Adaptive Therapy, LLC Mark Cunningham

10/04/2024

Feeling so much gratitude and inspiration after delivering this men's s*xuality/intimacy workshop in a festival environment was certainly a highlight in my personal and professional journey! Thank you, Bill Byrnes, for bringing me on to share my medicine with the Unison Fam 💛 community! Thank you Joy for always supporting my expansion and believing in me when I get stuck! I was beyond nourished by the conversations I heard and the opportunity to dance and be in community with the men who showed up to discuss how they are evolving as lovers of themselves and others! Thank you to those men who brought their medicine into this container to reduce isolation and to inspire radical conversations with others! If you are a man looking to participate or if you know a man who might be interested, I will be forming another group in person in Fort Collins and welcome those interested to connect to learn more with a free consultation.

Thank you and enjoy the recap video of the workshop here:

Mark Cunningham LMFT, CST, & Army Veteran facilitates an Evolving Lovers workshop to support conversations for men to discuss how they are evolving as lovers...

08/08/2024

I am beyond excited to lead a new version of my Evolving Lovers workshop at the Sacred Masculine Lodge at (Unison Fam 💛UNISON FEST 2024) on Friday 9/6 at 1:15pm. This festival is taking place at one of my absolute favorite venues with so many great things to enjoy (paddle boarding near the main stage, chilling by the Animas river, yoga, volleyball, workshops, kids zone, and pristine car and regular camping/RV spots). See you there! Also, use EVOLVINGLOVERS at check out for a discount code. :)

Have you felt isolated, confused, or perhaps longing for a space where you can move away from bravado or self-silencing to more honest and open discussions of love, s*x & intimacy? Are you looking for a BRAVE and SAFE space to authentically, honestly, and respectfully discuss your evolution as a lov...

08/05/2024

Creating a film in 2.5 days with a group of veterans ( ) and filmmakers was not an experience I had predicted, but one that allowed me to tap into subtle layers of remaining feelings that I thought I had processed, but were still waiting to be felt and expressed. As a therapist who works in the realms of trauma every day with my clients, I am so grateful that I got to take the time to express and co-create in collaboration with my veteran peers in this way and with Ben Patton (General Patton's grandson). The narrative around war has changed a bit since WW2 and it can be soooo confusing and isolating to know how to process one's experience in such a divided culture that you signed up to defend and even die for while asking yourself the hard questions about the systems and conditioning that shape our behavior. The biggest thing that has helped me is to find other veterans who can share from their journey, so this is my attempt to share some of my journey and the process of liberating myself from my conditioning. The conditioning that I volunteered and sought out when joining the Army and conditioning that was passed down intergenerationally and through society and how that intersected with my reintegration into academia and my psychedelic integration beyond that. So, no matter who you are and where you fall on the political spectrum or your relationship to war, I hope that you might consider sharing it with someone who may need it to help them along their path to discovering their inner healer and to move from isolation, distrust, and trapped anger/fear to more love, light, openness and connection. Lastly, as many of you know I have significantly healed with the help of psychedelics like M**A, ayahuasca, and psilocybin and I am even trained in offering them clinically. M**A is set to be voted on by the FDA by this Sunday after decades of research from MAPS (LYKOS) and I urge you to share this film or to spread the awareness with anyone you can to help influence the decision to open the door to M**A assisted psychotherapy. Australia already legalized it last year and the research is profound! This breakthrough therapy would of course help our veteran population, but the reach is far more vast for any population struggling with trauma and it is one of the best relationship therapy supporters given the ability to boost trust, and empathy and to reduce overwhelm from fear/anger to support the healing of deep emotional wounds. Thank you! I will link a petition you can sign and more info in the comments.

Patton Veterans Project is a nonprofit organization that uses collaborative filmmaking as a therapeutic pathway for veterans coping with posttraumatic and ot...

02/27/2024

Dear online community, friends, & family, I know I am certainly feeling some tension and awkwardness in asking for you to be my bank and I also notice a great deal of gratitude and openness to receiving support in a novel way that is quite exciting & empowering! I learned about Kiva loans this year in my Bunker Labs Veterans in Residence entrepreneur cohort and we just got approved today! They are an incredible way to support minority, women, & veteran-owned businesses to access working capital for small businesses with crowd lending at 0% interest. This means that if you lend to me or others in this platform you will get your money back as the loan is repaid by the borrower. It is a powerful way to support small businesses without giving money away, so you can keep watching your money support others in need.

We (Joy & I) must meet a minimum amount of donors (25 people of at least $25 or more each) to be allowed to move into the international funding stage to fully fund the loan we have been approved for. Please check out my profile that will support not only my business but also my partner Joy as we intend on developing healing retreats together now that she has left her former position at CSU Police Department to manifest our visions for a safer and more pleasurable world. We hope to use these funds to purchase a new laptop, invest in website/marketing & SEO, and to use for working capital for future retreat work with relationships. Thank you for your support in donating or sharing this link to those who are aligned with our service/dharma practice of helping relationships evolve in love for first responders, veterans, & our community!

Kiva is a loan, not a donation. With Kiva you can lend as little as $25 and make a big change in someone's life.

02/23/2024

Hello, my community of veterans and those supporting our country in healing from war! I was approached by John with this incredible project he is being called to create. It is based on meeting with veterans who wrote stories that became orchestrated songs and they are incredibly moving and powerful for anyone! John has asked me to share this event with you and we both are asking for you to PLEASE SHARE with anyone who is interested or on any platform you have access to for this very unique and important offering! By feeling and listening to this performance as the audience, together we are practicing what Thomas Hubl calls global social witnessing, which allows us to transmute the collective trauma of war to help prevent future violence and help those carrying the unseen wounds to release and discharge the stuck trauma energy. If you know a veteran they can email John directly at johnrobertlindsey@gmail.com for FREE tickets. He even agreed to have some extra free tickets saved at the door for last-minute arrivals. See John's description below for more info. Lastly, I am compiling a list of local resources for veterans/families to access at the event. So, please send me an email with anything you would like me to include in the shared folder of resources.

For general tickets and event info: https://csuartstickets.universitytickets.com/w/event.aspx?Id=3848

Program Description: (by John Lindsey, Instructor of Voice, CSU, Tenor)
This project brought itself to life shortly after meeting and talking with a veteran named James experiencing homelessness in midtown Fort Collins. He shared his disbelief with me regarding how many veterans are without food and shelter not just here in our city, but throughout the country. Having almost joined the military myself, and as the son, grandson, and great-grandson of veterans, I was deeply touched by our interaction. Later that day, I began to read more about the statistics I already knew from the news and from my friends in the military: That we have lost over 125,000 veterans to su***de since 2001; that veterans are 57% more likely to commit su***de than civilians; that veterans account for at least 39,000 members of the homeless population in the United States; that veterans face huge challenges finding access to sufficient mental and physical healthcare and, subsequently, secure employment and housing. These are the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Service members and veterans face many challenges that civilians may not be able to understand, and are often stigmatized and marginalized by the society they have offered their service to. I wanted to find a way to create a space of compassion, openness, and solidarity with veterans– a place of deep listening and witnessing, where we could walk in the darkness together. Tonight’s presentation is that space.

02/02/2024

Dear Fort Collins Community, do you know a man in your network who has been seeking a space for authentic conversations about intimacy & s*xuality. Perhaps someone who is holding onto some s*x-negative beliefs from family, religion, or society and is looking for support in defining what feels right and true for them? Do you know a man who could use a safe and brave space to explore topics about consent, p**n, kink, fantasy, self-love, alternative lifestyles/relationships, s*x-positive parenting, and beyond? A safe place (meaning we will not allow judgment or intentional harm) & brave (meaning you are encouraged to be authentically you and it is ok if you mess up or say something that triggers someone else as long as you are open to feedback and repair if required). Please have them check out the poster below and if you want to know more about me and why I am doing this then keep reading...

Growing up as an only child to a single mother had its challenges as I developed into a s*xual being while living in Las Vegas. While my mother encouraged me to love my s*xuality she also wanted me to know what women experience. I felt so lost with the mixed messages from society compared to family about what a man and a s*xual man "should" be, which left me longing for guidance. Thankfully, my curiosity led me to seek out both helpful and not-so-helpful forms of influence. Thankfully, works like Mark Manson's Models helped me heal from the toxic PUA messaging to embrace honesty and authenticity. Men like Aubrey Marcus & David Deida guided me into the spiritual realm of eros and into working with s*xual energy with mindfulness. Countless articles, classes & videos by s*x therapists like Dr. Hernando Chavez or Dr. David Ley and researchers like Justin Lehmiller & Emily Nagoski and Dr. Amanda Morgan and so many more. Finally, this struggle and drive led me to pursue becoming an AASECT-certified s*x therapist through the S*xual Health Alliance so that I might help individuals and relationships to have a slightly easier journey in navigating their s*xual evolution. I have been sitting on this idea of an evolving lovers men's group for a few years now waiting for it to feel right. I had gained soooo much knowledge, but it hadn't quite felt embodied and aligned within myself and my relationship with my lover Joy. Thankfully, this past year has brought some significant clearing and expansion for her & I from s*x educator workshops by Dr. Hazel-Grace Yates, and The Village of Lovers filmmaker John Wolfstone & Cari Caldwell & beyond. While I am certainly not done evolving as a lover, I am beyond excited to continue learning with and from this next group of men just as I have been so lucky to receive the wisdom and vulnerability of my clients over the years in my practice. May this group send ripples into the community for a safer & more pleasurable tomorrow. Thank you Joy for your endless encouragement & motivation & for your drive to evolve as a lover alongside me & for being my favorite co-explorer of the heart, psyche & soul! Thank you to my past lovers for the struggles & memories that shaped my grief, & growth. Thank you, Leaf for the sacred men's council & Chuck Hancock for your nature-based work, and for tending the waters of my psyche & soul in your group together! Thank you to my fellow therapists who called me in and out to look at my shadow and my light! Thank you, Jeffrey James, Paul McClure & my other personal therapists & supervisors for holding space for my process! Thank you for reading this and for your support of the mission to release shame, fear & nonconsensual violence from s*xuality and to create a more beautiful world our hearts know is possible to borrow the words from Charles Eisenstein!

06/06/2023

This story mentions su***de. If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts please call the National Su***de Prevention…