Self-Accountability and Apology

Dear Global Community

I am grateful to every person who brought concerns to my attention. Your willingness to communicate clearly is appreciated. In the past I was not listening deeply enough. There was a lot I did not understand.

I founded ISTA in 2007 and in 2016 I handed over directorship to a governance of three. Although I have appeared at a few festivals, short events, and community gatherings, I have not facilitated ISTA trainings since June 2019, and I have not promoted or offered private sessions since 2017. In 2018 I began to experience a painful gap between the values of love, compassion, and care that I hoped to stand for and the impact of my choices. At first I reacted defensively. I regret that, and I apologize to everyone who met that defensiveness when they tried to be heard.

I am writing now to acknowledge my impact as a founder and as a person who related with people in this community, and to say clearly that I am listening.

Acknowledgment

In 2023 I reviewed complaints that ISTA, Safe Mediation, and 3SC had permission to share with me. Some of those reports named me. They described hurt connected to how I related with others, insufficient emotional support, and my handling of group and power dynamics.

I also want to acknowledge that some people may have been hurt in personal or intimate relating with me and never felt able to raise it, or raised it in a way I did not take in at the time. Good intentions do not prevent harm. If you felt harmed, dismissed, or unheard in connection with me, I am sorry. I am committed to listening without defense.

I recognize that I share responsibility, as founder, for ways the early culture I helped shape did not hold power, feedback, and care well enough. Not everything that later went wrong in ISTA is mine alone. My lack of discernment, my slowness to hear concern, and my focus on inner circles rather than the wider human context still contributed to an environment in which people could be hurt. I regret that impact.

I am not current ISTA leadership. I hold no formal role or authority there and receive no benefits from it. This statement is about my own conduct, my own listening, and the repair that is mine to do.

Apology

To anyone who was hurt in connection with my actions, my relating, or my failure to listen: I apologize. I am sorry for the pain, for the times I was defensive, and for the ways my impact fell short of the care I believed I was offering.

If something still feels unresolved, you do not need to bring it to me directly. A feedback channel managed by neutral external mediators remains available for confidential or anonymous sharing. I will receive what they are authorized to share with me and will work with my advisors to understand it. I cannot promise a particular outcome in every case. I can promise that I will not meet that feedback with the defensiveness I showed in the past.

Steps being taken for Update, Repair and Integration

1. Education. I completed Trauma Training for Tantra Professionals with Shashi Solluna and Tantra Alliance, and I continue to study trauma responses, including freeze and fawn, as well as power dynamics and the right use of power.

2. Ongoing support. I work with coaches, therapists, and mediators whose role includes helping me see patterns I still miss and staying accountable when new concern is raised.

3. Third-party feedback. The external feedback portal will continue. That is the primary channel for anyone who wants distance from me while still being heard.

4. Accountability review. I will keep an Accountability Review Board to help me understand feedback, serve as mirrors, and give counsel I am willing to follow.

5. Personal availability. Where a mediator recommends a facilitated conversation and all parties consent, I will participate. I will not solicit private “clearing” outside that structure.

I remain open to further personal steps after receiving reflections through these channels.

Commitment to Integrity

It breaks my heart that my actions sometimes contradicted the care I said I stood for. I am committed to stricter personal boundaries, clearer accountability, and continued listening.

I hold the lessons of what I got wrong. I will use them to do better. Thank you to those who spoke, including those who had every reason not to trust that speaking would matter.

Sincerely,

Bob Desert Nichols