Category Archives: Books

The Air We Breathe

Posted on by

6

I returned from Kathmandu late last night. More on my other-worldly experiences there and in India and Tibet to follow. Today, I want to share the news that my Peace Corps odyssey has come to an end. I debated whether to write a post about it. I don’t want to discourage anyone who’s currently in, or thinking about joining, Peace Corps. And I’d be a liar if I said I don’t care about being judged for backing out of something I had planned to do. Those concerns are outweighed by my desire to put my genuine self – the good, the bad and the ugly – into my posts, in the hope of helping someone who’s going through a similar experience. So here goes.

When I decided to apply for Peace Corps, I pictured myself living in a village or small city in South America, habla-ing Espanol, and helping people improve their skills and education to make their lives better. I put South America as my preference on my Peace Corps application and started investigating places to brush up on my Spanish skills. During my Peace Corps interview, I was told they only send people to South America who are already fluent in Spanish.

I was nominated to teach English at a university in China. Anxious to learn more about what that experience would be like, I searched for books about volunteering for Peace Corps in China. I hit the jackpot with Kosher Chinese: Living, Teaching, and Eating with China’s Other Billion, by Michael Levy (the “Kosher” part referring to the fact that Levy is Jewish). Levy liked his experience in China. The intent of his book is not to discourage people from joining Peace Corps.

But Levy wrote about things that were news to me. Did you know that sixteen of the world’s twenty most polluted cities are in China? That nearly 200 Chinese cities fail to meet minimal air quality standards? And that fifty percent of China’s rivers and lakes are so polluted that they’re not even fit for industrial usage, and ninety percent of China’s urban groundwater is contaminated?

Levy describes his airplane’s “slow descent into a brown soup of pollution” and an “industrial nightmare” in Chengdu (the capital city of the Sichuan province and Peace Corp’s headquarters in China):

“I imagined the capillary veins in my lungs recoiling in horror as breath after contracted breath dumped carcinogenic particulate matter into my previously healthy chest cavity. It wouldn’t be long before my Chinese teacher would tell me that smoking cigarettes was actually healthy because it prepared one’s lungs for Chinese air. The tobacco, she insisted, served as a vaccine against the smog. This seemed far-fetched to me, though I reconsidered my convictions after the Peace Corp nurse advised us to cease all exercise. An increased heart rate, she warned us, would lead to deeper breathing which, in Chengdu, meant a more profoundly damaged cardiovascular system. Best to sit and smoke, perhaps.”

This seemed far-fetched to me, too. How could any country, especially a world power like China, be in such horrendous environmental condition in 2012? Then the Universe handed me a gift. I went for my annual physical at Northwestern and my regular doctor was on vacation. I saw another doctor who recently returned from several years of living in China.

She confirmed the dangers of breathing Chinese air. After living in China for two years, a CT scan of my lungs would look like that of a life-long smoker. Knowing that I’m on Synthroid (a prescription thyroid medication), she also told me about her mistake of getting a prescription filled in China. Many commonly used U.S. medications aren’t available in China, or don’t contain the same ingredients, or are counterfeit. She became seriously ill from the prescription medication and had to return to the U.S. for several months of detox.

Not exercising or taking my thyroid meds for two years would be compounded by what Levy describes as the “oil heavy” Chinese diet, consisting of “fried dough for breakfast every morning and piles of greasy meats for lunch and dinner” (something  I experienced first hand during my week in Tibet, which is officially — albeit very, very sadly — part of China). And the meat frequently comes from man’s best friend. Lassie. Rover. Toto. Levy describes walking past the “Dog Meat King” every day on his way to his classroom: “Its name – as well as the carcasses that dangled in its windows – made me pretty sure they weren’t serving chicken.”

Not. What. I. Bargained. For.

Sometimes that thing you’re pursuing with all of your energy turns out not to be the right thing for you. But if you’re lucky, and if you’re open to it, you learn from the journey. You learn about yourself, the world, and what truly matters in life. In this case, I learned that while I was willing to sacrifice my material possessions, I’m not willing to sacrifice my health. I also learned how lucky we are to find ourselves living in a place where we can step outside and breathe the air without worrying about what our CT scans will look like as a result.

I still have visions of going to South America for volunteer work. Only this time I plan to go to Guatemala in 2013 to help build schools from recycled materials with an organization called Save The World Today (featured in an article in the September 2012 edition of Oprah’s “O” magazine). Did I mention they don’t eat dogs in Guatemala?

NVC 5: The Power of Empathy

Posted on by

2

NVC 2, 3 and 4 focused on what we ourselves are observing, feeling, needing and requesting from other people. That’s the first half of the process of non-violent communication (NVC). The second half involves applying those components when we receive messages from other people, regardless of their communication style. This allows us to make an empathic connection with what’s alive in the other person and what would make life better for them.

Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There

Marshall Rosenberg (the creator of NVC, featured in the videos in this post) defines empathy as a respectful understanding of what others are experiencing. In Speak Peace in a World of Conflict: What You Say Next Will Change Your World, he distinguishes empathy from other practices:

“The goal isn’t intellectually understanding it, the goal is empathically connecting with it. It doesn’t mean we have to feel the same feelings as the other person. That’s sympathy, when we feel sad that another person is upset. It doesn’t mean we have to have the same feelings; it means we are with the other person. This quality of understanding requires one of the most precious gifts one human being can give to another: our presence in the moment.”

“Notice this doesn’t require that we agree with the other person. It doesn’t mean we have to like what they’re saying. It means that we give them the precious gift of our presence, to be present at this moment to what’s alive in them, that we are interested, sincerely interested in that. We don’t do it as a psychological technique but because we want to connect to the beauty in the person at this moment.”

Too often, we fail to connect empathically with people who are in pain and instead respond in one of the following ways:

  • Advising (“I think you should….”)
  • One-upping (“I had something even worse happen.…”)
  • Educating (“What you can learn from this is….”)
  • Consoling (“It’s not your fault….”)
  • Shutting down (“Don’t feel so bad….”)
  • Interrogating (“How long have you felt this way….”)
  • Sympathizing (“OMG, you poor thing….”)
  • Story telling (“That reminds me of the time….”)

When someone responds to me that way, I feel frustrated because I don’t think they’re really listening. Empathy requires focusing our full attention on the person, and giving them the time and space they need to express themselves and feel understood. There’s a wonderful Buddhist saying that describes this ability: “Don’t just do something, stand there.”

Reflecting Back

So how do we provide people with a sense that we’ve heard and understood them? It starts with listening for their observations, feelings, needs and requests, regardless of the words they use. This enables us to shift from perceiving what people say as an attack on us to an expression of what’s going on inside of them.

After we’ve listened to the person fully expressed herself, we may want to paraphrase or reflect back our understanding of what we’ve heard. In NVC, this takes the form of questions that show our understanding of what’s going on in the other person while eliciting their feedback. The questions might focus on what the person observed (e.g., “Are you reacting to …?”); their feelings and needs (e.g., “Are you feeling [guess their feeling] because you’re needing [guess their need]?”); or their requests (e.g., “Are you wanting me to …?”).

If our understanding is correct, the person will know we’ve heard them. And as Rosenberg explains in Speak Peace in a World of Conflict, our paraphrasing doesn’t have to be perfect to make the situation better:

“Even if we’re wrong, if we are sincerely trying to connect with the divine energy in another human being – their feelings, their needs at that moment – that shows the other person that no matter how they communicate with us, we care about what’s alive in them. When a person trusts that, we’re well on our way to making a connection in which everybody’s needs can be met.”

How do we know when we’ve done enough empathizing with the person? Usually they (and we) will experience a sense of relief at having been understood. And they may stop talking! But if we’re not sure, we can always ask (e.g., “Is there something more you want to say?”).

Silent Empathy

Even if we don’t reflect back our understanding to the other person in words, empathy can be a powerful presence in a conversation. Silent empathy impacts our intention toward others, and it shows  in our eyes and body language when we’re hearing what’s in a person’s heart. In What We Say Matters: Practicing Nonviolent Communication, authors Judith Hanson Lasater and Ike Lasater explain the practice of silent empathy:

“To give silent empathy is to intuit or guess what the other person might be feeling or needing in the moment. Be sure to start with observation language. Your inner dialogue might go something like this: ‘When I hear her say ________, I am guessing that she was feeling _________ and needing ___________.’ It does not matter if you are correct about what is ‘true’ for her. Rather, it is the process of considering the other person after having empathized with your own needs that fuels the shift. When you make this shift to compassion, you will have a greater potential to actually say what you want to say.”

NVC Resources

Although this series on NVC only scratched the surface, I hope it piqued your interest in nonviolent communication and the amazing benefits it can bring. If you’d like to learn more, I recommend the three books I’ve referenced throughout the series: Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life; Speak Peace in a World of Conflict: What You Say Next Will Change Your World; and What We Say Matters: Practicing Nonviolent Communication. In addition to covering the basics of NVC, they address advanced subjects such as dealing with anger, expressing and receiving gratitude, and practicing NVC at the workplace and in talking to our parents, children and significant others. Also, the Center for Nonviolent Communication offers a variety of books and resources on its website, in addition to NVC training.

Now for some parting words from Marshall Rosenberg:

“As NVC replaces our old patterns of defending, withdrawing, or attacking in the face of judgment and criticism, we come to perceive ourselves and others, as well as our intentions and relationships, in a new light. Resistance, defensiveness, and violent reactions are minimized. When we focus on clarifying what is being observed, felt and needed rather than on diagnosing and judging, we discover the depth of our own compassion. Through its emphasis on deep listening — to ourselves as well as others — NVC fosters respect, attentiveness and empathy, and engenders a mutual desire to give from the heart.”

NVC 4: Making Requests

Posted on by

1

Having learned about making observations without evaluations and expressing our feelings and needs without blaming others, we move to step four of Marshall Rosenberg’s non-violent communication (NVC): making requests of others in order to get our unfulfilled needs met. Sounds easy, right? We’re all used to asking for things. But making effective requests requires more mindfulness than most of us realize.

In NVC terms, requests have three characteristics:

  1. They’re stated in terms of clear, positive, concrete action, and they avoid asking someone to refrain from doing something.
  2. They’re specific enough to be doable in the present.
  3. They aren’t demands: the other person can say “no” without fear of retribution.

Use “Positive Action” Language

NVC suggests that we make requests using “positive action” language, positive in the sense that we request what we want the other person to do rather than what we want them not to do. Negative requests can create confusion as to what we’re asking for. In his book Speak Peace in a World of Conflict, Rosenberg explains, “We get to a different place with people when we are clear about what we want, rather than just telling them what we don’t want.” Also, negative requests are more likely to provoke resistance. (Just think about the last time someone told  you to “stop doing that.”)

Make Specific Requests That Are Doable in the Present

In addition to using positive language, NVC requests avoid vague, abstract or ambiguous phrasing and take the form of concrete actions that others can undertake in the present. Nonspecific requests can hamper understanding and communication, and they’re sometimes used to mask interpersonal games (like telling people how we want them to feel or be). By making ourselves formulate doable requests, we’re also forced to become aware of what it is that we want from others. And the more clear we are as to what we need from the other person, the more likely we are to get our needs met.

Here’s an example from What We Say Matters: Practicing Nonviolent Communication of how to transform a non-specific request into an NVC request:

“It would not be a request to ask, ‘Would you show me that you love me?’ The problem is that it is not doable. How would either person in the conversation know that the ‘showing love’ request has been met? Showing love is not something a camera can take a picture of. A doable request might be reworded as, ‘Would you be willing to hug me now?’ or ‘Would you be willing to sit on the couch now and listen to me tell you about my day for 5 minutes without saying anything?’ These sentences are requests because not only are they referencing the present, but they ask for something that can actually be done, and in a sense measured, by the parties involved. Both people would know when the request had been met.”

Make Requests Instead of Demands

If we’ve expressed our feelings and needs in a way that doesn’t blame other people, our requests can be made in a context that sound less like demands. What’s the difference between a request and a demand?  When we make a request, we’re open to hearing a response of “no.” Demands, on the other hand, implicitly or explicitly threaten people with blame or punishment if they fail to comply:

“We can help others trust that we are requesting, not demanding, by indicating that we would only want the person to comply if he or she can do so willingly. Thus we might ask, ‘Would you be willing to set the table?’ rather than ‘I would like you to set the table.’ However, the most powerful way to communicate that we are making a genuine request is to empathize with people when they don’t respond to the request. We demonstrate that we are making a request rather than a demand by how we respond when others don’t comply. If we are prepared to show an empathic understanding of what prevents someone from doing as we asked, then we have made a request, not a demand. Choosing to request rather than demand does not mean we give up when someone says ‘no’ to our request. It does mean that we don’t engage in persuasion until we have empathized with what’s preventing the other person from saying ‘yes.’”

(From Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life.)

As Rosenberg emphasizes, the underlying purpose of NVC — including making requests instead of demands — isn’t to get our way; it’s to build relationships based on honesty and empathy so that everyone’s needs can be met. In NVC Part 5, we’ll learn more about “The Power of Empathy.”

NVC 3: Feelings, Woo-o-o, Feelings

Posted on by

5

“The underlying intention in using NVC is to connect: to connect with ourselves first and only then to attempt to connect with others.”

(From What We Say Matters: Practicing Nonviolent Communication, by Judith Hanson Lasater and Ike Lasater.)

Connecting With What We Feel

The second step in practicing non-violent communication (NVC), after making observations without evaluations, is connecting with our own feelings and needs. Only then can we express them to others, which is essential to communicating in a meaningful and productive way. When we can identify our own feelings, it’s that much easier to identify the feelings and needs of other people, even when they don’t recognize them themselves.

I’m fairly representative of the general population in that I’m pretty clueless when it comes to identifying and expressing my actual feelings. Having been raised in an uber German household, I was taught to deny feelings as weak and self-indulgent (with the possible exception of anger, which seemed to be the one strong emotion that was OK to express). Heck, even in Morris Alpert’s song “Feelings”, the guy is “trying to forget” his feelings of love. Learning to recognize and express our feelings is a critical part of self-understanding and NVC. As explained in What We Say Matters:

“Unless and until we are aware of what we are feeling and needing, we are unlikely to relate in a direct way with others. Unless we are clear with ourselves, our words create consequences (karma) for everyone that we will probably not enjoy.”

Distinguishing Feelings From Thoughts

NVC teaches the importance of distinguishing between feelings and thoughts, assessments and interpretations, which are often expressed with the phrase “I feel”. Telling someone “I feel like you don’t understand me” isn’t expressing a feeling; it’s expressing an opinion about that person. Saying “I feel I didn’t get a fair deal” is also expressing an opinion.

In fact, any time the phrase “I feel” is followed by the words that, like, as, by pronouns (I, you, he, she, they it) or by someone’s name, we’re expressing opinions and thoughts, not feelings. When we’re really expressing a feeling, we don’t need to use the word feel at all. We can say “I’m feeling lonely” or just “I’m lonely.”

It’s also important to distinguish between words that describe feelings and those that express interpretations of other people. Here’s an example from Marshall Rosenberg’s book, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life:

“‘I feel misunderstood.’ Here the word misunderstood indicates my assessment of the other person’s level of understanding rather than an actual feeling. In this situation, I may be feeling anxious or annoyed or some other emotion.”

Other examples of commonly used words that express our assessments of others instead of our feelings include abused, bullied, intimidated, let down, neglected, rejected, threatened and used.

Since many of us were raised in environments that discouraged us from expressing how we feel, it’s not surprising that we lack a “feelings vocabulary” beyond a few basic terms (happy, sad, tired, pissed off). To help with this, Rosenberg provides a “feelings inventory” – dozens of words, divided into “feelings when your needs are satisfied” and “feelings when your needs are not satisfied”. He also provides a “needs inventory” with a similar design. Armed with an increased literacy of feelings and needs, we can pause when we find ourselves being triggered by someone or something and increase our awareness of what’s happening inside.

Accepting Responsibility For Our Feelings

Why bother with so much work to accurately identify and express how we feel in a particular situation? It helps us come to grips with the fact that other people don’t cause our feelings. Rather, as Rosenberg explains, “our feelings result from how we choose to receive what others say and do, as well as our particular needs and expectations in that moment.”

Instead of accepting responsibility for our feelings, we tend to blame others and think about what’s wrong with them and what they should do differently. The phrase “makes me feel”, as in “You make me feel angry”, is one example of how we use language to shift responsibility for our feelings from ourselves to outside forces. In Nonviolent Communication,Rosenberg identifies other common speech patterns that mask accountability for our feelings:

  1. Use of impersonal pronouns such as “it” and “that”: “It depresses me when the Cubs lose.”
  2. Statements that mention only the actions of others: “Mommy is disappointed when you don’t finish your food.”
  3. Use of the expression “I feel (an emotion) because” followed by a person or a personal pronoun other than “I”: “I feel angry because the doctor is running late.”

In each instance, we can deepen our awareness of our own responsibility, feelings and needs by substituting the phrase, “I feel … because I….” For example:

  1. “I feel depressed when the Cubs lose, because I want Chicago to have a winning baseball team.”
  2. “Mommy feels disappointed when your don’t finish your food, because I want you to grow up strong and healthy.”
  3. “I feel angry that the doctor is running late, because I have a long list of errands to get done.

I have to confess that I’m enamored with the phrase “I feel … because I ….” It helps me catch my tendency to blame others for my own feelings (having been a frequent user of phrases like “You make me feel …”). It causes me to be much more aware of the fact that I have a choice in how to respond to people and events around me. It also gives me a tool for stopping in the moment and determining what need of mine isn’t being met that’s creating the unpleasant feeling. In addition to creating more compassion for myself, tapping into my feelings and needs and expressing them in a way that avoids assessing and blaming others allows other people to respond in a more compassionate and less defensive and aggressive fashion.

Don’t let the seeming simplicity of this practice fool you. It can be tough to apply, particularly in situations of conflict and charged emotions. But as I’m learning, the results it produces — both in ourselves and the people with whom we communicate — are well worth the effort. To get you started, here’s a fairly short (10-minute) video of an NVC training session with Rosenberg on expressing feelings and needs.

Next week: NVC 4: Making Requests

NVC 2: Making Observations Without Evaluations

Posted on by

3

“Observation without evaluation is the highest form of intelligence.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti

In NVC 1, we learned about the basics of non-violent communication (NVC), developed by Marshall Rosenberg. The first step in NVC is calling to other people’s attention – concretely and specifically – what they’re doing that affects us. The trick is to make observations about what we see or hear without mixing in our evaluations of meaning and significance. In the words of Detective Sergeant Joe Friday, “Just the facts, ma’am.”

Why bother focusing on the facts and avoiding the tendency to mix in judgments about people’s behavior? As Rosenberg explains in Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life:

“When we combine observation with evaluation, we decrease the likelihood that others will hear our intended message. Instead, they are apt to hear criticism and thus resist what we are saying.”

When I’m not consciously trying to observe rather than evaluate, I might say something to a co-worker like, “Why do you always slam the conference room door?” If my goal is to get the person to close the door more quietly, that statement won’t help. Nor will it promote a good working relationship between us. Because I used an exaggeration (“always”) and an evaluation (“slam”), the person will very likely react with defensiveness. Instead, I could say, “Both times you shut the conference room door during today’s meeting, it sounded really loud to me.” By separating observation from evaluation, I created a statement that’s less likely to become the crux of an argument and more likely to inspire compassion and a positive reaction from my co-worker.

The authors of What We Say Matters: Practicing Nonviolent Communication describe an example of observation versus evaluation that most of us will recognize:

“Imagine the following. A parent knocks and enters the bedroom of a teenager with the following words: ‘This room is a mess. Please clean it up by tomorrow morning because company is coming.’ We almost guarantee that the response from the teenager will be: ‘It’s not a mess.’ If the parent persists, the teenager will likely switch to, ‘But I like it this way.’ And if that fails, the teenager will resort to the time-honored, ‘Whose room is it anyway?’ We would bet lots of money that what follows is not a period of sweet connection between parent and child.

“A more desirable connection is likely to result if the interchange begins with observation language. Pay attention to how different you feel when you imagine the communication starting with, ‘When I see your clothes on the floor, dishes with food on them on your desk, and your bed unmade ….’ The key point here is to notice the difference between making an observation and making a judgment. For example, to say, ‘When I see that your room is a mess’ is not to make an observation. The term ‘mess’ is a judgment; messes are not desirable.

“Observation used in this way is an expression of what we call spiritual speech. It is learning to leave out our judgments and beliefs about what is observed and just describe it as a camera would record it. ….

“We are not proposing a new set of rights and wrongs. It is not wrong to use judgments. We just want you to be aware of using them, so you can learn what ensues from using judgments and what ensues from using observations instead. Then the choice is yours.”

In NVC 3, we’ll shift the focus to from making observations without evaluations to identifying and communicating our feelings and needs that arise from what we observe.

NVC 1: The Basics of Nonviolent Communication

Posted on by

2

“It is through our speech that we are known, for it tells a story of our thought life and essential self. How we speak can open or close doors, heal or hurt, create joy or suffering, and ultimately determines our own degree of happiness.”

This quote, from the foreword to Dr. Marshall Rosenberg’s book Speak Peace in a World of Conflict: What You Say Next Will Change Your World, kicks off a series on non-violent communication, or NVC. I first encountered Rosenberg’s work at the Chopra Center. I was there for the meditation practice, but as a lawyer dealing with conflicts every day, I was intrigued by Rosenberg’s book entitled Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life.

A clinical psychologist, Rosenberg has applied NVC in conflict zones ranging from Rwanda and Serbia/Croatia to corporate board rooms to interactions between family members. NVC is premised on the concept that everything we do is to enable us to meet some need. Yet we’ve been raised in a world where we’re discouraged from identifying our needs and feelings for fear of being labeled weak and dependent. This leads us to engage in communication that’s harsh, judgmental and critical, i.e., “violent” communication. This type of communication, laden with diagnoses and demands, provokes defensiveness and aggression instead of creating connections and relating to each other based on compassion.

NVC guides us to shift our communication mindsets from violent to nonviolent by utilizing four skills:

  1. Observing what’s happening within us and around us without judging or evaluating.
  2. Identifying and expressing what we’re feeling, as opposed to what we’re thinking or how we’re interpreting the situation.
  3. Connecting those feelings to needs that create them.
  4. Making and responding to requests to take action that will fulfill our needs, without making demands that will be met with punishment if not satisfied.

These skills are applied to enhance self-empathy (compassionate awareness of our own inner experience); empathy (listening to others with compassion); and honest self-expression (expressing ourselves authentically in ways that are likely to inspire compassion in others).

This may sound like a strained form of hippy-dippy-trippy communication. But the focus is less on the four steps themselves and more on our intentions when we speak. Shifting our mindsets to nonjudgmental observations, feelings, needs and requests can be as valuable as years of therapy for our relationships with others and ourselves. Becoming aware of our own feelings and needs and transforming our own inner dialogue paves the way for us to develop empathy for other people in our lives and to listen to them with compassion, even if they’re not practicing NVC:

“As NVC replaces our old patterns of defending, withdrawing, or attacking in the face of judgment and criticism, we come to perceive ourselves and others, as well as our intentions and relationships, in a new light. Resistance, defensiveness, and violent reactions are minimized. When we focus on clarifying what is being observed, felt and needed rather than diagnosing and judging, we discover the depth of our own compassion. Through its emphasis on deep listening — to ourselves as well as others — NVC fosters respect, attentiveness, and empathy, and engenders a mutual desire to give from the heart.”

(From Nonviolent Communication.)

So how do we keep our attention focused on feelings and needs and avoid the seemingly natural drift into judgments and demands? This series will go over key aspects of NVC designed to help us do just that. Also, Rosenberg’s Center for Nonviolent Communication offers training in NVC. To get the ball rolling, here’s a video of an introductory class with Rosenberg on the basics of nonviolent communication. Hang in there with it. Rosenberg’s approach may be far different than what you’re used to, but the results can be profound.

Next week: NVC 2: Making Observations Without Mixing In Evaluations

RAK15

Posted on by

0

Reblogged from 100RAK:

Click to visit the original post

I had to take my overdue books back to the library today so slid £5 into the middle of one of them for someone to find. Wrote a note explaining random act of kindness and invited them to spend it as they wanted. Hope it's not too long before someone finds it!

Happy Friday! Here's a cute idea for a "Random Act of Rainbow" when you return a book to a library or a friend, or when you donate a book to a place like Open Books.

Tough Love 3: You Can’t Change And Stay The Same

Posted on by

3

A typical American, I started practicing Iyengar yoga for the physical benefits and to help mend my problem hips. Little did I know that yoga would transform much more than my body. One Iyengar yoga teacher in particular, Manouso Manos (who doles out a very memorable brand of tough love), said something that stuck in my mind and drove me to examine how I was living my life: “You cannot change and stay the same at the same time.”

From The Sticky Mat …

Manouso was explaining how yoga teachers push students beyond our comfort zones, help us release our inner control freaks, and step out of the hard boxes we put ourselves in. Iyengar students learn these lessons through performing poses or asanas and observing our minds and bodies in action. Through observation and analysis, we can catch our habits of letting the strong parts (e.g., calves) do the work while the weak parts (e.g., hips) attempt to evade notice; doing things the same way over and over again (e.g., gripping my calves so my hips can release) without noticing our patterns; and avoiding certain actions (e.g., twisting standing poses) because they highlight our imbalances (e.g., weak and tight hip muscles).

Good yoga teachers help us become more self aware and show us how to do things differently in order to build strength and balance. Nothing is as transformational as having a teacher put your body in true alignment and feeling as crooked as Lombard Street to let you know that you need to change something. In order to incorporate the teacher’s corrections, yoga students need to maintain an open mind and be willing to shed old habits and adopt new methods.

… And Beyond

This approach was having positive results for my yoga practice and my hips. But Manouso’s words — “you cannot change and stay the same at the same time” – carried far beyond the sticky mat. I was unhappy with how I was leading my life. I felt the need to change. What was holding me back? My desire to maintain the same lifestyle. I wanted to change yet remain the same at the same time.

Turning to what I learned from yoga, I observed myself in action: What habits was I engaging in that were causing the misalignment? How could I break free from the box I’d put myself in and do things differently? The answers came fairly quickly. To borrow a term from Stephen Covey. I neededa paradigm shift. As Covey explains in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People:

“We can only achieve quantum improvements in our lives as we quit hacking at the leaves of attitude and behavior and get to work on the root, the paradigms from which our attitudes and behavior flow.”

The Paradigm Shift

When I examined my life, I realized that I had fallen into what Covey describes in The Seven Habits as a “money centered” paradigm, putting economic security at the top of my priority list:

“When my sense of personal worth comes from my net worth, I am vulnerable to anything that will affect that net worth. But work and money, per se, provide no wisdom, no guidance, and only a limited degree of power and security.”

Latching on to material things had created weaknesses and imbalances that skewed my priorities as much as my wonky hips had skewed my body.  In order to change and create the life I envisioned, I needed to let go of the pseudo-security of owning a home and being able to buy whatever shoes strike my fancy at Nordstrom’s.

Once I opened myself up to moving away from a money-centered paradigm and aligned myself with my core values, the changes began to flow. In Covey’s words, “paradigm shifts move us from one way of seeing the world to another. And those shifts create powerful change.” Driven by my desire to use my talents to help others and to save money for my Reinvention Fund, I can now breeze through Nordstrom’s with no desire to buy another pair of shoes for my too-large collection. In fact, I’m amazed at how quickly that “shoe girl” disappeared.

That’s not to say that change is easy. The hard work of selling my condo and moving to a much smaller place ranks right up there with the challenge of working on my tight and weak hips. But by developing self-awareness (in my case, through yoga and Manouso’s tough love), we can identify habits that don’t serve us. No matter how deeply embedded those habits are, with persistence and the courage to change and a vision for a better life, we can replace them with more effective behaviors that strengthen and balance our bodies, minds and souls.

Tough Love 1: Deal With It (Or, Don’t Piss On Your Cheerios)

Posted on by

5

Being a rainbow in someone’s clouds can mean telling them something they’d rather not hear but they need to learn. I like to think of this as tough love. Some of the most impactful tough love I’ve ever received was doled out by my big brother.

Deal With It, Or…

As I was growing up, when I had a bad day, my older brother Gary would tell me, in his wise and caring but semi-tough way, “Lisa, you just have to deal with it. Getting upset will not help. In fact, it will make things worse.” Following Gary’s advice, after indulging in some Oreos (double-stuff preferred) to soothe the pain, I’d buck up and do what needed to be done to resolve the problem without feeling sorry for myself.

Engage In Conscious Choice Making, Or …

Many years later I learned that in advising me to deal positively with challenging situations, Gary was aligned with Deepak Chopra and the Dalai Lama. Deepak Chopra deals with it by engaging in “conscious choice making”, which recognizes that between stimulus and response is a space in which we can choose how to respond:

“Unfortunately, a lot of us make choices unconsciously, and therefore we don’t think they are choices – and yet they are. If I were to insult you, you would most likely make the choice of being offended. If I were to pay you a compliment, you would most likely make the choice of being pleased or flattered. But think about it: it’s still a choice. I could offend you and I could insult you, and you could make the choice of not being offended. I could pay you a compliment and you could make the choice of not letting that flatter you either.”

(From The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success.)

The results of consciously choosing how we respond to even the most basic situations can be profound. Standing in line at the grocery store or airport, when the person in front of me has too many items for the express line or metal items in their pockets, I remind myself that I can get upset — or not. The choice is mine. And choosing to get upset is never a good idea. Instead, I take a deep breath, smile, and do my best to make productive use of the extra time life just handed me.

Cultivate Positive Mental States, Or …

The Dalai Lama deals with it by cultivating positive mental states such as compassion and kindness, and avoiding negative mental states such as anger and aggression:

“I think that to a large extent, whether you suffer depends on how you respond to a given situation. For example, say that you find out that someone is speaking badly of you behind your back. If you react to this knowledge that someone is speaking badly of you, this negativity, with a feeling of hurt or anger, then you yourself destroy your own peace of mind. Your pain is your own personal creation. On the other hand, if you refrain from reacting in a negative way, let the slander pass by you as if it were a silent wind passing behind your ears, you protect yourself from that feeling of hurt, that feeling of agony. So, although you may not always be able to avoid difficult situations, you can modify the extent to which you suffer by how you choose to respond to the situation.”

(From The Art of Happiness.)

Don’t Piss On Your Cheerios

As I see it, the “tough love” from Gary, Deepak and the Dalai Lama basically boils down to this: don’t piss on your Cheerios. Take a minute to recognize the space between stimulus and response. In that space, choose to deal with a negative stimulus in a positive fashion rather than choosing to get upset and ruining your day. Of course, transforming our outlook in this fashion takes time and practice. As the Dalai Lama explains, “eventually, as you gradually build up the positive practices, the negative behaviors are automatically diminished.” This is good news, because no one likes soggy Cheerios.

Next week: Tough Love 2: If You Can Spot It, You’ve Got It

Field Notes On The Compassionate Life

Posted on by

8

He captured me with his first paragraph:

“Every now and then, I’ll meet an escapee; someone who has broken free of self-centeredness and lit out for the territory of compassion. You’ve met them, too, those people who seem to emit a steady stream of, for want of a better word, love vibes. As soon as you come within range, you feel embraced, accepted for who you are. For those of us who suspect that you rarely get something for nothing, such geniality can be discomfiting: They don’t even know me. It’s just generic cornflakes. But it feels so good to be around them. They stand there, radiating photons of goodwill, and despite yourself, you beam back, and the world, in a twinkling, changes.”

Thus begins Marc Barasch’s Field Notes on the Compassionate Life: A Search for the Soul of Human Kindness. An inspiration for Tom Shadyac’s film “I Am”, the book chronicles Barasch’s quest to find the origins and essence of human compassion. Why bother with an entire book about compassion (a term Barasch describes as “kindness without condition”)? Well, as he puts it, “A compassionate life is more fulfilling….it’s only when the ego bows out that the curtain rises on real life.”

Compassion: The Transformer

Field Notes is one of the most thought provoking, inspiring and remarkable “self help” books I’ve ever read. In a writing style that’s friendly, funny, intelligent and never pious, Barasch takes us on his journey to find answers to provocative questions with tremendous implications: What if the great driving force of our evolution were actually “survival of the kindest”? How can compassion, a trait hardwired into our nervous system and waiting to be awakened, transform our lives? Can we increase our own compassion quotient with practice? And how can we open our hearts to those who have wronged us?

To explore these questions, Barasch draws on evolutionary biology, social psychology, spirituality, history and his own experiences, like living for several days as a homeless person. He also interviews people who have gone against their own self-interests to help others, including those who forgave and even befriended murderers of family members (Chapter 10, Loving the Monster); citizens of Nazi-occupied Europe who rescued persecuted Jews (Chapter 8, The Altruist); and people who voluntarily gave kidneys to strangers in need of transplants (Chapter 7, The Giveaway). The stories of why they did what they did, and the impact it had on their lives, are unforgettable.

The Kidney List Expanded

The kidney donors particularly struck a chord with me. For as long as I can remember, I’ve kept a mental “kidney list”: a short roster of people to whom I’d donate a kidney if they ever needed one. (Kinda bizarre, I know, but aren’t we all?) Getting on my kidney list is no easy task. After all, you only have one kidney to give. Barasch made me think: Could I expand my kidney list to include every human being in the world? Even people who, at least in my mind, had harmed me?

Maybe I’ll start more slowly by not harboring hatred toward them. As one of Barasch’s subjects — a woman whose pregnant sister was murdered by a teenage thrill-kill from a wealthy family — memorably points out: “Hate is like drinking poison, and expecting it to kill the other guy. But it doesn’t kill him, it kills us.” Like Barasch did with a former business partner of his, we can forgive people who have wronged us, as much – if not more – for our own sake as theirs:

“I was persuaded by a remark I once heard the Archbishop Desmond Tutu make: ‘To forgive is the highest form of self-interest. I need to forgive you so that my anger and resentment and lust for revenge don’t corrode my being.’ I was corroding in my prison of ill-feeling. If I depended on my enemy to say he was sorry, then he was my jailer. I resolved that no matter what happened between us, I would filch the key and set myself free.”

The Audacious Altruist

Field Notes also examines why altruism can provoke negative reactions, like one of the voluntary kidney donors whose husband “just about threw up” when she told him what she was doing. Insights from the book came in handy recently when a good friend was greeted with hostility for having the audacity to tell a group of family friends that she preferred they make charitable donations in lieu of gifts for her birthday. You would’ve thought she asked them to ram bamboo shoots under their fingernails.

Thanks to Barasch, I understood that her act of altruism had (unintentionally) made them feel guilty or somewhat “less than”, which manifested in anger towards her:

“If they’re normal, then maybe I’m deficient, so there must be something wrong with them. Their lights are on so bright, we find ourselves looking down for their feet of clay. What are they up to, anyway? Which category of too-good-to-be-true should we check off: people-pleaser, queen of denial, religious nut, other? After their noble come-ons, their freebies of grace, what will they try to finagle in return? When we look behind their boons, will we discover a sell-by-date stamp?”

Learning To Be Kinder

Barasch’s insights helped me not only understand why my friend’s selfless act was met with anger, but why some people have reactions verging on horror when they learn I’ve applied for the Peace Corps. The understanding I gleaned from Field Notes helps me be kinder towards them. And as Barasch concludes, that’s really what it all boils down to:

“I often wonder if those most gifted with ‘caring thinking’ aren’t some sort of harbingers. But we don’t need a new set of genes or extra smarts to share our candy. Something within us already conduces toward heartfulness, and its nature is to grow with the merest effort. Aldous Huxley, asked on his deathbed to sum up what he had learned in his eventful life, said, ‘It’s embarrassing to tell you this, but it seems to come down mostly to just learning to be kinder.’ And though I set out to write a more hardheaded, less softhearted (and perhaps less softheaded) book, I can only conclude the same.”