Capital NVC

by Lynd Morris

One of the definitions the online Free Dictionary offers for the word "accept" matches an experience I aspire to have as my default setting when I'm connecting with the feelings and needs constantly arising and subsiding within myself:

"To receive (something offered), especially with gladness."

How many of us receive ourselves with gladness...especially when what seems to be offered is fear, anger, or grief? In the past, I avoided these experiences (or resisted them when I couldn't avoid them). However, I've noticed that as I've learned how to offer and receive empathy through NVC, my capacity for self-understanding and self-acceptance has also increased. Self-acceptance can be learned. Following are a few of the ways I've learned to receive myself with more gladness. I invite you to try them, too.

A New Orientation

Self-acceptance is effortless when we feel happy, calm, relaxed. It is when we are confused, sad, annoyed, or scared that we may find ourselves wanting to escape our experience or find some way to make it more tolerable. But, in my experience, moving toward self-acceptance does not involve escaping or transformation...instead, it is an orientation toward "being with" whatever is going on in myself. 

The quickest and most effective way I've discovered to "be with" anything inside myself (or expressed by others) is empathy:

• What emotions and sensations are present?
• What needs are calling out for attention?

Just asking these questions can be helpful, but I often need more support to stay with an uncomfortable experience. In these cases, I'll journal or call an empathy buddy.

Journaling

It can take less than 10 minutes to journal my experience:

1. I write a line or two about the upsetting incident or "mood" I'm in. Sometimes I'm not clear about what event triggered my discomfort, but just describing the "mood" can bring it into focus.
2. Next, I spend a few minutes exploring what emotions and sensations are washing around inside of myself. It is less important that I get a clear conceptual fix on the names of these feelings than that I take time to actually feel what is present.
3. Next, I sense my way into what needs may be fueling these emotions and sensations. As soon as I get clarity about even one need, I pause to savor it and to remember other times I've met that need. This invokes the energy of the need and, to some degree, I begin to experience its qualities. I am nourished. If I have time, I'll go on to savor each of the needs that have emerged.
4. When I can maintain this sense of fullness, I am ready to complete my journaling by asking myself, "Is there anything I might want to consider or do now to support this fullness?" Sometimes I'll be inspired to take action, sometimes I'll write a line of appreciation for having received and nurtured myself.

Empathy from a Partner

We all carry deeply-buried pain and it may take more than a few moments of self-empathy or journaling to "be with" the feelings and needs that surface if old pain has been stirred. There is incredible power in expressing our vulnerability to those we trust and having compassion and curiosity modeled for us when we can't seem to access it for ourselves. Talking to an empathy buddy can help us find the way back to self-acceptance.

Receiving healing empathy from another is as simple as journaling:

1. I tell my empathy partner about the experience or mood that is hard for me to "be with."
2. Next, my partner reflects what I've said, whether I've remembered to request this or not. When we are in the middle of an upset, it may be challenging to remember even the most basic NVC skills, which is why empathy buddies are such precious resources--stepping in to reflect or make an empathy guess, when needed.
3. Moving past simple relief to experiencing real healing and unconditional self-acceptance takes more than just identifying feelings and needs, it takes actually sensing them--feeling the sensations and emotions and dwelling in the energy of each need identified. This process changes the way the brain functions, strengthening the neural pathways that support compassion, curiosity, and self-acceptance (See Buddha's Brain for more about empathy, dwelling in fullness, and the neurophysiology of consciousness). I take as much time as I can to dwell in the remembered fullness of times in the past when each identified need was met.
4. Before closing, I check with myself to see if I am now inspired to take further action. Sometimes this is clear, sometimes self-requests regarding the initial upset arise later (or not at all).

The Power of Community

The most powerful support I've had in developing unconditional acceptance of myself (and others)--regardless of what is unfolding--has been participation in communities of people committed to living compassionately. A radiant energy develops when several compassionate listeners meet empathically, a space is created in which there is room for everything, no matter how painful or difficult. How fortunate I am when received with unconditional acceptance by others until I can access it from myself again!

Living compassion means recognizing habitual reactions as they arise, intentionally pausing, guessing feelings and needs, and then taking time to really savor the lived experience of the fullness of identified needs. This fundamental practice is even more profound when practiced in community. Something more than mutual support takes place when vulnerability is shared in a community like this. A new energy--a "we"--is created, a reservoir of unconditional acceptance forms that is available to each member of the community so that when they can't access this internally, they can turn to the community for support. In this way, we help each other live into that default setting of unconditional self-acceptance. 

Resources

For me, compassionate communication is a spiritual practice in which I listen for the aliveness--the spirit, the animating vitality--in others and seek to express the aliveness I discern in myself. In the last few years, I've developed several programs that welcome and embrace our aliveness while creating communities like those described above. Feedback from participants about how their lives, their spiritual practices, and their experience of self-acceptance have been enriched by taking part in these programs has prompted me to offer them again in 2012:

• The Learning NVC Program is for those who want to develop skills for offering empathy to themselves and others
• The Welcoming LIFE Program is for those who are comfortable sharing empathy but long to deepen self-awareness and healing
• The Communicating LIFE Program is for those who have completed the Welcoming LIFE Program and want support in communicating their authenticity and compassion in dialoguing with others

Please consider joining us for one of these adventures.

Lynd Morris is an NVC trainer certified by the global Center for Nonviolent Communication. She graduated from the 2005 North America NVC Leadership Program and has participated in the NVC LIFE Program since it began in 2006. For more than 6 years she has led NVC classes and workshops in Maryland and Virginia and has participated in or assisted at numerous NVC trainings across the United States, including leading the adult program at Family HEART Camps in Virginia and Colorado. Lynd is a founding member of Capital NVC and is a member of the Still Water Mindfulness Practice Center in Silver Spring, Maryland. In 1997, she was ordained as a lay member of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Order of Interbeing.