Friday Mind Dump
Talking vs Listening
if i had to create one of those time management pie charts of how i spend most of my work life, i would say 20% of it is me talking to individuals, small groups, large groups, etc. The other 80% is listening to what people are saying, to what they are not saying, and what they wish they could say if all of the bullshit of life didn’t get in the way.
People are trained to lie. We lie to survive.
Our lies become coping mechanisms. We have picked up so many of the along the way that keeps us from saying, “I need _______, would you be willing to provide that for me?”
Reflections from Compassionate Communication Workshop
I taught this framework, and I don’t think I spent enough time walking through this practice. Here’'s a brain dump of all of the things I could have said about these four things.
Observations: This is an underrated skill, and we do not spend enough time practicing it. I remember in school we learned about observation, but we never took the time to sit still and just watch something. The longer you can sit observing something without judgment, the deeper you can come to understand it. Often people don’t know what they need because they have not given themselves the time to sit and look at the problem. Just because you can vent about the problem, doesn’t mean you have observed it through this objective lens. What questions have you asked? Most organizations know what is making them mad about the problem, but few of them have made the time to understand what may be going on underneath the surface.
Feelings: I love me some feelings. They are my favorite piece of data to track. Knowing someone’s relationships to feelings is sometimes even more important than what they are actually feeling. How aware are the leaders of this organization about how they feel and how others may feel. If you’ve got a leader who doesn’t care about feelings and the chief complaint from his team is that he gives harsh feedback, then I know we may have to work on compassion and fragility. If the leader has big emotional responses to challenging points of view, I know we need to work on radical self-love and vulnerability.
Our relationship to feelings is directly connected to our relationships with other people. It’s not important that anyone have to change who they are, what we are actually seeking is if they can gain awareness about themselves and their actions. And perhaps make adjustments to meet the needs of others around them. Humans are designed to co-regulate and balance out our diversities. We need each other to survive, so having someone with a different perspective than you is not bad, what we have lost as a practice is the micro-adaptions to our behaviors that allow others to thrive and survive amongst us.
Needs: Ugh. This one breaks my heart because humans were made to identify our needs and go get them! We have adapted to these beings because we have been very good at this, but as we continue to evolve into these beautiful spiritual beings, we have simultaneously filled up our lives with so much news and information that’s hard to even get in touch with ourselves. You ever listen to someone after you ask them, “What can help with?” and they go on to tell you so many things, but never say, “Oh, I need those boxes to come to this side of the room.” Instead the person may tell you why those boxes shouldn’t be on the other side of the room or they’ll tell you how hard it has been to have the boxes in the house.
Naming our needs is a deep vulnerablity in a society that has made us believe that we are not worthy of anything. If you don’t even feel worthy enough to buy that cute dress because society has said your arms are too fat to even be seen in public, how on earth will you have the vulnerability to tell someone that you want to be loved by them. When we can tell our fellow humans what we need from them, not only are we contributing to our own healing, we are saving the human species by returning us back to interdependent beings who work on the behalf of one another.
Request: Knowing your need or even articulating your need with someone, does not mean that the other person knows they are the person you want to meet that need for them. Ask. Ask. Ask. The answer no will be hard. And you may have to eat a half-pint of ice cream afterward or do whatever coping strategy works for you, but you will survive. Humans are pretty awesome. The more you are clear about what you need and asking for it, the more likely you are to have people in your life who learn how to adapt to you instinctually.
I needed that win.
I needed to feel powerful again. I needed to feel needed. I needed to feel useful. I needed to teach. I needed to have my thoughts and ideas validated.
During one moment explaining Right Speech, I came out of myself, and I felt like I was floating as I talked about love and the words we say.
Tip for self.
Less news. More podcasts.
