What is guaranteed in life? Change. It happens.
We do not have control over the ever changing current of life’s river. We are, though, in charge of how we are in relationship to this stream of life outside of ourselves. How we deal with what happens in our lives is important and the topic of much discussion and inquiry.
Compassion and empathy are important in dealing with all of the stuff that happens in our lives. The consciousness of compassion helps us to remain connected to our hearts, each other and what is important to us, make choices that benefit our wellbeing and engage with others in a way that creates peace, harmony and co creation.
We read, we write, go to the theater and movies. We dance and do sports. We try to work it all out in our own unique way either through our own activity or through witnessing others acting out the great dramas of life. As far as I can tell though the most important way that we work things out is through our connection with each other and the conversations that we have.
Staying connected with each other is not always easy especially when the proverbial S—t hits the fan.
And when we lose connection our ability to deal with life gets challenged and things get really tough.
It just takes a glance at the full page list of groups gathering for support in the “You are not alone’ section of the local newspaper to know how important human interaction and support is for us.
We all need to be heard for what is going on. We all need to talk about it. That is a given. But do we really know how to listen to each other in a way that gives space for the other to feel themself fully?
Do we know how to speak about what is really going on or speak with another person in a way that conveys our reality without blaming or judging them or others for our troubles? Do we know how to work our differences out without creating conflict?
Not really. That is why there are so many counselors, therapists, and advisors.
As friends, parents, partners and lovers we try to be there for each other but our capacity is limited because in our culture we do not get much training about how to communicate our care for each other and we are left to our own trial and error, based on the limitations of our upbringing, the conclusions that we have come to from our childhood wounding and adult sufferings, and other belief systems that have been handed down to us from previous generations. This trial and error can be time consuming and frustrating as it often leads to repeating cycles of ways of communicating that are ineffective in supporting our individual and collective wellbeing.
We are all very different and unique and there is an illusion that it is our differences that create conflict. We are trained to see our differences in terms of me versus you competition and our communication often reflects this. We either use our words as swords to gain power over each other, being combative, bossy, bullying or challenging or to defer power to avoid what we assume is going to be an inevitable conflict in the battle to get what we want. The nice guy, the helper, the pleaser, the good girl.
Compassion and empathy help us shift from conflict to supportive connection and co creation by showing us that it is not our differences, but how we relate to our differences and how we communicate them that either creates conflict or supports caring co-creation.
Speaking and listening skills are very important to keep the flow of communication going. But, how do we get out of our heads and where do we go when we get out of our heads?
What is unique to the NVC based Compassionate Communication skill set is that it is grounded in the consciousness of Compassion and Empathy and shows us how to train our minds to be in the service of our hearts and the knowing that we are all in this together and every ones’ well being is crucial to our own.
Train the mind to be in service to the heart and release the love and care that are your birthright as a human.