Tag Archives: nonviolent communication

Holding a space (even in cyberspace)

Clients and testimonials, Coaching, , , ,

I start the day with such gratitude for the feedback my colleagues are sharing with me in support of my marketing materials for the series of coaching groups I am beginning to plan. One testimonial came from Hilary Cooke, my fellow contributor on the Training Journal Daily Digest. Only last week I reproduced one of Hilary’s postings on my blog.

I feel so blessed in Hilary’s feedback, so generously given. Sharing it here, with Hilary’s generous permission, I take time to savour it and to let it permeate – sink in:

Hi Dorothy – will be a pleasure – here you go…

There is no doubt that networks are fundamental to good business and can also contribute a great deal to learning. I have to confess that I have a personal interest in studying communities of practice, as the body of evidence is growing that high quality collaboration is becoming increasingly relevant.

The issue with any network for me is that it depends on the quality and integrity of the people included in the network – Why are they there? What do they want? What do they contribute? Do I trust them? Do I trust myself? What are my motives? and in the end, summarised by – Is this network nurturing me and being nurtured by me in appropriate quantity? Am I both giving and receiving in a balanced ecology?

As a self-employed consultant, I’ve joined and left many virtual and real networks over the years. One that I have stayed constant with is TJ Discussion Forum, (formerly known as UKHRD). I can’t trace how long this has been part of my mostly daily routine, but my hunch is eight years or so? (is it – I don’t know but I think so).

As a virtual community and internet forum, I find it constantly fascinating how we reveal ourselves by our written responses to each other. I also find it a welcome break to be able to communicate in a considered fashion, being able to take time to let things land and settle and process the response I wish to make. I find that this encourages my reflective practice and then the sharing adds another dimension to my learning by the responses I create.

One of my favourite co-contributors is you Dorothy. I think that if we met, we would become firm friends and stalwart colleagues. So, what do I value about you…?

I find your postings and way of conducting yourself to be extremely gently mannered, generous and gracious – you pay attention to the little things like thanking people and acknowledging them which I value. You are impeccable with your words and insightful in what you pick up from others.

I also experience you working to really hear people – you hold a space, (even in cyberspace), for others to do their own realising, without shunting solutions at them (which some others are inclined to do). Your style comes from your mastery of the incisive question, which in turn comes from an ability to listen properly. I know that the ability to do this is connected to allowing space for ourselves, which is the result of a high level of self awareness and work on ourselves. It’s the ultimate ability to recognise that less is more. I like that about you because it resonates with my own practice aspirations. I have a hunch that this is your coaching style too.

You clearly have a good development pedigree and sound body of knowledge with the Hay Group, ITS and NVC, that I know about from your sharings, but it’s more about how you use your knowledge to integrate these into your practice extremely elegantly. You manage the combination of intellect and feelings in a fine balance I think. You are a good example for NVC and in walking the talk about your beliefs and values in supporting people without sucking their power by over-helping.

You are also clearly cultured and share this without being a snob or making other people feel “less than” – which is also elegant in my book. I have a strong sense of being “equal” with you and that I could push and pull and that you would flex with me. I would actually trust you to coach me personally, and I can count on a very few fingers that people that I would say that about – and that is partly about skill, but more about shared values and the ability and strength to manage our own truths.

These are my experiences of you and it is a pleasure to share them with you. I am so glad that you asked – asking for what we want is a strength in itself.

My gift to you – use this to do whatever will benefit you from doing so with my full permission.

Hilary Cooke

Thank you, Hilary.

For the first time: planning to offer coaching groups

Coaching,

Coaching Groups. This is what is on my mind at the moment. I am preparing to bring together my experience as a coach with my experience of working with groups in order to offer a series of coaching groups.

I am full of excitement about this, even as I juggle my preparatory work for the groups with my current work-load. I am especially excited to offer groups in areas that really thrill me. I’ll be offering my corporate clients the opportunity to create groups of leaders, for example, who want to develop greater leadership effectiveness or to develop their skills in coaching those they lead.

I’m also offering groups in other areas of great interest. Right now I’m poised to send out an invitation to new coaches to join a New Coaches Group. This group will work with coaches who are setting up their coaching practice and want tailored support at a cost they can afford. In the field of nonviolent communication (NVC) – an area of special interest – I am offering three groups. One will help people to build firm foundations in NVC – to master the fundamentals, if you like. One will be for experienced practitioners who want to continue to deepen their understanding and practise of NVC. One will be a marketing group for NVC trainers who want to become more effective in creating a market for their own unique offering in this area.

I am already putting the word out and I’ll be watching with interest to see which groups take off first. Who knows, I may even find that there are groups I don’t know of yet just waiting to come to me! I’m preparing invitations and will be sending them out this month.

Today, I start to address one part of the invitation – to reach out and ask for quotes to include in my materials. Many requests go to people I know well – colleagues, clients, my coach, Lynne Fairchild. One is a little off the wall – to my colleagues on the Training Journal Daily Digest. I am curious to notice how vulnerable I feel as I wonder what will come back…

Starting from where you are

Emotional Intelligence, ,

In my recent newsletter I wrote about the characteristics that support us in thriving in hard times.

As I write, I think of the old joke – often attributed to the Irish – about the man on the road who stopped to ask for directions only to be told, “if that’s where you want to get to, I wouldn’t start from here!” For some of my readers, the traits I have identified may seem a long way away from their starting point. And yet, we can only start from where we are. I wrote:

If you, as reader of this article, are recognising aspects of yourself in Carl, you have a great deal to celebrate. You are already showing some of the behaviours and characteristics that are leading Carl, and others like him, to thrive. Perhaps the recession is centre stage for you – and you are confident you know how to thrive no matter what. Perhaps the economic downturn is far from being central to your current interests. Either way, you feel grounded and confident.

Maybe, though, you are not thriving at present. It may well be that you are reading this article and noticing the gaps – the fault-lines – in your current response to the recession and everything that it is bringing to you. Maybe you are using this as a world class opportunity to beat yourself up! Or maybe you are wishing things were different right now.

Either way, I offer one of the primary characteristics of those who know how to thrive, no matter what: acceptance. This is not to say that the Carls of this world are complacent and do nothing. Rather, they accept both their outer circumstances and their inner response as their starting point. For if we are to begin a journey – any journey – where can we hope to start from, if not from where we are?

As I prepare this blog posting, I wonder what can we do to cultivate acceptance. My own experience points to one habit above all others that we can cultivate: the habit of being curious about the intentions that lie behind our own and others’ behaviours. This is a habit that is offered by practitioners of neurolinguistic programming (NLP), nonviolent communication (NVC) and no doubt other schools of thinking, both secular and religious.

To be curious about our positive intentions is to ask “what am I wanting?” We do not stop at feeling angry or frustrated or happy or sad. Rather, we ask this simple question again and again until we get down to the root of our desires. Often, we know we have reached the foundations of our desires for two reasons. The first is that we are no longer thinking in terms of a specific action (“I want John to do X”) or object (“I want a new car right away”). Rather, we are thinking about the underlying need that would be met by such an action or object (“I want to be accepted” or “I want to make my own choices”, for example). Reaching this depth of understanding leads us to the second sign that we have reached the foundations of our desires. For when we do, we often let go of our feelings of frustration, anger etc. and feel a deep sense of peace – acceptance. In NLP, this is decribed as a change of state. In NVC, practitioners sometimes talk about the living energy of needs.

NLP also recognises that different parts of us may appear, on the surface, to want different – even contradictory – things. So, the NLP Practitioner is interested in the dialogue we have with different parts of ourselves and in understanding the underlying intentions of each part. In NLP and NVC enquiring in this way can save us from the paradox that comes when we judge ourselves for judging others. This is a bit like the adult who slaps a child and says: “Don’t hit your brother!” Understanding our positive intentions – all our positive intentions – allows us to find a place of acceptance and to begin to explore effective strategies to meet our needs.

And what about being curious about the positive intentions of others, especially when we feel angry or frustrated by the impact their behaviours have on us? NLP teaches us that every behaviour has a positive intention. Even to understand this is to begin to accept – we may not know what the intention is behind a thought or action and still, we know there is one. NVC invites us to go further and to enquire, recognising that the person with whom we are in contact may not fully understand their own desires. We might say, “Jane, are you feeling frustrated because you’re wanting some appreciation for your actions?” It doesn’t matter that we’re right or wrong as long as we are making a sincere attempt to understand. Of course, we may not always be in dialogue with people or organisations whose behaviours we are struggling to accept. At times, whether up close or at a distance, it helps simply to remember that we can’t change others’ behaviour – we can only change our own.

As I write I am searching for the words to do justice to the role that coaching plays in helping people to understand their own intentions so that they can find ways of meeting needs of which, previously, they were only dimly aware. What a privilege to be able to support clients in this way – and to be a witness to the results!

Taking a moment to celebrate

Coaching, ,

Today I am celebrating! I am preparing to offer a number of Coaching Groups in areas of special interest to me. These include a group for leaders as coaches, a group for new coaches and a group for people who are committed to living in the spirit and practice of nonviolent communication.

As I begin to share my plans, the feedback is overwhelmingly positive. In the leadership and coaching arena, I have started to explore with a colleague a coaching group for leaders to explore what works in leadership. In the field of nonviolent communication, I have been overwhelmed by the response and am beginning to put together an interest list. I feel thrilled.

And alongside this – and many other celebrations – I received today an e-mail from my sister-in-law about Burma’s democratic leader. As I read it, I feel all the more strongly that nonviolent communication is a force for good in the world. Her message? I think it speaks for itself:

I’ve just sent my birthday message of support to Burma’s democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

Check it out and create your own here: http://www.64forsuu.org/word.php?wid=10527

Aung San Suu Kyi has now been imprisoned by Burma’s brutal regime for over 13 years. 64forSuu.org is a website where celebrities, politicians and the public from all over the world are coming together to send birthday messages of support to the world’s only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Find out more about Aung San Suu Kyi’s fight for human rights and democracy in Burma on the website http://www.64forsuu.org/

Staying connected

Emotional Intelligence, ,

Back from my recent visit to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, I continue to offer thoughts about how to thrive in hard times. It’s hard to prioritise and still it seems to me that we are most likely to thrive when we develop the skill and habit of staying connected. In my recent newsletter I wrote:

Facing the very real possibility that he might lose his job, John felt low. He sought to lower the levels of anxiety he felt by ignoring his feelings. He drank and smoked more and this helped to mask his feelings. At the same time, he started to lose sleep and his general sense of well-being went down.

Over time, the kind of tactics John employed can take their toll. When we ignore the messages conveyed by our feelings and bodily symptoms we fail to connect with our needs and to find ways to meet them. What’s more, the messages continue to be conveyed, becoming louder and more insistent. In time, they may take the form of physical illnesses or psychological distress.

Carl, like many people who are able to thrive even in hard times, is highly attuned to his emotions, gut reactions and other bodily symptoms. He views them as a kind of inner guide and he takes time to tune in to the messages being conveyed. In this way, he is constantly asking himself “what do I really want?” and “where am I in and out of balance?” Responding to these messages is helping Carl to make progress towards the life he is seeking to create.

How do we go about connecting – and staying connected – with the messages supplied by our bodily responses and emotions? Here are some thoughts from me. Some of them echo comments I have already made in the series of postings that accompanies my most recent newsletter:

  • Step 1: Notice your feelings and bodily emotions at different times. You might do this by keeping a diary in which you take time to write about whatever is alive for you at the time of writing. You might do this by staying tuned to your inner responses at the time of an experience (such as a meeting or conversation). You might do this after the fact – as part of your post meeting debriefing, for example. To begin with, you may find it hard to make this connection. Step 2 is designed to help you if you do;
  • Step 2: If you are not experiencing bodily feelings or emotions, notice what you are doing instead. Perhaps you are experiencing your life through your thoughts – thinking about others and maybe criticising them, for example. Perhaps you are taking actions to mask your feelings and other sensations – from drinking and smoking to watching TV. You may be quite happy to mask your experience in these or other ways. Or you may want to give yourself permission to experience your life more fully. If you do, you may find it helpful to seek professional help (see suggestions in Step 5, below);
  • Step 3: Give equal weight to all your feelings. In coaching, I find that many clients sponsor some feelings and sensations whilst suppressing others. Over time, this can mean that they become aware – attuned and responsive – to some areas of their lives whilst blind to others. If you want to become and to stay fully connected, with all the benefits this can bring, let go of judgement and replace it with curiosity;
  • Step 4: Ask yourself what your body or emotions are telling you. What is an emotion or sensation telling you about your needs? You may find all your thoughts are about others at this stage (“he should be doing X” or “I wish she’d do Y”). In this case ask yourself, what would it do for me if s/he did what I’m wanting? This helps you to form connections between your feelings, your desires of other people and the needs that underpin them both;
  • Step 5: Make use of the many resources available to help you to become more attuned to your emotions and bodily sensations. You may want to observe others and to notice how attuned they are to their own emotions – and with what outcomes. You might like to start by reading Marshall Rosenberg’s book Nonviolent Communication: A Language for Life. This lays out, very simply, the role our emotions can play and the connection between thoughts, needs and emotions. You might like to contact me (at dorothy@learningforlifeconsulting.co.uk) to discuss how coaching can support you – and the variety of other sources available to you.

And if you have questions or want to know more, please leave your comments here on the blog – I shall be delighted to respond.

Choosing to choose

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, , ,

Writing my newsletter, I include choosing to choose as one aspect of demonstrating resilience in hard times:

Choosing the way we view the current recession is just one aspect of choosing to choose. Whilst some people look outside of themselves for change – looking to other people to make changes or for a change in circumstances – others focus on the choices they can make themselves.

Psychologist Julian B. Rotter coined the now familiar term internal locus of control to describe the way some people make choices. He noticed that those people who have an internal locus of control believe that events result primarily from their own actions and behaviour. They tend to develop a better mastery of their own behaviour and to assume their efforts will be successful. Rotter also noted that people with a high internal locus of control are more likely than others to seek information and knowledge about their situation and to engage in political behaviour.

In the world of coaching, choosing to choose has become known as being at choice or even being at cause. Over time, the habit of choosing to choose is like building a muscle. Whilst some people are unaware of the extent to which their life is determined by their own choices, Carl knows that life is the sum of all his choices: the more he builds the muscle of choosing to choose, the more he becomes “match fit” and ready to thrive no matter what.

What if you want to test the extent to which you are choosing to choose? What if you want to build your choosing to choose muscle? I offer the following exercise, which I have adapted from an exercise Marshall Rosenberg shares in his CD set Nonviolent Communication: Create Your Life, Your Relationships and Your World in Harmony With Your Values. It has four simple steps:

  • Step 1: Write a list of all the things you do because you believe you have to. Keep writing for as long as it takes to identify everything you do from a sense of obligation or duty;
  • Step 2: Replace the language “I have to” with “I choose to” at the beginning of every sentence. To do this may stimulate some discomfort in you! At the same time, if you want to choose to choose, this step will help you to recognise that you are already choosing;
  • Step 3: Take time to review this list, asking yourself what needs of yours you are meeting by choosing to do those things that are on your list. You can expect different actions to meet different needs. At the same time, you may find patterns that are worth noticing;
  • Step 4: For each action on your list, make a new choice that fully meets your needs. In some cases, this may be a case of choosing the same action from a renewed sense of your reason for doing it. In these cases, you can expect to feel better about taking your chosen action because you understand how it meets your needs. In some cases, you may decide not to do something you were doing because it doesn’t meet your needs. In this case you can feel better about making a choice that works for you – though you may have to accept that other people may not enjoy your choices.

Owning our choices presents all sorts of challenges. Sometimes, it’s easier to assign responsibility for our actions to another person, to “duty” or to some impersonal force rather than to own them as our own. Equally, you can be sure that choosing not to do some of the things you currently do because you “have to” will have profound implications for you.

What did you learn from doing this exercise? I’d love to see some examples of your new choices here on the blog. If you’d like to contribute, please post your comments here where other readers can benefit from them.

When “perfect” is not good enough

All articles, ,

Today I have been preparing my quarterly newsletter. It’s something I love to do and it’s also something that takes time. It was my aim to send one out in April and it’s now my aim to send it out before the end of this month. Meantime, I have been juggling all sorts of other activities, from tracking down a CD (from Amazon Japan) to taking a coaching call from a client. All good stuff.

This week, I have also committed to take time to pull out some of the themes from my most recent coaching session with my own coach, Lynne Fairchild. So, before I go for a walk I’m taking time to ponder just one of the themes from my coaching.

Even though we talk of our aspirations, as parents, to give our children unconditional love, we live in a society which judges. And growing up in a society which judges, we internalise the messages. In the last week, two quite different experiences have brought me face to face with my own judging self. The first experience was an interaction with a client to which my response was to judge myself oh, so harshly! And only days later, in another context entirely, I was able to let go of any messages about what I do or don’t “deserve” to receive the gift of someone else’s care. These experiences could not have been more sharply contrasted!

What do I take from them both? Connecting with the part of me that judges, I realise how much she wants to meet a standard so that she “deserves” to have her needs met. After all, this is what she learnt to do as she was growing up. There is a risk that, in order to persuade others, she seeks to be “better than” or even “perfect”. Like so many behaviours that come from our childhood selves, this carries the risk of getting in the way of the very outcomes she’s seeking for me – to be amongst people who love me and support me in meeting my needs.

I am grateful for the second experience, of letting go of judgement of self and of others to receive the gift of someone else’s care. Receiving this gift without wondering whether or not I deserve it touched me deeply. At the same time, I recognise how much the quest to be perfect – or, worst still, to hold some kind of standards for others – gets in the way of being “good enough”. Indeed, I recognise how much I want to live in a world – to create my own world – based on connecting with my needs and with the needs of others.

This brings me to a personal challenge. Oh! How I aspire to listen with an intention to connect with the needs I and others are expressing, no matter how alienated we are from our own needs and no matter what words we choose! From this place, nothing anyone can say is ever “wrong”.

As I write, I reconnect with my aspiration to do this with ease and grace.

Sharing my personal mission statement

Coaching, ,

When I started working with Lynne, my coach, in 2005, I undertook to create an explicit statement of my values. It was not the first time I had explored what was important to me in my life, though it was the first time I had explored my values quite so fully and thoroughly. Every now and then I change a word here or there as I did recently. And still, I find that each change reinforces my original statement.

It was a couple of years later that a penny dropped for me as I realised that my values were pointing to an overall mission for my life. Capturing this mission in words has provided a clear guiding principle for me which is at once so simple and – for me, at least – profound. My mission is: to fall ever more deeply in love with my life.

What does this statement imply? As I write this morning I ponder this. The first thing that springs to mind is a quote of unknown origin, that “life is the sum of all our choices”. This mission guides me to make choices which bring me joy, and this in turn is a reminder that I do have choices. So, this is a statement which invites me to take responsibility for my life and to make it a life that I can, increasingly, enjoy.

This, in turn, implies for me that my life can be a matter of joy and that this is OK. I remember meeting a man who, after a successful corporate career, started to work for a not-for-profit organisation which was close to his heart. He was almost looking over his shoulder when he said to me that he wasn’t sure it was OK to enjoy himself as much as he was in his new career. I do wonder how much we come to believe that pain and suffering is our lot. For my part, I have chosen to embrace a different path and to create a life of joy and fulfilment.

To live in joy implies being connected to my own responses. For how can I know what brings me joy, if I am not able to sense my responses to my experiences? So, as I travel this path, I am becoming more and more attuned to my emotions and to the feedback my body gives me. I have found that this alone is not enough. For responding to such feedback requires skillful means. For this reason I have embraced learning as a core value. Attending to my responses and employing skillful means to choose my reactions help me to take steps on an ongoing basis towards I life I can truly love.

There is of course, one thing I have to be able to square in order to feel good about treading this path, living as I do in a world in which judgement (or ‘criticism’) is encouraged. Is it not utterly selfish to live in this way? As a student of nonviolent communication I have come to learn how much it matters to me to contribute to others and this is part of what gives me joy, especially when I can contribute from a place of willingness rather from a sense of obligation; especially when I give of the best of myself, rather than seek to muster a contribution which is somehow at odds with who I am and what I have to give.

There is so much more I can say. I am moved to add one last thing. This is about trends – about the overall trend in my life towards living in a way which brings me joy. To live my life in this way means that there is one thing I am able to offer to those who are seeking a different way of being in the world and doubting that it’s possible to be happy in this life. This is, of course, the conviction, borne of experience, that it is.

When it’s time to go public

Coaching,

Twenty-four hours after returning from Vicky Peirce’s NVC Barn (see www.cometolife.org) I notice I have come to a different place within myself. As I reconnect with my life and work I recognise that my time away has given me a space in which to connect more fully and deeply with who I am and with what matters to me.

It’s not that the connection was not there. Rather, my time at The Barn provided a space in which it could flourish and blossom. I come back with an awareness of my personal and professional yearnings. I come back present to my dreams and plans. I come back brimming with ideas. I come back aware of the extent to which I am already on track. I am full of celebrations.

Speaking with Lynne, my coach, as I do most weeks on a Monday afternoon, I have a thought which surprises me. It is one of those thoughts that has crept up behind me so that, by the time I am aware of its presence, it is fully formed and well and truly alive. It is beckoning me with great confidence even whilst some part of me is taking a while to catch up. It is the thought that it’s time to “go public” with some of my most sacred home truths. I think of my personal mission statement. I think of my personal values. I make a commitment to share my mission and values on my blog in the coming days.

And almost as soon as I make this commitment, I suddenly notice that I have a surge of energy as I think of those people – men and women – with whom I love to work in coaching partnership. Some pennies are dropping for me and it’s time to share my thoughts about this, too. Perhaps I have a busy week ahead!

And isn’t it curious that I am so alive – motivated, creative, in the flow – in the week of my birthday? This, too, I celebrate.

We come as we are

All articles

I am newly returned from The Barn, where I have been spending five days as one of a group of people who all have an interest in Nonviolent Communication (NVC). Vicky Peirce, our host, defines Nonviolent Communication in the following way on her website (at www.cometolife.org):

NVC (Nonviolent, Compassionate or Peaceful Communication) is a simple, yet profound and enjoyable process which teaches and encourages us to speak and listen to each other without blame, judgement, criticism or guilt. Over time, it can break patterns of thinking that cause pain and conflict for ourselves and others and open our hearts to mutual respect, acceptance and understanding.

To live in this way is not without challenges – not least the challenge of putting aside the ways of thinking in which we have been educated and amongst which we live in order to live from a place of acceptance and understanding. Five days at the Barn is an excellent opportunity to build this muscle of compassion – for ourselves, for others – and I come away with a deep sense of inner peace.

As I reflect, the thought that is uppermost within me is that, at any time, we come as we are. We do the best we know how in every moment and with whatever skills and resources we can muster. Of course, as Goleman has so clearly highlighted in his writings on emotional intelligence, we are vulnerable to what he calls the amygdala hijack – the moment when some comment or event triggers pain that is already within us and prompts an immediate and oftentimes ineffective response. NVC provides the tools to handle our own moments of pain as well as to meet others with compassion.

More than this, I notice that the more I am living from a place of compassion, the more I am able to meet my own needs at such moments. What’s more, the more my own needs are met – if you like, the more my own cup is full – the more I am able to bring love and compassion to my dealings with others. From this place, it matters not that others around me may bring blame and judgement, nor that they may lack skill or compassion. For I am able to be compassionate with myself and to be present to others – no matter what.

I am grateful for the experience I have had with its many, many gifts. I am grateful to Vicky for providing this space of learning, fun and nurture. I am grateful to my fellow group members for more acts of kindness than I can possibly list. I am restored – and ready for bed.