This post arriving in my inbox is soooo timely for me.

Just last week I tried to express to my husband my sadness and despair around the quality of our conversations. We had gone out for lunch and the people we were meeting were an hour late so we sat down to have a cup of tea while we waited. I noticed, for this hour, his attention was predominantly drawn to the screen showing music videos in the cafe. I started to feel resentful. My need for connection and fun were not being met by his attention being elsewhere. At first I self-empathised.

BUT then I noticed my thinking kicked in. Just staying with self-empathy was not enough to change the situation I was not enjoying. I told myself I still needed “him to want to want to communicate with me”.

“This happens a lot. I can’t remember a conversation for ages where he has been joyfully engaged.”

“Why do I have to put all the effort in to starting/keeping a conversation going?”

“The least he could do when we are together is “be here” and talk with me.”

Then came thoughts about

Well, I’ll sit here and wait and see how long he can “not talk to me”

As you can imagine the hour passed with me feeling increasingly resentful, despairing and with a growing sense of disconnection.

What I had not done was envision how I wanted this situation to be and taken control of it myself.

I hadn’t taken self-care to the next level which is actively taking responsibility for getting what I want. I could choose to change my experience in the moment. That is not to say I still couldn’t do with some empathy around all of the thoughts above – and I can take the next step in self-care and make a request for that with some of my empathy buddies (or journal it).

AND I can take care of the moment where I want a nice time with my husband by making it a nice time. Noticing where he is at (tired, distracted, uncertain?) and connecting there first. I could have changed the environment – invited him to come for a walk while we wait (reframe, create energy). Once I connected to my need to take care of myself, in addition to my need for connection and ease,  a number of strategies (more useful than the one I chose) may have arisen.

Please enjoy LaShelle’s posting. I have!

Learning to assume positive intent has asked me to explore a pattern of assumptions that date right back into my childhood.

The assumed position I was raised with is that people generally act in their own self-interest and that is “bad” if it causes uncomfortable feelings in another person.

This family belief also leads to a “you” focus. You are the cause of my distress, annoyance, upset. You need to change what you are doing. Not only does it lead to disconnection with the other person (now seen as a problem) it leads to disempowerment and disconnection with myself.

So long as I believe another person is able to “control” how I feel with their words or actions then I feel vulnerable and unsafe. From this place I may choose flight, freeze or fight as my habitual response. How this looks in my life is withdrawal and denial, blocking and passive-aggressive or attacking, blaming and judging.

So, what if the belief I was raised with is partially right? People do act in their self interest. And what if I only need to shift the second half of my belief? If they are acting in their self-interest – that means they are meeting needs that matter to them –now I can get curious from an empowered and empathic place.

Ahhh….

‘Between stimulus and response there is a space.

In that space is our power to choose our response.

In our response lies our growth and our freedom.’

Viktor Frankl

This space, for me, can be tiny. It can be over in a nanosecond before I make a habitual move or reaction. However, I am celebrating that nowadays I can sense the space. This is more than I could do a few years ago.

And lately, “an opening into the more” comes for me. The stimulus occurs and I notice it as a stimulus. Ahhh…there is freedom and choice in this moment.

In the next few posts I will explore some of “the more” that comes:

1. Making a Clear Observation
2. Connecting with Myself (self-empathy)
3. Assuming positive intent – looking at both of our intentions
4. Guessing what is going on for the other person (empathy)
5. Making useful assumptions
6. Knowing what I want (clear requests)

Observation as presence

What disconnects us from our natural state of compassion is our thinking and our thinking in a particular way. It is running us, we seem unconscious and lost in thought and or thinking in a way that is judging, blaming – that is when we are caught in thought.

Observation is being the witness to that thinking. I try and make a clear statement about the stimulus- not adding judgements, interpretations, feelings, thoughts or past experiences. I try and keep it simple.

How do we step out of our mind-stream?

1. Drop into the physical sense of feeling in the body as awareness of feeling. Practice mindfulness of body.
2. Observation as being with pure perception. E.g. seeing a thought going through our mind or what we are hearing, seeing, sensing. We are being the observer of our experience vs. being the thinker of our experience.

Practicing observing our outer world

Exercise: Look around the room you are in. look at anything, an object and see if you can see it without even labelling it, without any thoughts about that object. Notice if you hear the words for the object, see if you can let them go by and come back to being the observer. Being the emptiness of your mind that the thoughts and the objects are the content of.

We are used to noticing the world through the frame of language, how we think, what we say.

How does this exercise relate to NVC?

Thinking and the jackal thinking is what disconnects us from our natural compassion. So if we can witness and observe and be that observer it gives us space to choose something else other than our conditioning.

We can observe what is outside of us or observing our own thoughts. We can be the witnessing presence of our own thinking. Then we can choose a response rather than a reaction. It is like strengthening a muscle that is crucial in NVC and to see that thinking with love – so as not to judge our thinking but rather enjoy the jackal show because they are conveying needs and every judgement is an expression of a need. If we get to the need then we find our living energy. Another word to describe the jackal voice is our ego voice.

Practicing observing our inner world

1. Observation language; being able to differentiate language that is just saying what is; evaluation is any interpretation that I am putting on top of it, any kind of story or meaning.

Exercise: Watch your thoughts, watch whatever is going on in your mind. It might help to focus on your 3^rd eye, out your attention there. It is like you are internally looking there and rest there with awareness. We become the container in which the thoughts occur.

Language causing suffering:

There are 2 kinds of feelings: ones where we are directly connected to our needs – there may be pain or sadness, but it is a sweet feeling. But when we feel suffering NVC says it is our thoughts that are doing that. What we are observing outside, the stimulus, is related to what we are feeling but the feeling is connected to our needs being met or not met.

Part of the difficulty of observing is:

1. Our language is static because of the verb “to be” we say “people are this or that” implying that it won’t or doesn’t change

2. Verbs are connotative (they imply good/bad etc): “Mary dawdles”.

3. Implications/opinions are often expressed as facts: eg

a. “She won’t get fit” rather than “I don’t think she will get fit”.

4. Confusing predictability with certainty eg.

If you go out in the rain you will catch a cold.

5. Failure to be specific:

“Young people don’t know the value of money.”

6. Imply ability:

“She’s not a good typist” rather than “she types at 30wpm with 50% accuracy”

7. Use of adverbs and adjectives:

“She’s fat”  rather than “She is 160cm tall and weighs 100kg”

Exercise in language awareness:

Notice the difference between each of the sets of sentences below. Sat them out loud so you can hear and feel the impact on your body.

You are too generous.

When I see you give your lunch money to others, I think you are too generous.

Doug procrastinates.

Doug started studying for the exam the night before.

She won’t get her work in.

I don’t think she’ll get her work in.

You don’t eat balanced meals.

If you don’t eat balanced meals, I fear that your health will be your health will be impaired.

Renters don’t take care of their property.

I have not seen the family living at 1679 Ross St mow their lawns for 2 weeks.

Take 3 statements you regularly make that you now believe have evaluations mixed with observation and translate them into clear observations.

1.……………………………. ………………………………………….

……………………………. …………………………………………….

……………………………. …………………………………………….

2.……………………………. ………………………………………….

……………………………. …………………………………………….

……………………………. …………………………………………….

3.……………………………. ………………………………………….

……………………………. …………………………………………….

……………………………. …………………………………………….

Now say each statement to yourself twice and notice how you feel in your body saying a mixed observation
vs a clear observation.

“Our thinking causes our suffering.

Pain is inevitable, suffering is a choice”. 

The Buddha.

Please check out this incredible 3-minute video that just came my way:

http://www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=1524

Using some great quotes from Martin Luther King, JFK, and others, I hope this inspiring video helps stir your creativity and motivates you to take ACTION!

With so many global systems being challenged, it has never been more important for each one of us to take the risk to be happy.

I hope this little video serves a purpose for you today:

http://www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=1524

These are qualities of practice that I alluded to in my last blog. Most spiritual or personal development practices imply “improvement” or at least some kind of movement towards something.

I know that I have swung from trying to “repress” or “avoid” particular negative emotions or actions I have labelled as harmful to myself and others, or problematic at the very least, to indulging in the emotions or actions.

When I repress I tell myself a particular kind of story – how “bad” or “weak” I am, how lost I am or how I just can’t get my act together. I wallow in a critic-fest.

When I indulge I tell myself a different kind of story. I make enemy images of the people I am affecting – how they deserve it, how they brought it upon themselves, how I am acting righteously or justly to bring them to some new awareness. I criticise them.

Both ways are just stories I make up to justify my responses.

Now, however,  I am trying a middle way, one that has 3 processes.

Acknowledging

Now, I try and notice when I am moving towards repression or indulgence. I say hello to this movement, holding myself with a kind of friendliness that one feels with an old, dear friend.

“Oh, hello my dear friend anger. I can sense you arising in my body – I can feel the tension and tightening across the front of my chest and the shortening of my breath. I acknowledge you there just as you are.”

Accompanying

When I say hello to whatever is arising – what comes is a relationship between me and it. For example a relationship between me and anger. I am not anger and it is not me but we are here, in this moment, together. I can sense how it moves through me. I can accompany its arising, its response to my acknowledgement and I, now, can accompany it as it tells me what is up for it. I can listen to it and listen for its deeper needs or the values it thinks it will protect by doing what it is doing. I can accompany it a little way down the road.

Accepting

I can accept that this is how I feel just now and as I journey with it I can notice moment by moment shifts and changes. Accepting doesn’t mean agreeing – it just means –yep, this is how it seems for me just now in this moment. I can accept that I might be experiencing suffering or discomfort. I can accept that it feels strong or overwhelming.

It may seem like accepting will be buying into the story (whichever one is being told) – yet that has not been my experience. I have found that once I accept whatever I am experiencing – no matter how subjective – a new possibility opens up for me. There comes a softening, a letting go, a relaxing of sorts.

And there, in that space I can invite something more.  I might invite some questions:

“Is this true, really true? Can I be absolutely sure that what I am telling myself  is true?”

“What needs or values are needing care in all of this?”

“Is there any other part of me that needs attention too? Is there something more that also needs to tell its story?”

“Is there something happening here that brings up old, unresolved material from my childhood? How can I best take care of myself if this is happening?”

“Can I get a felt sense of this – an image, a metaphor, a word that best captures all of it? Can I stay with this and explore my inner landscape and what it knows, in my body, about the best way forward?”

This process of acknowledging, accompanying and accepting is so helping me to connect more compassionately with myself. I am better able to stay with my present moment experiences and find such richness in them.  I sense they are the first step on a journey to a delightful self-acceptance.

Inbox coincidence? Twice in one day? Articles on Making A Difference in the world. Leadership starting within instead of waiting to be led? Well, its enough of a nudge for me to post the links to these 2 articles about Making A Difference.

Hey, WAKE UP.

You don’t have to make a BIG difference. You just have to choose to make a difference. A small step in the right direction is still a step in the right direction. But the big steps in your mind in the right direction are NOT steps in the right direction. They are just thoughts.

So…read on for some ways you can choose become a MADMAN (Making A Difference Man) or a MADWOMAN (Making A Difference Woman).

Next time someone says “You’re mad!” You can say, “Damn right, I am!! I make a difference. And that is what MAD is!”

Your next step:

How to make a difference in the world by The Change Blog

Many people believe that they don’t have what it takes to make a difference to the world. They believe only people like Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, and the likes, are capable of making a difference.

The truth is, every one of us is put in this world to contribute and make a difference to the world in our own unique way. It need not be anything out of the world. It just needs to be something you do with the intention of ‘doing good’.

The following is a guide as to how small people like us can make a difference to the world…

Personal to Planetary Transformation

A World That Works for Everyone by Monica Sharma, M.D. Director, Leadership and Capacity Development, at the United Nations, OHRLLS.

The next 50 years will show whether the world as a whole can come together as one, resolving the many seemingly intractable problems we now face. Or will we continue to muddle through, from crisis to crisis, never solving the problems of humankind in a definitive and sustained way? Yesterday, we were engaged in resolving a crisis:  HIV/AIDS. Today, we are focusing on global warming. Tomorrow, we may focus on nuclear waste. What remains constant in this changing world is the power of human wisdom.Never before in history have both opportunity and need been so great. Never before has ‘grow or die’ been more apparent. And never before have the means existed to effect planetary transformation. Indeed, this is the time to pioneer results-oriented designs that can then be applied across the urgent and significant issues of our time. This is the time for mindsets that foster the culture of peace. This is the time for a world that works for everyone…

Alright I can hear you ~ yeah, yeah ~ but what’s she gonna do?

O.K. here’s my commitment (gulp)

I’m am going to organise a team at work to do the Get the World Moving Walk to improve morale and raise money for a worthy cause. Then I will take it to the next level: Sydney to the Gong Bike Ride.

I am committed to starting a Local Compassionate Listening Circle – drop in to be heard or to offer a good hearing. I will find a way to keep it simple so it can grow with ease.

 

Technorati Tags: leadership,power of one,commitment,choices,engagement

I am hearing so much talk about the how tough times are getting. Underneath all of this talk is a subtle message about reining in our lives: our spending, our expectations, our lifestyles.

However I say NO! Let’s look at this differently. Rather than shrinking we can THRIVE!

No, I’m not advocating new age positive affirmations that will miraculously turn your life around if you say them often enough, loud enough and with great gusto.

Neither am I advocating wildly ignoring the environment around us. We probably will know people who will experience the harsh reality of job displacement or retrenchment, loss of a regular income and the related personal and relationship challenges that come with that.

BUT, what if we perceive 2009 as a year of recalibration rather than recession. This is an opportunity to REVIEW, RECOGNISE, RE-FOCUS, RELEASE, RE-SET & RE-CALIBRATE. We can review the highs and lows of 2008 exploring our journey and the meanings we have made from it. We can recognise where we expend our time and energy and how aligned that is to our what we really want. We can pay attention to what’s working – and what’s no longer serving us. We can re-focus on core essentials and strengths. These essentials give us pleasure, confidence, outcomes, joy and integrity. These are underpinned by our values which become our new focus and motivators.  We can release our blocks to action, our limiting beliefs clearing a way for the new and fresh to enter our lives. We can re-set our compass bearings setting a course which takes us to where we CHOOSE to go. We can consistently re-calibrate by committing to staying focused, paying attention to our daily intentions and actions through self-awareness and keeping an open mind to what needs changing or adjusting.

The biggest variable in how this year goes for you is

WHAT YOU DO!

Personal responsibility and taking action is going to be what makes the difference between a year you can celebrate and a year you may wonder what happened – it just slid by or a year you’d rather forget.

Now, I’m not saying that we, literally, bring everything into our lives by our thoughts. Nonsense. People don’t bring earthquakes, hurricanes, accidents, and the like upon themselves. No!

I am saying the only thing we are in control of  is our intentions, our reactions and being a living expression of our core values.

And by paying attention to these we can choose to have a certain quality of life, our inner life holds our bearings no matter what is going on with our outer-life. We can choose to have a certain quality of relationships  and we can choose to spend more time on the things that make us feel great. If we are doing things that seem unavoidable, like driving the kids to school we have the choice to explore ‘the how of doing that.”  We can choose to recognise the underlying value we are meeting (contributing to the kids well-being & safety for example), and from that place we can find plenty of ways to meet those values (form a group to share the driving, pay a teenager to escort the kids on the school bus, move closer to the school so they can walk etc.)

The bottom line is we only have 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.  How do we  spend them? How do you want to spend them?

How are you spending them now? What percentage either brings you joy or meets your values?

Curious about how to thrive not survive in 2009?

1. REVIEW

What was great? Mapping the peaks & valleys of 2008. Find meaning in what happened.

2. RECOGNISE

What are you already saying “yes” to? What are your “yes” opportunities?  What can you say “no” to? Where is your energy being drained or displaced? Where are you expending your time and energy? How much of your time and energy is actually supporting your deepest values and aspirations?

3. RE-FOCUS

What do you want to focus on? Strengthen your strengths through identifying your core values and deepest passions.

4. RELEASE

What do you need to let go of in order to allow the entry of the new? Beliefs? Relationships? Busyness? Habits? Explore and embrace your blocks to transformation. When we listen to ourselves with non-judgmental curiosity what one always finds at the bottom of the barrel is precious life-going-forward energy.

5. RE-SET

Reset your compass bearings for thriving. Making choice-full-conscious decisions for self-care and growth. Once you’ve listened to all the concerns and worries of any specific inner voice then you can begin to listen for what that voice, that part, does want – what it’s passionate about. Experience the sense of wholeness and ease that comes when your joy and passion for living are lined up with the intentions that hold your hopes and dreams.

6. RE-CALIBRATE

Practice a simple technique for consistently checking in with what your body knows about how you are tracking; for me this is Focusing, for you it might be mediation, listening to your inner voice while watching the ocean, surfing, running, dancing. Learn to re-calibrate with sensitivity not reactivity, building your capacity for self-empathy, self-trust and emotional resilience.

Thriving is a choice for life ~ your life.

Genuine new beginnings emerge from a realignment of ways of looking at the world and a renewal of energy.  We often look for external signs to guide us into a beginning, but our inner attitudes toward life, our renewed self-knowledge and our intuition are really the hallmarks of our new beginnings. 

Staying on course

By relying on our inner voice to tell us where to go in life, we are likely to have more motivation than if we were to depend on the traditional expectations provided to us by others. 

Each day is an opportunity to check the alignment of our new beginning, to bring awareness of what is manifesting in our lives.  If we fail to do this, sooner or later we may inadvertently find ourselves reverting to our old ways of living or wondering how we wandered off course with no real awareness of doing so.

This process of checking-in and micro-adjusting our intentional choices to our our ongoing living experience will  depend on whether or not we can bring the Witness or Observer to bear on our continuing experiencing  and the quality of Presence we bring to our checking-in.
 

Trusting your Inner Voice through Focusing

In Focusing there’s a flow of awareness. What we can sense is how it is now. Yes, that includes the "now" of the past, our memories and the reactions of parts of us to what happened before. And it changes in response to each moment of our living while remaining aligned to our inner truths or essence. 

 
But I hear more than one Voice in there you say. I hear the voice that says do it, the voice that says you should be careful, the voice that says this is the wrong this to do.

We have many voices in us, and they can be in competition to be the one we act on. This can sometimes feel like an argument or even a war inside. These competing voices are often driven by fear, worry, and anxiety — and there can be a strong inner pressure to do what they say – and this can lead to a sense of overwhelm, disappointment or even the paralysis of procrastination because the voices might be advocating different steps or actions. Something just doesn’t feel right and there doesn’t seem to be a sense of ease.  And, of course, this would not be the inner sense of rightness that we talk about in Focusing.

These warring parts are what Barbara McGavin and Ann Weiser-Cornell call "Partial Selves," and they arise from an attempt to resolve a situation of trauma, blockage, or missing-ness. Because they are only  partial, they are not going to be able to bring about the resolution they seek—yet they do need to be listened to. But when I say they need to be listened to, I do not mean that we should act on them!

We need to ground ourselves firmly in Presence or our Inner Witness and listen deeply to what they’re afraid of and what they truly want for us – we need to hear their positive intent and let them know we have heard that is how it is – for them. One by one we listen to each partial self. Their energy eases up when they get heard. This leads to an inner calming that clears the way for the inner sense of rightness to be heard. Just saying hello to each voice-acknowledging their fear, anxiety etc can bring us into a clearer space and from this space we can sense the next right step.

This next step, sensed from a clear space after listening to our inner voices will feel fresh, intuitively supportive and a relief. The body knows the just right micro-adjustment if we listen.

Just 2 more thoughts…

We each need to let our intuition guide us, and then be willing to follow that guidance, directly and  fearlessly.

Shakti Gawain

I feel there are two people inside me – me and my intuition. If I go against her, she’ll screw me everytime, and if I follow her we get along quite nicely.

Kim Basinger

This year I have chosen self-care as a choice-full conscious intention and one aspect of this is “not rehearsing unhappiness.” This means

not rehearsing difficult conversations

not imagining what’s going to happen in the future

not ruminating over the past

In other words just noticing how it is now – noticing the planning, ruminating, rehearsing.

I just had a some real examples of of the habit of rehearsing unhappiness and my attempts at transforming this “old-as-I-can-remember” habit.

A leading international teacher left an email asking for a conversation about something she read on my website. All the worst “I’ve been called to the School Principal’s office thoughts rushed into my mind!” Oh no, what have I done? Have I made a mistake? Have I broken a rule? And hot on the heels of these thoughts came visceral feelings of shame, fear, embarrassment, anxiety – literally I could feel tears welling, my heartbeat rise, heat and tension around my heart – followed by a pattern of harsh containment of the emotions and an inner defensiveness.

So I made a real effort not to try and predict, or worry. Each time one of these thoughts showed up I would just acknowledge it, “Hello fear, I can feel you clutching my heart tightly. I can sense how you want to protect me.”

Turned out she just wanted me to word my acknowledgement of her work in a slightly different way and to congratulate me on my website as it was based on the principles of a marketing course of hers I had signed up for & completed. She was also checking if she could refer further course participants to my site as a great model.

The next example came when as I prepared to go back to work after my summer vacation.

For the whole last week of my vacation I noticed a sense of heaviness in the pit of my belly and thoughts worrying about being able to handle the budget cuts that were coming, the pressure for increased outcomes and creating new and competitive ways of delivering our services in a shrinking market. Ohh…not comfy. And no fun to bring work into my vacation.

Serendipitously, I was co-facilitating a 4 day residential course on Focusing on my last weekend and one of my guest presenters  ran a workshop on inviting in a caring-feeling presence in Focusing. Oh, so beautiful. To invite this feeling of holding tenderly “all of me”. There are lots of words for a caring-feeling presence but what came for me were the words “wholly accepting”.

I can feel this presence in my whole body and when I connect with it I feel supported, connected to my deepest values and aspirations, ok about my foibles, responsive rather than reactive.

So, to cut a long story short, I started to hold my awareness of  “my habit of rehearsing unhappiness” in the tender space of my wholly accepting presence. Such cool relief.

The last part of this that is most wonderful is that I am learning to not  try to predict what people will do or say (another little habit). So now I am more able to hear what they are actually saying rather than filtering it through my predictions. As my inner relationship with myself softens & widens in the field of acceptance – it comes as no surprise that my interpersonal relations do the same.

Now, I ask myself,

“Are these thoughts/words/actions bringing happiness or misery into my life?”

“How can I stay connected to my wholly accepting Presence and feel it in my body?’

Two simple and sustainable questions that really wake me up.

They’re working.