Being Me, Loving You: Creating and Living a Healthy Relationship

I am very excited to share the news about my latest project. Together with my partner in life, Jerry Zondervan I am offering and facilitating a long weekend workshop under the title Being Me Loving You: Creating and Living a Healthy Relationship.

After meeting in an intensive 9-day international intensive training in Nonviolent Communication in 2009 Jerry and I decided to share our lives and put in practice all that we have learned in the NVC trainings and books. In creating and living our relationship we have both been inspired by a quote from the book ''Being Genuine: Stop Being Nice, Start Being Real" by Thomas D'Ansmborg: 
''Very few people living as couples are in a person to person relationship, a relationship of responsibility, autonomy and freedom where each party feels the strength and confidence to say: We , you and I, both have the strength and autonomy, and at the same time we love being together because it is even more joyful to share, to exchange, and be together. We do not strive to fill up the gaps but to exchange plenitude!"

In the last six years Jerry and I have had plenty of opportunities to test our commitment to a person to person relationship, in which we each take responsibility for our own feelings and fulfilment of our own needs. At the same time, we have encouraged each other to live in freedom, sharing our lives with each other from our own authenticity. For many, this sounds great and aspirational, yet, by the same token, unrealistic and impossible to achieve. However, we know it is possible and we are now offering to support those who wish to create and build on such a person to person relationship with our individual and joint know-how and experience.

During this workshop, with our focus on needs based communication (otherwise known as Compassionate or Nonviolent Communication) we help couples to move away from the level of strategies and thoughts, which is where the conflicts and judgements of each other are often embedded. We supportively and safely guide partners to a different level of relating, person to person from the heart, rather than at the level of judgements and beliefs conditioned by their family and cultural background. Equally, we help partners with their verbal communication, so that they can honestly express their most precious needs and yearnings while, at the same time, they can emphatically hear the needs of their partner.

Our next workshop will take place in The Netherlands, in De ZevendeHemel, Body, Mind and Spirit Centre in The Hague from Thursday evening 24th September until Sunday afternoon 27th September 2015. You can find more information about the workshop by clicking here

If you or anyone you know are interested in our workshop I would be delighted to hear from you.

I would appreciate help with promoting this workshop as widely as posible, so please if you have read this forward it on to your networks and friends. 

 

Protection vs. Connection

We human beings are social creatures who are high wired for connection with other human beings. Connection with what is alive, in other words what is real, true and genuine in others with that what is real, true and genuine in us is one of our deepest basic needs and it is universal which means we all have it. What differs for all of us is not the need, but how we choose to meet that need. So what differs is a strategy that we apply to meet our need for connection (or any other need for that matter) and there are many strategies to meet that shared need for connection we all have. The strategies we choose will also differ from person to person, and will be influenced by the person we want to connect with, type of relationship we have with that person, as well as different points in life we find ourselves at in that particular moment.

Additionally, we are often not even in touch with our need for connection and, more often than not, we choose our strategies to meet this (and other needs) unconsciously. This means that our chances for a true genuine connection with others are greatly increased or reduced by the level of our own connection with our own feelings and needs. Think of it, if you are not in touch with what is going on within you in this moment, who is then connecting with others? And how can you connect with others genuinely and truthfully if you are not connected with what is real, genuine and true inside of you in this moment?

Nevertheless, you still have that need for connection with other human beings and in absence of true connection with yourself, that is to say your feelings and needs, you may try to relate to others through your opinions and beliefs, which are mostly, set, unexamined and static, hence, by definition they are not a true, genuine and real representation of your aliveness in this very moment. And if the other person is also not connected to their feelings and needs chances of two of you experiencing fulfilling connection are almost certain to be next to none. The more in touch we are with ourselves the more likely we are to connect with what is truly alive in others, with their feelings and needs, without projecting, criticising them for having those feelings, blaming ourselves, or taking responsibility for their feelings and for fulfilment of their needs. I am the only person that can fulfil my needs, you can only help me in my process but you are neither responsible, nor can you fulfil them for me.

It follows then that the self-connection with our own feelings and more importantly needs is a prerequisite for the quality of connection with any other human being.

The second prerequisite for creating true, genuine connection is our readiness to experience, show and share our own vulnerability. Feeling of vulnerability leads us to another basic universal human need - emotional safety. Emotional safety is at the core of our very being and the more we are in touch with our feelings and needs the more we are embedded in our need for emotional safety. The more we know how to fulfil this need for ourselves the more we are ready to open up to others emotionally, that is to say show them our vulnerability.

When we are in touch with our need for emotional safety we open up, we try to connect by showing our vulnerability openly hoping that others can also receive our feelings and needs openly, as a gift rather than a burden. However, even if they cannot or do not want to receive us openly we have the trust that in such situations we can be emotionally safe. We contribute to our need for emotional safety by giving ourselves loving kindness in those moments when others cannot receive our vulnerable expression of our feelings and needs. By acknowledging our vulnerability and loving ourselves through it we create emotional safety for ourselves.

However, from early childhood onwards most of us have learned not to show openly our feelings let alone needs. For many vulnerability is being equated with being weak. Rather than teaching our children that being vulnerable takes courage and it is a daring thing to show your vulnerability, we teach them, mostly by our own example, to suppress their feelings, keep their feelings to themselves and to show ''brave face'', in other words not to show what they feel. How many adult men are unable to express their sadness because as children they were given a belief that ''big boys do not cry?'' And, how many women suppress their own needs on behalf of others because they were told when thy were young that ''good, polite girls always listen to and help other people first?'' Hence, from early childhood on majority of us learned to equate emotional safety with protecting ourselves from emotional hurt, which we try to ensure by not openly revealing our feelings and needs (neither those that are commonly referred to as negative e.g. anger, sadness, disappointment nor the positive ones e.g. happiness, joy, excitement). Most of us believe that we can protect our emotional safety by either not opening ourselves emotionally to others or by not openly receiving their emotions. However, what we actually achieve with protection is shutting ourselves off and by that we make ourselves even more susceptible to feeling hurt and isolated. Instead of increasing our level of emotional safety protection actually decreases our ability to meet that very need. While we are too busy trying to protect ourselves from vulnerability we are unable to realise that our emotional safety rests in our ability to be vulnerable.

Protection does not only decreases our chances of developing true emotional safety it also decreases our chances of true, genuine connection. How? Well, protection and connection work in diametrically opposite directions that is to say the more we protect emotionally the less able we are to experience true, genuine and deep connections. First and foremost when we try to protect ourselves we tend to suppress, numb and avoid any uncomfortable feelings (accidentally, when we try to numb the experience of pain in our life we also end up numbing the experience joy) and by doing so we are closing the door to self-connection. As we saw above if we are not connected with ourselves our chances of connecting with anyone else are hugely decreased and on top of that when we are protecting ourselves we are also highly unlikely to to be receptive to other people's feelings or to openly reveal what goes on within us. Therefore, protection is not only ineffective as a strategy for emotional safety it also disconnect us from ourselves as well as other people.

So the next time you are engaging with someone dear to you try to observe your behaviour. If that person says or does something that is not in line with your values notice what you feel. Is it irritation, frustration, hurt? And try to watch what you are doing. Are you trying to ignore or push those feelings aside? Are you trying to protect yourself by defending your position and opinion or by attacking? I believe that if you manage to pause for long enough to notice your behaviour, feelings and needs you might ask yourself: what am I doing here? Protecting myself. OK. And what do I actually want from this situation? If your answer is connection with my wife, child, etc. Then at least, I hope, you could remind yourself that you do not have to automatically react from your habitual protection mode, but that you have a choice to open yourself up vulnerably and in doing so open the door to connection with the other person.

Of course, like everything else this is the process of fine tuning between the level of vulnerability that still keeps you emotionally safe and the level of connection that is starting to go deeper than the surface. You rock the boat to the point that it can still safely sail, rather than to the point where you end up desperately trying to stabilise it and keep afloat which prevents it from sailing any further.

Holiday season: time of joy or time of sorrow?

Another year has almost gone by Thanksgiving, Christmas and the holiday season are upon us. It is said to be the season of gratefulness, season of joy, season of giving... Or is it? Instead, for many people this time of year is the time of summing up the records for the year behind and often this brings up sadness and emptiness they feel in their life. For many of us this is the time of increased anxiety and stress, weeks spent in fear and anticipation of the Thanksgiving and/or Christmas Day when instead of joy we experience hurt, sadness, annoyance or frustration, triggered by what we perceive as a judgement from a parent, insensitive comment by a partner or ungratefulness of our child. 
 
Instead of being open and connecting from the depth of our heart, expressing how we truly feel and what we value, we put on a mask, we pretend to be happy and to be enjoying ourselves for the sake of ''the peace and harmony in the family''. Instead of being true to ourselves we try to be 'nice' to others ending up either arguing with or withdrawing from (in order to protect ourselves) those who are supposed to be the closest to us: our parents, siblings, partner, children or in-laws. Another 'season of joy' is turning out to be a 'season of sadness and sorrow' for many. Instead of true connection and sharing we have just experienced yet another 'do not rock the boat pretend all is fine and we are a one great, happy family' moments.

This is not surprising, because since the early childhood most of us have learned to think and communicate in an impersonal way that does not require us to reveal what is going on inside of ourselves, but rather to think and speak in terms of 'rightness' and 'wrongness' of others, or ourselves. We focus our attention on demanding, criticising, blaming and judging ourselves and others instead of focusing on what we and others are feeling and needing. This kind of thinking and speaking, at best, creates misunderstandings. Mostly, though, it obstructs communication and at worst it leads to deep seated sadness and hurt, conflicts, broken relationships and divorces. 
 
Yet, it does not have to be so. Instead of our habitual way of communicating where we either 'fight-or-flight' we can learn to respond in an alternative way. We can dare to honestly express what is most alive in us and, at the same time, we stay open to receiving what others wish to share with us without hearing words of criticism, blame, judgement or demand. This alternative can be found in Nonviolent Communication (NVC), also known as Compassionate Communication. Developed in 1960s by Dr. Marshall B. Rosenberg. NVC is based on principles of human interconnectedness and humanistic psychology. It offers us a powerful vehicle for relating to ourselves and others, using a simple, yet deeply powerful model for personal growth, as well as a method of healing interpersonal relationships, and, last but not least, a method for conflict resolution and mediation. NVC is based on the fundamental principle that all human beings have the same basic needs (e.g. food, shelter, security, freedom, respect, connection, meaning, etc.) and that everything we do is a way to try and meet our needs. Since all of us can identify with these basic needs, recognising, understanding, acknowledging and empathising with our own needs and those of others, as well as accepting that meeting needs of everyone involved is equally important, can create a shared basis for connection. We can, when connected at this level, give from the heart and contribute to peace, both our inner peace and the peace in the world.
 
Learning and practising NVC has changed my life, not only has it helped me to improve my personal relationships, but more importantly, it has brought me closer to myself, to understanding, accepting and loving myself and through that becoming more peaceful, understanding, accepting and loving of others. This journey has helped me see how important it is for me to share it with others with a hope that we all might benefit from this process. 
 
So if you have looked at the year behind feeling unhappy and dissatisfied with your life or 'stuck' in your relationships you can do something about it. It is possible to live a life of joy, it is possible to have an honest and close relationship, firstly with yourself, and then with your partner, parent and/or your child. of course, it is not always going to be easy. Just when you think 'yes I am in touch with my needs, I am feeling peaceful and loving' the life will send you a trigger, normally in the form of one of your cousins or siblings, telling you who you are or what you should do. In those moment the challenge would be to stop and allow yourself to act with a choice from connection with your needs rather than to react from a habit and your conditioned reflex. Those situations and triggers would be gifts (not that you would see them as such in those moments) disguised as challenges on your path to self discovery and authenticity. 

If you have reached that point in life where suppressing yourself and trying to protect yourself from vulnerability by hiding and loosing who you really are does not work for you any longer, then you can do something about it. There is no better time to start than now! You can make every season be the season of joy for you and those around you.
 
If you like this article, please forward it to whoever you think can benefit from it.

Gordana Stankovic is a counsellor and coach who integrates person centered approach with the NVC model. Gordana is available through phone/Skype and in person consultations, for more information please look at her website: www.livingpeacefully.eu or send her an e-mail:info@livingpeacefully.eu