13/10/2024
The tears rolled down my cheeks and tenderness washed back through my cells like water quenching a thirst.
2 mins before I'd been feeling increasingly angry and having judgemental thoughts about my teammates regarding our upcoming storytelling event. I'd been trying to explain what was happening for me with 'exasperated calm', but bubbling underneath was my habitual blaming and shaming. I wanted to be free from struggling with the uncomfortable vulnerability and aloneness of not having my story ready yet. I wanted to lash out at the others for practicing their already-written stories. I was comparing myself and instead of hearing my own self-criticisms with compassion, I wanted to make them wrong, to tell them that their practicing was killing the aliveness in their words. I was ashamed my inherited thinking was so judgemental and 'superior' and I could feel the unspoken 'attacks' at them bouncing straight back into my own heart. I was caught in punishing myself for "not being ready yet" and did not want to face myself.
The pressure was building in my nervous system like the way it had for so many years "living on eggshells", holding inside my strong feelings as a self-protection strategy while living with a traumatised drug dependent person. In the midst of my swirling emotions, the escalating anger from my judgements, the burning shame, the vulnerability, I heard a teammate's empathic voice cut through the darkening storm "are you really wanting us to understand how important it is to you that all our stories are connecting?" Yes, I said indignantly. "I don't want to be the only one cracking open, I don't want to be alone" before the words had finished escaping, the tears began. Hearing the empathic guess was like a key that cracked the combination lock on my defence system, my heart opened hearing my truth reflected back to me. I sobbed gently with both relieve and a little embarrassment while my team held space quietly without words for a moment.
It still feels challenging sometimes to be seen honestly and have my needs understood. It's not what I grew up with. What I'm used to happening is that "my opinions" provoke others to have "their opinions" which just escalates to arguments until someone submits to keep the peace. What NVC offers is a way to break the pattern with an empathic guess. That's what my colleague did. It shifted my whole inner trajectory from blaming and defending to honesty, vulnerability, then calm and relief. Easy? Not really. But simple. Yes if you know how.
These are the moments that are forging connection in this storytelling team as we support each other through the inevitable fears of creating and the challenges of collaborating towards our story event. We're inviting you into what we're doing as a request for community support, but more than that, we're inviting you into our event to join us in the calling... to call out into a world that in so many places is lost in argument and despair... to call out for sanity and increasing emotional capacity with these NVC empathy skills as a social imperative in our families and communities in this time. Will you come and be part of the movement with us? Will you come and recognise the courage it's taking to speak up for empathic empowerment in a world that's so often losing it's mind with judgement and escalating violence behind closed doors?
I tell myself the deaths from "domestic violence" are just the tip of the iceberg. That the pain from everyday judgement and misunderstanding runs deep and is socially isolating us. To be honest, as a team we're not the world's greatest storytellers (yet :-)... but that's not exactly what we're aiming for, we're aiming for the courage to be empathically real because the feeling of connection and hope that follows brings a RUSH of warm heartedness that's incredibly awesome and joyful to be part of. It's our attempt to weave togetherness for a more genuine sense of community, so we can face these times together. Will you come? (Saturday 26th)
bit.ly/nvcstories
