by Elly van Laar | Apr 8, 2016 | Empathy, Personal Growth
Do you see my seedlings?
Aren’t they adorable, little plants growing up?
I am so happy with them. Every morning, as soon as I get up, I take a look at them. Very carefully. Did they sprout? Did they grow? Are they getting second leaves? I water them, measure them, write down their growth, and carry them around into the sun and back into the house. One night I wake up by an enormous thunderclap. I realize with a shock my seedlings are still outside. I run outside to rescue them, barefoot, no cover against the rain. Nothing seemed more important than to protect my seedlings from the gushes of wind and the pouring rain. The next morning, I felt relieved to see them as perky as before.
My husband calls them my babies, as he listens to my excitement about taking care of them.
I never compared them with each other. When all the other plants were peeking out through the dirt, I didn’t tell the sunflower seeds to look at their neighbors, hoping the comparison would sprout their seeds faster. I accepted their own pace. I didn’t label the nasturtium seeds as “lazy”, when they came out last. I knew they would come out in their own time. I didn’t pull on the leaves of the cosmos, so they would develop a second set of leaves. I did none of that.
I nurtured and protected, and carefully observed them to understand the conditions of their happiness. Because I trust their self-actualizing energy.
I don’t need to tell them to grow up, because they want to. Every seed is born with an innate, natural drive to grow into the next step of their full potential. Their potential, their true self. Not into what they or others think they should be (at least, I hope so). The bachelor’s button doesn’t try to be a zinnias. They want to be themselves.
For me, this gardening project is a magnificent lesson in how I want to treat myself.
I want to show myself as much acceptance and respect as I show my little plants. I want to offer myself as much nurturance and protection as I offer them. And I want to nourish self-empathy and self-compassion, so I can understand and nourish the conditions of my happiness.
I hope you do the same for yourself.
Contact me 512-589-0482 to understand and nourish the conditions of your happiness.
Thank you, David Nayer, for giving me feedback on the previous version of this blog. I enjoy your support.
by Elly van Laar | Feb 26, 2016 | Compassionate Communication, Nonviolent Communication, NVC, Personal Growth
I feel too excited to write a post. I am booked on a panel at SXSW, the biggest film and music festival in Austin. The panel is about responding with compassion to online harassment. (Thank you, David, for recommending me.)
I have about 15 minutes to speak and my mind is racing with ideas.
- Key idea: “Every behavior is an attempt to meet precious, universal needs”
- Secondary idea: “We might resort to protective use of force, if the other party is not willing to include our needs.”
- Bring jackal ears.
Jackal ears, Image courtesy David Nayer, 2014
- Bring giraffe ears.
- Edit feelings-needs list with David.
- Make mind map and review with David. (Gosh! It is all about David!)
- Renew business cards.
- Practice in front of mirror.
- Rehearse with David. (David who?)
- Be ready to be invited to do SOMETHING REALLY BIG! Become famous? Get ready for TV!
What?
I pause and focus on my breath. I check in with myself. TRUST. My key word for 2016. Can I trust that I have more than enough inner qualities to contribute? Can I trust my inner compass to focus on what the audience needs, how their lives could be enriched? Can I trust that I can cocreate a space with the audience, where we explore how to respond with compassion and empathy to online hatred? Can we combine our collective wisdom and walk away with insights beyond our imagination? Am I willing to be humble enough to offer my shoulders to stand on, so my audience can look beyond my offerings and see what is possible in our world? Just like others offered their shoulders? Marshall Rosenberg, Thich Nhat Hanh, my husband David?
I pause. I feel super excited about that. It is a different kind of excitement. Less frantic. Less mind boggling. More open. More tender. More from the heart.
You want help to offer your shoulders to stand on? Contact me, 512-589-0482 for a free, discovery session.
Thank you, David Nayer, for your excitement to collaborate on nurturing compassion and empathy in our community.
by Elly van Laar | Feb 13, 2016 | Compassionate Communication, Nonviolent Communication, Personal Growth
For the first time in years, I feel excited about my commitment for Lent. I don’t experience it as punishment, discipline or deficit.
As I brainstormed what I wanted to do for Lent, I wondered what my intention was. Is it about creating a challenge? Forcing myself to succeed for success’ sake? Fasting because I think I have to?
Or do I want to use Lent to create clarity about my future self? To figure out how I want to show up in the world, even if my habits urge me to do things that might conflict with what I value? Is it about prioritizing commitment over pleasure, long-term vision over short-term gratification? I now realize I want to use Lent to deepen what Stephen Covey calls proactivity:
“The commitments we make to ourselves and to others, and our integrity to those commitments, is the essence and clearest manifestation of our proactivity.” (Covey, S., The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, 2004, p. 99)
When I set my goal for Lent, I create a little crucible for myself. A little sanctuary of six weeks where I elicit all the feelings that come with letting go. To feel my feelings when I don’t grasp for food out of habit, boredom, anxiety, fatigue. When I set my goal for Lent, I invite myself to look into those feelings, listen to them and understand the (un)met needs that are hidden in them. It offers me the opportunity to brainstorm other strategies to meet the precious needs behind the habitual eating. It is about choosing what I value, instead of what I crave. I might find out that instead of eating, I rather go to bed, or do a mindful walk for 10 minutes, or pause and breathe into the feelings that come up in my little crucible.
Lent is not about enduring craving for six weeks and counting down the days to return to the interrupted pattern. It is about looking deeply into myself and inviting myself to open to all the strategies to meet my needs. Not only the habitual eating, also the newly discovered ones during my Lent. And then making an open-hearted choice that supports my values: the habitual eating or this new path?
I believe proactivity is not about force, it is about choice.
You want help to practice proactivity? Contact me, 512-589-0482 for a free, discovery session.
Thank you, David Nayer, for role modeling the value of collaboration by editing this and many other posts with such delight.
by Elly van Laar | Feb 6, 2016 | Compassion, Empathy, Nonviolent Communication, Personal Growth
My work aligns with my values of loving-speech and deep listening and supports my aspiration to see our interdependence.
When I look at my business as seeing our interdependence and contributing to empathy and compassion, my shyness about marketing my services melts away. I transform my thought that I am a beggar, grasping for clients, into a contributor who creates value and solves problems. I bring a service to the world. Without arrogance, without false humility. From a place of joy and pride that I found the sweet spot between what I love to do and what the world needs.
Building a business is ultimately also about creating a life. Not just about making a living. Creating your life and building your business become synonymous with finding the sweet spot between what you love to do and how you can add value. And then do that with all your heart.
“If it falls to your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures. Sweep streets like Beethoven composed music. (…) And sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of Heaven and Earth will have to pause and say, “Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well.”” (Martin Luther King in: Cornel West, The Radical King, Speech delivered at Barratt Junior High School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, October 26, 1967)
When I look at my business from the perspective of offering my services wholeheartedly, because they uplift humanity, I get super excited. I love listening to people and asking questions to deepen understanding and self-connection. I love helping people understand each other from a place of compassion and empathy. And I love facilitating dialog in group settings, certainly when there is conflict involved. Why? Because I value connection, I value harmony and I value understanding and support. I believe we are better off as a team, than as individual players, and we get more things done when we collaborate.
You want help to Build a Life? Contact me, 512-589-0482 for a free, discovery session.
Thank you, David Nayer, for role modeling the value of collaboration by editing this and many other posts with such delight.
by Elly van Laar | Jan 29, 2016 | Mindfulness, Personal Growth
Don’t look for big things, just do small things with great love….The smaller the thing, the greater must be our love. (Mother Teresa, “Come Be My Light, the private writings of the Saint of Calcutta”, 2007)
Have you ever thought about your purpose in life? How you’re supposed to make your life meaningful? Or what you want your business to look like in the future?
Stop doing that. Stop wasting your time and energy on figuring out what to do with your life.
Just be who you are and do what your life’s energy wants you to do. That is what makes your life meaningful. That is what you are supposed to do. To be you. This unique manifestation of life energy that is only available to us right here, right now.
When you start your business from where you are at right now, you can build it step by step. Instead of spending time figuring it out, you spend time taking action. Many successful businesses started that way. Baking cookies for friends. Coding a program for the computer. Wanting to be excellent at what they did.
Maybe this bottom-up path doesn’t work for you. It does for me. My friend Aralyn Hughes told me to stop fuzzing and puzzling, and just do what I want to do now. I picked up Stephen Covey’s “The 7 habits of highly successful people” and started reflecting on the principles and paradigms that run my life. I find it inspiring and helpful. Can I see God’s face in every person I meet? Can I serve others and bring out the best in them? Can I open my heart an inch more to love each encounter?
Working with his questions, I realize that part of my motivation to build my business is “hubris”: a drive to accomplish something big, something that builds my self-worth and mattering. As soon as I realized that, I calmed down. I don’t actually need that. I want connection with my husband, my family, my friends, I want to make a difference in the lives of the people around me, and I would be very happy doing just that.
Who knows? Maybe I apply for a simple job. Maybe I build a highly successful business. I probably will do what makes me happy in each moment: appreciation, a smile, connection. And being excellent at being me, with all I’ve got. I trust that that is enough.
You want to learn to Build a Life? Contact me, 512-589-0482 for a free, discovery session.
by Elly van Laar | Jan 22, 2016 | Compassion, Compassionate Communication, Mindfulness, Nonviolent Communication, NVC, Personal Growth
“If readers have a sincere desire to make life miserable for themselves, they might learn to compare themselves to other people.” (Dan Greenburg in: Rosenberg M., Nonviolent Communication, a language of life, 2003, p. 18)
Did you ever do the comparison game?
It is very simple. You look at the results you created in your life and compare them with those of others. I am very good at that game. I compare myself a lot. With siblings, community members, colleagues. With Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa, Thich Nhat Hanh. I look at my life and at theirs, and I always fall short. At a bad day, I take it personally and start to think that there is something wrong with me. That I am a loser. A failure. That I am unworthy.
In the (perceived) absence of results, I come up with reasons.
“I had a challenging childhood. Now I suffer from low self-worth.” “I’m too insecure to get the word out about my business.” You probably have your own reasons to soften the pain of the comparison.
What if it is true? What if my life circumstances didn’t give me a head start? Does that mean that I can’t move forward and take a step on my path of aspiration?
Imagine a marathon. The winner has it all: perfect age, support team, running shoes. And then, 20 hours after the winner crosses the finish line, comes in the man on crutches. One leg. No coaches. No fancy shoes. He didn’t win the race. Wouldn’t he be your hero? Wouldn’t you be in awe that he dedicated his life to fulfill his dream? That he started practicing? Started running? With all he got? I know I bow to the ground for him. He is my inspiration to give life all I have, however much it is.
We all have different starting points in life. And we all can move forward. One step at a time. We might not have a clear end result in mind, we might not have a clue what we want our business to look like 12 years from now. And we know what our deepest values are. Who we want to be right here, right now. Empathic, compassionate, mindful for me. Something else for you.
Building a business starts with being. Building a business is building our character. Then we naturally start doing. And from the doing comes the having.
You want to learn to Build a Business? Contact me, 512-589-0482 for a free, discovery session.
