Review of Nonviolent Communication

Posted on October 21, 2020 by admin

Nonviolent Communication is my new favorite communication book; Crucial Conversations, my previous favorite, is now a close second. The late Marshall Rosenberg discusses a lot of stuff that I’ve read elsewhere; I liked that because repetition helps me remember to practice what I’ve learned. There’s also some things that were new to me and others that I’ve believed all my life but hadn’t seen many people discuss. Here are some of the highlights.

Rosenberg describes nonviolent communication as a language based on listening for the needs of others and expressing your own needs in a compassionate way. When asked how they feel, many people either instead say what they’re thinking or give a general response (“good”, “bad”, etc). Nonviolent communication aims to change this by making you aware of what’s going on in your emotions and in your body (for example: “I’m feeling frustrated, my stomach is in knots, and my throat is tight”). When listening to someone, it’s helpful to state what you observe about the situation, identify how the other person appears to be feeling, guess which of their needs are being unmet, and ask what will help meet those needs if they haven’t already made a request. Once you’ve done this, you can use the same approach to express your own feelings, needs, and requests; at that point, the other person will be much more receptive to you since you were receptive to them earlier.

Rosenberg acknowledges that it can be difficult to stay calm and give a measured response when someone is communicating violently. Something he finds helpful is listening for how they’re feeling and what needs of theirs aren’t being met instead of focusing on what they’re saying. This makes it much easier to notice their pain, have compassion for them, and avoid seeing them as a bad person. He gives several examples of this, including some situations that either contained some violence before the communication or which could easily have become violent. Additionally, Rosenberg says that sometimes communication alone won’t stop a person intent on causing harm to others. In those situations, he advocates protective force to protect potential victims and restrain the violent person while seeking to avoid escalating the situation with even more violence.

One of my favorite things about Nonviolent Communication is that it filled in a gap left by the other communication books I’ve read. Those focus mostly on listening to and empathizing with other people and don’t include much about speaking. This book gave me some ideas on how to share my thoughts and feelings with others more effectively. That way I can contribute more to conversations than simply listening to what others have to say and also have less fear of either coming across as a bully or being ignored. The first step involves being more in touch with my emotions and my body. That’s something I’ve learned a lot about the past few years and this book was an excellent reminder of its importance.

In addition to overlapping quite a bit with Crucial Conversations and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Nonviolent Communication has quite a bit in common with Radical Honesty. I read the two of them back to back and was surprised at how much they overlap. Both advocate being in tune with your body, honestly sharing your feelings, and giving others space to do the same. However, where Radical Honesty advises you to speak your mind without concern for hurting anyone’s feelings, Nonviolent Communication is all about having compassion for everyone involved by speaking without blame or accusations. As such, I consider Nonviolent Communication to be the nice version of Radical Honesty. I recommend reading all of the above books as they each have something valuable to say about communication. For now, though, Nonviolent Communication remains my favorite. It’s given me both the clearest motivation to communicate compassionately and the best tools to do so. I look forward to continuing to practice what it’s taught me and seeing how it makes life better for me and those around me.

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Dealing with Impostor Syndrome

Posted on October 14, 2020 by admin

I recently mentioned having impostor syndrome and a friend asked me if I had any tips for managing it. Although I had never thought much about it before, I reflected on my experiences this year and came up with several things worth mentioning. The first one is reminding myself of my successes, both past and present. Challenges I’ve overcome, skills I’ve learned, things I’ve gotten better at, people I’ve helped, things once difficult that are now easy, etc. So much comes to mind here that it gives me confidence that, one way or another, I’ll be able to get through any predicament I find myself in.

I also find it helpful to keep in mind that even the most successful people made things up as they went and learned a lot along the way. Nobody started out the gate an instant success or knew every step they’d take before they took it. I know from the things I’ve learned that learning as I go is often more valuable than trying to figure it all out in advance. Whenever I remember that, it gives me hope that I can still accomplish great things even if I don’t always know what I’m doing.

Words have always been extremely fascinating and important to me and I really appreciate the affirming words that many people I know have given me over the years. These can range from simple compliments to major expressions of gratitude to showing me things about myself that I have a hard time seeing, appreciating, or accepting. Trying to see myself as my loved ones see me can make a huge difference when I’m feeling low.

The last thing that came to mind is observing my thoughts and feelings without labeling, judging, or trying to change them. If I feel like a fake or a failure, I’ll just let those feelings be without buying into them or trying to shoo them away. The observation and lack of resistance reminds me that those feelings aren’t part of me and that they’re incorrect, which makes them go away on their own fairly quickly (in most cases; even when they stick around for a while, observing them makes me feel more at peace than when I’m resisting them).

I haven’t conquered impostor syndrome but I have found all of the above helpful for dealing with it. All the inner work I’ve done over the past few months has reduced both the frequency and intensity of impostor syndrome; this gives me less to deal with when it does show up. I have a feeling that continuing to surrender will gradually whittle down what remains of my impostor syndrome until there’s nothing left. We’ll find out someday. I hope this has been helpful and I will see you in the next post.

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Music and Emotional Healing

Posted on October 7, 2020 by admin

Lately, I’ve found music to be extremely helpful for bringing up emotions for me to work through. It can be difficult for me to get in touch with certain emotions or fully feel them when I’m overwhelmed. Emotionally moving songs make it much easier to connect with and feel through whatever comes up. While I can do this with songs that are new to me, I’ve found it most powerful with songs that I’ve known for many years. For example, “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” helps me deal with having both a savior/god complex and impostor syndrome. The version of “Oo De Lally” in this commercial and “Bridge over Troubled Water” are my go-to songs whenever I need a good cry; “We’ve Got Tonite” works well for relationship blues and the tears they often bring.

This isn’t limited purely to painful feelings, however. “Here Comes the Sun” is great at reminding me of the things I love in life and gets me to focus on such emotions as joy, happiness, peace, and love. “The Boxer” makes me think of what I’ve overcome and restores my determination when it’s running low. And “Rainbow Connection” is the closest thing I have to a life song; ever since I first heard it, it resonated with me like no other song before or since. Each of those songs can lift my spirits, remind me of my mission, and make me grateful to be me.

Those are just some of the songs that work well for my emotional work. Music has always been important to me but it was only recently that I started using it to work through emotions in this way. Before, I used it to escape from or wallow in my unwanted feelings and reminisce about past events or dream about possible futures. Although that could be cathartic at times, such catharsis was limited only to the times in which I was listening to the music. I didn’t carry what I’d learned with me once I resumed my regular life. That has been one of the lessons I’ve learned this year and I’m sure it will stick with me going forward. What are some songs that help you work through your emotions? I’d love to hear about them and try them out for myself.

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Personal Growth and the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Posted on September 30, 2020 by admin

My life over the past few years has been like a combination of experiences from Doctor Strange, Thor, and the Hulk in the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) movies. I saw the Doctor Strange parallels several years ago. This was the easiest of the three for me to notice as I relate to Doctor Strange more than any other character in the MCU. We’re both smart, have great memories, are good at what we do, and went through a life-changing event that broke us and forced us to do things way differently (for both of us, part of that change involved gradually getting into spirituality). The changes we made helped us overcome our demons (arrogance, disregard for the feelings of others, wanting to always be right, striving to be the best due to fear of failure, and so on) and get closer to our potential as well as our life purposes.

More recently, I realized that there are also a lot of similarities between myself and the Hulk. There was the smart, analytical, and reserved side of Bruce Banner along with the strong, angry, and childlike side of the Hulk. Those two sides were constantly at war for control and neither of them liked or wanted anything to do with the other. When one was in control, the other was totally ineffective. In Avengers: Endgame, they managed to reconcile with each other and become whole. As a result, they had the intelligence and personality of Bruce Banner along with the strength and power of the Hulk at all times. There was a great sense of peace from that unity and the cessation of the inner civil war. I’ve experienced that same peace as I’ve done more shadow work and gotten better at reconciling aspects of myself that I had spent most of my life fighting. As is the case with Bruce Banner and the hulk, all the work I’ve done toward becoming whole has been well worth it.

Then there’s Thor. In Thor: Ragnarok, he lost his father Odin, his best friends, his hammer Mjolnir, and his homeworld of Asgard. Then in Avengers: Infinity War, he lost Loki and many of the surviving Asgardians. On top of all that, he was unable to stop Thanos from wiping out half of all life in the universe later in the same movie. This was in addition to the other losses he suffered in a number of other MCU movies. As a result, during Avengers: Endgame, he fell into a state of deep depression, lost all hope, and suffered for a long time. What got him out of that state was seeing that he was still worthy to wield his hammer and having a conversation with his mother that restored his hope and gave him the will to continue his mission despite his struggles. I was in a similar state of hopelessness and depression for most of this year in response to everything that I’ve lost since March. Just like with Thor, I didn’t start feeling better until I started remembering who I was and began intentionally working through my emotions. Even though that hasn’t brought back anything that I’ve lost, it has given me more peace than I’ve had in a long time. The knowledge that I can continue working through my emotions and that I don’t have to be held down or held back by anything from my past, whether good or bad, is incredibly liberating.

I enjoy finding parallels between superhero movies and experiences in my life. Doing so helps me better understand and articulate things such as shadow work, self-love, transcending difficult situations, and working through unwanted emotions. It’s also useful for quickly and effectively illustrating some relatively obscure concepts. I’m sure I’ll find more parallels as I continue watching superhero movies and working on myself. I hope you found this interesting and were able to use it to find ways to incorporate these good practices into your life.

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Dwelling vs Surrender

Posted on September 23, 2020 by admin

If you’ve read any of my past posts on surrender, you might be wondering what the difference is between dwelling on an unwanted emotion and surrendering it. That’s a good question. Although they are superficially similar in that they both involve sitting with emotions, to me there are several key differences.

With dwelling on an emotion, I think of letting it overtake me to the point that I become hopeless, desperate, and feel like I can’t do anything except wallow in that feeling. A lot of thought is dedicated to that emotion and there is plenty of resistance alongside the desire for it to be gone as soon as possible; dwelling on an emotion involves trying to stuff it down, push it to the side, and get rid of it. There’s also a tendency to play certain events in my mind over and over again without much attention dedicated to the feelings.

Surrender is quite different. Surrender involves quieting my thoughts and letting my mind settle so that I’m not fixated on thinking. That allows me to examine and focus completely on the feelings underneath the thoughts. That makes it much easier to sit with the feelings and let them be there without overtaking me. Unlike dwelling, surrender doesn’t stop me from going about my day. I can surrender to different feelings as I’m doing other things: walking around, completing tasks at work, driving, engaging in my hobbies, and so on. There’s a little bit of attention devoted to letting the feelings be there but I still have plenty of attention in reserve for other tasks. Letting the feelings be there is a key part of surrender and is much more effective than resisting them or thinking something along the lines of “I hate this, this sucks, I want this to be over with as soon as possible”. I often say to the feelings “You are welcome to be here until you’re ready to leave. You’re welcome to be here as long as you like.” And sooner or later, those feelings will leave when the energy underneath them runs out. Some feelings will leave quite quickly and others will take much longer, but eventually all those negative, unwanted feelings will be gone once they’ve been given enough attention and nonresistance.

My own experience is that dwelling on negativity just makes me feel worse and doesn’t help me get over it at all. In contrast, surrender is incredibly effective at helping me move past unwanted emotions and getting me closer to feeling how I like to feel: light, happy, free, joyful, and at peace. I hope this makes sense and helps you understand the way I see the difference between dwelling on something and surrendering to it. If you’ve been dwelling on emotions for a long time, then I encourage you to try surrendering to them instead. I’d love to hear about your experiences with it if you do.

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Letting Go and Gratitude

Posted on September 16, 2020 by admin

It’s been a little over a month now since I’ve been letting go consistently. I started doing it a little bit on my way back from my road trip. Even though I wasn’t using the full letting go technique, it still helped. Several weeks after that, I had almost gotten home after a particularly healing float when I had a realization in which I finally fully understood the technique. Before, I’d been letting emotions come up and sitting with them for a little bit before brushing them to the side when I’d had enough. That’s just another way to suppress emotions. The letting go technique as described in the book involves sitting with the emotions until they’re ready to leave and letting the energy behind them run out. Depending on the emotion and its strength, it can take anywhere from a few seconds to a few weeks (perhaps even longer) to fully let it go.

Since the night that I had that realization, I’ve been letting go properly every day. As I’ve gotten better at it, I’ve progressed from letting go just a few times a day to almost constantly surrendering whatever comes up, whether it’s a reaction to something going on around me or something from my past. For example, if someone cuts me off in traffic, I just sit with and surrender to whatever anger, frustration, aggression, or other similar emotions come up. That way I’m not overtaken by them and I’m also not burying them deep down where they can cause havoc later on in a variety of ways. By dealing with them as they come up, they disappear almost instantly. A lot of emotions from my past require more time. The more deep-seated the emotions and the longer I’ve held onto them (decades in some cases), the longer I have to sit with them. But the technique still works with any and all emotions. And man, does it work.

Since I’m close to surrendering constantly and also practicing gratitude whenever I feel the urge to complain, I’ve cleared out a lot of mental junk that’s been weighing me down for a long time. It’s gotten me into the state of flow, also known as wu wei. I’m now much better at taking life as it comes without resisting it. If there’s something I want to change, I fully accept whatever the situation is first and then I see what I can do to change it. I’m also much more compassionate for myself, both in present and in past situations. I know that I was always doing the best I could at the time in any given situation and I no longer blame myself for not doing things differently or for not starting the practice of letting go sooner (or not fully understanding it, or not practicing it for long after I first learned about it last year). This increased compassion for myself makes it easier to let go of resistance to feeling positive emotions. When I feel resistance to those emotions, I ask myself why I’m resisting them and if I’m willing to let them go. That usually does the trick. If it doesn’t, I will observe whatever is blocking the positive emotions and surrender those blocks so that the positivity can flow freely.

The sense of peace, joy, freedom, love, lightness, and happiness I’ve gotten from this is incredible. It was early last week that I made a real profound shift during and after another float: I had let go of enough stuff by that point to move onto the next level where I could be close to surrendering constantly. I’ve gotten glimpses of this state before and each glimpse was motivation to continue working toward making this my default state. Now I feel like I can make my home here. Recently I’ve had glimpses of even higher states and they are serving as motivation to work toward those levels of consciousness. I know I can get there by continuing to let go of that which doesn’t serve me and that doing so will make me feel better all the time as I move toward my highest good.

Getting rid of negative emotions makes room for positive emotions and allows me to enjoy my life much more, be more effective at whatever I do, and be more present wherever I am. It also helps me in my interactions with others. At this point, in addition to having a lot less anxiety in social situations, I’m much less concerned with what other people do. Whenever I find myself getting upset by what someone else has said or done, I use it as an opportunity to look inside myself and ask “What about this is upsetting to me?” Rather than let upsetting or triggering events overwhelm me or make me feel bad, I instead observe what I’m thinking and feeling in the moment and see what inside me needs to be healed. This way, looking at others is like looking into a mirror. It’s hard to directly examine my own behavior so taking this approach of seeing things to heal in myself through the actions of others is very helpful.

Additionally, when I look at other people now and see them behaving in a way that seems to come from a place of anger, fear, or another kind of pain, I have compassion for them. I often wonder what they’re struggling with that’s causing them to act that way; what it is inside them that remains to be healed and is hurting them so much. Even with people that I’ve butted heads with in the past and would rather not interact with at this point, I still find myself having compassion for them when I think about them or see them. Just as I’ve found a lot of peace, joy, and freedom from working through my own emotions, I hope that they can also find that same peace, joy, and freedom by working through whatever’s troubling them. These are concepts that I’ve understood for a long time on an intellectual level but didn’t actually feel on an emotional level until relatively recently. I see my increased compassion for both myself and for others as a sign that I’m making good progress and am moving in the right direction.

I’m less dependent on external conditions to make me feel good now that I’m much more capable of producing good feelings by myself. That itself has been incredibly freeing. In closing, I’ll say that whatever practice you find helpful, whether it’s letting go, practicing gratitude, visualizations, affirmations, or anything else, practice it constantly. The more you practice it, the better you’ll feel and the better off you’ll be. That’s what has made all the difference for me by allowing me to escape my emotional prison and experience the joy, peace, and beauty that comes with inner peace and freedom.

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One Piece at a Time

Posted on September 9, 2020 by admin

Johnny Cash has a song called “One Piece at a Time”. It tells the story of an auto worker who decides that since he can’t afford to buy one of the Cadillacs he helps build, he’ll just steal it one piece at a time. He does that over many years until he eventually has a working car that is a weird mesh of parts from many different decades. I’ve taken this approach in my own life. Not for stealing cars but as a way of getting stuff done effectively.

A few weeks ago, I had a lot of stuff to do in a short amount of time after work one day. Rather than focus solely on any one task until I had completed it, I bounced between several tasks, spending a little bit of time on each one before moving on to the next one. This helped me read a chapter of my book, work on a blog post, practice my Spanish, start packing for a trip, and do chinups before moving on to unicycling and juggling (I did focus on those last two tasks exclusively until I was finished with them). After all that, I still had plenty of time to take a shower and eat dinner before a friend called; we had a fairly lengthy conversation since I had hardly anything else to do afterward besides go to bed.

I was super productive during those few hours and I never felt like I was rushing or pushing myself too hard because I focused on one small piece at a time. This piecemeal approach has helped me a lot lately, whether I’ve used it at work or in my free time. Maybe it’ll help you, too. Either way, I’d love to hear about your experiences with it if you decide to try it out.

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Review of Crucial Conversations

Posted on September 2, 2020 by admin

Crucial Conversations is my favorite book on communication. I just finished reading it a few weeks ago and it absolutely blew me away. It contains the combined wisdom of authors Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler, and the many situations they studied to learn how powerful effective communication can be. Here are the things that stuck with me the most.

The core of the book is about making it safe for everyone in a conversation to share their thoughts. This requires stepping out of the content of the conversation and looking at the conditions when trouble arises. What are you feeling when you’re talking or listening to someone else? How do the people you’re around come across to you: happy, frustrated, disinterested, impatient, downtrodden, etc? If things appear to be going downhill, then now is the time to restore safety in order to get the conversation back on track. Some ways to restore safety include doing your best to understand others by giving them plenty of time to speak without interruption, looking at not just what they’re saying but at the underlying feelings that they’re trying to convey, repeating back certain key words, and asking questions to clarify how they’re feeling and where they’re coming from. It can be difficult to restores safety when a conversation becomes heated but doing so is crucial for keeping things from going any further off the rails.

The authors also discuss the “Path to Action”, which goes as follows: we observe something, tell ourselves a story about it, feel one or more emotions based on that story, and then act based on those emotions. Almost everyone does this, even if it’s quickly and on a subconscious level. It’s incredibly difficult to avoid telling ourselves stories but that isn’t the main problem. The real problem comes when those stories are inaccurate; this results in a lot of emotions, many of which are often negative, that can make us act in destructive ways. Noticing the tendency to tell ourselves stories (which becomes easier by regularly practicing mindfulness) allows us to ignore harmful stories by rewriting them as positive stories or, perhaps with enough practice, even stop telling ourselves stories altogether. Either one will result in massively improved communication.

Everyone should read Crucial Conversations, especially those who, like myself, grew up with many horrible communication habits. Although it’s much easier to learn good habits than to try unlearning bad habits, it’s still possible to learn good habits later in life. This book has tons of great communication habits. Even with all my struggles, what I’ve learned from my first reading of this book has already made a positive difference. So many problems could be solved or even prevented from manifesting in the first place if most people read this book at an early age and practiced its lessons throughout their lives. I highly recommend reading Crucial Conversations and I think even the best communicators could still learn a thing or two from checking it out. I’d love to hear what you think of it if you decide to give it a read.

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Removing My Restrictor Plates

Posted on August 26, 2020 by admin

In some NASCAR races, the cars are fitted with restrictor plates to reduce the amount of air coming into the engines. This, in turn, reduces the power of the cars, limits how quickly they can accelerate, and prevents them from going as fast as they otherwise could. Restrictor plates are often used in bigger races where cars can easily get above 200 mph, such as the Daytona 500. The intention behind restrictor plate usage is to make the races safer and reduce the chances of crashes.

I realized some time ago that I’ve put restrictor plates in myself over the years in response to being berated, judged, intimidated, or even hit after expressing thoughts that others didn’t like. As a result, I learned to refrain from sharing certain thoughts, say what I thought others wanted me to say instead of what I actually thought, and censor myself in many other ways. Writing has been very cathartic and liberating for me because I have much more courage to express myself through the written word than I do through the spoken word. Writing is especially helpful when I’m sharing controversial ideas or if talking with someone whom I’m sure will disagree with me (although I’m often wrong in guessing who will dislike what I say and who will like it).

I’ve been working for a while now on removing my restrictor plates. In the process, I’m rediscovering the courage and confidence to express myself that I had when I was a little kid. I’m gradually relearning how to be myself and speak my mind without fear of what others will think, say, or do in response. Although I’ve been at this for just over a month at the time of this writing, I feel like I’ve made fairly quick progress due to my dedication. Working at this every day and finding the handful of life hacks that have made the biggest difference for me (floating, a variation of Wim Hof breathing, meditation, practicing gratitude, and using what I’ve learned from Letting Go) has made me feel much more like myself and made me far more comfortable around other people than I was before I started doing consistent inner work. It’s made me more talkative, more at ease when sharing my thoughts, better at listening, and has even affected my voice in a few positive ways. That’s what I’ve found thus far. I’ll let you know what else I find as I keep working on myself.

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A Window Into My Head

Posted on August 19, 2020 by admin

It can start with anything: a word, a sound, a smell, a taste, a touch, a sight, a thought, an idea, a song, or anything else, really. Any one of those can spark a memory. That memory has all kinds of strings attached to it. I’ll recall who I was with, how I was feeling at the time, how I feel about it looking back, what I know about that situation now that my past self didn’t know then (this can go on for many more layers with old memories as different versions of myself stack on top of each other and all observe me at different points in time), what I wish I’d done differently, etc. Undoubtedly, most or all of those memories will trigger more memories and pretty soon I have dozens of memory avalanches simultaneously cascading through my mental mountains, each one building speed and gathering more memories as it goes. Examples can include entire episodes of TV shows I still remember perfectly from when I was a little kid, songs that fit my current mood or situation, flashbacks from dreams (or perhaps they’re daydreams; sometimes it’s hard to tell), famous people who were in multiple works that I’ve seen and thus serve to connect those otherwise unrelated works, things I wanted to say but either didn’t have the opportunity or the courage at the time to share, and so on.

This isn’t just limited to memories as it can work with ideas, too. This often happens when I’m talking with someone. I’ll begin to connect dots and put pieces together in ways that I hadn’t previously. New connections form and I achieve some eureka moments. I can be very articulate when this happens, especially if I get out of my own way and just let the words flow out of me without trying to direct or control my stream of consciousness. That process continues even when I’m not talking unless I consciously choose to settle my mind. As I’m listening to someone talk about things I find invigorating and intriguing, thought avalanches build up in my head. I try my best to actually listen to what they’re saying while also waiting for a good moment to jump in before an avalanche gets too big. If I can’t find a good place to jump in or if the conversation shifts such that a particular avalanche now seems irrelevant, I’ll stop it in its tracks and hope I can remember it later on if it’s worth writing down. Sometimes I’ll get through just a little bit of an avalanche before someone cuts me off and uses what I’ve said to create an avalanche of their own.

This is why I prefer sharing my ideas through writing: I can get all of my avalanches out without interruption or losing my train of thought and they often make more sense when written out than they do when spoken. By the way, all of this is amplified when I’m alone and don’t have to switch between genuinely listening to what others have to say and sharing my own thoughts. In those situations, things can really get interesting and my creativity can reach new heights. That’s a taste of what it’s like in my head.

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