The Magic of Long Retreats

Although leading workshops and trainings has been my way of living for a quarter of a century (nooo, can’t be, I am not that old) and I lead on average three full training days per week, the European Intensive Course in Nonviolent Communication, on which I am one of the 6 trainers, holds a very special place in my heart and I look forward to it for many months in advance. I believe it is so because with the 9-day span, its format and six trainers present, it meets so many of my longings for certain qualities.

The first one is the quality peace, ease, spaciousness and flow. While shorter trainings often have this fear of lack of time to address everything, in this 9-day retreat I can relax and follow the energy of the group, offer workshops on aspects of NVC that are being requested, and respond to what is alive in participants. I can work alone, or offer workshops together with another trainer and explore new horizons.

The second one is the quality of a true community that tends to get formed, not just a pseudo one, as Scott Peck called it. After so many days of crying and laughing together in our vulnerabilities and openness, the difference between the roles of a trainer and the one of a participant start melting and we are fundamentally a community of learners, exploring Life together, hosting ourselves and each other. There is shared purpose, care and empathy and the vision of  what human societies could look like starts incarnating.

I love retreats which are long enough so that the end is beyond the horizon and not just around the corner. This not only provides lots of space for the integration to happen, but also somehow seems to centre everybody more into the here and now, into living and fully embodying the essence of the Nonviolent Communication and compassionate relating. I lose the perception of today and tomorrow, and just move through the hours and days, in a sense of a total immersion. For me, a long intensive retreat is like a little lifetime within the large lifetime.

And the last one that I so much enjoy: the growth and the fundamental shifts toward full living that happen in front of my eyes, with the beauty starting to radiate out of everybody – because the time and the intensity of the experience makes it almost impossible to not grow and to not start shining.

So, in essence, what am I so much looking forward to experience in August in France? To experience our human beauty! And I invite you to join me at the European Intensive Course in Nonviolent Communication in August, South France.

A baby born out of passion and a dream

In the same way I believe all the meaningful things in life begin, also this project started with passion and a dream.

A passion for enabling the connection between two individuals who have lost it along the way of their relationship. A passion for supporting them to find a way to really hear each other, while honestly speaking their hearts. A passion to support relationships in which everybody’s needs matter and in which struggle gets replaced by joy, fun, inspiration and creation.

This passion had been the fueling source for my work, and this passion gave birth to a dream that the support could be presented to people also in the form of a simple application, using the contemporary technologies. So that a person, when stuck in a conflict and finding themselves all alone, feeling frustrated and annoyed, yet wanting to find a way to continue communicating and cooperating with another, could get enough support to make another step.

I have shared this idea with a friend of mine, also a Nonviolent Communication trainer, in December 2008. She liked the idea, but somehow there were not enough sparks to start a fire. The idea in my head started to move into the background, also because I was so busy with my regular work as a trainer, facilitator and mediator. I let it go, thinking that someday somebody else will do it and this was just fine me.

Then I went skiing with my good friend Mark Walker, a Brit living in Paris, in early March 2011 and briefly mentioned this idea to him. Now, Mark’s response was intense! Being not only passionate about Nonviolent Communication and supporting individuals in any possible way as a coach and therapist, but also just simply very open and excited about new ideas, his eyes widened and his response was a big fat YES!

Suddenly there was no way of turning back and he started bugging me to move my ass and create this thing together. Excitement grew and there we were, just a couple of months later, spending days in the living room in my house in Ljubljana, Slovenia, drawing the first drafts of the algorithm of the application. None of us had any idea about the IT world, but we were really excited about the thought that application like this would exist. We would definitely be the first ones to buy it!

We knew we needed more people on the team, to ground our ideas and connect them with the IT world and the world of putting such things together. Soon Pavel and Steve were on board and the incarnation started.

And now it is such a joy to see the birth of this baby of ours. With so many ideas sparkling in our heads about what additions to make, what more to do that would support people deeper and in the wider range of life-situations. And of course it is also such a joy to start receiving feedbacks about the benefits users already got from the application. And also to have trust that more people will benefit from it, and so the World will have a tiny little bit more connection and less disconnection thanks to this little application. It is the small little contributions to the fullness of life in us and around us that seem to matter most.

So here I introduce you to the Virtual Conflict Resolution Coach and I am inviting you to try it out (first 48 hours is for free), explore it, play with it and please help us spread the word. It indeed can help and support individuals.

Click to go to The Virtual Conflict Resolution Coach

How TED influenced my blood pressure

It seemed like a jolly idea to respond to the invitation of The Melton Foundation and to come over to Germany to speak at their TEDx event on Global Citizenship. I felt flattered to soon be in the company of all the wise and smart and inspiring TED people, and life was easy.

Until I, on the afternoon of the D-day, entered the hall for a sound test a couple of hours before and the blood in my veins froze at the sight of  THAT stage in front of me, you know, the TED dark stage with the red TED… letters, and all the lights and huge cameras around…

My thoughts went screaming: “Am I totally crazy or what? This is where I will be in a couple of hours, with strict 18 minutes time-limit and cameras and it is going to be on YouTube soon, no matter how confused and silly I might get. Normally it takes me 18 minutes to just introduce myself when I work with groups. What on Earth was I thinking?!!!! ”

Suddenly presenting at TEDx did not seem such an intelligent idea at all. Should I run away and jump the first train out of the city? Should I fake a heart attack?

To be honest, I only remember a few seconds from those 18 minutes, and even this is a very hazy picture in my mind.

Anyway, after I managed to survive that shock, my blood pressure was again peaceful for a few months, until I finally had the video of my talk in front of me, ready to press the play button, knowing that whatever I was going to see was soon to be seen by everybody  that will Google-in my name. The 18 minutes of my first look of the video were probably the most nervous minutes of the last ten years of my life. My hear-rate went totally bananas. Speaking of inner peace and all the spiritual stuff…

Darn you, Ted!

Anyway, I am quite fine now, me and Ted are friends again and here comes the link to that talk of mine, on Nonviolent Communication and the Language for Global Citizenship.

Hope you will find it interesting…

The ultimate self-supporting question

It is often difficult to find a balanced approach to ourselves, especially between forcing ourselves to do what we think we should be doing in order to be the way we think we should be (like efficient, slim, fit, successful…) on the one side, and between just letting go and simply follow the momentary pleasure, basically turning into a couch potato or something alike.

In the first instance we try to squeeze the life in us so that it would fit some mental images we hold as very important, in the latter we seem to be just giving up on the magic of life, letting it fly past our eyes.

I can see how my own attitude went, as a pendulum, through many cycles; in certain periods of life really having been hard on myself, and in other periods just dragging myself along, full of frustration and emptiness.

And then recently, a friend of mine shared the magical sentence with me, the perfect katana cut, the secret weapon to transcend the mind, the mystical red pill for waking up into the everlasting happiness, the alchemical potion to transform confusion to clarity, the grand shamanic…, well, OK, you got it, right? So, to not torture you any longer, I am presenting you the ultimate self-supporting question:

“What would I do right now, if I really loved myself?

Though it sounds so simple and obvious, there is so much in it, so much of beautiful self-support. Just think of it. It is not saying just: “what would I enjoy doing now?”, because in most cases my answer would be: “well, nothing really, to just lie on the couch and eat potato chips…” or something alike. And it is also not saying: “what do I think I should be doing in order to…?” and force myself into anything.

No, it is not using the should-language and pressure, and yet it is totally supporting Life in me. It is gently reminding me of my longings and yearnings, and it is, at the same time, leaving free choice, easiness, freedom… It is, in a sweet way, reminding myself of my greater visions, and opening up new possibilities, of making different choices that would support my well-being more.

So, really, what would I do if I really loved myself? Would I watch another movie, or perhaps go to sleep and get rest? Would I read newspapers or perhaps sit for five minutes with my eyes closed, breathing deeply and easing tensions in my body? Would I spend another hour browsing through Facebook, or would I go upstairs and play my guitar? Would I do some more work at my computer or would I rather have a glass of wine with my wife, over a candle-light, sharing celebrations of the day? Would I or would I not go running into the silent snowy evening?

Well, I think this question will be my guiding light for the 2013.

A beautiful experience at a funeral (by Allison)

My dear friend Allison sent me, as a response to my post  about celebrating the 2012, an e-mail about her experience and I found it so beautiful, inspiring and resonating with myself, that I asked her whether I could post it here. And I am so grateful that she said yes to that. So, please enjoy:

Dear Robert,

I wanted to share something with you because it was partially enabled, or at least came into focus as a result of your blog post on new year’s eve.

Yesterday I went to the funeral of the woman I’ve been visiting each week for the past 7 months (I’m a hospice volunteer).

She died of cancer on Wednesday after suffering pretty intensely at the end. Yet, despite all of that, our weekly 4 hours were spent in simple conversation as she told me funny stories about Guyana and how dogs and monkeys can become best friends, what kind of fruit grows around her house, and her childhood memories of snake and crocodile encounters.

It was a very touching funeral and a very different experience for me because every other funeral I’ve been to is full of such personal grief that everything else is shut out. In this case though, I didn’t have the same level of grief. Yes I was sad but it did not consume me.

I sat alone at the back of a big cathedral as her grandchildren and great grandchildren rolled her casket up the aisle to the front. I sat in the church and listened to the mass and the singing and the kind words about her and felt the HUGE stirring of heart energy, as well as the lump in my throat as I tried not to cry. I was happy to be alone in my own experience without people around me.

I closed my eyes and felt this heart energy and how enormous it is. I was so incredibly overwhelmed with thankfulness for having been able to get to know this woman, that our paths could cross.

It was so difficult to just sit and experience such a massive heart experience. It’s so strange because my instinct is to try to move away from its intensity. It’s so intense to be fully immersed in such energy. So hard.

The mind fears it and thinks it will overwhelm us, like a big huge wave in the ocean that pulls your feet out from under you and drags you under the water threatening your own death.

The more I sat there, the more it opened and opened. It made me think of a woman’s cervix that needs its time to stretch so the baby can pass through. It’s a painful experience but one worth enduring. I had to breathe and breathe and breathe to be able to stay with it. It was so enormously difficult as the energy was so enormously huge.

And I thought of your blog post and what you had written and your experience with Marjeta and it helped me to just stay right there and let it happen.

It’s just so strange how all of our paths cross and we spend moments together and tell each other our stories and all those stories and encounters come together to form the full picture of our own lives.

And how each moment is really so simple and maybe, by itself, insignificant, but when you wrap it all up at the end of someone’s life and you sit there and realize how you’ve been affected by their very existence, the whole of humanity seems that much more connected, not disconnected.

It all seems so meaningful, but not in a word-based meaningful way; its a heart-based, wordless sort of meaningfulness.

As I sat at home afterwards, alone, I realized I am lucky to be able to feel this intensity, that whatever this emotional nature of mine is, it allows me to experience the world with great depth and intensity. And that makes me lucky.

But, it is true that my main task in life is just learning how to handle the enormity of this energy as it flows through me; to be able to open that heart centre more and more. That’s it.

These lives that we each have are so much more meaningful than I think any of us can even grasp.

Gems.

I just wanted to tell you this because I felt that your experience on New Year’s Eve was actually part of my experience yesterday and that my experience yesterday, will become a part of other people’s experience on another day. And that we all need to actually say that this is in fact happening, and it’s not just a weird little thing that only one person goes through but instead something that we all share; not really personal at all.

So thank you. Thank you for writing what you did and telling us all what was happening.

Celebrating the essence of the 2012

In the last evening of the 2012, while our kids were at various parties with their friends, me and my wife were sitting in our living room, watching some inspiring TED talks, and then moved into exploring what we personally celebrate about 2012. Along the way we were trying to notice what new qualities of existence were starting to emerging in this year, the ones that we wanted to support to fully embody in the 2013.

As we were moving through reviewing one month of the 2012 after the other, I felt overwhelmed with the beauty of the year behind us, and the abundance there was for me to deeply, with gratitude, celebrate about it. Meaningful work, deep insights, inspiring connections, sweetness of our relationship… And I started to, again, clearly see the red thread that was connecting the most meaningful bits of that year. It was when my heart opened. And when I let the love flow, freely and fully. When I looked at another human being across the space, when I greeted this being with an inner smile, and when I, along with my frightened little ego, stepped aside. And let the warmth and breathing enter. That is what made the moment special, that is what touched me deeper-most, that is what made my year.

From a certain, perhaps even essential perspective, life is truly simple. At its core it seems to be about opening our hearts.

And so, dear people, I wish you all lots of courage to open your hearts wide, really wide.

Redefining losers

On a training I lead this week a man spoke up and said that he feels a loser when he fails to meet his own expectations – being aware that these expectations are in large shaped by his surrounding, society… So he is trapped in the paradigm of: “I should be good, I should be brave, I should be a winner, I should be successful, I should make money, I should have a great career, I should have a great body, I should have a great apartment, I should have a great car, I should have a great wife and a great family, I should be cool…”

As I was listening to him, with the awareness that this race to be a winner and fear of being a loser applies to a large sample of people in modern societies, I remembered an interview with Parker Palmer I was recently listening to. He defined the term loser in a sense that I very much resonate with. He said that for him losers were people who, when dying, do not have a sense that they have lived fully, but were rather holding back in order to keep being safe.

Yes, this is how I see it. I will feel a loser if I, when lying on my deathbed, will know I have failed to expose myself to the experience of life fully. Or that I have not expressed myself, my truth, my love, in order to be safe. Because I definitely did not come here to feel safe!

So, basically, I only have (perhaps) a few more decades to fully express myself, to love and live, to create, embody and embrace it all, and this is what I intend to do. And I hope you will do the same.

As for the standard signs of being a winner, like career, money, status.., well, I don’t even want to waste words on that.