Feb 19 - #03 - Leadership & Asking for Support
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Vision: individuals coming together to liberate (changed from bootstrap) themselves & each other from the grip of patriarchal conditioning
- unleash innate human capacity for leadership
- care for the whole in interdependent relationships
- pass on the possibility of re-mothering our world
- through narratives & agreements that are oriented to needs & natural limits.
Process of untwisting humanities.
Glossary:
- Patriarchal conditioning: internalize scarcity, separation & powerlessness
- Re-mothering: orient towards needs of the whole, self-included. Uncouple giving & receiving. Move towards active interdependence.
- Leadership: Willing to take responsibility for the whole, in interdependent relationships with others
- Even when those others are not doing so themselves
- Even when we know that our perspective is by necessity limited.
- Liberation: undo effects of and eliminating causes for social oppression (Erica Sherover-Marcuse)
Convergent - Changing the word "bootstrap"
I'm sorry I didn't understand. I thought you were ...
If we achieve that, what would we get? "It won't sound stupid"
You're saying what you don't like. Can you share what are the qualities that you want here? Can you phrase what you want in the positive, not what you don't want?
- What is important to you is care for the people impacted by the system? Would it be okay if we take "themselves" out?
- I don't want military language. You want language that is aligned with what we're moving towards?
- We already covered the patriarchal connotation. The new point is to cater for wide diversity of people that come here, especially for vision, the first thing that they read.
- You want the reminder of how much we need each other and you want it to be front & center.
- "Acknowledging relationship to racism" is NOT positive. I don't know what the solution will be, but what is it that is important about racism, phrase in the positive of what we want. I want you to take a step back from your history. What is it that is important in your critique of the word? --> Understanding of systemic nature of racism in the US.
- I'm not arguing with you, I'm just noticing, why are we "Understanding of systemic nature of racism in the US". First of all I want to check if you believe I'm only curious and not degrading you.
- We want to use language that shows we understand the history of people TO THE EXTENT THAT WE KNOW THEM. We know this one because you said it, but we won't know for others.
Not just aligned in spirit, but linguistically
I want to share why I chose: effort & determination, point to gravity of task
If you aren't talking about this, please lower your hand for a moment. If your consideration has already been captured, we don't need to hear "Yes I also think...".
I enjoyed hearing this, I didn't remember to say it myself.
Do you feel the field shifting? Key of leadership is keep bringing up what we lost - we bring our big huge brain together.
Can you slow down, because I want to capture it?
I really feel connected to hear how much you want to honor human beings, how you want to offer dignity. Do you need more to be understood for the anguish that lives in you?
The echos of that, if you don't grow up with that you don't get it.
Sharp line to walk: humble, re-humbled, again and again and not give up. How do we learn about all the things that language could connote.
- T**, I want to pause you. At the tail-end of what you're saying, I hear a should. I want to know if it's there.
- I'm listening differently now, the time we took was worth it.
- I'm at a lost. I really don't know what to do next. Obviously this word is not on the table now, it won't be used. But the next time I write something, what specific suggestion.
- I sense a lot of defensive energy from you. I don't know how to express. If we use a special word, the onus is on us to look it up.
- Desiree stepped in to ask T** to reflect back what Miki actually wants.
- I'm passionate in this conversation because I'm longing to learn what can help me in the future. I want the humility and tenderness, not the sharpness. I have interest in "what can we do together to learn".
- You were not in distress when you called for a stop - trying a new technique.
Intuition: If we go on, it subtracts not adds to energy. We close it.
I made the decision to stop the conversation in the middle, energetically.
Is there anything for us to learn from your private discussion? What can you discern?
It's important for me that people understand. And I need you to speak up. It's my physical limitation - I cannot care for the whole when things are popping in the chat.
If the person doesn't have enough capacity or trust to speak, someone speaks for them.
- Stay centered, don't take things personally. Always willing to learn & admit shortcomings.
- When someone said they don't trust me in a space that I'm leading, trying to lead. -- Take a breath and just be with the not knowing, don't try to force a solution.
- People raising their concerns - my judgment against them for "taking up space", "talking about themselves.
- Don't expect empathy, do it for yourself. Don't just take in the pain so readily.
- Stamina for long conversation - I'm willing to engage in this conversation because I see it matters for you, even if it doesn't for me. Don't turn to a dog or go to your heart so quickly.
Bring all the tenderness in the world to whatever you experienced, and to anything that you imagine what everyone else is experiencing. You can judge everyone here. Have a really really slow conversation in which you notice judgment for self or others that arose, and surround it with tenderness. Quality of holding a 5-day baby, as if this conversation is a 5-day old baby.
To the extent you're called by life, not by anxiety or stress.
Take a mental picture, if you do it again and again, it can be a habit.
I want to pause, I don't want this to happen to C. I don't know what is going on. Any day, I'd like someone to speak in the way she did, or not speak at all. I'd love for her to have more option, but that is not something we create by WISHING that was the case. To the extent we can open to whatever is going that is creating such a tightness there, to the extent we can do that, we can increase our capacity at some point. Framing this aggression doesn't see the power differences within which she lives. Right now, I have lots of relational power. I want to be aware of that before we start judging someone who spoke in the way they did.
I don't know if that is what will serve us most. Can you decide for yourself whether it would serve the whole most? - vulnerable and empowering
Can you say 3 specific things that you're grateful for through this?
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Feb 26 - #04 - Flow
- Flow - Resource
- Flow - Info
- Flow - Feedback
- Conflict Engagement
Preparing for Coaching for RTTC
- Specific topic. Shortest expression.
- Related to your purpose in course AND course overall purpose
- If need support to tease out of the topic a purpose for being here, ask.
Collective Mourning for Lack of options to meet needs
- Story of little child with harness: Socialization restricts our motion. We cannot let body decides what happen next.
- Passport invented ~100 years ago, further restrict movements to find pathways to attend to needs.
- When we connect with the sheer horror of the grief, it may feel we cannot survive it. But you already did. And you're not alone. Unbound.
- Can you find within yourself any bit of tenderness for the poor lost souls who didn't know what to do with their limited capacity (parents)? It doesn't reduce the impact.
- When you're ready, and not JUMPING OVER where you are, then tenderness for the enemy can adds to self-compassion.
- I never knew who I'm talking to. I'm very happy when someone says "you were speaking to me".
- I no longer use the words "crib/ playpen" because I think they're euphemism. I call them "cage". We are domesticated animals.
3 modes of being:
- Flow: we're guided by moment-by-moment preferences (NOT needs), without internalized voices telling us should's. A good child/ person has no preferences, accepts whatever.
- Until I encounter something in the way, I'm in flow. Bliss = no resistance to the flow of life through me.
- I trust life without rules to provide the relevant organic constraints. I don't want to impose them. If we say "Do whatever", we ignore parents' needs. Life poses organic limits on parents, and those are limits.
- Preference is tangible and concrete.
- Have you seen an infant hesitate to make a decision? You were interfered with doing things from internal knowing.
- Change question: How long should I continue to do this? TO Am I still enjoying this? And be sensitive to the moment when you're not sure, that's when you stop.
- Mobilization: Put effort into fulfilling needs.
- Ask WHY I'm doing this? Without a need-based understanding of the WHY, we automatically goes to patriarchal conditioning (should's) - concepts external to the life flowing within us.
- Emergency: Fight-Flight-Freeze.
Any recent memory of experiencing flow?
- When I'm in conversation
- When I lay with my mom
- Often I forget I have a body
- "I'm thrilled because you focus on this. As a school we have many other things, and I would like you to be exposed to all (MY needs). Would it work if you try something else this afternoon?"
When you mobilize recently, how conscious you are of mobilizing from needs not from concepts?
- Cellphones are designed to mess with our neurotransmitters
- Flow is NOT "give myself permission to go with sth" but "just go with sth"
Mar 5 - #05 - Flow
Mistake is something to avoid. --> Mistake is a piece of feedback. What is there to learn?
- We cannot will our capacity to be different. If we learn from our failures, our capacity increases.
If you are a leader, you cannot make mistake. If you did, cover them up.
##Doctors who said they made a mistake to the family/ patient, they're less likely to be sued for malpractice. [statistic]
=If the person who asks for a moment of silence is the one to end it, then I'm at peace.
On the relational plane, the moment someone acknowledges a mistake, we're humans together again.
=Is there anything I said that is not clear? Not a deep exploration, just for clarity
= It's so off in the moment, I can't attend to it now.
If we make an acknowledgment with the intention to ask for support, pull them towards me, then it ends the power of the acknowledge. Stay CLEAR of SUBTLY WANTING THIS. Clean gift for the impacted person.
- I don't defend myself I wasn't wrong because that was a mistake, or accept I'm wrong. I don't relate to right/wrong but I don't want to educate them about it. It's their task to learn about right/wrong thinking but not my task to educate.
- Trap of learning anything visionary path, we get on high horse & try to explain, we're othering. Even if we don't judge them, others who're watching will feel judged (think we're being judged, and feeling shame). Somewhere deep at the cellular level we remember what it means to be in full love and trust with others.
- When I experienced impact and hear an acknowledgment, I don't need to push my point.
= I just want to take a moment to remember her with tenderness.
Learning & Spontaneity. Are you in a moment when you want A or B? If you want B, then I will do differently. I will check in what you want, especially when you look tired.
If trust broken and repaired, trust increases afterwards.
Two mistakes:
- Underestimate impact of the war, by asking the people to lower their hands, when they had no way to ask me
- Overestimate people's capacity at a time of great time, to think in complexity, without acknowledging, making room for what people're experiencing
- Energy: no shame, no judgment of myself
- I didn't foresee what the impact it might have had on you when I talked through you not to you
= I would like to make contact now with people impacted. First, a moment of silence
= I'm telling you what part of that mistake is mine
=Can you describe the experience that you wanted empathy for? --> Then Miki empathized
=Do you know why I'm glad you reached out? You're super important by giving information
=When there's already a misunderstanding, I want to double on my efforts.
---- at level of information, you see the politics
---- at level of resonance, you still want to uphold the agency of individuals
recognize your autonomy is not a need,
I see you're thinking deeply, but I want to understand at the level of need, rights and needs are different animals. Saying I want to have a right that my autonomy be seen is different from saying a need. ---> safety
I want to pause. I'm receiving something from this in terms of my capacity to understand humans overall.
What's the feeling in you?
=Is there any other part of your experience that you'd still like me to understand? Or is there a sense in you that "Miki gets me"?
=If that's a yes, usually it's an immediate yes.
You have a willingness to get me
=I don't want to settle for this. I want to know from you, what would it take from you and from me to come to a place of total human trust? Because that's what I want.
I think time will help you settle, but I believe things have to be said or heard between us.
Maybe there's something you want to understand about me that'll help you, is there?
Hold this gap on full togetherness. I don't experience this often.
My sense if that we're together holding this gap, and willing to do our parts, not you leaning on me or me leaning on you.
I want you to find it in the space between us.
I want to wait a few seconds to see if any question comes for you to ask me.
I'm going to leave it here open and trusting that we'll find our ways together.
= I want to talk about rights & needs, and I don't know whether to say it before or after talking with you, because I don't know what you're wanting to talk about.
Rights vs Needs
I see rights as victory of colonialism. It's hard to talk about this because it's so universally accepted.
- Needs language connects. We see ourselves & each other in the needs. If I need something, it's an invitation to see where resources can be brought together to tend to it.
- Rights language separates. My right is a claim whether or not it works for you. Contractual invidual construction - Enlightenment European thinking
When we have differences, life gets interesting, we exercise human faculties.
I don't want to change your mind, but I want to share how much deep anguish I have about this.
= I see you're making a separating move, what is purpose of doing that/ what is the purpose of expressing your divergent opinion?
= Stop, FEEL the pain & anguish of where you are. So much more connecting than if you just SAY what your view is. FEEL into the times when you have completely different views from the mainstream.
= This is one way of connecting.
= Say this piece: Ahhh, when I share my view, fighting happens, I'm in so much stress. I don't know what to do.
what is important to say NOW about any of your experience?
Because if we say it, we'll get to world peace.
The ENERGY of I know the truth, if you agree with me, we'll have world peace.
##Legislation need to pass, went door to door: Instead of trying to convince, they asked "Please tell us why you see people would disagree with this" --> turn divergence into project that bring us together.
I have had many experiences when ppl fight when I share what I believe will bring world peace. Would you listen to me, and AS SOON AS you hear something that dismisses others, can you please STOP ME and tell me, and then we can think together how we can honor both me and the people who disagree with me.
What helps me to connect with you is for you to share how you feel now that you made a mistake, and why you said what you said last time?
- I'm happy to and I'm afraid, because the way I think is different from how others often think. I'm afraid when we're close to breakout time.
- I'm afraid of the power of US/ NATO to shape our views, hiding how they destabilize the world.
- Putin's one of the faces that takes active efforts for me to recognize him as kin.
- From within the logic of war, "this war is unjustified but not unprovoked"
= Do you need time to recover from that, there's the second piece --> I want
Every week every year that this course is running, there's genocide everywhere, it's hard to me that certain war takes center stage, and the rest of the world's suffering becomes invisible
Deep need from which I couldn't stay with Tanya long you
Where were you all when Yemen was invaded, where were you when Isreali, ...? Why this one?!
That's so difficult to hold when people are genuinely suffering
I cannot give all of me to one suffering without holding the whole
I'll say this if half the people choose to live, otherwise, the experience in me is that I'm an accomplice in the erasure of all the suffering around me in the world
Trevor Noah clip
I'm willing to take risk and have people leave if that's what it takes for people to not take one narrative for all
It does not reduce the suffering of Ukrainians, I just don't want that to be the only thing that is on the table
From you: The truth of how close or distant you're from me when you hear this
Thank you and I trust you that you'll tell me when you feel more distant
I'm not sure if I understand you on the information level.
= Would you be willing to? --> Can I ask someone who understands well to be in a breakout with Veronica?
(1) Do what you need to settle your nervous system. (2) Touch in where are you, what happened to you, what would you want to learn about next?
Several years ago I saw many gifts of leadership in you, and I wanted to contribute specifically, and I'm glad by chance I did today.
Your whole being is consumed in your experience, your care for children.
Thank you for distinguish, my intention was never saying someone deserve or don't deserve attention for your anguish
That was too much for a piece. Can I have a sentence?
@ I made a mistake
@ I keep repeating this mistake. It keeps happening. I'm tired. My body is strungout.. I feel so blank. I don't know why I got trapped. I knew I was waylaid, addiction. I'm very tired. I keep looking for a dopamine kick, and not getting it. I'm so scared I will never escape. Can someone help? Is that only me?
I want to rest. I want peace. Somebody gives me.
Mar 12 - #06 - Flow
There are no NVC beginner, only people just met NVC.
Making Life Work - Sep 11 - God bless everyone, no exception.
How to connect with the wrong patterns of our lives?
How to live a life of empathy
I'm not saying you've been here long enough you should know better.
What's in the fear that you're avoiding? You're still skipping over it.
Empathic action - not asking, guessing, but acting to attend to need
There are always a hundred tangents, of we go through them all, it over-taxes the group.
What changed when Darbi slowed down? She got real. Can you find the resolve to do that?
I just want to accompany you warmly, I don't know why it's a hard journey, I know it's hard, and I'm here. Just take a few deep breath. You were touching something existential in you.
SOL - shit out of luck: have sb blame/shame while you try to empathize, jujitsu NVC
We're a low-capacity species. We're always a hair-breath away from NO TRUST. Yet the tools we have are borne of trust.
= Can you think if you want to take the question? --> I want YOU to discern whether that's an elemental or advanced level?
Myths:
- The only way to understand it to feel their feelings.
- I get too close to the person's feelings, trying to care for those, that I cannot empathize.
- =I won't wish that for everyone.
- Drawing: my feelings engulf me, overwhelm me. We usually try make feelings smaller. Or we make ourselves bigger, more capacity = my feelings are within me.
- If they're inside their feelings, and I got inside w them. = NOT help. We try to increase their capacity.
= Let me see what you got from it, in your own language?
What does it mean to say "nothing happened"? It says you have no reason to feel what you're feeling.
= I want to understand principles before the behavior. (to question - What do you ask when you want to increase someone's capacity?). I'm not going to be prescriptive.
WE NEVER HAVE DISPROPORTIONATE FEELINGS. We always have proportionate feelings. TRUST her that she's a biological creature, things flow through us.
WHY: we want to support each other to increase capacity in dealing with what happens with us?
HOW: Is what I'm doing helping to increase capacity?
There is NO rule. Whatever someone says, respond with empathy.
How do you prevent it becoming a 2-hour saga? I trust life. Children who're cared for, they are done with crying after a few minutes.
=Only ask clarity question, only if you didn't understand, not what if and what about questions.
Empathy: orientation towards understanding & caring for someone's experience.
Nonviolence - love (also truth & courage): expanding my circle of care to infinity, care for entirety of web of life
Everything we do has the least impact that we can create, given who I am, what I know, where I am.
The way I can make sense of the person's experience that life-giving. The other way is evaluative (she's an asshole, good, etc.). OR I can try to ask: what is it like to them, what do they want? You don't need to know NVC to do this.
=I don't know how to hold with care. Give me an example?
=Remember specific incident. Tell us what your friend did that you found frustrating.
=I put this to everyone. Do you have guesses as to what she wants?
- connect, and ease
=SLOW SLOW SLOW DOWN. Before any BUT, if you remove yourself completely from this situation, and you trust see this situation, she wants to be heard, do you want her to be heard? That's the care.
=We'll get to your needs in a bit. If you cannot separate her needs from YOU having to be the one to hold it, you can care.
=Can you access these 2 at the same time: I don't want to listen to this one more time!!! and I want her to be heard! Simultaneously?
=Just say the needs, not the narratives afterwards (I want connection, not be a dumping ground.) Just say the needs and stay there.
Now you're on the little mountain. You have an engineering problem - how to care for both needs.
=Homework: Think about a moment, NOT when the story is being told, how you can care for both.
Why & What: purpose & mission, principle & practice
Fast track to increase capacity: move back & forth between what & why
Are you aware that I'm not listening to you?
Yes.
Then why're you still talking?
Because I want you to hear me.
Empathy - invented Greek word, 200 years old. Find your own clarity about what you mean when you say empathy & sympathy.
- Empathy: feeling into the other. Sympathy: feeling WITH the other.
- Where's the energy focused? One person can be talking and focus on me, you, or the whole.
The more I care doesn't mean the more I do. I become more laser-like in what I do.
If you trust in life, you'll have no dictator.
Biological, cellular expectation, NOT moral expectation, that life takes care of us.
=I have regular repeated bouts of wanting to die, when I see the gap between the simplicity of the vision, and the capacity I see around me, how the systems are still rolling the same old way.
=What is yours to do in a world going down in flame. What I'm doing is ridiculously small.
=Do you know what is yours to do? Do you have any sliver of what is yours to do? We're all told that we're small & insignificant. A draft you may throw out tomorrow. Owning it is risking our significance. We won't get very far without risking our significance.
Speak to strangers & children from this place: Don't ever forget that you're free. Don't let anyone tell you...
I have this power inside me, I want to contribute.
I want to you cross the line to be in solidarity.
When adults do something to children, it takes enormous energy from the child to resist.
=When you can access mourning, we move through things quicker, gather more energy.
In relationship to me, you can be in your power, you never have to comply. Remember this in your heart, when in doubt, come to me.
Like you, I've been trained to comply. If there's a tiny chance to raise you up without passing it to you, I'm taking it.
=Children who're well cared for and well held, they have fluidity, wisdom to navigate the system, they don't have to be beaten into it.
@To care for myself. To hold up a torch that goodness prevails.
When we can care for the whole, leadership becomes an engineering problem, not coercive.
@Indeed it's not possible to care for it now, if anyone has capacity, if you Hazel have capacity to stay back, and be with her.
@I didn't hear the whole thing, and I want to hear so I can enjoy.
This session on the limits of empathy Miki mentioned, especially the exchange with Jurgita: https://empathiceurope.com/online/courses/time-for-empathy-2022/modules/materials-2/
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