by Elly van Laar | Aug 26, 2014 | Compassion, Mindfulness, Personal Growth
I’m back home. In Austin. I said the same thing when I landed in the Netherlands July 12: “I’m back home.” I have two homes. Well, actually, I have many more. Or actually just one.
When I first arrived in Austin in April 2009, I was homesick for the Netherlands, my family and friends, my two cats. For many years.
This time before I flew out to the Netherlands, I had what you might call a little epiphany. I was driving through Texas hill country, enjoying the beauty of nature, the gorgeousness of everything G*d created and is creating, when I realized with a sudden insight “G*d created this piece of Earth, just like She did the Dutch piece of Earth. I am always home in G*d’s Earth, no matter where I am.”
Even though we, humans, establish boundaries, Immigration control, and property lines, Earth knows no such thing. Presence and energy just continuously morph from one manifestation into another. From mountain, into meadow, into river, into ridge, into cliff. There is no sign “Stop here. Go no further. Identify yourself first.”
It is not hard to understand the wisdom of the speech the Indian Chief Seattle gave in 1854 “How Can you Possess the Earth?” when you connect to your breath. Do you know who exhaled the breath you’re breathing in now? Or who will inhale your breath after you exhale? You can hate the person in front of you -or far away- and you cannot stop inhaling her out-breath. Nor can he stop inhaling your out-breath. You share the same air and ‘inter-are’, whether you like it or not. Even if you succeeded not sharing the same air, you cannot stop your dead bodies being held by the same Earth. And even if you could do that, you’ll always be part of the same Universe.
It is Thich Nhat Hanh’s simple message of interbeing.
I am home. And I have always been. Wherever I am.
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You want help to connect to the interbeing of all life? Contact me 512-589-0482 to schedule a complimentary discovery session.
by Elly van Laar | Jun 28, 2014 | Compassion, Compassionate Communication, Mindfulness, Personal Growth
When is the last time you heard someone say: “Peter? Peter is highly successful. He did very well for himself. He opened his heart, speaks in a way that encourages others, learned to transform his anger in requests, and listens to his friend when she is down and out.”
I never did.
Such things are usually not counted as accomplishments, as something others are impressed by and want to copy.
When we talk about success we usually talk about careers, houses, cars, maybe fame, hopefully a stable family life, although we would not say “Margaret she did SO well: her husband loves her SO much!”
Yet, most possessions don’t go into the grave. And even if they do, they are mainly interesting and valuable to archaeologists 1000, 2000 years from now, not so much to you. The only thing we take into our grave are our intentions and efforts. Financial enoughness can help us stay more focused on those -because we are less distracted by survival struggle- and that’s all.
Let me tell you about Stuart.
I met Stuart four years ago, when he asked me for money as I waited for the traffic light. He walks with braces on both legs, which -of course- makes it harder for him to reach cars in time and receive what’s been offered. He had polio when he was one, didn’t receive much support during life, managed to find work on only a high school diploma, and finally got fired from his last job, because he couldn’t climb the ladder anymore. I never heard him complain. He always told me that every situation is an opportunity to thank G*d for support and love. He received every dollar with gratitude and grace.
Can you imagine the world we would create if we’d call people like him successful? How would your life be if he is your role model for modesty, gratitude, and trust? Can you imagine the big smile, appreciation, and openness we all would have?
Yum.
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You want help to live of life of love, openness, and gratitude even under challenging circumstances? Contact me 512-589-0482 to schedule a complimentary discovery session.
by Elly van Laar | Jun 18, 2014 | Compassion, Compassionate Communication, Mindfulness, Nonviolent Communication, Personal Growth
Food is one of the most primordial ways of connection. It connected us to our moms when we were in her womb. It connected us to our caregivers when we were little babies. And throughout the rest of our lives, eating and sharing food is a simple and direct way to experience connection, community, belonging and acceptance.
No wonder it is hard to change your food pattern to a diet that seems to exclude you, set you apart, and provoke misunderstanding, criticism, and judgment.
That’s why I encourage you to be gentle on yourself when you transition to a vegan diet.
I invite you to support all needs on the table: your need to contribute, care, and expand your compassion to all living beings and your needs for acceptance, understanding, and belonging.
Some people shift to a vegan diet cold turkey (haha, forgive me the pun).
I didn’t.
I first stopped eating meat and birds, and continued eating everything else. I even made my vegetarian hamburger in the same pan in which my ex-husband made his steak. I continued eating fish, dairy, and eggs.
This was relatively easy to do. Most people knew how to make a vegetarian dish (or at least, leave the animals out) and it was simple to order something in a restaurant without raising eye brows. This phase also helped me to wean off meat and birds, and get used to my new food choices.
It’s not perfect compassionate eating, and then again, we’re not striving for perfection. We’re striving for growth, one step on the path of expanding compassion and empathy at a time.
Then another, then another. It’s okay to take a break once in a while. It’s even okay to fall back once in a while. We want to develop a habit that is enjoyable to continue, not a punishment and discipline we will finally give up on, because we’re failing our own standards of perfection.
You don’t want to decrease compassion by judging yourself that you’re not good enough. You want to increase compassion by embracing all your needs, feelings, and thoughts.
My path towards a vegan diet has cycled me through the fear of the thought that I am seen as crazy and abnormal, the loss of never using my grand mom’s cook book again or eating herring with my mother, the challenge of not eating all the stuff I ate most of my life. I stayed with all these feelings and worked on figuring out ways to nurture the underlying needs. What other strategies could I think of to support those same needs?
Vegan cook books help. Vegan communities help. Dialogue and expressing my experience help. Accepting and celebrating my choices help. What can you do to support all your needs?
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You want help to make choices that include the needs of all living beings? Contact me 512-589-0482 to schedule a complimentary discovery session.
by Elly van Laar | Jun 16, 2014 | Compassion, Compassionate Communication, Mindfulness, Nonviolent Communication, Personal Growth
One of the assumptions of Nonviolent Communication -as I understand it- is that when we connect to the universal needs underlying our differences, we can find solutions that work for everyone.
I like that. It paints a world in which we all can find happiness, peace, harmony, joy, and love. It speaks of a world of acceptance, understanding, and inclusion.
Do I believe this is possible?
Yeah! Duuh!
Even in the most challenging circumstances of disconnect, distrust, and despair, I’ve always found NVC opens connection with others and support for all needs on the table.
We have a natural tendency towards compassion and comradery, and I think there is nothing more fulfilling than to contribute to the well-being of others (and ourselves!).
I have a sadness about what I perceive to be the missing link: awareness of the needs of those living beings who cannot speak for themselves, such as future generations, those with less resources, and animals. I wished we would include the needs of those not in the dialogue, yet impacted by the outcomes of our solutions. If we brought more awareness to their needs, we probably would make different food-, work-, travel-, and social choices.
I, for one, stopped eating meat and birds when I found myself turning off the shower and making an effort to rescue a spider that was frantically trying not to drown. I was perplexed when I realized that I brought so much care and compassion to this creature, and ate my bacon beef hamburger happily a few hours later. Did I not think that the pig and the cow on my plate had been equally terrified when they were slaughtered for my appetite? Did I not care about the horrendous circumstances of their life and journey to death? How could I go to bed with a clear conscience, knowing I had contributed to suffering in unique creatures, whose names I didn’t even know?
It doesn’t take a genius to understand how much harm and torture we deliver to animals for our consumption. I’m pretty sure YouTube offers vivid footage of the keeping, maiming, and killing of our food. (I watched some years ago, and don’t have the stomach to do so again).
I stopped eating fish after I watched Finding Nemo. I had cried my eyes out over the terror of the fish being hunted down. I realized the cognitive dissonance I was creating by crying over a cartoon and enjoying my raw herring as a snack.
I’m not perfect. I still act in ways that are directly or indirectly harmful to other living beings. I just want to share my passion for compassion for all beings. Please, leave a response, so we can enter into a dialogue how to support all needs.
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You want help to make choices that include the needs of all living beings? Contact me 512-589-0482 to schedule a complimentary discovery session.
by Elly van Laar | Jun 13, 2014 | Acceptance, Compassion, Compassionate Communication, Personal Growth, Self-compassion
I had my last conversation with my grandfather. After three weeks hanging out together, five times a week for half an hour a day, he tells me it is enough. It is time for me to get back on my meditation cushion and sit and breathe, and be by myself.
He wants to talk about scarcity. He likes the Lynne Twist quote in Brené Brown’s “Daring Greatly” (p25):
“For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is “I didn’t get enough sleep.” The next one is “I don’t have enough time.” Whether true or not, that thought of Not Enough occurs automatically before we even think to question or examine it. We spend most of the hours and the days of our lives hearing, complaining or worrying about what we don’t have enough of… Before we even sit up in bed, before our feet touch the floor, we’re already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking something. And by the time we go to bed at night, our minds are racing with a litany of what we didn’t get, or didn’t get done, that day. We go to sleep burdened by those thoughts and wake up to that reverie of lack… This internal condition of scarcity, this mind-set of scarcity, lives at the very heart of our jealousies, our greed, our prejudice, and our arguments with life…”
“Elly, the opposite of scarcity is not abundance. It is enough… I wished you’d see that you have enough. Enough income, enough time, enough self-confidence. You don’t need to force yourself to get more. You have enough within you and around you to live the life that fits you. You don’t need to look for anything more. You are all set to get all the clients you want, to create a booming business, to thrive, to live and to love.”
Du-uh?
There is nothing lacking in me? I’m pretty, popular, smart, funny, verbal enough? I don’t need to “improve” myself? I don’t need to try to be a better version of myself?
Being myself is plenty enough, and exactly what the world needs?
I think of Carl Rogers and self-actualization: our innate, irresistible tendency to grow into ourselves, to be us in the fullest sense of the word. Maybe I don’t need to challenge that. Maybe I don’t need to force myself to be, do, or have anything more than life offers. Maybe I can trust that my current conditions are more than enough to be happy, and that I can relax in the flow of my energy.
I thank him. We have spent three weeks of humanizing my hero-image of him, of getting closer. Three weeks of deepening self-acceptance and self-understanding. A life-time of richness and gratitude. Yes, I have enough. More than enough.
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You want help to experience your enoughness? Contact me 512-589-0482 to schedule a complimentary discovery session.
by Elly van Laar | Jun 9, 2014 | Compassion, Compassionate Communication, Personal Growth
(continued from Inner mediation between my grandfather and my father, 1/3)
I-as-my-grandfather expressed to my father-part how much I love him and wish for him he would rest. I-as-my-grandfather wants to hear how this lands for my father-part.
I move to the opposite chair.
“You know, I don’t really know what to say. It’s been a long time since I (as-my-father) connected to you. I don’t really know what to say…”
Pause.
“You know, I don’t want to connect. I’m noticing I’m angry. You made choices out of your sense of integrity and we suffered the consequences. We were left without support, reassurance, someone to lean on, someone to guide the way. I was left all alone…”
All of a sudden, out of the blue, a deep wailing comes up in me-as-my-father. I break down and sob for minutes, head in my hands, body shocking with waves of grief and loss. “I missed you, I so deeply missed you… I just wished you had been with us… I missed you.”
The wailing continues, for minutes. Then the sobbing calms down. Quietly, gently.
I-as-my-dad look at the chair my grandfather sat in. “I missed you, dad, really missed you… I love you… And I admire you. You put your principles first… You lived by them and you died by them… It was almost no choice, it followed naturally from your being. You didn’t consider the consequences, you followed your heart… Elly looks like you in that respect. She doesn’t know that I know how often she jumped in on street fights, making sure everyone was safe and cared for. She did that at the risk of her own safety. She makes the same intuitive, instinctive choices of compassion and care, inclusion and empathy. She doesn’t care much about the consequences either. It’s not that she assumes she’ll be okay, it’s just that it is her nature to devote her time and energy to those who are in need.”
My/his face lights up.
“My gosh, that’s why I am so worried about her. I’m afraid I’m gonna lose her, just like I lost you. Gosh, that’s just it. She reminds me of you, and I’m afraid I’ll lose her, just like I lost you.”
I-as-my-dad fall quiet.
“And she is not you. I realize that. Her circumstances are very different… I understand that… Thank you, dad, for listening. Thank you for being you….” He looks at the third chair. “I want to hear what Elly has to say.” (to be continued Wednesday, June 11, 2014)
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You want help to mediate different parts of yourself? Contact me 512-589-0482 to schedule a complimentary discovery session.
This time before I flew out to the Netherlands, I had what you might call a little epiphany. I was driving through Texas hill country, enjoying the beauty of nature, the gorgeousness of everything G*d created and is creating, when I realized with a sudden insight “G*d created this piece of Earth, just like She did the Dutch piece of Earth. I am always home in G*d’s Earth, no matter where I am.”
