdependence. 

Whether the difficulty you’re experiencing is personal to global, MYL is a practical framework, a set of tools, and a path of remembering through the challenges we face to:
— Healing, integration, and possibility.
— Being a bridge between separation and wholeness to a more life-connected, life-serving future.

At the heart of MYL, there is a 3Chair Model — three chairs in the shape of a triangle, surrounded by a circle.

• Two opposing chairs represent sides or parts in conflict — within ourselves, between us and others, and our relation to societal systems.
• The third chair, or third side, is the seat of mindful, compassionate awareness — the Self that can hold all parts of ourselves and others with understanding, empathy, and care.

The Third Chair represents conscious awareness of wholeness and oneness — of ourselves, humanity, the life of our planet, and the universe. It is when we feel connected with love and presence with all parts of ourselves and others and the world. This awareness can be obscured by inner or outer storms of thought and emotion — but it is never not there. It is who we are. 

The triangle of the three chairs is an ancient symbol of reconciliation and transformation — life evolving through tension, opposition, and the birth of the new.

The Circle surrounding the triangle symbolizes wholeness, and the journey to wholeness and healing — the field of connection that holds all things, and the path of practice.

Around the Circle are the guiding compass points of Nonviolent Communication (NVC):

• Observation: clear awareness of perception and thought
• Feeling: compassionate presence with body and emotion
• Need: connection with universal qualities of life and wellbeing
• Request: the movement into loving, collaborative action

These levels of awareness and language, and the structure of the three chairs, give the ability to enter into the heart of conflict, and answer this question:

Can I return love in response to what is not love?

In the face of accelerating fragmentation and fear, MYL echos the luminous message of wisdom traditions and spiritual teachers throughout the ages:

There is an awareness within you — right now — transcending yet embracing the chaos, fear, and despair.
A space of profound peace, clarity, love, and courage.
A healing presence that can hold all wounds, all opposites, all brokenness.
Not apart from crisis, but surrounding and within it.
Resonating truth and the wellbeing of all.

This is the Third Chair.
This is the perspective within us of the whole – our individual and collective Self.
This is what we are called to embody — for ourselves, for one another, and for the future.

I believe this path is not only possible, but essential.
It may be our only way through.

Let us walk it together, for we cannot do it alone.