by Elly van Laar | Aug 29, 2017 | Compassion, Compassionate Communication, Marshall Rosenberg, Mindfulness, Nonviolent Communication
Six wasps are actively building a nest for their queen mama above the door to my room.
And I know from last year that these nests can become big. Really big. Lots of wasps coming in and out, feeding their babies.
Even though I don’t experience them as aggressive toward me, I don’t want to take the risk that they fly in and out of my room, each time I open the door. With sadness in my heart, I decide to remove the nest, before I get too stressed about safety for my human visitors. Early in the morning, when I think the six wasps are still asleep, I throw enough water on them, that they finally fly away. I cut down their nest.
The next day, I see the same six wasps on the same spot, huddled close to each other. I’m pretty sure they’re deliberating to rebuild their nest. On the same spot.
And so they do.
With even more pain in my heart, I remove the second nest. Fortunately for all of us, they haven’t returned since.
Sometimes we are not creative enough to meet all needs in every instance. We’re stuck with a strategy of what Marshall Rosenberg calls “protective use of force”. We meet our needs, even though we see that our strategy doesn’t meet the needs of the other party. I met my need for safety, and didn’t meet the wasps’ needs for autonomy, respect, support.
When we’re stuck, the best thing we can do is hold the unmet needs with compassion. Just like we hold a baby crying for her mommy. Even if we can’t bring her mommy back to her, we can hold the baby and show compassion and understanding for how painful that is. We can convey a message that we care about her well-being, even if we don’t know what to do to relieve her suffering.
I didn’t know how to ask the wasps the build their nest a few feet away. So I used protective force (water not poison) to meet my need for safety, while holding their unmet needs with compassion.
When we’re you not creative enough to meet everyone’s needs? And how did you hold the unmet needs with compassion? Let me know. I’d love to read from you.
by Elly van Laar | Aug 2, 2017 | Compassion, Compassionate Communication, Mindfulness, Nonviolent Communication
This is an ode to my husband. Or maybe better, an ode to our human capacity to balance authenticity and togetherness, our ability to differentiate.
“Differentiation involves balancing two basic life forces: the drive for individuality and the drive for togetherness. Individuality propels us to follow our own directives, to be on our own, to create a unique identity. Togetherness pushes us to follow the directives of others, to be part of the group. When these two life forces for individuality and togetherness are expressed in balanced, healthy ways, the result is a meaningful relationship that doesn’t deteriorate in emotional fusion. Giving up your individuality to be together is as defeating in the long run as giving up your relationship to maintain your individuality. Either way, you end up being less of a person with less of a relationship.” (David Schnarch, “Passionate Marriage“).
Every year during Jugglefest, my husband and I go to the Renegade Show. It’s a show where skilled, and not so skilled, jugglers test their newest acts. It doesn’t matter whether a performer succeeds in performing any specific trick, because the show is intended to be a platform to try out new material, to take risks, and to engage an audience for feedback.
It’s more of a “first experiment”, than a stream of polished, successful, less daring acts. As this year’s emcee, Mark Hayward, said: “Try to make your performance fit one of these three rules: short, awesome, or hilarious – or even better, try making more than one of these.”
I was inspired by what I saw as the risk my husband took. He took out Sandy, a spiritual being in the form of a Grey Wolf puppet, and interviewed him about how it was to be up on stage. Shaking all over, it took Sandy 30 seconds before he could say how nervous he was.
The performance brought tears to my eyes. I imagined the courage it took to share something so personal: expressing the need for belonging and acceptance of who we truly are. I imagined Sandy’s (and David’s) fear that sharing authentically their most vulnerable self, might risk being ridiculed, scorned, or dismissed. Especially in a public setting, in front of 200 strangers.
The “awwww” and applause they received, confirmed my husband’s delivery, and his connection to the audience. I read that the audience appreciated his willingness to take the risk and be authentic.
I received so much inspiration from seeing him balancing the two life forces of individuality and togetherness, that I am now committed to prepare my own act for next year’s Renegade show.
What are you willing to do to show up more authentically, at the risk of losing connection and acceptance? Let me know, I would love to read from you.
by Elly van Laar | Jun 15, 2017 | Compassion, Compassionate Communication, Empathy, Nonviolent Communication
I’m at my friends’ house. They have two kids, Maya and Kiran, and two dogs, Luna and Sol. I wrote about the family earlier in “Stepping Into Poop”.
The dogs are playing in the living room, the kids and I are working on math and essays, the parents are at work.
Everything is peaceful, everything is quiet.
Till we hear one of the dogs whine. Like real whining. The kids and I jump up to find out what’s going on. I feel dismayed by what I see. At least, by what I think I see.
From my vantage point, it looks like Luna is biting the jugular vein of Sol, ready for the kill. I feel terrified, and start slamming Luna on the head… Poor dog, if only I had looked better…
It doesn’t help. The whining gets worse, and one of the dogs bites my left arm, even if only a scratch. I start pulling on Luna’s collar, believing that will force her to let go of the jugular vein, and preventing Sol from being killed…
My goodness, if only I had looked better: the whining gets even worse, and one of the dogs now really bites my arm.
But they do get loose.
However, not by any of my actions.
Maya was the one who saw that Luna’s jaw got stuck under Sol’s collar, and couldn’t get loose. The more Luna (or me) pulled, the more in pain Sol and Luna were. So Maya jerked off Sol’s collar, and resolved the whole tangle.
If we define compassion as the desire to relieve suffering, and empathy as a respectful understanding of what others are experiencing, Maya and I both acted with compassion, only Maya had more empathy.
It made me think of all the other times I have acted with lots of compassion and insufficient understanding. Instead of relieving pain, like I intended, I ended up making things worse.
When we don’t understand what’s going on, we don’t see the causes, the correlations, or the consequences of the suffering. It helps to have empathy skills, when we want to relieve suffering. Without empathy, compassion leads to unskillful actions: well-intended and not effective.
Have you ever acted with compassion and insufficient empathy? Would empathy have helped you to relieve the suffering more effectively? Let me know! I would love to learn from your experience.
by Elly van Laar | May 31, 2017 | Compassion, Compassionate Communication, Empathy, Nonviolent Communication, NVC, Personal Growth
I’m in a shame storm. I’m in our NVC group, practicing empathy with a buddy. My husband walks by. He says “I hope my eating won’t disturb you too much, honey.”
I feel the urge to explain to my buddy what my husband is talking about. “Well, uh,… you know,… I have this issue…”
My goodness, why did my husband say that? So innocently expressing his care for me. And triggering so much shame? As if I am exposed in my nakedness, covered in poop?
I look at my empathy buddy. He doesn’t seem too concerned by my stuttering. He just listens with a calm smile. I trust him to listen with empathy. I feel safe expressing honestly. “Well, you know… I hope you will not judge what I’m saying… I fear judgment… I get super triggered by eating sounds.”
Sigh… Relief… The truth is out… I never shared this with anyone, other than with my husband.
“It’s any eating sound: smacking, slurping, licking, screeching your fork with your teeth, or banging your spoon against a glass bowl.”
Another sigh of relief. My empathy buddy doesn’t seem too disturbed by my confession. He’s still listening. “You can fart as often as you want and I won’t mind. But making eating sounds drives me through the roof! I’ll get so triggered that I’ll either find an excuse to leave the table or I’ll turn it against you with something like: ‘There is something wrong with you for eating like that!’”
My empathy buddy still listens with care, nodding understanding and acceptance. No judgment whatsoever. I continue “And the truth is, I think there is something fundamentally wrong with me for having this sensitivity. I have the thought: ‘I am defective, beyond repair.’”
I feel a sadness come up. It is the first time I speak about this issue I feel so ashamed about. And it is just as Brené Brown describes: my shame disappears. Shame only survives in hiding. If it is brought into the light and received with compassion and acceptance, it loses it’s power. In the connection, acceptance and understanding, we experience the opposite of what shame wants us to believe. We experience that we are worthy of acceptance, love and belonging. We realize there is nothing wrong with us for having an issue. We notice we are not an issue.
I’m still not proud of my issue. It’s a handicap I didn’t chose. My eating sound sensitivity might never change. And now that I talked about it honestly with an empathy buddy, I can make different choices around it. I can ask for help without blaming or criticizing the other person. I can expand my compassion for everyone else who struggles with their own issue. I can choose mindful walking when my trigger overwhelms me. And most of all, I can work on self-acceptance and my longing to connect, even while eating.
With empathy and honesty, we can explore creative solutions that work better.
Let me know how you deal with issues you feel shame around.
by Elly van Laar | Apr 15, 2017 | Compassion, Compassionate Communication, Nonviolent Communication, NVC, Personal Growth
It’s Easter weekend, and many Christians are commemorating the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
One of the things that always struck me about how the event is told in the Gospels, is how reluctant Jesus was at being crucified: “Please, Father, take this cup from me”. Jesus wasn’t that excited about being killed, and I wonder if he was convinced he would be resurrected from death. His fear tells me he might not have been. To me, this is the most poignant example of Jesus choosing a purposeful life over a happy life.
Martin Seligman describes in “Authentic Happiness” a happy life as a life where you cultivate positive emotions about the past, present, and future. An engaging life is a life where you use your core strengths and virtues to achieve a sense of flow, being fully engaged with what you’re doing. The purposeful life is a life where you use your core strengths and virtues to contribute to a goal that is larger than you, even if it comes at personal cost. It is the life where you see the oneness in the fragmentation, and your motivation follows meaning.
History is full of examples of people willing to make personal sacrifices for a higher purpose. Martin Luther King and Ghandi are well-known, my grandfather and millions of others less well-known.
Jesus inspires me to live a life of purpose, pledging allegiance to love, care, and inclusion of the outcasts. Up till now I have enjoyed a comfortable life, being married and enjoying my beautiful home and loving friends. I have a happy life, an engaging life. I also believe my life has meaning: I have a strong sense of purpose in the work I do.
And yet. I wonder if I have the guts to sacrifice my comfort, when circumstances call me to stand up for what I believe is true. I am scared that I won’t be willing to follow Jesus’ example, when it comes at an expense to me. I ask myself ‘Do I need to?’, hoping the answer will be ‘no, sweetie pie, go back to sleep’.
When you ask yourself these questions, what comes up for you? I would love to read your response.
by Elly van Laar | Jan 24, 2017 | Compassion, Empathy, Mindfulness, Nonviolent Communication
I’m playing Triominos. By myself. Usually I play with my husband, but he isn’t home. I put nine tiles in front of my right hand, and nine tiles in front of my left hand.
My right hand has the triple five and starts.
My left hand needs to take a stone.
My right hand is excited as it puts down a perfect match for the triple five.
“Bummer” — my left hand needs to pass again.
“Awesome!” — my right hand puts down its third stone — “I’m winning!”
Then my left hand puts out a stone, relieved.
“You blocked my move!” — says my right hand, irritated.
My left hand can put down a second stone — “Nothing is lost yet. Pfew.”
My right hand gets agitated — “Again: you blocked me!”
After a few more rounds, my right hand can finally declare victory — “I won!!”
Playing by myself and hearing these habitual voices about winning and losing go through my mind, I think of Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings on interbeing:
“Non-violence can be born only from the insight of non-duality, of interbeing. This is the insight that everything is interconnected and nothing can exist by itself alone. Doing violence to others is doing violence to yourself. If you do not have the insight of non-duality, you will still be violent. You will still want to punish, to suppress, and to destroy. But once you have penetrated the reality of non-duality, you will smile at both the flower and garbage in you, you will embrace both.” (Thich Nhat Hanh, Anger, p. 70)
I love this teaching.
I also struggle with it.
I get it when I look at my right and left hand playing against each other. They are part of the same body.
I forget it when I’m in conflict with people and think they are the cause of my hurt, fear, or anger. When I see ‘them’ as the enemy and ‘me’ as the angel. I want to withdraw, or lash out. I want someone to tell me how right I am and how wrong they are.
And yet, when I utter harsh words against my husband, I feel miserable. When I yell at someone in traffic, I feel anxious and upset. When I ignore the suffering of Syrian refugees, I feel ashamed.
As much as I struggle to put the teaching of interbeing into practice, I continue the effort, because in my heart I know it’s true. I feel more at peace if I see the interbeing of Nazis and Jews, white supremacists and blacks, the one percent and the 99%.
I want to remember that in the end we are held in the same Earth, who accepts us unconditionally, without discrimination. I want to remember that we all return to compost. Especially when I feel a frustrated urge to withdraw or an angry urge to lash out.
For my greater happiness. And for the greater happiness of others.
Let me know how this landed for you.
