I had a most amazing realization an hour or so ago and just need to share it with somebody. And since I am the only one awake in the house at the moment and nobody seems to be available on Skype, here I go.
I have just attended a telecourse with Robert Gonzales, another Nonviolent Communication teacher. My first astonishment was about how amazingly effective and even mind blowing can a two-hour telecourse with around 50 people from all over the world actually be. Yet a much deeper realization was in regards to the content itself. I hope I will be able to make this short account understandable also to those not too familiar with the NVC terminology (however, if you are interested you may want to have a look at the three short films of Marshall Rosenberg, the founder of the NVC, explaining the very basics of it).
Anyway, nonviolent communication has a lot to do with getting in touch with our unmet needs and expressing them in a clear enough way so that the other person can receive it. In my everyday perception of my unmet needs the very awareness of them is normally accompanied by a certain amount of frustration and even anger. I do get in touch with my unmet need for acceptance and understanding, in an event of a recent conflict with my wife for instance, however I also feel frustration because this need is being unmet and a stubborn tendency within myself to persuade the other person to meet it. Therefore I seem to be circling in endless circles. With every new need that I am able to become aware of and to express it, another one pops up.
So tonight, while doing various exercises on this telecourse and going again and again over a specific event from couple of days ago, Robert Gonzales encouraged us to really sink into our needs, explore them and get in deep touch with them, get in tune with them rather than just simply become aware of them and tick them off: “Yeah yeah, this is my need for acceptance and there sits my need for understanding…” And when, through a series of exercises, I really got in tune with my need (in my case it was primarily the need for acceptance), several amazing things happened.
The first one was that I, completely experiencing my need for acceptance, slowly became very peaceful, content and fulfilled. All the restlessness, frustration and anger disappeared on a rather deep level. Not only this, I started to feel so much more alive. As if this need of mine suddenly ceased to be a deficiency and a inner contraction, but rather my connection with life, aliveness in me. Beautiful!
The next amazing thing that happened was that my urge to get this need of mine across, to communicate it to other person and to somehow persuade this person to do something about it (or at least start feeling guilty for not doing anything about it, ha ha), well, this urge of mine disappeared. I did not need anybody to do anything about it anymore and I was not angry at anybody anymore.
The last and perhaps the most miraculous thing for me was to notice that empathy spontaneously yet unmistakably started to grow in me, an empathy toward that person who was not giving me acceptance in the first place! What a shift in my mind. Yet completely natural.
It sounds too easy to be true, but right now it seems to me that 50 % of my difficulties in relationships would be long gone had I learned to focus on experiencing my needs rather than on the issue of whether my needs were being met by other people or not, subtly demanding them to meet them.
Hey folks, life keeps surprising me big time.
robert, kot prvo – počaščena sem, da lahko berem tvoje intimne misli (verjetno je blog kot nalašč za to – ker je dostopen vsakemu kar spodbuja idejo, da bi bili čim bolj iskreni do sebe in da bi se upali razgaliti celo na takšen način kot je na svetovnem spletu), …hm, priznam malo iz radovednosti, in vedno bolj zato, ker mi to pomaga razmišljati o sebi. saj verjetno veš, da proces razkrivanja in iskanja povzroča podobno pri tistih, ki so v tem soudeleženi. razmišljam, zakaj nekateri čutijo-mo takšno željo po kopanju v sebi (valjda, iščemo zlato!), nekateri pa se temu nekako ognejo. no, iskreno rečeno, momentalno tudi jaz. nekje v sebi sicer čutim oddaljene glaske, kot “hej, kdaj se boš vzela v roke?!” in “ej, stara, kmalu boš 40 pa nisi naredila še nič, kar se ti zdi res pomembno” (razen tega, da skrbim za mladiča – kar je itak pogojeno z 90% vseh stvari, ki jih v življenju ta trenutek počnem), vendar jih vsakodnevna utrujenost in osredotočenost na manj pomembne stvari (čudno, ki kot rečeno mi vzamejo bolj ali manj celodnevno energijo) preglasita. seveda nisem izgubila upanja, in ves čas si govorim….saj bo prišel moment, ko boš lahko… kaj?? zamenjala službo, delala kaj bolj koristnega, kaj bolj ustvarjalnega, …, nekaj res potrebnega (tukaj se mi zdi, da ne bom mogla mimo mojega socialnega čuta, tako se mi zdi, da bi bilo za mene držati nekoga, ki umira za roko, veliko bolj izpopolnjujoče, kot to kar počnem sedaj), ….nekaj, kar ne bo v neposredni zvezi s pridobivanjem denarja (za investicije v stanovanje in preživetje) temveč z občutkom, da živim. po drugi strani pa vem, da je to vse tukaj ta trenutek, samo malo mi še manjka – nekaj me mora poriniti čez. (prosim, tukaj kličem pozitivne dogodke, takšnih res rušilnih je bilo že kar nekaj v mojem življenju!). o.k. moram iti. drži se! n
Comment by nati — January 25, 2008 @ 9:25 am
Great to read this Robert.
I just had a conversation in my counseling-class about connecting with a need on the feeling-level (instead of a rational-level). I am convinced that it is possible to connect with a need on a deep (feeling?) level without starting to think about possible strategies to fulfill this need. My experience is that connecting with the need creates a shift inside of me, just as you describe above. I was frustrated a little as I was not able to explain this during my counseling-class, even to the trainer. I think I could have made clearer how needs are a general underlying force under any human behavior, I guess the other people missed this insight.
Your story strengthens me in my view and helps me with being able to explain this insight of the power of deeply connecting with a need to other people.
Would you be willing to describe this exercise and what Robert Gonzales did during this exercise?
I would love to be able to facilitate this with other people.
all the best,
Sietse
Comment by Sietse (IIT) — May 18, 2008 @ 10:35 pm
Hey Sietse, nice to hear from you. Hm, a difficult questions since I tend to internalize things but not store them in my memory. So, all I can remember is that we needed to remember situations in which our needs were not met and than to take time to feel the unmet need really completely, its energy and all that, in our body and feelings… More or less it was about experiencing fully and observing what happened inside.
Sorry, but I cannot recollect much more. If I remember more I’ll let you know.
Comment by Robert — May 19, 2008 @ 7:41 pm
And, Sietse, this post of mine may also give you some more info:
http://robertkrzisnik.wordpress.com/2008/04/09/the-incredible-energy-of-humiliation/
Hope this helps
Robert
Comment by Robert — May 20, 2008 @ 7:25 am