by Elly van Laar | Jun 4, 2014 | Compassion, Personal Growth, Self-compassion
My grandfather and I are standing on the porch, ready for our daily 30 minutes of connection.
He stops and listens to the birds. “It is so beautiful here, so peaceful. I feel so happy to just stand here with you and listen. To feel the breeze on my skin, the sun on my face, to hear the songs of the birds. Just quiet. Nothing to do. Nowhere to go… I loved that back home. Sitting in the yard with my wife, your grandmother, watching our children run around. I loved working in my office and seeing your dad play with his cars on the carpet. I loved being with my family… It’s all I ever wanted…”
Tears drop down his eyes.
“You live in the world I dreamed of… Peaceful, safe, welcoming… I never wanted to be a hero. I much rather had lived a quiet life, full of love, laughter, togetherness. Much like the hobbits in Lord of the Rings… But we don’t chose the times we live in, we only chose how to respond to them…”
Tears roll down his cheeks.
“It is like you clearing up the poison ivy. Of course, you much rather read a book, or go for a hike, or relax in the sun. But that’s not your choice. Your choice is to eradicate it now or let it grow till it covers your grounds and blocks your path. I knew that if we didn’t stand up against the Nazi’s now, the consequences would be far worse, for far more people, than any risk I took individually. I didn’t chose my time, I only chose how to respond. I wished I had never had to make that decision.”
He starts sobbing.
“I wished I had seen your dad graduate, marry your mom, have her kids, be promoted at work… I wished I could have held you in my arms, your siblings, your cousins… I wished I had lived to be old enough to witness your dad grow into the source of support he is, for your mom, for you and your brothers and sisters, for his siblings, for his family-in-law… Gosh, he is a rock… An incredible son… An amazing man…”
Silence.
“I never chose the time I lived in, only my response… You honor me most by enjoying and appreciating the world I tried to contribute to.”
We sit together, quietly. Then his sobbing calms down.
“Your times are different. And it is your choice how to respond to them. I hope you bring your delight and gratitude into your response.”
—-
You want help to respond to the time you live in? Contact me 512-589-0482 to schedule a complimentary, discovery session.
by Elly van Laar | Jun 2, 2014 | Compassionate Communication, Personal Growth, Self-compassion
My granddad wants to tell me how to run my business.
Oops. Not my thing.
I rather want him to engage my power, creativity, and resilience.
I move to my granddad’s spot on the right and he responds: “I get you. I would love to hear your ideas!”
I feel relieved. Moving back to the Elly-spot on the left, I thank him: “Thank you for listening to me. Thank you for honoring my autonomy. I feel happy that you give me space to explore myself what’s working, and what’s not.”
Silence.
“You know, opa, I really liked talking with the participants of my Communication for Connection Group. I valued hearing what they’re looking for, what they like about the group, and how they want to contribute to our community. I enjoyed making a spreadsheet with participant attendance and evening averages. I have no clue how this is helping the growth of our NVC community, and I just enjoyed the ease, flow, connection of the day… I got stressed out when I forced myself to clean the bedroom. I absolutely didn’t want to do it, I much, much rather had worked on my marketing strategies. But I had planned for it, and so I did.”
…
“You know, opa, I realize that I don’t trust I will accomplish anything if I go with my life energy. I’m afraid that I will end up just sitting in the woods, enjoying the birds, the breeze in the trees, the bright green fern springing up from the creek.”
I feel a sadness arise.
“Granddad, I am afraid that if I would DO what follows my BEING, I would not HAVE anything. I’m afraid that if I don’t run around being busy, doing a lot, I won’t have anything. Especially love and acceptance. A sense of belonging….”
…
Gosh…
I don’t trust myself. I don’t trust that my life energy naturally and joyfully will bring me everything I need to thrive and self-actualize my full potential…
We sit quietly for a few minutes….
He just sits there, looking a the trees…
“Wow, Elly. This sounds like the core question of our human existence. It sounds like the essential issue of wholeheartedness. Thank you for sharing, I feel touched by your dilemma.”
Nothing changed. Yet, I feel relieved. Just being clear about where I am stuck. I need nothing more for now. I can let my system process what we just talked about. I trust that it will bring me everything I need.
—-
You want help to trust your life energy? Contact me 512-589-0482 to schedule a complimentary, discovery session.
by Elly van Laar | May 23, 2014 | Acceptance, Compassionate Communication, Personal Growth, Self-compassion
I’m out in the woods again, with my grandfather.
I feel tired. I much, much rather go to sleep. I tell him. He looks at me and reflects my longing for rest. There is so much acceptance in his response, so much understanding, such a deep desire to support.
As soon as I hear his reflection, something shifts. I feel relieved, energized. I realize how I never open up to being penetrated by my fatigue. I never bring Tonglen to my exhaustion. Just resistance: I should not be tired, I should chunk along, I should finish all my self-assigned duties till I fall asleep. And -of course- the comparison: Obama doesn’t get eight hours of sleep! Thich Nhat Hanh doesn’t take days off to space out! Sister Teresa worked relentlessly to relieve suffering! Who am I to complain and sit down? They slept way less, and got much more done!
I feel surprised by my own rejection of my fatigue.
And today, with my grandfather, I allow myself to get to know it. And as soon as I do, the energy that I had invested in my resistance frees up. I get in touch with my excitement about my work with my clients. I feel so proud, honored, and happy with our partnership. I feel touched by their invitation to witness and embrace the rawness of their pain. I feel amazed by their courage to step into a life of vulnerability, aspiration, and connection.
My grandfather and I find a spot to sit down. He looks me in the eye. “Elly, your job is not to continue where I left off, your job is not to relieve hunger in Africa, to bring peace in former Yugoslavia. If that had been the case, you would have long done that. Your job is to find your passion and purpose in life. Your job is to contribute right here, right now. Your job is to be where you are in this moment and do what you love to do: work with your clients on self-acceptance and self-compassion, encourage them to step up to the plate, and inspire them to bring their unique gifts to the world. Your job is to open up to all the places where you are stuck, where your judgments and labels take you out of compassion and acceptance. To empathize with the needs underneath your enemy images and create a space of connection, inclusion, and support. That is how you inspire people, that is where your leadership is.”
I look him in the eye. There is a sacred silence. I get him.
My fatigue has been dissolved. I feel empowered and encouraged.
I am ready to do what I love most: being more fully me and support others from that place of authenticity and vulnerability.
—-
You want help to WANT to be you? Contact me 512-589-0482 to schedule a complimentary, discovery session.
by Elly van Laar | May 14, 2014 | Compassionate Communication, Mindfulness, Nonviolent Communication, Personal Growth, Self-compassion
You can also have jackal ears inward that are actually trying to cover up a deep sadness, maybe even a sense of not being worthy, and a fear that you will never be good enough to get the acceptance and love you long for. The pain is buried underneath the self-judgment, self-blame, and self-criticism.
It goes something like this “You’re an idiot that you missed his performance. You’re stupid that you spent time on completely irrelevant things like doing the dishes, you should have left in time to celebrate his first performance, cherishing the deep love you feel for him. What a moron you are for ALWAYS being late!”
Somewhere deep down, hardly audible, the voice continues. “You’re not worthy of his love, you’re a terrible person, you don’t deserve to be called a friend.”
And maybe even deeper: “You should be rejected, excluded, outcast.”
Image courtesy to David Nayer
Jackal ears inward.
If you listen carefully enough, you also hear what you really want: “Please, love me, even if I make choices you don’t understand, hell, that I don’t even understand. Please, let me know that I am still welcome, that I am still okay.”
Jackal ears inward can be hard, even painful to decipher. They often echo messages you heard in your childhood, and that you’ve come to believe were a true reflection of you. They trigger the pain you felt as a child, when you heard you were not good enough, didn’t do enough, didn’t have enough. They bring up the loneliness, sadness, and pain you felt then.
Fortunately, you are an adult now, and you have a choice. You can chose to believe what the jackal ears inward tell you, and you can chose to empathize. You can offer compassion to the pain they are expressing and an open, empathic heart. I bet, you’ll hear the jackal ears inward say “See me as beautiful, embrace me with love, accept me for the precious human being I am.”
Who can say ‘no’ to that?
—–
You want help to translate your inner jackals into self-empathy? Contact me 512-589-0482 to schedule a complimentary, discovery session.
by Elly van Laar | Apr 24, 2014 | Compassionate Communication, Nonviolent Communication, Personal Growth, Self-compassion
I want to ask for a raise. I don’t receive my pay check as appreciation for the value I add. I think my empathy and mediation skills are unique and contribute to the emotional, social, and academic development of my clients. I empower them to be autonomous, authentic, and responsible. I teach them to include all needs and figure out strategies that work for everyone. I want to be seen and appreciated for these qualities.
I talk with my empathy buddy about this. I tell him I should earn more, that I deserve it with the level of commitment I have for my clients.
Oops.
I just read in Nonviolent Communication that ‘should’ and ‘deserve’ language conveys that a request is actually a camouflaged demand.
I fall silent. I check in with myself. I am making a demand. I am so scared I will hear a ‘no’ that I am using force to get a ‘yes’. I’m too afraid to hear the ‘no’ as proof that I don’t matter, that my employer doesn’t care about my needs.
“Mattering to whom?” my buddy asks. Duh. To my employer, of course! I need to know that I matter to them.
Then I fall silent again… Or is it mattering to myself? Am I afraid that I will walk out on myself, as soon as I hear a ‘no’? Am I scared that I will give up on myself and my needs to accommodate the relationship?
Image courtesy to wellness.nicolepresents.com
Silence… Yes… That’s it… And I realize that if I matter to myself, I would use this request as an opportunity to express what’s alive in me, what my inner experience is. Not to get what I want (NVC is never a good tool for that purpose), but to be known for who I am and what I need. To create a relationship that’s based on honesty and empathy.
And all of a sudden I realize that this conversation is actually a chance to support the inner child in myself. The little, stuttering child who so often thought she didn’t matter, that no one cared what was going on within her. Who was too scared to speak up, because she feared disconnection. This is the time to invite the adult within me to squat next to her and encourage her to speak, to help her find the words. This is not about a salary raise, this is about healing. Learning to ask for what I want, in a way that conveys to myself that I matter. That’s all that matters.
—–
You want help to matter to yourself? Contact me 512-589-0482 to schedule a complimentary, discovery session to see if and how I can help.
by Elly van Laar | Apr 21, 2014 | Compassionate Communication, Marshall Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, Personal Growth, Self-compassion
Sometimes, no matter how hard you try and how sincere your intentions, your efforts to connect and support are not enough. What you wish for doesn’t happen, and you receive a response you wished you hadn’t received. Ouch moments. My friend doesn’t want to continue working together. An old panic comes up “You did something terribly wrong, you are a bad person, and because of that you don’t deserve connection, acceptance, belonging. Out with the bastard, off with her head!” A fear of rejection, ostracizing, and finally, lonely death. I know this fear too well, and it has determined many of my actions.
Marshall Rosenberg calls this emotional slavery. We think we are responsible for the happiness of the people around us and we go to great lengths to make sure they are happy: our sense of worthiness and emotional safety depend on it. We think they feel, because we do. So if they feel angry, sad, lonely, we did something fundamentally wrong. We have yet to learn that they feel, because they need and I feel, because I need.
There is freedom, an immense freedom, once we learn that we are not responsible for what we other people feel, that they feel because how they perceive their needs being met or unmet. As soon as we understand that their pain tells us something about them, not us, we can listen with care and compassion. What is going on for this person? What is the precious, tender message behind her complaints, blame, anger?
A few years ago I bought a bougainvillea. I was happy and took good care of her. I didn’t cut her back, I didn’t fertilize her, I made sure her feet were wet all the time. The bougainvillea wasn’t happy. She hardly bloomed, her stems were lengthy, her leaves droopy. And instead of taking her message personally (who does that anyway, with bougainvilleas?), I heard her complaints as the bougainvillea telling me something about her. I got it and immediately started to learn about bougainvillea care taking. Who doesn’t want to see their bougainvillea in full bloom? So the next year I let her roots dry out a little, I cut the stems back ferociously in spring, I fertilized her with special bougainvillea fertilizer. And she blooms as only a bougainvillea can bloom. Abundantly for months, and months, and months.
When we receive messages as people trying to tell us something about themselves, we have the freedom to contribute to their needs, or not. Without fear of rejection. Just a choice what makes life more wonderful in this moment.
—–
You want help to make contribute to life freely? Contact me 512-589-0482 to schedule a complimentary, discovery session to see if and how I can help.
