How Jeffrey Rediger & I Are Choosing To Heal Together – A Love Story

As I prepare to teach the Memoir As Medicine course with Nancy Aronie in May, I thought I would share a love story. This is about my long-term friend and now romantic partner. You may have known him from his work at Harvard as the medical director at the inpatient mental hospital. Or perhaps you know him from his divinity school studies at Princeton. But, none of these accomplishments can explain why this love story is about us.

Jeff (Jeffrey Rediger MD, MDiv, to be geeky about his academic degrees) and me met nearly four years ago at an Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology conference. I had been the keynoter one year prior and Jeff was the keynoting the following year. We met in a resort near Santa Fe, New Mexico. I was researching for my book Sacred Medicine, and he was presenting data from years of collecting data about people living with terminal or incurable diseases. He also presented the results of medically documented cures. Robert Schwartz, the psychologist, suggested that I listen to Jeff’s lecture. I was struck by how much we shared professional interests and how we were both studying science and spirituality as closely as possible. We spent the afternoon on a sunny deck with a view of Rio Grande, exchanging notes and learning more about each other.

Jeff was living in with a girlfriend, and I was still recovering from a broken heart after a brief partnership. We were not thinking about romance at that time. We spent the day together and attended the gala that night. We kept in touch for the next half year, just before his book CURED was published. Jeff and I were in a text chat with some smarty-pants philosophers and doctors trying to understand what was going on as the pandemic began. We dropped the thread with the philosophers soon after they became conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers. However, we continued to text almost every day during lockdown, and the year that followed.

One of our other members, a Covid doctor at the emergency room, was privy of many of our philosophical text exchanges. He said that he felt like he was watching a Wimbledon match between two top tennis players. “I think you’ve finally met with your match,” I thought. But, we enjoyed volleying back-and-forth about everything, from Civil Rights to public guidelines to spirituality and literature to healing trauma to spontaneous recovery to the meaning of life to mental health in the global. It was refreshing to have an intellectual sparring partner when the world had been so shut down. It made the pandemic bearable for both of us.

Jeff agreed to teach my community with me, about one year after CURED was published. In preparation for this, I had read his book again. After the second reading, I was left wondering if I would regret if I knew I had only three months to live. Did I have any areas in my life that I wasn’t being as proactive in pursuing goals or realizing dreams?

At that point, I was single and desperately wanted to find my final partner. I knew I could only lose him at one of our funerals. However, my magical thinking part made me believe that someone might knock on my door and say “Hi! I found your name and address during meditation and I want to be your soulmate span>

It’s true. I hadn’t left my house in a year except to take my dog to a beach on the coast of Northern California. I wasn’t going to find my former partner in quarantine.

My friend Tiffany convinced me to go online dating. She was inspired by Jeff to live a full life, even in the midst of a pandemic. My own death seemed so close, I thought, “What the heck do I have to lose other then a little pride span>

I never thought that OKCupid would allow me to search for a partner. Instead, I met the man who inspired me by writing a book on terminal illness and its unexpected cure. It was what actually happened.

Jeff’s book CURED inspired me to try online dating. But, I ended up dating him

On the Winter Solstice of 2020, I created my online dating profile and shared with Jeff all of my dates. We live in Boston, and I’m located in the San Francisco Bay Area. By that time, we hadn’t seen each other in person in over a year. However, we were still texting and talking on the telephone almost daily, mostly about work. As with many other romances that ended during Covid, Jeff and her girlfriend split up in March 2021. I didn’t know about it for several months. I also continued to date unsuccessfully on OKCupid men, which I complained about to Jeff who graciously allowed me to vent my frustration and loneliness.

In the summer of 2021, something changed in our communication. He told me that he had just been through a difficult breakup and that he wasn’t presently a partner. We hadn’t seen one another for more than two years, but we started to get excited about meeting up in person after we had been vaccinated. In October 2021, we attended an IFS workshop at Omega Institute. After that, we went on a vacation at Acadia National Park. That time in Acadia, November 6, 2021 is the anniversary of our first meeting. Jeff doesn’t consider our anniversary until six-months later, on April 6, 2022. This was the day after I published Sacred Medicine. We went skiing in Tahoe together. But, we had been visiting each other in their homes for six months prior to that date.

These are the facts about how and why we got together. This doesn’t tell you much about Jeff and my love story. The true story is about healing from relationship trauma, rebuilding trust after it has been destroyed, how trauma from narcissistic abuse or coercive control impacts relational intimacy, how having a love affair (using IFS), can help us love another person more deeply and purely without putting our own parts under the bus.

Vulnerability opens the door to intimacy

My relationship with Jeff changed from one of platonic friendship and professional support to one of love. It was when he opened up about his childhood trauma. Jeff had been with me for more than two years. He told me that his ACE score was 7. His parents used violence and Amish-based fundamentalism to break his will. That this made him prone to submitting to, and sometimes obeying, abusive narcissists all his life. And that he’d suffered hell as no one ever taught him how to connect to people who care about him. After realizing this, I was determined to not become the next person to exert undue influence on this handsome man or cause him harm unknowingly. This made me vulnerable, as no one has ever taught me how to be functionally reciprocal and mutually kind with him.

Our relationship feels like it’s climbing Mount Everest because of our narcissistic mother’s.

Mount Everest Climbing

Before we became lovers, we went to therapy together. We now have four therapists, which is a great luxury. They help us overcome the seemingly impossible hurdles that we share as a couple. Sometimes, the thing that I need for my own recovery is not the same as what he needs for mine. It often feels like we are trying to figure out a way to be equal in our efforts to make each other happy. Jeff and I struggle to know our boundaries and communicate clearly what is okay and not okay. Jeff feels more controlled by my messy boundary setting than I do. I have worked hard to learn how to be assertive without being too pushy. He can’t seem or get it right, and I feel like I’m failing to meet my mother’s standards. It makes it difficult for us to trust one another, even though safety and trust are our deepest desires. We’ve been both very hurt and exploited as a couple.

We joke that we shouldn’t be able to make this work as IFS teachers and Harvard psychiatrists with four therapists. We aren’t really laughing. After all the heartbreak and disappointment we have shared, if this fails, we may run out of steam to continue trying. We wanted to tell you that often the people who seem to have it all professionally are the ones having the most trouble in intimate relationships. People who don’t get much attention in the media often have greater success in their relationships.

If I think about our relationship with Mount Everest, I don’t believe we can have any romantic fantasies about a skip-to-my Lou honeymoon. Although we went straight into the climb without any breaks for healing or processing, we still have time to have fun, laugh, enjoy nature, have adventures, host dinner parties, and Jeff is learning how to dance for the first and only time in his adult life.

In Public Release To Help You Heal

The last ten days have been spent weathering the Northern California storms. The 80 mph winds, the torrential rains and hail and no power proved to be a wonderful way to bond, rest, and settle down after all that metaphorical mountain climbing. We realized that we were in love after nearly four years of friendship, over a year of relationship (by my anniversary), and almost four years of mutual understanding and compatibility testing. We know that we have chosen each other, are committed, want to be each others last partner. Jeff has just applied for his California medical licensure so we can find ways to travel less and spend more time together.

We decided to invite you along on our journey, even though we might have to break up in public if we don’t make it to Mount Everest. Jeff has given his consent for me to share some of the things we have learned along the way. This is in the interest of anyone who has experienced trauma and who struggles with power and control. It’s not about gender, despite what many men believe. These are huge obstacles to overcome.

We listen to podcasts about cult recovery such as Indoctrination, and we are currently working with Rachel Bernstein (the therapist who hosts the podcast). Steven Hassan, the world’s foremost cult recovery expert, lives near Jeff in Boston. We have also made friends with him. A whole team of IFS people are helping us climb Mount Everest, as well as supporting parts of us who became shocked and dissociated, particularly in the last few decades of chaos worldwide and, for Jeff, also in relation to that chaos.

What if One of You has Relative “Nervous Systems Privilege?”

This relationship is difficult because I have a relative “nervous systems privilege” to Jeff. Despite my zero ACE score, I do have developmental trauma. This doesn’t translate into my ACE score. This means that some relationship issues are easier for me, both emotionally and neurologically, than for Jeff. Jeff isn’t at fault for his lack of nervous system privilege. It’s not the fault of someone who doesn’t have the privileges associated with whiteness, wealth, and heterosexuality. Steph explained that this allows me to be generous with Jeff even though it might not feel fair or equal, as a form of affirmative action. I have to do IFS work on my own so I don’t make the same mistakes of giving up and becoming a martyr for someone else’s trauma.

It is challenging to find the right balance between being gentle, generous, and compassionate with Jeff and my parts, while not neglecting or overriding my own. This daily challenge has provided me with an opportunity for deep personal healing. Making Self-directed decisions requires collaboration with the whole system. This has been my spiritual path and daily spiritual practice. You can find God in any cave. But, it is difficult to find the Divine love within when two trauma survivors try to discover real intimacy together.

IFS founder Dick Schwartz was a great supporter of our healing team and relationship-saver. He also points out that Jeff Schwartz and I have been good “tor-mentors” to one another. They mentor us by tormenting and helping us find our “trailheads for healing,” which we each work on with our IFS therapists. We aren’t just tormenting each other, which would be a shame. Our relationship is full of blessings that make it worth the effort.

The Wonderful Parts That Make Us A Sanctuary For Healing

We have a lot of fun. We play a lot. We are able to “iterate” Jeff’s term for intellectual, philosophical, and spiritual topics in ways that wouldn’t bore anyone else. We love to cuddle up in front of the fire and walk along National Park trails together. We enjoy writing together in bed. We love to write together in bed. Jeff knows how to shuck oysters, so we eat lots of them. Two international trips to Belize, Greece and Greece are in the works. One is a family trip; one is a keynote address to a group of German doctors who will be renewing their Hippocratic Oaths. We love to read and can spend hours reading. We both read poetry to each other (well, that’s mostly me, but Jeff is attentive and appreciates it). We have seen 5 Broadway shows and watched Netflix documentaries in the last year. We spend a lot time spooning and holding one another to co-regulate our nervous systems. This is especially true after doing hard therapeutic work.

We create little safety nets with white lights from trees, music and soft pajamas, candlelight and hot chocolate. Sometimes we even drink too much wine. This is to help ease the hurts we keep feeling as a result our deeper intimacy. Face the difficult parts and remember to say “Nobody’s going” first. Then our nervous system can relax and we can get to the root of the problem and soothe our protectors, so that we can rekindle our love.

Send us your best wishes for our journey

We ask that you keep us safe and pray for us. If we don’t succeed, please be patient with us. It won’t happen without trying…

Please let us know if there is any aspect of this journey that you would like to learn more about. As we share our therapy, we are happy to use it to help others. We would love to hear your feedback and input about the topics you are interested in.

Jeff plans to join Nancy Aronie and me in the Memoir As Medicine class. He will be writing memoir material as part his personal healing journey. Maybe one day he will publish a memoir about how being exiled from an Amish-fundamentalism-based family and how it has affected his life. Nancy and Nancy are also open to any one of you who feels like sharing your story with other compassionate witnesses, who will be there to support you on your journey.

Join Us For Memoir As Medicine Here