Special Parenting Series for Parents of Adult Children and Teens Tuesdays September 21 & 28 7-9 pm Shakti Yoga Woodstock, NY Details info@steps2peace.com
Almost Full! Basic Empathy Weekend Retreat September 23-25 with CNVC trainer Shantigarbha, assisted by Roberta Wall New
Market, New Hampshire
From Roberta: Shantigarbha
is an NVC trainer from England; he leads a reconciliation project in
Sri Lanka after the civil war there. I am so excited to assist him at
this weekend retreat in the feast of New Hampshire autumn color. Details for Empathy Weekend Retreat info@steps2peace.com (I am looking for people to car pool with to the retreat!)
October 31 Nonviolent Communication Skills Workshop For All levels- for beginners and for folks wanting to start an NVC practice group 1-3 pm$25 Shakti Yoga Woodstock, NY info@steps2peace.com
Coming up in the fall: Trainings for Educators, Mediators and Jewish Communities More information for listings are on my website:www.steps2peace.com
Special NYC Appearance
Join Roberta Wall at Romemu on Yom Kippur for a workshop on Forgiveness and Healing.
Yom Kippur
Saturday, Sept 18, 2010
West End Presbyterian Church 165 West 105th Street at Amsterdam Avenue
8:00am, Yoga 9:30am, Yom Kippur Services 11:00am, Childrens Service with puppeteer Anna Sobel (Yizkor Service is at 12:00) 4:00pm: Break Out Meditation, Workshop with Roberta Wall and Other Learning Sessions 5:00pm: Afternoon Services Mincha 6:00pm: Neila 7:45pm: Break Fast and Celebration - bring instruments!
More Empathic/Compassionate/
Nonviolent Communication events:
Looking for an NVC Practice Group or Empathy Buddy? Send me an email and I will try to hook you up! info@steps2peace.com
Poughkeepsie:
There is an NVC practice group in Poughkeepsie that meets every Monday
evening
at 6. This group has been ongoing since last winter and is welcoming new
members. Contact Ralph Stein, at steinralph07@gmail.com
or 845 590 7997 New Paltz: Susan Reeves continues to host two practice groups a week! http://www.practicingpeace-newpaltz.com/
I am currently booking NVC trainings in Israel and Palestine for next winter. I offer this freely and would appreciate any support from you- contacts, financial, partnership. Roberta 's blog about her two month trip to Israel and Palestine
during
which she offered NVC trainings to Israelis and
Palestinians. Check her blog for experiences offering NVC in Israel
and Palestine and also in Plum Village, the home monastery of renowned
Zen master Thich
Nhat Hanh's community. http://robertaindia.wordpress.com/
Parenting Adult Children
by Roberta Wall
When your thirty something unemployed daughter tells you she
isn't going to take a job that is being handed to her, or your son tells you he
is taking out another credit card to buy another stereo, or (fill in the
blank with news you may hear from your adult children that is less than wonderful for
you to hear)how do you respond?
My guess is that if you do or say anything without taking
some time to check inside yourself and do what you need to do to reconnect with
what's really important to you- you or they- or both of you- will end up regretting what you do or say.
How do we learn to PAUSE in these moments, to center, to
touch what is the most important thing to us- all with the ease and skill to
stay connected to our children in that moment?
This is the exploration I am looking forward to in the
upcoming Parenting Adult Children series beginning next Tuesday evening in Woodstock.
When I see or hear something that triggers me- such as one
of the above scenarios- I may feel tense, scared, concerned; really wanting my adult
child's well being, wanting awareness, growth and security. I may feel frustrated
and anxious because effectiveness and contribution are so important to me as a
parent. I may feel scared because I want independence and I am worried that
decisions they make may impact on my own independence, or on theirs. Maybe I
feel sad and distressed because I value certain ways of living on the planet, -
contribution, compassion, and awareness- that don't seem to jive with the behaviors
I am observing.
There is so much going on in me, that I'm not even close to
seeing what is important to them- important to them about telling me their decision;
important to them about the decision itself.
How can I connect with them if I can't see my way to what's important
to them?
My responsibility is to cultivate this self awareness- to
understand the complexity of my own response. To then let them know that this
is what I am doing. Here is -at last- is the place for honesty, the beginning
of honesty in this relationship- when I share what's going on in me- without
any blame toward you- I am just really seeing into myself here.
I may say to them- please stop me the moment you hear blame
or judgment from me because this isn't what I want you to hear- I want to speak
without blame or guilt tripping or judging. I want to share how this is for me
so that I can unblock and hear how it is for you.
And I want to do this, to take responsibility for
seeing inside myself, so that I can breathe and release and then hear you
clearly and recognize your dreams and visions, and be your ally.
Nonviolent Communication and basic Mindfulness are a great
combination for conscious parenting. Curfews, cell phones in schools, safety, "tantrums", the f..
word--- These are some of the hot issues in our communities involving young
people.
When something happens in the home that
"stimulates" me- so I feel tension, stress, anger, hurt.... I can pause and return to myself- to my experience
of what happened- as a way of getting off automatic pilot, as a way of
preventing a triggered reaction that I'm going to regret later.
Returning to myself- I say to myself, "wow' when I hear her
say that, or see her do that, I feel a knot in my belly; tension in my jaw and
neck. Stay with that. Stay with that until the emotion that it's locking up
reveals itself to me- I can use the NVC feelings charts to identify the
emotions- http://www.cnvc.org/en/Training/feelings-inventory
Oh, I feel sad, or scared, or frustrated....
Stay with that, stay with that, until the need behind the
feeling reveals itself to me- my need, something, energy so important to my
being, that wants to be met so deeply that it triggers all these reactions when
I can't access it- http://www.cnvc.org/en/Training/needs-inventory
Oh, yes, I really want...cooperation, safety, presence,
meaning... I care so deeply about my child's well being, about the well being of
children, about the planet...
If I come up with feelings such as anger, guilt and ashamed-
I know I have some thinking, some images, judgments and concepts that are
fueling my feelings- and I want to free myself from them so I can return to my
heart- I free myself from them by listening to them- what are they telling me?
What do they want for me?
I will empathically listen to the judgments, feelings of
guilt and shame and embarrassment, to unlock the energy of important needs and
values of mine-
After connection, after mutual connection, I can express
honestly what is important to me.
http://www.cnvc.org/en/Training/the-nvc-model If I try to tell the other person what I want or what's going on for me before I create self connection and connection with them- valuing equally what 's important to them and what's important to me- my experience
is that it will not be heard as I really want it to be heard; it will not be
received as I'm longing for it to be received. This is why Marshall Rosenberg
calls this a tragic expression of unmet needs- tragic because it won't create the
quality of connection within the family that I am longing for.
Returning to myself- staying with the experience of what
happened, how my sense organs- sight, hearing, touch etc- take it in, how my
mind translates it- taking care of these feelings and thoughts before I
respond- deepens my own capacity for love and insight and creates the condition
for a deeper and more effective connection with my loved ones.
Daily Reflection by Robert
Gonzales, Center for Nonviolent Communication
My
understanding of empathy is approaching experience as whatever is
alive, whatever it is. Empathy carries this awareness, "I don't want to
change you, I simply want to invite you to be here and I want to be
present." This is compassion.
From Roberta-What is empathy? What can I do to cultivate this quality in myself- toward myself and toward others? Robert Gonzales teaches that empathy is when we are present with someone,or ourselves, without any pressure-- pressure to fix,correct, improve, solve,educate, enlighten-- because where there is pressure, there is an absence of empathy.
Notice when you are listening to someone, do you feel any constriction in your throat, chest, jaw or belly? Are your shoulders tight? This may indicate that there is pressure within you to change or fix something in the other person--this inner pressure in you blocks the flow of empathy
To open up the flow, you can choose to breathe into the constriction in your body, see if you can identify an emotion it is holding. Then see what need of yours isn't being met in the moment, and breathe into that. (You may ask the person for a few moments' pause in their sharing while you are doing this!)
When you feel relaxation, your presence will naturally open up, and you can enjoy being present without pressure.
"I don't want to
change you, I simply want to invite you to be here and I want to be
present." This is compassion.
More from Robert Gonzales:
When some aspect of ourselves is not in the light of
awareness, it becomes the shadow. And it has power over us to the extent
that we are not looking at it or conscious of it. It becomes enacted
through the protective structures. What is in our shadow experience is
actually life energy itself held in a knot of contraction. When we shine
the light of compassionate presence on it, it starts to relax, open
and release.
From Roberta:
I especially like the first
sentence- the "shadow", and its power, is
not fixed or static, not different in that respect from any dharma; it
is part of the mindfulness process; like Thich Nhat Hanh says, mindfulness is always mindfulness of something; when we don't bring mindfulness to something inside ourselves,
the shadow is created...
The third sentence is how we work with this with NVC- we recognize and
embrace it as life energy itself held in a knot of contraction. We hold it, listen to it, step into its energetic flow, and give it empathy. And,in turning it inward to ourselves, we shine
the light of compassionate presence on it, it starts to relax, open
and release. It will teach us what is so important to our beingness that it sticks around.
With NVC, the next step is to incorporate the needs locked up in this shadow side into a request of ourself.
