NVC, part 1

Many of you may recall that I did a weekend-long workshop on Non-Violent Communication (NVC) a few years ago in Norwich, England. Sunday, I did a 3-hour introduction class thru Urban Alliance for Sustainability. To be perfectly honest, I am wary of throwing myself into the whole self-improvement universe – not because I don’t think I have a lot to improve, but rather because I think the vocabulary and mentality you learn alienates those who don’t ride that pony. I believe in the search for self-improvement, but only in the context of how everyone else relates and communicates.

I’m surprised that I’m able to draw in this recent quote:
Ilana said: it’s almost as if there are as many ways to have awkward interactions as there are people (with whom you can have them). (Here I begin to paraphrase) We have all these Miss Manners-type books prescribing how we should treat each other, and there’s still no one solution. We all still do it awkwardly.

That conversation was about something completely different… or was it? There isn’t any one right way to be with other people, and at the same time, we’ve all found ourselves offended when offense wasn’t intended or scratching our heads about a person’s real meaning. Yet, all each of us really wants is to be happy, to have people around us committed to our happiness, and to commit ourselves to the happiness of others. It should be so simple.

At the beginning of the workshop, several people stood up and stated their intensions for being there. People talked about getting away from judgment, about the desire to turn conflict into collaboration, about wanting to keep an open heat. This moved me.

Before the next step, we spent a moment discussing confidentiality. The upshot was that it’s OK to share your own experience, but not someone else’s. I will try to respect that request. They said: this is how trust is built; I disagree. I believe trust is built through acts that express empathy and compassion – this, of course, encompasses disclosure issues.

Our next step was to discuss our intensions for being there with 4 other attendees. I only spoke with 3, but thru that process, I devised 3 intensions, the local to the global:
1) to have happy intimate relationships
2) to do my job of convincing people to use efficient transportation better
3) to discuss national and international issues with people with differing views and promote a more democratic society in the process.
Interestingly, as I described my job to one (older) woman, I saw her face shut down. She had no interest in auto-addiction (not the words I used with her). When I reached “promoting a more democratic society” her face lit up. I realized that much of my movement is generational, and if we don’t the message through to people young enough, they might never be able to hear it. This is another reason why everyone should do a year abroad in school – it fosters an open mind.

I’m rambling on, and I would like to get to the point. I’ll do that another time….