On Thursday, I gave a 1 hour, 45 minute lecture to students at the International Christian University (ICU) in Tokyo. I was invited by Professori Mori, who teaches a class on international relations.
Hideayaki and Haruno, two of my Japanese friends, made this connection with ICU, and I am grateful.
(photo taken by Ken Anno-- thank you, Ken)
In preparation for the lecture, I reminded myself of something very useful I learned from Miki Kashtan a couple of year ago -- that people who attend an introduction to NVC are not necessarily interested in, or committed to, learning the skill sets of NVC (e.g. Observation, Feeling, Need and Request).
And I have found this to be especially true for groups -- such as this university class -- who do not deliberately choose to attend a training, but instead it is selected for them. The most extreme case of this is when I have been invited to give a training at a workplace, and the employees are "required" to attend -- this often creates an attitude of resentment and resistance even before I arrive, which I then am faced with once I get there.
In this class, obviously, the students had some degree of "buy-in" because they voluntarily signed up for the course as a whole. And to my extreme delight, my needs for receptivity and partnership and inspiration were very, very deeply satisfied.
The students, while they did not speak very much, seemed very engaged, and I sensed this based on their eye contact, facial expressions and nonverbal communication, including whenever I asked them to do something, they all agreed (which met my need for trust).
From the start, one of my favorite places to share NVC is in a university setting, which strikes me as somewhat odd -- even to myself -- because sometimes the institutional structure of universities sometimes makes it harder to establish heart connection.
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