by Lynd Morris
“I want to follow life,” she said after a long pause, during which she seemed to have been considering the most delicious choices arrayed on an invisible buffet.
I looked around the circle. Most people were smiling; some were nodding as if in agreement.
Following life …what did that mean?
We were at the beginning of our fifth week-long intensive retreat together in the NVC LIFE Program led by Robert Gonzales. Yeah, some of us looked jet-lagged and sleepy, but everyone appeared to be living and breathing. So, if we were all alive, what did she mean when she responded to Robert’s opening question to the group—“What is your intention for this retreat?” —with “I want to follow life”?
Nearly a year has passed since I heard that intention to follow life expressed, and during these last 12 months I’ve attended several more NVC intensives, assisted Robert at four of his NVC and Spirituality trainings, led nearly 2 dozen classes and workshops of my own, spent countless hours journaling and meditating using the processes Robert has developed during his 22 years of offering NVC, and now I have a very clear understanding of what she meant.
Following life.
She was talking about tracking the energy and vitality that flows through and around us; manifesting itself in countless ways in every moment.
The Needs Portal
During the 3 years that I’ve participated in the NVC LIFE (living and integrating full embodiment) Program, it has become increasing clear to me that I can easily touch this energy of life as it moves and expresses itself simply by exploring what we call “needs “ in NVC.
In most of contemporary Western culture, the word “needs” usually has negative connotations of weakness, dependence, deficiency. The heroic American image tends more to the impassive loner who relies on his quick thinking and willingness to endure pain.
The NVC definition of “needs” is one that centers around longing or yearning or reaching for qualities of this flowing life energy as it begins to manifest in you and me. Most of us initially become aware of needs by experiencing them being unmet (our bodies feel tense, our chest contracted, our breath is somewhat constricted, our emotions are fearful or sad) or met (our bodies feel more relaxed, our breath is deep and regular, our emotions are expansive and free).
As we develop a fluency of feelings and needs by practicing NVC, we learn to associate words with these physical and emotional feelings and with the needs that give rise to them. Thus, an awareness of needs is the handle that opens the portal through which we can dive into this stream of life as it flows through us and through all of the people with whom we are in relationship.
So, my experience of following life has come to mean that I repeatedly enter this stream of living energy before and as it manifests as needs, then feelings, then thoughts, and then finally, as actions. I become aware of this vitality and interconnectedness by guessing my own feelings and needs at any given moment and I also enter this stream of sacred energy by guessing the feelings and needs of others with whom I am in relationship.
Touching Living Energy Before Acting
What part can following life play in enhancing relationships and resolving conflicts in our day-to-day lives?
When I am following life, my whole being is awake to the flow and movement of this mysterious energy I perceive moving through and around myself and all animate and inanimate beings in each moment. It is like watching a school of luminous silver fish moving in unison, suddenly and swiftly changing direction, fluidly forming and reforming, composed of individual expressions that are invisibly interconnected.
What I watch for in myself and others is the energy, the vitality, and the passion of needs. I sense this aliveness first in myself, inviting myself—even just for a few seconds—just to be with what it feels like (or what it might feel like if what I am sensing is an unmet need) for that need to be met. I notice how that need is lived in me—is there relaxation? Expansion? Energy? Warmth? Is there a color associated with the experience of the need? Sounds? Other qualities of experience? I make mental notes (and add these to my journals), building a kind of map for how I experience this need as it manifests in my consciousness and body.
Even a few moments of dwelling in these qualities of aliveness are enough to nourish my body, emotions, and mind. I feel awake and present to what is going on within and around me. Now I find myself naturally and effortlessly curious about and ready to sense the qualities of living energy as they are being expressed in others. This process is particularly fruitful when what is going on around me appears to be conflict.
Choosing Life
In the quiet moments of our days, it is much easier to track our feelings and needs…we operate on them all of the time, guided by an steady stream of beliefs and attitudes we’ve inherited from our childhoods or developed through information gathering as we’ve grown older. However, it is in the moments when we are called to make difficult decisions or when our life-alienating thinking is triggered that following life becomes what I’ve heard described as a “litmus test for our spirituality.”
Ever since I first was introduced to NVC nearly 4 years ago, I’ve been told repeatedly that I have choice. I can choose to live, think, speak, and act based on how I believe I should (because I’ve gotten messages throughout my life telling me that to do so will benefit me/others) or I can make choices about how to respond to what is emerging in this moment based on an instant sensing of what it is that is most engaging to my heart and mind, right here, right now.
How does following life manifest in the multiple choices we make daily?
Let’s use an imaginary scenario. Let’s say that a co-worker appears in your office doorway and begins expressing what sounds like anger—frustration, confusion, and maybe even a little hurt. You are engrossed in a project that is really interesting to you and you are tracking that you only have another hour to complete your project.
Life has just called your name.
Does this mean you drop your project and begin listening to your co-worker’s needs? Does this mean you explain your deadline and close your door behind your colleague?
When life calls my name, what I hear it say is “Lynd, what are you feeling and needing in this moment?” Life doesn’t tell me what is right, good, generous, or “fair” …it just asks me to observe, sense, and warmly welcome whatever arises in my awareness in that moment.
Maybe what arises for you as you turn from your computer and face your co-worker is a pang of sadness…an awareness that you’d like to be present to listen to the compelling values you sense are buried in your colleague’s words, while at the same you’d like to give yourself wholeheartedly to finishing your project so you can experience the fruition of the beauty, order, and caring you’ve watched developing as you’ve worked on this job. And you also want to honor your agreement to keep the completion deadline your team has set.
Following life. Both opportunities are alive for you.
Colleague or project?
Colleague or project?
Before developing ease with self-empathy, I would have dropped my project and turned to my colleague in a heartbeat. “Caring people always put others first” is how my story would have run. And it really mattered to me to be a caring person. To value an abstract project more than my relationship with another human being was unimaginable to me.
Now, I realize that abstract projects also have human relationship elements--such as the agreements I’ve made with others who are depending me to meet deadlines, the contribution to others represented by my completed projects, and a host of other needs that are met for myself and others when I invest myself in a project.
So, the choice is no longer about “rightness”—giving empathy to a co-worker and meeting deadlines both meet needs—it is about discerning which of these needs are more authentically “alive” for me in this moment.
What would I do?
I’d take a few moments to do a lightening-fast version of Robert’s “Illusion of Conflicting Needs” process to see which needs are calling most to me. With sadness, I’d dwell for a moment on the deep value I hold for the needs that won’t get met by the choice I finally make. And, as soon mourning the “choice not taken” creates a little more spaciousness in me, I’d quickly brainstorm strategies for meeting that unmet need later—making a date to talk to my co-worker after I finish my project or sending an email to request an extension of the deadline are just two of many strategies I could choose from among.
A Way of Life
Following life is no longer a question or even a conscious intention for me. It is how I move through the world. I still find myself periodically making choices based on life-alienating beliefs that kick in unexpectedly when I am confronted by decision-making, but I am increasingly aware of those choice points—life-serving or life-alienating—and, more often than not, I move automatically into a compassionate dialogue with myself in which I sense rather than “think about” what puts me most in touch with the mystery, vitality, and sacred energy of life as it is manifesting here, right now, in this moment.
I hope you will consider joining me on Saturday, November 22, 2008, at the “Communicating with Life” workshop I’m leading in Silver Spring, Maryland. This workshop will explore a number of NVC processes developed by Robert Gonzales (President of the global Center for Nonviolent Communication, Co-founder of the NVC Training Institute, and Director of the NVC LIFE Program) to facilitate transformation and healing. Among these will be the “Illusion of Conflicting Needs” process described in this article. I will have just returned from a week-long intensive training with Robert held in Mexico at the beginning of November and hope to bring back with me new processes to share at this training.
Please note: although this workshop is designed for those who have intermediate to advanced NVC skills, the material will also be readily accessible to relative newcomers who have attended at least 5 hours of prior NVC training (see the upcoming events list on the column at right for opportunities to meet this requirement).