Beautiful Useless

Carolina Wren (photo by William Majaros)

One of the greatest needs I hear repeated during workshops is "contribution" and "to matter."  I resonate with both of these. Do you?

For myself there are other needs lurking behind these, very important needs to recognize and address.  I might characterize these as "belonging" and "interconnection."  No  matter what I do I belong and am interconnected with the interdependent whole.  It is only my state of mind that sees it otherwise, alas all too often!

So I have taken up the motto, "Beautiful Useless," so that I might remember how I can experience connection to all life no matter external characteristics, or even internal states of mind.

To help me remember this motto, I read Mary Oliver whose poems, such as this one below, speak to our deep interbeing with all, no matter where we may be standing or our stance in life.

I Happened to be Standing

I don’t know where prayers go,

or what they do.

Do cats pray, while they sleep

half-asleep in the sun?

Does the opossum pray as it

crosses the street?

The sunflower? The old black oak

growing older every year?

I know I can walk through the world,

along the shore or under the trees,

With my mind filled with things

of little importance, in full

self-attendance. A condition I can’t really

call being alive.

Is a prayer a gift, or a petition,

or does it matter?

The sunflowers blaze, maybe that’s their way.

Maybe the cats are sound asleep. Maybe not.

While I was thinking this I happened to be standing

Just outside my door, with my notebook open,

Which is the way I begin every moning.

Then a wren in the privet began to sing.

He was positively drenched in enthusiasm,

I don’t why. And yet, why not.

I wouldn’t persuade you from whatever you believe

Or whatever you don’t. That’s your business.

But I thought, of the wren’s singing, what could this be

if it isn’t a prayer?

So I just listened, my pen in the air.

Beautiful useless is Mary with her pen in the air. 

Isn’t this who we are, all of us, all the time?

Isn’t this what a prayer is? A cat? A wren?

The triumphant trees?

My fingers are typing out a prayer, as is my breathing, my being, my being – every act a gift and a petition for life to flow easily, fully, in me, which silly me, always does no matter what.

May it be so.

(Alas, another petition, silly me)
At last, hallelujah!

At last, hallelujah!

It is so.

What do you ask for with your very being?

How is your life a prayer?

No One Is Unproductive

In yesterday's "Dear Abby" column there was woman who described herself as retired and in search of herself. She didn't know whether to take a part time job, go to school, or volunteer. She was experiencing guilt and a sense of unworthiness because she was "unproductive."

Here is how I would have replied to her letter using NVC consciousness.  What might you have said?

No one is “unproductive.” We each just choose different strategies to meet our needs for ease, rest, fun, security, and protection (and many other needs).  No one is old. No one is retired. These labels tend to go with expectations of how we should act.  So I’m going to ask you to think of what needs are alive in you now.

Let me help get you started.  From what you write I am seeing how much you value contribution, as well as stimulation.  You however want more ease and rest than your previous full time job allowed. Is that right? 

You can have people guess your needs, like I just did, or you can do this yourself.  One way to get at needs is to see what labels you are using.  For instance, I’d like to ask you where your sense of guilt and worthlessness comes from when you think of the phrase “not being productive.”  I am guessing that you have some “should” statements going on in your mind, such as “I should not be lazy.”  “Good people work hard.”  These should statements can disconnect us from life energy and keep us from coming up with creative ways to meet our needs. So we need to get at the needs behind “not being productive.” 

So pick up a pen and paper, and write down all the needs you can think of that are met when you imagine yourself being “productive.”  You might list connection to people, contribution, respect, and nurturing.  Now also imagine all the needs that are being met when you are not working as hard as in your last job.  You might list rest, ease, fun, and learning? 

Take a look at all those needs you wrote and lift up the 2-3 that seem to resonate the most for you right now.  Thinking of these needs, can you think of ways to meet these needs?  The goal is to meet needs that are alive in you, and not the needs of some should statement, such as I should be active or busy. 

My guess is that life is trying to come through you very strongly, and you are rearing to meet those needs to connect to life as much as possible.  Just listen to life as it expresses itself in the various emotions you have, and try to translate any self judgment into a language of needs.

Find your needs and you will find yourself.

Occupy Life

The news is all abuzz with the sit in protests that started a month ago in New York City known as "Occupy Wall Street."  They sparked movements all over the world, and they have even come to our small town for the past 10 days.  The occupiers  speak of being part of the 99% whose lives are being negatively impacted by 1% of the population who control resources. 

Some of the complaints I have heard about this movement is that they are not clear in what they want, or how to get there.  In Nonviolent Communication speak, they have not made clear and doable requests, or at least that the media has reported. 

Requests though are only one component of nonviolent communication.  Other components are observations, feelings, and needs.  What is happening in the streets is a widespread emotional response to global and local economies that that are heavily directed at serving those with power and control, and not at human flourishing as a whole.  I believe it is important for people, as individuals or as a community, to give full reign to the emotions in their bodies, for in this way they might discern what their needs might be. Out of this connection can arise results.  But we need to allow spaciousness for feelings and needs to arise, such as what is happening all over the world.  I imagine that the gathered feel anger and frustration for they so long for equality and fairness, as well as health for earth and her beings.

Looking at the reports of the crowds, and in some cases, the small gatherings around the world, what feelings come up for you when you think of our economic and environmental situation?  What needs come up that correspond with these feelings?  Allowing yourself spaciousness and time, are there any requests you would make of yourself or others?

Part of allowing yourself spaciousness is to watch the "should" talk. Are you telling yourself that you should be protesting yourself instead of attending to your daily concerns?  Perhaps you are thinking of what the protesters should be doing, or the people against whom they are protesting?

Should language is telling a story that leads us away from our feelings and connecting with our needs, and the needs of others. It places a demand on how others should act, instead of inviting them into a place of connecting to your needs and theirs, which is life serving.

If you have a sense of "shoulding" I invite you to consider this exercise.

Think for a  moment where you are "shoulding" on others or yourself. 

Breathe.

What are you feeling?

Breathe.

What are you current needs?

Breathe.

What request, if any, would you make of yourself and others?

For myself this little exercise of breathing in between NVC components adds spaciousness and more lightness to my body. Heck, even describing this exercise now to you added to my sense of connecting to life by thinking of needs, and experiencing the living energy of needs. It helped me occupy life more fully. 

What helps you occupy life?

Loving the Complaint and the Demand

Percy Wakes Me

Mary Oliver

Percy wakes me and I am not ready...

Now he's eager for action:  a walk, then breakfast....

He is sitting on the kitchen counter where he is not supposed to be.

How wonderful you are, I say. How clever, if you needed me, to wake me.

He thought he would hear a lecture and deeply  his eyes begin to shine.

He tumbles onto the couch for more compliments.

He squirms and squeals; he has done something that he needed and now he hears that it's okay.

I scratch his ears, I turn him over and touch him everywhere.  He is

wild with the okayness of it.  Then we walk, then he gas has breakfast, and he is happy.

This is a poem about Percy.

This is a poem about more than Percy.

Think about it.

In my spiritual practice of nonviolent communication I often struggle with accepting with ease the complaints of others.  When I first hear what they want, often expressed as a demand, or worse, as whining, I don't have much empathy for others or for myself.  It's also hard for me to get in touch with my gratitude that they let me know what was going on for them, for I know that when someone asks something of me, often in a an unskillful way, they are just letting me know what would make their life wonderful.  This is such a great gift, but so frequently I am reluctant to open the gift to appreciate how life flows through them.  Instead I have "shoulds" going on in my story telling brain, "Why can't they think of anyone else but themselves?" 

Reading this poem today, I sense a break through, a vision.  People around me are like bounding Percies, inviting me to make their life wonderful.  How lovely for them, and for me, if I could reply in word, thought, and action so that they could know how wonderful they are and the okayness of their needs.

Oh how our lives might shine.  Though we may not be ready, may we awake to this possibility today.

To whom would you like to communicate "okayness?"

Compassionate Communication for All Beings

Dr. Ursula Aragunde Kohl, me and participants at the CC Workshop in Puerto Rico

Last weekend I was in Puerto Rico offering two separate workshops on Compassionate Communication. One was to the Puerto Rican Parrot Recovery Project and the other to a conglomeration of animal welfare, social services, and faith organizations in San Juan.  This was the first time I had chosen to concentrate on organizations that deal with nonhuman animals.  My goal in so doing was to support and nourish the humans so that they in turn could help all beings flourish.

In my home faith tradition, Unitarian Universalism I am also gearing up to offer workshops in Compassionate Communication to those interested in the interweaving justice issues that include nonhuman animals.  I will do this as part of the Reverence for Life Program that the Unitarian Universalist Animal Ministry is offering our congregations.  Now is the time to struggle with how we covenant with earth and her beings as our association of congregations deals with the Study Action Item: Ethical Eating and Environmental Justice.  In the last few weeks congregations and list serves have been abuzz with commenting on the Draft Statement of Conscience that deals with this compelling and complex topic.  Comments on the draft are due February 1^st and we as an association will vote on the final draft at General Assembly in June, 2011.

How shall we come up with a statement that includes the wide diversity of who we are and yet challenges us to hold the needs of all species ever more tenderly?

My response to this question, at both the workshops and to my fellow Unitarian Universalists is this:

It’s important to think of how animals feel and suffer, how their evolution has brought them to where they are , and what they are thinking as we research how their brains work.  Yet, we can never know what is “best” in the morass of ethical vagueness that cloaks humanity.  Let this complexity be not a death shroud for any.  Instead, let us lift up the few things we can know: 

All beings have needs that connect us in an interdependent web of inherent worth and dignity

We can bring kindness to every moment.

Everything is a practice ground for the skills of compassion.

May this be our prayer in intention, word, and action in the months to come.

A Fragile World Order

In the last few weeks we have heard plenty about the WikiLeaks and the appropriateness of exposing 250,000 diplomatic cables.  I was struck by the response by David Brooks, commentator for the New York Times.  After reading the cables he said, "Israeli and Arab diplomats can be seen reacting sympathetically and realistically towards one another. The Americans in the cables are generally savvy and honest. . .We depend on these conversations for the limited order we enjoy every day."

I couldn't agree more. 

Now just imagine if these conversations  were full of no difference between wrongdoing and rightdoing. What if the needs of "enemies" were as equally valued as those of "friends?"  What if we ran our world order on an economy of equally valued needs, and not brokerage of power and resources?

If we humans can produce such understanding  as Mr. Brooks sees in these people who are in the midst of such power and politics, imagine what we might do with a nonviolent consciousness running through the diplomatic corps? 

Yes, it's fragile now, but in my alternate scenario, it would be flourishing.

Winter Holiday Telephone Seminar - Giving Your Relationships the Gift of Presence

I will be introducing the basics of NVC through exploration of our relationships and how we might be totally present. As many of us come into the winter holidays, we may find ourselves triggered by those for whom we care. By tapping into the consciousness of being present to needs, we may cultivate the art of "choice" and hence liberate and ourselves from past behavior patterns that disconnect and distance us from others in our lives.

Friday 17, December, 7 - 8:30 p.m.

Let me know if you plan to attend so I can send you the call in information and the handout.