Lessons in Love: Love in a Cup

Lessons in love are hiding in almost every moment and situation of our life. The question is whether we are ready to take an opportunity to live that moment fully and whether we are going to stay open to receiving a lesson in love that this moment and situation have the potential to teach us.

I've had one of these situations earlier this week. I woke up feeling a bit heavy, sluggish and not quite alert. One of those mornings when coffee becomes a basic and essential need rather than just a strategy to meeting some of my needs, such as, for example: awareness, being present and energy. As I went to the kitchen to make coffee, my partner, Jerry, offered to make that coffee for me. I accepted it gladly and went out to the terrace to enjoy the tranquility of the early morning sun and the many summer smells. I  allowed birds to awaken me with their singing.

When Jerry brought me the coffee I started sipping with pleasure and decided to read some inspirational text to contribute to my need for inner peace and self-connection. Most of the short stories I was reading were about living kindness through action, living from your heart, making ordinary moments extraordinary through sharing our humanness and love – inspiring indeed!

A half hour after my first coffee, Jerry asked whether I would enjoy another one. Still not fully awakened I was grateful for the offer and accepted it with both hands. There came the second coffee served in my favourite cup. I looked at it and even before saying thank you judgmental thoughts such as ''oh the cup is too full'' and ''he has probably heated too much milk and poured it all in'', started racing through my mind.

Now those who know me well, probably even those who met me a few times only, have realised that coffee, especially in the morning is a sacred ritual for me. I am very particular (you can even read it as stuck-up and close minded ) about what kind of coffee I like, as well as how I like to take it. It has to be strong, but not bitter. I am not a fan of dark roast, I prefer beans from Latin and Central America rather than those from Africa or Asia. It should be served with hot milk, not just slightly warm, and there should be neither too much nor too little milk added...

Well, now, you probably just by reading the above are thinking that if you ever meet me, you'd never attempt to serve me a cup of coffee. However, Jerry has taken on that challenge many times and he has learned to make it just the way I want it. You see, my well-being, even when it takes a quirky form about coffee, has been important enough for him, so that when he gives me a gift of coffee, (or any other gift for that matter) he makes it in a way that I can truly experience it as a gift, the way I like it and enjoy in it fully.

So here we were with the second cup of coffee in front of me, my judgements flying through my head, and before I even stopped for a moment to look at those judgements, I heard myself blurting out ''you know, you do not have to put all the milk that you have heated in the coffee!'' Calmly, without any aggression or even offence in his voice Jerry replied ''before you judge, perhaps, you can hear what I did and what my intention was.'' He continued by saying he made a batch of coffee to which he added hot milk, only to realise that the coffee looked a bit too white, so he proceeded to make another batch of coffee, which he added to the original in order to make it just the colour I like and to taste exactly the way I like it. His intention was to ensure he made me a cup of coffee that would give me joy.

Hearing this I stopped for a moment, I was able to recognise and laugh at the irony of the situation. There I was getting inspiration from reading about love and human kindness, yet failing to recognise and receive it when it was right in front of me. This was a moment of awareness and I just allowed my heart to open in the now in this new moment and I allowed the truth of my humanness to penetrate me. Yes, I wish to live my life from my heart allowing flow of love and kindness to and from it. And yes, at the same time, sometimes, I still react from my conditioned and judgemental mind before I allow my heart to open and before I give myself the time to act in line with my heart and its desire to live from love and kindness.

So yes, I have missed the initial gift of love expressed through that cup of coffee, but I did not need to miss the lesson. By catching myself in the negativity of my reaction, I was at the point  of choosing: On one side I could continue staying closed and reactive and on the other side I could choose to open myself to be touched by love and the intention of care and nurturing that my partner had put into making that cup of coffee. By choosing to open my heart I have also opened myself to learning from the situation and receiving a lesson in love.

Sometimes, actually most of the time, love is hidden in small things, in small gestures or in a few words, and sometimes like in my case, described above, it was hidden in a cup of coffee filled to the brim with love.

If you've liked this article or if you know someone who is interested in reading about personal development and self-improvement, please forward this email to them. Let's share and grow from each other's experience.

Together with my above mentioned partner Jerry I give relationship workshops and retreats for more info please click here.

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.