by Elly van Laar | Sep 27, 2021 | Nonviolent Communication
“Did you see the email I sent you? I was wondering if you were back from the Netherlands?” My best friend invited me for lunch. We are enjoying a chia bowl.
I had seen it. Two days ago. But I felt too discombobulated to reply after my traveling. And I didn’t want to answer without offering a time-slot to get together.
Don’t ask me why. I could have just written: “Great hearing from you! Yes, I am back and I would love to get together.” But I didn’t.
Her question comes as a surprise. I feel ashamed that I had been unresponsive. In a split second, I hear myself say: “No, I haven’t.”
As soon as I do, I regret it. And I feel stuck. I want to be honest and I’m afraid that admitting my lie would spoil our delightful lunch.
Coming home, I realize that I want to tell her the truth to support my self-respect and integrity. I also dread doing it. It’s like eating a rotten sandwich and knowing you will feel horrible. The difference is that I trust that she will empathize.
Fortunately, I have enough practice with Nonviolent Communication to know that the dread is a messenger of precious, universal, human needs. I ask David, my husband, and Saskia, my sister, to help me find those needs.
Their empathy helps. I see how much I care for her and how much I want to be seen as a caring and responsive friend.
It takes some deep breathing to overcome the fear of being found out as a person with no integrity. When I call her, I tell her that I had read the email when she asked about it. She laughs: she has been in similar situations.
After I hang up, I have grown an inch. I choose my values over my fears. I feel super proud of myself.
I am not sure that I could have done it without my supportive community. They always help. They encourage me to grow into who I want to be and accept me even when I carry shame for my actions.
You might benefit from such a community too. Whether you want to be honest, be an advocate for racial justice, lose weight, apply for a new job, or work on your marriage.
A community helps you clarify your values and aspirations, encourage you to face your fears and act with integrity anyway, brainstorm to find strategies that help you live your purpose, and celebrate your success and oops as learning opportunities.
The October 5, 2021 I’m starting a new coaching group: Pledj. It’s an acronym of Peace, Love, Equanimity, Delight, and Joy. This is for you, if you want to live in integrity and work on your aspirations.
Some details:
- Six bi-weekly group meetings on Zoom
- You will be paired with an empathy buddy for the in-between weeks
- Topics like failing and learning, feelings and needs, emotional liberation, shame and self-worth, autonomy, and purpose.
- Max six participants, one spot left
- $438 in full or monthly payments of $75
Bonus: you will have access to a virtual platform so you can stay in touch with each other.
Email me
by Elly van Laar | Sep 13, 2021 | Nonviolent Communication
“Did you see the email I sent you? I was wondering if you were back from the Netherlands?” My best friend invited me for lunch. We are enjoying a chia bowl.
I had seen it. Two days ago. But I felt too discombobulated to reply after my traveling. And I didn’t want to answer without offering a time slot to get together.
Don’t ask me why. I could have just written: “Great hearing from you! Yes, I am back and I would love to get together.” But I didn’t.
Her question comes as a surprise. I feel ashamed that I had been unresponsive. In a split second, I hear myself say: “No, I haven’t.”
As soon as I do, I regret it. And I feel stuck. I want to be honest and I’m afraid that admitting my lie would spoil our delightful lunch.
Coming home, I realize that I want to tell her the truth to support my self-respect and integrity. I also dread doing it. It’s like eating a rotten sandwich and knowing you will feel horrible. The difference is that I trust that she will empathize.
Fortunately, I have enough practice with Nonviolent Communication to know that the dread is a messenger of precious, universal, human needs. I ask David, my husband, and Saskia, my sister, to help me find those needs.
Their empathy helps. I see how much I care for her and how much I want to be seen as a caring and responsive friend.
It takes some deep breathing to overcome the fear of being found out as a person with no integrity. When I call her, I tell her that I had read the email when she asked about it. She laughs: she has been in similar situations.
After I hang up, I have grown an inch. I choose my values over my fears. I feel super proud of myself.
I am not sure that I could have done it without my supportive community. They always help. They encourage me to grow into who I want to be and accept me even when I carry shame for my actions.
You might benefit from such a community too. Whether you want to be honest, be an advocate for racial justice, lose weight, apply for a new job, or work on your marriage.
A community helps you clarify your values and aspirations, encourages you to face your fears and act with integrity anyway, brainstorm to find strategies that help you live your purpose, and celebrate your success and oops as learning opportunities.
The second week of September I’m starting a new coaching group: Pledj. It’s an acronym for Peace, Love, Equanimity, Delight, and Joy. This is for you if you want to live in integrity and work on your aspirations.
Some details:
- Six bi-weekly group meetings on Zoom
- You will be paired with an empathy buddy for the in-between weeks
- Topics like failing and learning, feelings and needs, emotional liberation, shame and self-worth, autonomy, and purpose.
- Max six participants, one spot left
- $438 in full or monthly payments of $75
Bonus: you will have access to a virtual platform so you can stay in touch with each other.
Leave a comment if you have an interest in joining.
by Elly van Laar | Apr 28, 2021 | Compassionate Communication, Empathy, Nonprofits
Our landlord is coming over to walk through the house and yard to see what needs repair after the winter storm.
We haven’t had visitors for a year. The house has experienced a “Covid effect”. Items are scattered within easy reach, the living spaces are clean enough for our standards, and the off-camera parts are less presentable.
Just like Zoom-calls: our hair is combed, teeth are flossed, and our shirt looks clean, but we might be a little long between showers, our favorite sweatpants have holes, and the back of our hair isn’t trimmed.
In the few days before his visit, everything comes to a halt and we begin a decluttering and cleaning frenzy. By the time the landlord arrives, it’s as shiny as if Obama himself is coming over for a photoshoot.
We feel utterly satisfied with the result.
But not so much with the process.
If only we had listened to KonMari and gave everything away that didn’t spark joy. If only we had kept a regular schedule for cleaning and tidying. If only we had kept our backlog of chores in check.
If only, if only, if only.
In the busyness of everyday events and without the impetus of visitors, we were absorbed with what was right in front of us. The urgent distracted us from the less urgent, although equally important: order, harmony, and peace of mind.
I wonder if I am the only one who postpones the less urgent in favor of the urgent because we don’t see the price we pay for the postponement?
If you want to make sure that the important things get done with less stress, a coaching package might be your thing.
Some clients tell me a weekly review of their circumstances and choices is the best thing they have done for themselves in a long time.
Like having a visitor come over, the scheduled sessions of a package help you become clear about your intention, values, and priorities. As a result, you know what to ask for, of yourself or someone else, to accomplish your goals, and when to relax and celebrate you moving toward them.
This is what Maureen van den Akker, Senior Copywriter at Food Cabinet, said about working with me:
“What I really liked was that you just listen very well. And even though I sometimes found your questions difficult, I could somehow find out more about myself. And maybe start to appreciate myself more in the sense that I am a nicer person than I think I am. I got more out of it than I thought before we started. Those few conversations really took me a step further.
“The main result of working with you is seeing that I am not looking for something that is somewhere far on the horizon, the woman I want to be: confident and comfortable to be herself, who has the courage to be vulnerable. That she is not somewhere far away, but that it is somewhere in me and that it depends more on the circumstances whether she comes out.
“And that I can influence those circumstances. And maybe I can train it too, by taking a step every now and then. Looking for a situation where I feel vulnerable and then noticing that nothing bad happens after all. Maybe that’s how the self-confident me can come up more often.”
Do you want to talk about how this might work?
- Email me
- Or call me at 512-589-0482
- No strings attached, I always like talking to you even if you end up not working with me.
P.S. Current packages have 6 sessions to be scheduled within 8 weeks for $840. Only sign up for it, if you believe the value you will get is worth 5 times your money.
P.S. The idea of the urgent and important comes from general Eisenhower.
by Elly van Laar | Jan 26, 2021 | Nonviolent Communication
Reusing resources is a good thing. I am convinced of that. It’s good for our planet, for our people, and my profit.
So throwing water out on the lawn seems a good idea to me.
Even if it is dirty water with some Dr. Bronner lavender soap in it.
Thus, when I finish cleaning the kitchen floor, I pick up the bucket to throw the water onto the lawn. Happy peppy water saving.
Only, the bucket slips out of my hands.
It smashes on the ground and breaks. A crack appears from the top to the bottom. My only cleaning bucket is rendered useless. My intention to save resources results in having to spend time and money to buy a new one.
What a bummer.
Looking at the cracked bucket, I decide to:
1. Accept the result of my action and the blame and frustration that come up from my failure.
2. Ask my husband for help. Fortunately, he is happy peppy to repair it with his soldering gun.
Because of these 2 actions, I have a perfectly usable bucket.
Why did this work so well?
Because it includes two crucial elements of repair:
1. Acknowledging that the impact of our behavior can be very different from our intentions.
2. Focusing on repairing the impact, instead of dismissing, defending, or explaining our intention.
Psychology research shows that these elements work in human relations as well. It doesn’t matter in which culture you grew up, in which faith, or in which millennium.
Almost everyone responds positively to a sincere effort to repair ruptures in relationships.
By expressing our regret about something we said or did, we convey that the other person matters to us and that they are worthy of support and understanding.
I imagine everyone likes such confirmation.
Without repair, others will trust you less. If you don’t reach out, they don’t get the reassurance that you are conscious of your incompetence, that you want to learn from your ignorance, and that your focus is the relationship, not your ego.
The first thing you need to do is to acknowledge for yourself that you made a mistake and practice self-compassion, so the acknowledgment doesn’t turn into shame.
The second thing is to share your mistakes with a confidant and ask for help. Someone who can listen with empathy and compassion and help you figure out how to repair the rupture.
For people who want support in learning how to have and give empathy and repair ruptures in relationships, I offer a group coaching program: The Authentic Joy Journey, also known as the Pledj-group.
We meet bi-weekly for 12 weeks and we explore and practice these topics:
1. Learning
Failure applause, creative tension, and tiny habits
2. Needs
Self-acceptance, the three levels of needs, and the bougainvillea and purple heart
3. Feelings
Pseudo-feelings, check-engine lights, anger
4. Emotional Liberation
Codependency, quality of the relationship, honesty & empathy
5. Self-Worth
Shame, self-compassion, and limiting beliefs
6. Autonomy
Interdependence, requests, mourning & celebration, next steps
This is for you if you can joyfully pay $438 and commit the time and energy to this program.
This is not for you if the challenges in your life seem overwhelming. You might benefit more from working one-on-one with me or talking with a therapist or counselor.
In this program, we work on transforming core beliefs that we don’t matter, stop living as if life will start later, and start feeling present, content, and grateful in our day-to-day life.
We will meet bi-weekly on Zoom for six sessions, 90 minutes each. We start in February with a max of eight participants.
Contact me with any questions.
Read more about the program.
by Elly van Laar | Apr 17, 2020 | Compassion, Compassionate Communication, Empathy, Nonviolent Communication, Personal Growth
I am standing on a wobbly, one-legged chair with a wide footing. Its seating is torn up. Basically, a few threads held together on the edges. In the last five years, I have stood on it probably 219 times to unhook the cloth line to reel it in.
I have never lost my balance. I trust I won’t lose it this time either.
Only, today I feel exhausted and I am distracted as I look to the right at a fascinating, exotic bird.
I lose my balance to the left. I fall on the concrete patio. Fortunately, my instincts help me to keep my head and wrists safe. But the rest of my body is not so happy.
I lay on the concrete patio for a couple of seconds, before I manage to get up.
I can barely walk. My hip feels incredibly sore, my knee seems bruised, and my ankle can hardly carry my weight.
I know I need to ask my husband for help. He is a miracle healer of sorts, and I know he can support.
But I don’t want to ask for help. I feel ashamed of my stupidity for being distracted and I struggle with familiar, habitual thoughts that are screaming in my head “I am such a clumsy idiot!”
I feel too embarrassed to take the risk that he will blame or shame me for what I believe is true. Even though I know he won’t, I don’t have the mental and emotional resources and will take even the slightest raising of an eyebrow personally.
I rather hide in my study and suffer in silence.
That is certainly what I would have done in the past.
But this time I remember how much worse bad situations became as a result of silencing and hiding my need for support.
Being the hero he is, he neither blames or shames me. Not even the lifting of an eyebrow. He immediately puts me on the couch and brings me icepacks and blankets. Even a stuffed animal.
I feel relieved.
And I wonder how many others have learned all too well to toughing it out, rather than vulnerably asking for help.
Maybe I am not the only one who would love acceptance of their struggles.
Or feeling overwhelmed trying to get everything done on their to-do list, slugging through 7:00 am-9:00 pm?
Maybe others also have a sense that they are responsible for everything.
And I bet I am not the only one who does so much better working in a supportive environment of trust and honesty.
Probably.
And just like me, we all can learn to ask for help. Even when we are the cause of our own pain and suffering.
And you don’t need to hit the concrete patio to do so. It’s easier:
Join my free webinar “Effective Communication for Nonprofit Leaders”.
You will:
- Learn the five biggest mistakes when making requests
- See how a vegan gets the best dish in a steakhouse
- Shift your paradigm about requests and see them as strengths, not weaknesses
- Understand what Santa Claus has to do with getting help
- Connect with peers and inspire each other
- Memorize ten magic words for constructive requests
As a result, you will be more confident that you can create the collaboration you want, inspire others to support your cause and goals, and transform conflict into collaboration.
Tuesday, April 28, at 8:00-9:00 am. Maximum nine nonprofit leaders.
Contact me with any questions. I am here to support you.
Or sign up here.
All the best,
Elly van Laar
Coach for Nonprofit Leaders
