Epiphany of Self Empathy

My first blog post, I am a bit nervous about starting this, but here I go anyways.  I expect most of my posts will be about creating connection in the world.  You may be wondering why this is important to me.  Seven years ago I was introduced to Nonviolent Communication (NVC) created by Marshall B. Rosenberg, PhD.  During my first four years of awareness about NVC I held it mostly as a set of communication skills that would help me when getting what I wanted was difficult.  During this four year period I had the opportunity to attend a two day workshop with Marshall in Santa Barbara, California.  I got a glimpse that there was the possibility of more.

 

 

Then in 2009 I became unemployed and I decide to attend an International Intensive Training in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where once again I got to explore this NVC with Marshall for nine days.  I arrived with normal human baggage that one could have.  My heart was filled with dissatisfaction and unworthiness.  My head was full of thoughts that reinforced these feelings.  I wasn’t really present to life.  I was present to how I could show up acceptable.  I was hiding behind this persona.  What was alive in me was how unhappy I was with this way of being.

The invitation of being at this training is, one can live this NVC world 24/7 for nine days in community.  The fundamental piece of NVC is empathy.  We had the opportunity to practice empathy with ourselves or with others.  Given I was looking for personal change I held this as an experiment to see if I could alter myself by practicing self-empathy.  I set at minimum I would twice a day practice self empathy, once in the morning with a cup of coffee and again at night before falling asleep. 



After three days of this practice, plus all the other opportunities during the day, I found on the four day I was happier.  What I noticed is that all that baggage that was there no longer felt like the weight of the world.  I had found clarity about what was important about each issue and decided on action I would take in the future when I returned home.  I had discovered a way to free myself from the burden of my thoughts and feelings that I could not accept.  This was an epiphany for me.  I realized how I could take responsibility for my experience in a new way.