The wonder of my needs

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.

Grieving on an island

I decided to take one week off, completely off. I have given 80 workshops this year, from one to three days long and numerous talks, coaching sessions, facilitations on top of that. And I feel immensely exhausted from being in an intensive interaction with people all the time, and especially from being exposed in front of audiences continually. I just had to run away for some time, to simply be alone, not interacting. Luckily enough Marjeta fully understands my position and supports this need of mine. And kids are OK with it too. Although this is not the best way to spend the Christmas time.

So here I am, with our dear good old reliable van, that has taken us to such wonderful places that we already consider it/him to be a part of our family, in a deserted camping on the island Pag in the Adriatic sea. I wanted to do a lot of cycling in order to get my blood going and my knees back in the correct position, however since it is raining most of the time or the wind is just too heavy and too cold, not much cycling has taken place since my arrival here. But I do enjoy reading, writing, gazing at the horizon, watching a DVD a day, meditating a bit…

Reading an excellent Jack Kornfield’s book “After the Ecstasy, the Laundry” (I love the title), about what is life like after the spiritual ecstasy and awakening, brings out a lot of memories, all linked to the period of my life when I was spending years with a group of people in a semi-community, devoting all I was able to personal exploration and growth. And I realize that a deep part of me is grieving over that time and that community.

To me that community was the first true family, a group of people I felt completely safe with. We had so much in common and shared that eagerly. We were trying to reach the Truth, as we have called it, enlightenment, the meaning of life, liberation… In practical terms it meant countless days of meditating and sitting together, opening up to ourselves, to others, to life, letting out what had been hidden for so long; pain, fears, shame, anger, unmet needs, love…, and sharing it with tearful eyes and joyful laughter, and than mutually accepting it, with love and patience. An utterly new world was opening up in front of us and we were, like kids, exploring it together, cautiously, yet excitedly.

When I remember those days my heart warms up, however I also feel sad. Sad because it was such a wonderful time and the beauty of it did not survive in the real life. And I am grieving over beautiful people I have lost contact with, over that community sense, over standing with others with our souls stripped naked, crying together, breathing deeply.

And I guess this feeling of community of people sharing the innermost parts is something I am still after. Wherever I sense the single trace of a possibility of something like this I immediately respond, trying to re-create something like that. But it never truly works. The magic does not repeat. Perhaps I have changed in the meantime, perhaps the world has.