A deeper gratitude than ever before

I returned to the U.S. 2 days ago after 7 weeks in Japan and South Korea, and I have never in my life been more grateful to have access to foods that my body is used to.




Yesterday, I walked into Sevananda Natural Foods Co-op in Atlanta, GA, and bought over $200 worth of food! As I was shopping, and as I saw a food that I had not had access to for 7 weeks, I stopped and was overtaken by gratitude -- deeply appreciating the moment, as well as the foods available to me in the U.S.

In fact, some of my long-standing irritation and disgust with American culture faded, as I felt this gratitude. For all of my frustration with our culture, I am profoundly grateful for the natural foods revolution and the fact that in most cities now, I can purchase organically-growth, fresh, high-quality food -- something that, in spite of my best efforts, I was not able to do in Asia.

I am "grateful" to one of my teachers about gratitude, fellow NVC Certified Trainer Myra Walden, who, fittingly, walked into the store in the middle of one of my gratitude moments. Myra is also in Atlanta because we 2 of the 4 facilitators of a 7-day retreat called, "Cultivating Inner and Outer Peace" along with Cynthia Moe and Mark Feinknopf.

photos from teaching NVC in Korea

A collection of photos from September 2008 teaching NVC in Seoul, South Korea. This was a small group that I taught a foundation NVC workshop to. This was one of the few trainings I gave in English only (no translator), so each of these participants was fluent in English.

(this is me at the top, and below me is Hermie from the Phillipines, who is in Korea for 9 months teaching English, as many foreigners do).

Alternate views on evolution of NVC

Lately, I have been appreciating the views expressed by Conal Elliott, a member of the NVC community who lives in San Andreas, California, which is about 2 hours east of the Bay Area.

Conal maintains a blog called, "NVC Evolves: Explorations in evolving the understanding, living, and teaching of Nonviolent Communication." I highly recommend reading what he has to say about NVC -- I find his contributions to be stimulating and lead to expansiveness in me, even when I am not in agreement with what he offers (I am in alignment with him about 80% of the time).

Here is one of his recent blog posts: "Distracted by Faux Needs?" is particularly revealing to me.

Another topic I have seen Conal blog about is certification of NVC trainers, and my understanding of him is that he is very uncomfortable with certification, and suggests alternative ways to look at this issue.

Summoning up Empathy from Within (my only choice)

Last weekend, I led a 2-day NVC foundation training for 30 people in Kwan-ju, in the southern province of South Korea. There were 30 people in attendance, and aside from my interpreter, almost no one spoke English, and even the 2 or 3 who did, only spoke a little bit.

Although I started the training with lots of energy, before long I was reeling and in pain as a result of various stimuli, ranging from my difficulty connecting with people -- or even understanding what they were saying -- lots of background noise and interruptions, physical fatigue, and inner judgments about myself (example: I shouldn't be so sensitive!)

In fact, a few times I directly asked for empathy from others, and received in return almost every form of NON-empathy, including advice, being told I shouldn't feel the way I did, and even one participant admonishing me to stop talking in this way!

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention my favorite jackal response to my request for empathy: "It's not a problem for Koreans. You are only upset because you are an American -- we are fine with what's happening!"

Now, normally I have no expectation that I can depend on workshop participants for empathy, and often times I do not even ask for it; however, often I do bring that into the mix as a learning opportunity, knowing full well that I might not receive empathy and will have to rely on my own self-empathy anyway.

There was something about this experience, however, that was so stunningly non-empathic, that I am reflecting on it with great amusement!

At the time, however, I had to dig very, very deeply into myself to find empathy for how painful it was for me to feel lonely, and confused, and be needing compassion and experiencing exactly the opposite.

I am grateful that I have developed my skills for self-empathy sufficiently well that I was able to avoid jackaling anyone else, and even myself, for the most part. I took a couple of breaks, poured some pure empathy on myself, and remained present to the participants throughout the 2 days.

And I am happy to say that the feedback was mostly very positive, and I received plenty of gratitude afterward.