by Elly van Laar | Apr 25, 2017 | Empathy, Mindfulness, Nonviolent Communication, NVC, Personal Growth
I’m up early. Before the crack of dawn. I love it. I feel energized and excited about a new day, about being alive and having the opportunity to contribute, learn, and receive.
I get dressed and make my tea. Green tea. Yum.
Then I hear the alarm on my phone go off. First softly, then loudly. I rush toward the sound, I don’t want my husband to wake up. It gets louder, the closer I get to the bathroom.
As soon as I think I am getting close, the sound fades. Shoot! So where is it? I don’t want it to go off next to his ear. I feel relieved to hear it again, in the kitchen. That makes sense, it must be on the counter, where I made my tea.
And again, as soon as I think I am close, the sound subsides. No! My husband worked late last night and needs his sleep. Where is my phone?!
The sound increases, in the dining room. I look around, more frantic now. Nothing to be found nowhere.
Then it dawns on me. My cell phone has been in my pocket the whole time.
My alarm sounds like ocean waves rolling on the beach: softer and louder with each wave coming in and fading away. The precious thing I was looking for, was right there in my jeans all the time.
It made me think of a story Pema Chodron tells in “When Things Fall Apart”. It’s about a woman who’s sent out into the world with only a coat. She ends up destitute, with no means to support even her basic needs for survival. She complains about her poverty. Her coat goes to shreds, and in the hem she finds diamonds. Plenty enough to sell and support her.
That woman is me, running around, looking for my Buddha nature, my Christ essence, my basic goodness. All the while, I’m stuck in my anger, fear, jealousy, and judge myself for having these feelings.
I hope there comes a moment where I realize that I had Buddha nature all along, buried in my hardened heart. The place where I stop, connect, and celebrate my innate compassionate nature. Where I acknowledge my love, care and gratitude as “enough conditions to be happy”. Where I see my happiness and suffering as expressions of our shared humanity.
Our shared humanity with people I like, and people I don’t like. People who think and vote like me, and people who do the opposite. People whose words and actions are in alignment with my values, and people who speak and act in ways that conflict with my dreams for our world.
I imagine that when I am grounded in my own goodness, I can offer my insight to help others see theirs. To help them pause, take a breath, and smile at life.
I think that thàt is the best gift I can give to others.
by Elly van Laar | Aug 21, 2015 | Compassionate Communication, Empathy, Nonviolent Communication
Unfortunately, we usually hear them as a message of wrongness of us, of who we are in our core being. We take the message personally and defend or doubt ourselves, or we withdraw within.
It is often easier to hear criticism, blame, and judgment from a stranger, from someone who is not that close to us. As soon as the message comes from someone who matters to us and the issue is tied to our sense of self-worth, we struggle.
How’s that?
Empathy with a partner, dear friend, or sibling when they express blame, judgment, or criticism is harder, because they are more important than a stranger. Their opinion of us matters more than the opinion of someone we don’t care about. We spend so much time with them, that they become our main strategy to meet our needs for love, acceptance, belonging: essential needs for our human existence.
David Schnarch talks about differentiation as “your ability to maintain your sense of self when you are emotionally and/or physically close to others-especially as they become increasingly important to you.” Differentiation would be very helpful to hear hard-to-hear messages more easily. Unfortunately, differentiation is not something that’s being taught at school.
Now what?
I offer two tips that can help you reach enough differentiation to hear hard-to-hear messages without too much upset.
Localize the criticism
Translate the negative message about you as a person into an event that is localized in time and place. Transform an evaluation of you as a person, into feedback about something you did. It is about, for example, the fact that you left without saying goodbye yesterday afternoon, instead of being judged as a cold and uncaring person. When you help your loved one distinguish between you and your behavior, it is easier to empathize with what they are trying to say.
Guess feelings and needs
We experience our shared humanity at the level of feelings and needs. We all know what it is like to feel sad, lonely, angry, disappointed, scared, ashamed, embarrassed. We all have needs for acceptance, love, support, understanding, safety, reassurance, connection, belonging, play, autonomy. When we move beyond the details of the story into the depth of feelings and needs, we develop a sense of understanding. We might even ask questions to better understand the other one: “Tell me what saying goodbye means to you?” “What rituals did your family have around saying goodbye?” “In an ideal situation, what would saying goodbye look like?”
Go practice!
I am pretty sure that these two tips help you to hear your spouse, child, co-worker share their hard-to-hear-message with more acceptance, compassion, and understanding.
You want help to listen with empathy to hard-to-hear messages? Contact me 512-589-0482 for a free, discovery session to see how I can help.
by Elly van Laar | Feb 16, 2015 | Compassionate Communication, Nonviolent Communication
You didn’t like the last board meeting. At all. One of the board members raised his voice, in an attempt to be heard. You left feeling upset, anxious, agitated. You want more respect, safety, mutual understanding, and -of course- collaboration. A real sense of working together for a shared purpose, in a way that nurtures the relationships between the board members.
You are aware some old pain is being triggered from your family of origin. So, -Nonviolent Communication savvy as you are- you decide to get support from your empathy buddies. And after five empathy sessions, role plays, and mediation exercises you realize the issue is not just this one board member, it is also the way the meetings are facilitated, the group dynamics, and historical baggage that some board meetings carry into the meetings.
The whole situation seems so overwhelming and complicated, that you have no confidence that you can contribute to more compassion and collaboration. You are ready to resign and give up on your dream of a harmonious, collaborative, respectful board. Done. You just can’t do it, it’s too hard…
Well?…
Is it?…
You hear this voice in your head ‘Creating your dream is one conversation at a time. Creating your dream is translating your vision into concrete, do-able, action-oriented, time specific, tiny steps and getting support to take these steps.’
So you set-up your support system: empathy from your buddies, advice from your mentors, encouragement from your friends, and self-care from yourself.
You are ready to take the one step that maximizes your chance of success. A small step, sure, and still: one first step. You invite the board member for coffee to talk about this board meeting, so you can understand where he was coming from. You rehearsed the one sentence you want him to hear. You enter the conversation with confidence and trust in your compassion and empathy skills. And that is enough. No matter the outcome of the conversation, you succeeded. Because you showed up in a way that was in alignment with your dream of collaboration, respect, and safety.
What could be your first step? You want help to set yourself up for success? Contact me for a free, discovery session, 512-589-0482.
by Elly van Laar | Feb 19, 2014 | Compassionate Communication, Marshall Rosenberg, Mindfulness, Nonviolent Communication, Personal Growth
My friend is unhappy at work. She wants her boss to understand her troubles and acknowledge their shared responsibility in the problems. She hopes this will inspire him to support her finding a position where she will be seen and appreciated for her qualities.
Current conversations haven’t helped. She wants my advice how to proceed.
I tell her that I would start with “Beginning Anew”, and use feelings and needs language. As I talk, I notice that she grows quiet. I ask her how this idea lands with her.
It doesn’t. At all. She is sick and tired of having to listen first, of being the empathic and compassionate one. So far it turned out that her listening ended any conversation. The other responds to her accurate reflections of feelings and needs with “Exactly, that’s it” and walks away. No interest in her experience. No intention to include her needs.
I understand my friend.
Listening is just another strategy for connection. Reflecting feelings and needs can help to establish trust and understanding.
And it might not be sufficient.
Nonviolent Communication is not very nonviolent if it sustains an imbalance in resources. It is not very nonviolent if it excludes the needs of some and emphasize the needs of others. It is not very nonviolent if it silences the have-nots and favors the haves.
Sometimes we need self-expression as a strategy for connection. Sometimes we need to “scream in giraffe” (a term coined by Marshall Rosenberg) to be heard. Sometimes we need to take action to make sure all needs are included, also ours. Peace, connection, understanding are not possible if not all needs are supported.
Let’s practice using NVC to express our anger and unmet needs AND maintain connection. Let’s practice using NVC to support ALL needs. Let’s practice using NVC to awaken our awareness that our needs are interdependent, and that none can be happy if not all are happy.
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You want to learn to scream in giraffe? Contact me 512-589-0482. I would be excited to work with you!
by Elly van Laar | Feb 12, 2014 | Compassionate Communication, Nonviolent Communication, Personal Growth
Thank you, John and Ike, for facilitating the Mediate Your Life retreat.
I thoroughly loved it. I loved the community, the safety, the acceptance, the learning, and the comradery on the path of compassionate communication. I feel grateful for all the practical tools and practices that I directly can use in my daily life. And most of all, I feel touched, inspired and appreciative of the respect, inclusion and openness you showed towards any idea offered by anyone at any time. With all your years of experience in teaching, training and mediating you never pretended you knew it all. Every day seemed like a fresh, new day with new answers to new challenges to best support the participants in this workshop at this moment.
You modeled how I want to build community and collaboration. Not contracted and constricted, guarding my carefully crafted opinions. Not scared that my ideas will be swept off the table as irrelevant and uninteresting. Not attached to my points of view, thinking that I know the truth, and the only truth.
I aspire to stop my chatter mind when someone offers an idea I don’t know, or might even feel resistance to. And then listen. Just listen. What does the other person have to say? What is important to them? How are they contributing to expanding my world view? Where is the valuable gem in their words? How can I honor their willingness to share their unique wisdom with me?
It seems so simple. Just stop and listen. And then, with an open heart and curious mind, explore their ideas. Like tasting wine. Or chew chocolate. Oh, the wonderful nuances of this idea… how it reveals itself… what an unexpected surprise to hear this…
My monkey mind immediately protests. ‘What if the idea is harmful, like blacks are lazy?‘ I don’t have any other answer than that you can always empathize with them. Understanding where the speaker is coming from, their fears, pain, desires. How those are captured in this idea. How there might be something precious in their idea, even if I don’t like the way they express what is important to them. And I can imagine that creates connection, and maybe a new understanding for both of us.
It sounds simple. Just stop and listen. I guess it takes a lot of personal growth, radical honesty about where you’re stuck, and courage to let go of preconceived ideas, before you can show up like that.
Ike and John thank you so much for being role models, as I strive to be who I want to be.
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Contact me if you want support to open up to new ideas and build collaborative communities 512-589-0482
