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May 2011
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Announcements
Mediating Conflict in Harmony with Your Spiritual Practice, 3-day workshop, June 3-5 in Dallas, Texas. Level 2 Mediating Conflict for Self and Others, 8-week teleclass, starting Mon June 6. Thrive Having Difficult Conversations, 2-day workshop with Ike Lasater and myself. July 13 & 14 in Oakland, CA. Contact: www.baynvc.org for info and reg. I am leading another CNVC 9-day International Intensive Training (IIT) in December 7-16 in Austin, Texas. [link to page on cnvc website] JUST CONFIRMED. We are starting a year immersion program in South Korea. YAHOO!! The retreat dates are: Sept 22-27, 2011, Feb 10-14 and June 21-26, 2012. Contact: katherinesinger@sbcglobal.net. |
| Working with Ministers, Religious Leaders & Religious/Spiritual Communities | | Last month I led, with Lori Woodley, a workshop for ministers and religious leaders, and next month I lead a workshop on mediating conflict in spiritual community. This is a dream come true for me. I love to talk about NVC in a more explicitly spiritual way, and this is the perfect place to do it. The real power of NVC for me is when it is being lived and offered as a spiritual practice, connecting to the experience of Life in and around all things. The language of needs helps me experience this, and me sensing this energy seems to give greater power to the words. Working with religious leaders felt so important because I want all people to experience for themselves the connection between language and spiritual practice, and that there are skills to using this language that take practice, especially when it comes to mediating conflict, our own and helping others.
Another reason why I find such meaning in working in the area of spirituality and religion is because of how much conflict arises from beliefs and ideology that trace back to religious teachings and traditions. My vision for our world is humanity working together across differences to deal with the enormous challenges that we are to face on this planet. As is written in a song by Marshall Rosenberg, "Now is the time to bring ourselves to peace." We simply must learn the language, skills and "maps" for how we human beings navigate from conflict to connection and compassionate interactions. I believe our thriving, and perhaps even our surviving on this planet, depends on it.
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A Personal Story
| | Saved by Self-Connection Practice and the Miracle of Empathy
I was driving my wife Schena to the airport recently. Our 4-year-old son was in his car seat directly behind me. He started crying at the top of his voice saying that he didn't want to go to the airport because it was boring and kicking the back of my seat. I felt myself getting angry and the impulse to raise my voice and tell him to stop kicking and quiet down. Instead, I started doing my self-connection practice, which is to breath slowly and deeply into my heart, then observe my thoughts, feel my feelings, connect to my needs, and see if any request of myself emerges.
I immediately felt calmer and started to wonder about my son's reaction. He had been to the airport many times and had never reacted this way. Also, he did sometimes complain about being bored, but never like this. I started asking him about his reaction in a gentle voice, and suddenly without thinking, the words came out of my mouth wondering if he was feeling upset about his mother being the one this time that was going on a trip (it was the first time she was going on a trip away from the kids). He said yes, and the tantrum immediately stopped. My heart ached with empathy for his sadness and fear. Schena and I made some more empathy guesses about his feelings and needs, and then expressed reassurance about her returning in a few days. Suddenly he no longer seemed upset. In minutes he was calm and peaceful and actually seemed almost cheerful as we drove on to the airport. When we arrived at the airport and got out of the car to say goodbye, I thought my son would start crying again, but he didn't. He remained calm, kissed his mom goodbye and we watched her go inside. All the way back home he was cheerful and talkative.
In hindsight it was obvious what was going on when he was getting upset, but in the moment it wasn't. I believed him when he said it was about the airport being boring. When any of us, no matter what age, are having any kind of "tantrum", isn't it just like that? We're feeling sad and scared, and either we don't know it or don't know how to express it, and so we say something else. I feel so incredibly grateful for my training in self-connection and intensity practice, that it saved me from reacting to my son who I love so dearly in a less than compassionate and understanding way when he was needing empathy, understanding and compassion the most.
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In a line from a Marshall Rosenberg song, "Now is the time to bring ourselves to peace." Now is the time to learn and practice how to turn conflict into connection and compassion so that we humans can work together across our differences to respond to the global challenges we face, to continue existing, to thrive.
I hope you will join me.
Best regards,
John Kinyon |
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