You know how people keep saying life feels like the movie Groundhog Day right now? That comparison doesn’t resonate for me in terms of the movie itself because in the film, Bill Murray broke up monotony by learning the piano and wooing Andie MacDowell. In my life, it feels like I’m watching Groundhog Day over and over again because I already know what to expect each day for the most part: work, a walk, and a Zoom call.
I didn’t know until I started writing this post, but a definition of Groundhog Day, is “a situation in which a series of unwelcome or tedious events appear to be recurring in exactly the same way.” So from that perspective, yeah, I’m on board with life right now being Groundhog Day. If variety is the spice of life, my life is pretty bland at the moment. There’s a pinch of variety in terms of decorating my apartment for the holidays, and FaceTiming with my family for Hanukkah, but otherwise it’s pretty monotonous over here.
When I told my mom I wasn’t sure I had anything to write about this week, especially not in a positive or uplifting way, she told me a lot of people likely feel the way I do. They’re glum because they can’t celebrate the holidays with their normal traditions, and their lives are also an endless cycle of work, walks, and Zoom calls. I know folks are feeling optimistic because vaccine distribution has started so there’s light at the end of the tunnel, but honestly, I feel like a little kid because my response is, “Yeah, but how does that help me now?” It doesn’t.
I love this picture. So joyful! Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash
And that’s true. It doesn’t. The question becomes what can I do now, in this present moment, to bring variety? In the middle of writing this post I pulled out my guitar for the first time in years. No agenda, no goal in mind like, “I want to be good enough to play in front of other people.” I just played for me, for the fun of it. I also conducted a science experiment where I mixed two drops of food coloring in oil and then poured the mixture into a glass of room temperature water. The result? Water fireworks because the food coloring separates from the oil and plummets to the bottom of the glass. My inner child loves science experiments and they definitely bring variety.
Often I look to the future to meet my needs: “I’ll feel better when XYZ happens,” and I get stuck on a certain strategy to meet those needs. For instance, “I need the pandemic to be over in order to experience variety again.” What I’m reminded through my nonviolent communication training is there are a thousand strategies to meet every need. There’s no one way or a right way. When I focus on the need itself, I’m able to brainstorm and find delightful strategies in the moment, like creating water fireworks. And sometimes the only way to meet a need in the present moment is to remember a time when the need was met in the past and relive it. The body doesn’t know the difference between the past, present, or future so reliving something can become a present moment experience.
I know this post isn’t like many of my other ones, but I share it because I want people to know they’re not alone. And secondly, it’s my wish that sharing my process can help someone else. And if not, at least I’ll have a reminder of that time in 2020 when I felt like I was losing my mind due to monotony and then played my guitar and watched food coloring metamorphosize in water.
I dream of a world where we focus on the present and what we need in the moment. A world where we remember there are a thousand ways to meet every need. A world where we understand we don’t have to put our happiness on layaway and instead we can do something to change our mood right here and right now if we choose. A world where we indulge in little joys.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
This weekend I watched Hamlet with a friend of mine and remarked how the play touched me in a way it didn’t when I was a teenager.
I’ve seen Hamlet on numerous occasions, I’ve heard the famous soliloquy a million times, even unknowingly quoted from the play in this blog. Hamlet is a story I’m familiar with, but watching it this weekend I could relate to him, I understood him. No, my uncle did not kill my father and marry my mother, but I, too, understand about anger, grief, and despair. Maybe it’s a consequence of practicing nonviolent communication and meditating regularly, but when I watched Hamlet all I could think was, “Me too.” I wouldn’t have taken the actions he took, but I empathize with his feelings in a way I didn’t before.
I’m reminded of that quote by Maya Angelou who said, “We are all human; therefore, nothing human can be alien to us.” Yeah. Pretty much. I’m not a scholar, but it seems to me Shakespeare’s work endures because he taps into the essence of what it means to be human, with all the pain, glory, comedy, and tragedy. One minute Hamlet is contemplating suicide and the next his friends burst through the door talking and laughing. That’s certainly how my life is. I think I mentioned it here, but literally the day after I found out my co-worker died, I unintentionally participated in a wedding held in my neighbor’s backyard. My windows were open so the sounds of the ceremony wafted through the air. Life is tragic and comic, something Shakespeare understood and illustrated.
This also means all the emotions Shakespeare’s characters express, we express too. Even though he wrote his plays hundreds of years ago, they’re still relevant. There is no emotion anyone has ever felt that I haven’t felt too. Our experiences? Highly variable. Our emotions? The same.
I bring this up because I wonder how things would be different it we all held this viewpoint. Instead of calling Mexicans rapists like a certain high-ranking official, instead of calling people aliens, what if we recognized that we are all human and thus nothing human can be alien to us?
My spiritual teacher said:
Human society comprises various races. There is no reason whatever to recognize one race as superior to another race. The external differences in constitutions among these human groups cannot alter their basic human traits – love and affection, pleasure and pain, hunger and thirst. These basic biological instincts and mental propensities equally predominate in human beings of all complexions in all countries and in all ages. A mere rustic, illiterate, half-naked tribal mother of an unknown hamlet … in India bears deep maternal affections for her young children; in the same way, a well-educated mother of a locality of New York pours out of her heart a great love for her own children.
The subterranean flow of love and affection exists in all hearts alike. Every person cries out in pain, everyone feels pleasure when there are occasions of joy and happiness. [F]undamentally, their mental existences flow along the same channels of ideas and consciousness. Containing the same cosmic momentum and under the same cosmic inspiration, they all have set out for a tryst with the same destiny.
I dream of a world where we recognize we all have the same human emotions. A world where we remember there is nothing anyone can feel that we also haven’t felt, and vice versa. A world where we recognize we aren’t so alien from each other, in fact, we’re not alien at all.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
I would say the prevailing sentiment for me right now is disillusionment. I’m seeing things as they are, not how I’d like them to be. I read an article the other day about the presence of white supremacists growing faster on twitter than ISIS. The number of accounts has grown by 600 percent since 2012. What’s interesting is instead of feeling scared, I feel relieved. I think a part of me knew this was coming, expected it, and perhaps even prepared for it.
As I’ve perused news stories about the rise of white supremacy and neo-Nazis, a voice clearly said, “You were made for these times.” I’m not alone in this. We were all made for these times. Every experience we’ve had to date has prepared us for this precise moment and for all the moments to come. No experience is wasted.
We are each a spark of light.
When I think about my experiences, I see how my outlook, my loving nature, and my empathy are useful for today’s world.
I grew up in a household that practiced yoga and meditation and was taught from an early age to find similarities over differences. It wasn’t unusual for a person from a far-off land to stay with us. Hearing different accents was normal. I won’t say I’m completely free of bias and prejudice, but I will say I make an effort to work on it. I didn’t realize how valuable that was until after this election.
My spiritual teacher says, “Those whose preachings encourage discriminatory feelings are the worst enemies of humanity. These are the people who in every age … have caused blood to flow. And even today these vested interests are still trying to perpetrate discrimination in a thousand and one ways.”
He obviously has some strong words about those who want to encourage division. Instead, he advocates seeing everyone as a expression of the divine, something far easier said than done. A way for me to practice that is empathy. To recognize we are all human beings trying to meet our needs. I may not agree with the strategies to meet those needs, but I can see we all want the same things.
Audrey Hepburn said, “Nothing is more important than empathy for another human being’s suffering. Nothing. Not a career, not wealth, not intelligence, certainly not status. We have to feel for one another if we’re going to survive with dignity.”
Surviving with dignity means building bridges, not walls. It’s important for us to create a “we” space, not an “us versus them,” space. “Us versus them” means hate, it means discrimination, it means fear, it means cruelty. I do not hate those who hate me. I do not hate those who hate others. Hate only breeds more hate and more division. Instead, in these challenging times I’m choosing to see other people as human beings, worthy of love and respect. I will fight tooth and nail against policies and practices that harm others, but I will not do so with hate in my heart because my experiences do not allow me to do that. I was made for these times. We all were.
I dream of a world where we realize we were made for these times. A world where we realize we all have unique talents and skills that may be put to use in service of others. A world where we understand each experience prepares us for another. A world where we realize we were born for this.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
More and more I’m noticing that what we all want is to be seen, heard, and understood. We want people to empathize with us, to recognize what we’re going through and trying to express.
This week I had some angry interactions with others. They became upset over something that involved me, but wasn’t really about me. My first reaction when someone explodes in my direction is to cower, to take it in. My next reaction is to become angry in return, to meet anger with anger. Finally, I turn to empathy and say, “I hear what you’re saying. It sounds like you feel _____.” When I’m able to get to that empathic place, the person cools down and says, “You’re right, that’s exactly how I feel,” and then we’re able to have an honest conversation. The honest conversation is where the solutions come from.
Are we hearing each other the way we listen to a song?
A friend told me recently the hardest part about relationships for her is going deeper when she’s wounded. That instead of running away from her partner when he gets upset, or trying to hurt him back, is getting to that empathic, vulnerable place. I found that to be true for me too, especially when I’d much rather throttle the person’s neck. I’m not saying anger doesn’t have its place – it absolutely does – but sometimes its better to express anger to a neutral third party. Instead of escalating a heated situation, it’s often better to call up someone else and vent.
I find this to be true for other emotions too. When I’m sad, sometimes I want someone to tell me things will be OK, or to help me problem solve, but oftentimes I’d rather someone said, “I hear you. That sucks,” and then let me cry. I usually know what I need to do so I’d much rather have support than advice.
I first wrote about empathic listening or nonviolent communication in 2009. I’ve been using some of the methods I picked up ever since and find it just as inspiring now as I did then.
What I find so encouraging about empathic listening is its potential for huge and lasting change. It’s been used to reduce violence in hospitals and curb bullying. Plus Marshall Rosenberg, the founder of nonviolent communication, negotiated peace deals with terrorists using the method. I can’t help but wonder how much of the violence in the world is because people are not getting their needs met? How often are we resorting to angry words and louder voices in an effort to get people to understand where we’re coming from? Not everything can be solved with empathic listening of course, but I honestly think some problems can.
I dream of a world where we make an effort to see, hear, and understand each other better. A world where instead of firing off an angry invective, we try to access an empathic place. A world where we bring more love into our conversations, especially the hard ones. A world where we can honestly say we do hear one another.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
Originally I wasn’t going to blog about this but yesterday a friend called me up and we had this very conversation so I figure it might be worth writing about.
Yesterday I realized I’d been wrapping up my self-worth into the success or failure of the nonviolent communication seminar I’m organizing. Unconsciously I felt the outcome of the event would be a reflection of me – of my worth as a person or something. I realized I’d been taking to heart how the event turns out because if the event “fails,” if 10 people don’t show up, it means I’m a failure, that I suck as a person. And similarly, if the event goes well it shows how awesome I am.
I’m using the NVC event as an example but substitute doing well on a test, putting out a CD, getting the lead role in a play, etc. The things that feel very personal to us, it’s understandable why we take them to heart. If my book (when I publish it) doesn’t sell, it’s understandable why I’d think it was a reflection of me. It’s understandable why I would spiral down into, “My writing sucks, people hate my book, therefore I suck as a person.” It makes sense but it’s also completely ridiculous.
The outcome of this NVC event/publishing my book/baking cookies/whatever is not a reflection on me. No matter what happens I am still a divine child of God. No matter what happens I still love and approve of myself. No matter what happens my worth remains the same.
This whole thing is a reminder to me about surrender, surrendering the consequences of actions, letting things be what they are. It’s a reminder to me to extricate my self-worth from any outside forces. My worth as an individual comes from me, from who I am, who I’m being. I’m reminded of something my friend Deva said to me. “You’re special not because of what you’re doing, what you accomplish or who you know, but rather who you are.” We are unique because we are expressions of an infinite loving consciousness. We are specific incarnations of God. How many CDs we sell, how many people show up to a seminar, is indicative of nothing other than selling CDs and people showing up at a seminar.
I love and approve of myself no matter what. NO MATTER WHAT. From that space everything becomes so much easier. Less dramatic. I can detach myself from what I’m doing because outside forces are just that: outside of me.
I dream of a world where everyone loves and approves of themselves. I dream of a world where we express the artistic messages that come to us but we surrender the consequences. I dream of a world where we engage, inspire, transform but we know no matter what happens our worth remains the same. Where our worth comes from the inside, from who we are. I dream of a world where we float on an ocean of love, treasuring ourselves for the incarnations of God that we are.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
The other day on my way to work I was stopped at a red light waiting for the little green man to indicate it was safe for me to cross the street.
A cab driver had the misfortune to be jutting out on the crosswalk and infringing in the space ahead of him, perpendicular to oncoming traffic. Cars driving past honked at the man; pedestrians shook their fists and called the cabbie a jerk (or worse). While stopped at the light, witnessing the spectacle, I could feel the anger/annoyance/frustration bubbling off those around me. I felt how their anger contributed to a bad vibration. To creating a sense of unrest and an emotion quite the opposite of peace.
The now famous Heather mentioned to me many moons ago about nonviolent communication, which basically operates off the premise language has a big affect on the state of the planet. If we communicate with each other peacefully, in a nonviolent manner, compassionately, we promote peace and harmony amongst ourselves. The harmonious environment creates a ripple effect, spreading from one person to another but also changes the Earth in an energetic way. The more peace we experience in our own lives, the more peace we can bestow upon the planet.
What excites me about nonviolent communication is it places the power to create peace in my hands, in your hands, in everyone’s hands. It feels like a tangible way to promote peace everyday. Instead of banging down the door of those in power, it’s a change I can make in my life with some very real results. Here is a youtube clip from the founder of NVC, Marshall Rosenberg talking about a mediation experience between two warring tribes:
I dream of a world where we live in peace. A world where everyone everywhere feels safe at all times, day and night. A world where violence is not tolerated on a global or a local scale. A world where we treat each other with compassion and respect. A world where we communicate effectively, really listening to one another and try to meet the other person’s needs. A world where we live harmoniously with one another in peace and prosperity. A world where we feel protected at each and every moment. A world where peace reigns supreme.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.