Why does brutal get matched with honesty? Does it have something to do with the way we learned to think and speak?  Has someone ever asked you, “Can I be brutally honest with you”?  Did you gleefully reply, “Oh sure.  Please, go right ahead.  I am always deeply grateful for an opportunity to find compassion and acceptance in the face of brutality.  I can’t wait to practice cultivating connection in myself and between us while you let loose your judgements, criticisms and blaming.”
Honesty without compassion makes it challenging to maintain a loving connection; it is more likely to alienate.  When honesty is brutal it is because it is based on moralistic judgments and the intention is to tell people what we think of them, why they are to blame, and what they can do to become “better people”.  When we express evaluations, judgments, blame and criticism to another, it can be very difficult to create connection because the other is hearing that they are at fault, they are wrong or bad.   When we express brutal honesty, I believe we are hoping that the other will agree with our judgments, take responsibility for our feelings, and accept blame.  This would be very satisfying to our egos, but it doesn’t support connection and compassion.

So what might brutal honesty sound like? “Eric, your ideas are weak and you are a lousy writer.
What you are talking about would never work.  Your column is the worst column in this magazine.  The classifieds are more entertaining.”  These statements give me judgements and evaluations to agree or argue with but no clear information about why my writing doesn’t work for this hypothetical person.   My initial urge may be to respond with a barrage of my own brutal honesty.  Or, I may agree with what is said and start beating myself up until I get in touch with my needs.  Brutal honesty means there is more work to do to find the needs that are alive beneath the alienating words in order to cultivate a connection that inspires mutual understanding and giving from the heart.

How would you feel if someone asked you, “Can I be compassionately honest with you”?  I’m guessing there would still be some anxiety.  Many of us have heard precious little compassionate honesty and may still expect to hear judgmental, hard-to-hear honesty.  Expressing compassionate honesty means that we express what feelings and needs come alive in us in relation to something we experience.  Our intention is to connect with the other so that they will want to contribute to meeting our needs.  What does compassionate honesty sound like?  “Eric, when I read the part in your article about expressing feelings and needs, I felt concerned because of my need for authenticity – I want people to hear the real me when I’m speaking, not a communication model.  Would you tell me if there is a way to express compassionate honestly and still sound genuine?”

In this honest expression this person has a feeling of concern which was stimulated by a clear observation, “the part in your article about expressing feelings and needs”.  This feeling of concern is pointing this person toward his or her need for authenticity, and there is a doable, positive action request for how I might help meet this person’s need.  I have some clear information about what is going on for this person in reading my article, a suggestion of how I could meet his or her need, and there are no judgments or evaluations.  If I heard this response, it would be much easier for me to connect with this person and contribute to his or her needs than a person who expresses his or her criticisms and opinions.
I want us all to speak honestly about what is going on for us.  We lose energy, empowerment, and authenticity when we hold back our voice; and I believe we hold back for a very good reason: we’re trying to meet our needs for peace, harmony, and connection.  We have learned to speak a language of judgements, evaluations, blame, and criticism so we hold back our honesty because we doubt that this kind of honesty will contribute to peace, harmony, and connection with the other.  However, my experience is that when I hold back my voice, I create inner turmoil because I am not being authentic.  I am very grateful for the Compassionate Communication process because, although it has not always been easy, it has allowed me to speak up for myself authentically and honestly and connect to others no matter how they respond.

We used to believe that babies came into the world unable to think, feel, remember, or communicate.  They were seen as a blank slate, unable to process or store information until they learned to speak.  In fact Freud had been the proponent of such a notion, and he greatly influenced others, including neuroscientists, in their thinking.  Fortunately, some scientists began to question this belief, and with the support of brain assessment technology –such as functional magnetic resonance imagery, they were able to prove that babies do in fact process information and feel feelings.  Other research has shown that babies can store memories of their birth and even of their time in the womb, not in the part of the brain that is used for everyday memory recalling, but in another part of the brain that stores older, unconscious memory, what is known as implicit memory.  And molecular biologist and neuroscientist Candace Pert explains the capacity of the body to retain life memories:  “The body is the unconscious mind! Repressed traumas caused by overwhelming emotion can be stored in a body part, thereafter affecting our ability to feel that part or even move it.”

I recently attended a pre- and perinatal conference held in Nelson titled Science Meets Our Heart.  The conference was co-chaired by Myrna Martin of the Kutenai Institute of Integral Therapies and APPPAH, and Kim Adamson of Success by Six.  Much of this conference was about the research done on attachment and the development of babies before, during, and two to three years after birth.  This research proves how our development during this period is affected by our environment and the quality of bonding we experience with our parents.  And although not yet universally incorporated as standard curriculum for university biology, the latest research from a field of biology called epigenetics proves that we are not simply victims of our genetic make up; our physical, emotional, and psychological makeup is determined by the dynamic interaction of our genes and our environment: nature and nurture are partners, with each influencing our development almost equally.   We do have predispositions encoded in our genes; however, the groundbreaking discovery is that whether or not our predispositions manifest in our personality depends on if they are “switched on” by our perception of our environment.  For example, someone may have a predisposition for depression encoded in their genes but never experience it because they grow up in a warm, loving environment.

Healthy, nurturing attachment is the result of parents consistently meeting their baby’s needs with loving attention, especially, and most importantly, during pregnancy and the first three years of a baby’s life.  All humans share the same needs, and different needs have greater priority for different people and at different times of life.  During pregnancy and the first three years of life, needs that are a priority include safety, security, love, bonding, nurturing, touch, nourishment, rest, harmony, attunement with parents, empathy, to be seen, and sense of power to elicit a response from parents.  The attachment process is simple if not always easy: baby has a need, baby expresses need, parent meets need in attunement with baby, baby calms and need is met.  When this cycle is repeated over and over the baby is continuously connected to a place of security and sense of wholeness, and the baby develops implicit beliefs such as, “I am unconditionally loved just as I am. I matter.  My world is safe. I can trust others. I am supported to thrive.”

To be sure, developing healthy attachment does not end after the first three years of life. As Dr. Gordon Neufeld explains in his book Hold On To Your Kids, when infants become children and children become youth, attachment can deteriorate without consistent, present attention from parents.  However, the first stage of life is extra critical because a human brain is only twenty percent developed at birth and a great deal of the brain’s development occurs in the first two to three years of life.  The most fundamental influencing factor for this brain development is relationships.  Or, as neuropsychoanalyst Allan Schore writes in his book Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self, “The infant brain is designed to be molded by the environment it encounters, mediated primarily via relationships with others.”  Dr. Marcy Axness, an adoption expert presenting at the Science Meets Our Hearts conference, explained that the human brain has one hundred billion neurons at birth and it is the experiences with others and with the environment that dictates which synapses live or die.  During his keynote presentation at the conference, Dr. Gabor Maté shared that if you kept a baby in the dark for the first five years of its life, the brain would decide that the synapses for eyesight aren’t needed and the child would never again be able to see.  The brain would work to develop the other senses instead.

Likewise, the brain develops or does not develop the synapses involved in regulating emotions, handling stress, and building relationships based on the feedback and modeling it gets from others and the environment.  When a baby and parent exchange smiles, funny faces, and eye contact, endorphins (nurturing and soothing neurochemicals) fire in the brain reinforcing the neural pathways for that behaviour.  When a baby doesn’t get to share this kind of activity with parents, those pathways don’t develop. (Later in life, the opiate class of drugs that mimic endorphins can become addictive because they give someone the wonderful sense of nurturing they have always longed for but never experienced.)  We are programmed to survive, and as babies our survival is dependent on parents or caregivers, so the brain helps us survive by adapting to relational feedback.  When the feedback from parents and caregivers is consistent, calm, attuned attention to feelings and needs, as well as engaged and elaborated reflections of joyful affects, babies develop into empathic, cooperative children, youth, and adults, who are more able to feel all their feelings, manage stress and form healthy relationships based on trust.

What about when the cycle of attachment is broken:  baby has a need, baby expresses need, parent responds negatively or not at all, and baby’s need is not met.  What does the baby’s brain do with experiences of neglect or abuse, or lack of consistent attuned presence in order to survive?  It finds adaptive behaviours to protect the baby. Depending on the severity and amount of abuse, neglect, and lack of attuned presence, and on the nature of the baby, the pain from experiencing consistent negative feedback (or no feedback) can lead to extreme adaptive behaviours designed to push others away; thereby protecting the baby from the pain and the loss of love, and at that vulnerable stage love is linked to survival.  This is why another keynote speaker, Dr. Michael Trout, stressed that what are known as Attachment Disorders are better seen as adaptive behaviours. Dr. Axness put it succinctly with her acronym NORMAL: Natural Organismic Response to Massive Abandonment or Loss.  This is similar to the Compassionate Communication (NVC) perspective: Everything we do is to try and meet a need.  These adaptive behaviours, strategies to meet needs, can be so drastic and challenging for others that they lead to all kinds of diagnoses, and we can lose sight of the needs behind the behaviours.  There is strong evidence to suggest that many mental illnesses, as well as addictions, and many of our psychological and physical health issues can be traced back to early unmet attachment needs.

Because we are so familiar with blame and right/wrong, good/bad thinking, we may be inclined to use the early attachment research to blame parents for all the problems that their children have.  But, of course, parents are doing the best they know how with their own adaptations to their early unmet needs that have not yet been recognized and addressed, which, as Dr. Axness informed me, “has been shown to be a very important factor in successful parenting.”  Dr. Axness stated further that “the latest attachment research has found that the most reliable predictor of a child’s secure attachment is whether or not their parent can make clear, coherent sense of his or her own early life, their own early relational histories.”  It is exciting for me that pre- and perinatal psychology is beginning to find a foothold in the mainstream consciousness.  The more accepted it becomes, the more we can let go of blaming, start supporting each other to heal, and support babies to thrive in the world.

We are creatures of connection: We came into this world not knowing we were separate from our mother; we walk into a room full of people and immediately, instinctually look for people we know.  And yet, we are afraid of connection at the same time – authentic, open connection.  Very few of us had completely healthy attachment in our early years: conscious conception, peaceful gestation, a birth where our needs were considered and the impact of any emergency procedures consciously processed, and then peaceful, loving, consistent attention to our needs as we transitioned from oneness with our mothers to our own sense of self; our western society has not known how to support healthy attachment.  So we have all felt the pain of being so open, fragile and vulnerable and not having our needs met, which means that we all experience to different degrees the paradox of wanting connection and fearing it at the same time.  Pre- and perinatal psychology offers us a place to explore the roots of this paradox and replant them into rich, nurturing soil.  Many heartfelt thank you’s to the organizers of the Science Meets Our Hearts conference organizer and to the presenters, all of whom were transparently passionate about bringing compassion and awareness to those extraordinary leaps of faith known as birth and parenting.

By Eric Bowers (Extra special thanks to Dr. Axness for all her support with this article.)

What is unique and inspiring about NVC, developed by Marshall Rosenberg, is how it supports us to focus on the life-serving needs that all humans share - love, safety, belonging, security, meaning, autonomy, peace, contribution, fun, nurturance and many more - regardless of what someone is doing or saying.  These needs are the foundation of NVC because they are the different qualities of divine life-energy that move through all of us.  NVC does involve practicing a way of speaking but it is much more than the words; this way of speaking guides us to a consciousness of connection and collaboration, and helps us orient our entire being around the divine life-energy in our common human needs.

I believe that more and more people want to cultivate inner peace in themselves, and compassion and connection with others.  Spiritual practice as part of life is becoming more common these days as people realize that we can’t find inner peace from materialism, from striving to prove ourselves, or from dominating others.  There are many wonderful ways to work with our subjective experience, to cultivate inner peace and harmony, to differentiate from our ego and connect to our deeper being.  What many spiritual practices are missing is a practical way to work with our inter-subjective experience - to cultivate compassion and connection in how we relate to and communicate with others.  We may be able to find inner peace when by ourselves, but how can we maintain our equanimity when someone does or says something that stimulates pain or discomfort in us?  And if we do remain peaceful with someone else who is judging and blaming and has strong emotions, how do we communicate in a way that invites connection and compassion even when their words or behaviour is not meeting our needs?  For thousands of years we have been taught a language that supports a domination culture; a language full of judgments, criticisms, and evaluations; a language of right and wrong, good and bad.  Therefore, even though someone may have a spiritual practice for finding peace within themselves and the best of intentions to create peace with others, when they speak a language of domination, they may find it difficult to resolve differences with others in a way that invites peace and connection.

Communicating with words is not the only way humans share their subjective experience, but it is our predominant method for sharing the meaning of our lives.  NVC helps us create a sense of partnership with each other where all needs matter.  Although not always easy, this simple and powerful process helps us stay connected to our divine energy, and communicate in a way that invites others to connect to the same divine energy.  When divine energy meets itself in another, something is born in the space between that I don’t believe is found in a spiritual practice isolated from our relational experience.

When people we are close to are going through challenges in their lives, our natural inclination is to want to support them, to help them through their pain and return to a place of peace and happiness.  Before I understood empathy as I understand it now, my response to those I wanted to support was usually to suggest things I thought would make them feel better, or I might have suggested ways they could look at their issue differently and learn from their situation, or I might have shared a similar challenge I had had and how I had felt and what I had done about it.  Most times these efforts to support others left them unsatisfied.  They may not have expressed this verbally, but it would be clear by their energy and body language.  I would be left feeling unsatisfied as well, and puzzled.  My attempts to support were coming from genuine caring, and yet I was not getting the sense that I was being of much help at all.  Most puzzling and frustrating were the times it seemed that those I wanted to support were feeling worse after my genuine attempts to help.

Now I see that I was missing what I experience as the fundamental piece of support for myself or someone else who is in pain.  Empathic presence.  I was trying to do something for others, trying to fix them instead of just Being with them.  Offering strategies and solutions, stories and ideas, is an indirect way of telling someone, “This is how you could be different then you are right now.”  We want to help and we think that if we explain to someone how they can solve their situation, they will be happier – different than they are in that moment.

When we have strong emotions alive in us we are not able to easily use the part of our brain that analyzes and problem solves because we are using a different part of the brain that deals with emotions.  Empathy gives space for someone to be with their emotions, to have acceptance in themselves for their current state, and from this acceptance of what is alive in them, emotions release and pass.  Then the body relaxes, the brain returns to balance, and we can look at what we might want to do about our situation.  We are in a state to receive and contemplate suggestions or, even better, access our own knowing.

So if someone comes to you wanting support with their challenging situation, I invite you to set an intention to just be present with what is alive in them.  Suggest to yourself that there is nothing you need to solve.  As you hear about the challenge this person is going through, put your attention on their feelings and needs.  Notice what comes alive in you - your impulses to solve, educate, or share your stories, and come back to Being with the experience of the other.  With a compassionate focus, follow the unfolding of their feelings and needs.  When someone experiences space and presence for their initial feelings and needs, they tend to open up to deeper feelings and needs because the compassionate presence allows them to trust that there is space to continue opening.   And what do we say when we are Being with another in their pain?  Often, very little.  Our presence is such a gift that few words are needed.  When there is an intuitive sense that verbal reflection would support the empathic connection, we simply express what we sense the other is feeling and needing, which may sound like, “It sounds like you are feeling some despair because you have a deep need for the well being of the earth.”  Then we listen to the response and follow where their energy of feelings and needs goes from there.  Perhaps it opens to more depth of feelings and needs, or maybe there is a relaxing because together you have come to Being with the essence of what is alive in them.  I invite you to sit with them and let that relaxed state integrate.  They will ask you for suggestions and insights if they want them; and perhaps you could invite them to first ask themselves.

Last summer, my beloved and I had a Union Ceremony, our version of a wedding. Surrounded by the support of family and friends, we celebrated our love and deepened our commitment to growing and loving together. In the weeks after our celebration, instead of a gloriously connected honeymoon phase, I was withdrawing and wanting more space. I didn’t know how to balance a deeper union with my partner while still keeping a sense of freedom and individuality in myself. I don’t know any easy answers to finding this balance. My beloved and I keep returning to a practice of taking responsibility for our inner work, and then deepening our connection together.

How do I know when it is time for inner work? When I’m not able to connect to and care about another’s needs equally with mine; when I have a story of judgments and blaming about someone; when I find myself avoiding or pulling away from someone without being connected to my needs, and without some understanding that the other person’s behaviour is the best way they know how to meet some of their needs.

When I’m attached to someone changing, I know I need some change in myself. Making clear requests of others to meet our needs is a very important part of relationship to be sure, but when they are subtle demands disguised as requests, we are unlikely to invite or deepen connection. I know I am making a request and inviting connection when I can hear a “no” from someone and my appreciation for them does not diminish, and when my intention continues to be connection- having both of our needs equally understood and valued. When deeper, core needs are involved, it can take some real effort and determination to get back to an intention of connection. I may need some time to myself or some support from an empathy buddy to help me to find connection to my needs and then with the needs of another.

When learning Compassionate Communication there can be a real focus on feelings and needs. Many of us have not had much education with feelings and needs and need to develop our awareness and fluency of feelings and needs. Also, because we all share the same feelings and needs, focusing on feelings and needs when relating to another is where we find heartfelt connection. Because we all see the world differently, it can be difficult to find agreement and connection when expressing our judgments, opinions, perspectives and beliefs. Therefore, in my experience, the “outer” work of finding connection with another comes in putting my attention on feelings and needs.

The “inner” work of Compassionate Communication involves transforming my judgments, opinions, perspectives and beliefs into feelings and needs, and from this self-connection looking past the judgments of others to their feelings and needs. Because we come from a culture of right/wrong, good/bad thinking, it can be easy to see feelings and needs as right or good and judgments and blaming as wrong or bad. So, in doing our inner work, we might want to go straight to exploring our feelings and needs and put aside any judgments we might have. If we remember that judgments and blaming are expressions of unmet needs, then we can see the value of paying attention to our judgments and blaming when we are trying to find inner connection.

If I have the inner space to witness my judgmental thoughts while in communication with another, then I pay attention to what needs these thoughts are pointing to. Once connected to my needs, I see if I can connect to the needs that are presently alive for whomever I am relating to. Other times, I need physical space in order to do my inner work because I have too much charge in me to witness and differentiate from my thinking: I don’t want to connect; I want to be right or get my way; I’ve forgotten that we are all connected. When I am in this state, it can be very helpful to give expression to my judgments by voicing them or writing them down. When I do this, I release some of the energy of holding them in, and I can look more closely at what needs they are trying to express. And hopefully I can see that none of my judgments are true, they are a story I am telling myself. After deepening my commitment with my beloved, a story that I had begun long before we met became stronger and more stuck in my thinking:

“I’m going to lose myself in relationship. There isn’t space for me to be me. She wants to control me. She thinks her needs are more important. Relationships don’t work. Love doesn’t last. I want to run and be alone.”

If I’m really stuck in believing this story, then saying the story again starting each sentence with, “I’m telling myself…,” can help me differentiate from my story. This is a helpful tool I learned from NVC Trainer Robert Gonzales (www.nvctraininginstitute.com). If I look at my needs before differentiating from my story, then part of me will probably still believe the story and I won’t fully connect with my needs; my deep needs for individuality, autonomy, freedom, to know I matter, and to trust in loving another. So often, the story we are telling ourselves and the feelings connected to that story come from unmet needs from our past, especially when we are too charged to witness and differentiate from our thinking. Still, we just keep looking at the story we are telling ourselves, looking with curiosity and compassion, and then connecting in the present to the needs beneath the story.

Feelings that are attached to a story is suffering that helps keep me stuck as a victim waiting for the outside world to change. When I am able to be present with the feelings and sensations coming from my needs without any story, I am connected to my needs. There is an opening into the feelings instead of a tightening. They may be painful feelings, but it is pain connected to life, a sweet, spacious pain. This is mourning that helps me heal, connect to my wholeness, and create inner space - the inner space of compassion. Then I can ask myself, “How am I attending to these needs that are so precious to me? Am giving myself what I am wanting from others?”

What I need is to differentiate from my story that this inner work is work. It becomes inner play when I connect to how much more I enjoy life when I bring more consciousness to my stories, feelings and needs.

By Eric Bowers

Many of us are familiar with receiving praise when we do something that contributes to others. However, praise is just another form of judgement: “Good work,” “You are wonderful,” “You’re the best,” “You’re brilliant,” “Amazing,” “Such a good girl,” “What a good boy”. Some people would say that these are positive judgements that encourage others and help them feel good about themselves. Although the intention behind praise might be to encourage others and help them feel good about themselves, what praise does is support people to look outside of themselves to measure their self-worth. When this happens, we lose connection to our innate sense of self-acceptance, and to our intrinsic motivation, which comes from our powerful need to contribute to life. Tragically, we become motivated by trying to please others. This extrinsic motivation does not support us to keep growing and contributing in a meaningful way. If you want to know more about the damaging effects of praise, I suggest you read Punished by Rewards, by Alfie Kohn.

One of our most potent needs is to contribute to life, to give to others from our hearts just because it feels wonderful to do so, not because we are hoping for praise, approval or some other reward. We feel a lot of joy when we meet this need, so it is vital to get feedback that lets us know how we have met our intrinsic need to contribute to life. When someone tells us exactly what we did, what need was met by what we did, and how someone feels about having their need met, then we have clear information about how we have contributed to someone’s life. For example, “When you ask me how I’m doing and then take the time to be present and just listen to what is going on for me, I feel deeply grateful because it meets my need for caring and to know I matter.”

I believe people are hungry to know how they are contributing to life. Praise does not satiate this hunger; praise is like addictive, empty calories that leave us craving for something more substantial. We can help feed others by expressing full appreciation. We can even feed ourselves by spending some time appreciating ourselves for the things we do each day that contribute to life. This is a wonderful, and much needed break from believing we need to strive to do better and be enough in order to gain more approval.

I would love to hear from you if you have needs that are met by my writing or if there are some needs that aren’t met for you when reading my articles. I really appreciate learning how I can better contribute to life.

How can we effectively work together to create a peaceful and sustainable world and strengthen our bonds while doing so? Many social change movements and progressive businesses that are rooted in values of equality, non-violence, and sustainability falter or fall apart because they lack a powerful, compassionate and effective communication process and governance system, fundamental pieces needed for working through challenges while staying connected and inspired.

The Center for Nonviolent Communication is in the process of implementing a governance system which they believe will more effectively help them create their
vision of a world where everyone’s needs are met, and conflicts are peacefully resolved. This very inspiring governance system is called Dynamic Governance or Sociocracy, and I believe it is at the evolutionary forefront of governance systems.
Dynamic Governance comes to us from Holland where it was developed by Kees Boeke and Gerard Endenburg. Kees was the director of the Workplaats Kindergemeenschap - The Children’s Community Workshop, a school based on Quaker Principles. Gerard was a graduate of that school and went on to study systems thinking and cybernetics. In looking at the systems that humans were working under, he was not able to find one that mirrored the equality efficacy and elegance of the systems found in the natural world. And so he took his experiences from Boeke’s school and his knowledge of systems thinking and cybernetics and created Dynamic Governance.

Gerard’s father, a political activist who advocated for social reform, gave him his first opportunity to try his new governance system. He challenged him to take over a small failing electrical company that he owned and make it profitable while still honouring
worker’s rights. Gerard turned the company around in a year and continued to develop a governance system that had consent decision-making (an innovative decision-making process that Gerard developed using his knowledge of technical sciences), policy-making circles for each level or department of the organization, double-linking of circles so that information flowed from top to bottom and from bottom to top, and consent for selecting leadership and other roles. Gerard also developed a clear and open system for Leading, Doing, and Measuring, which allowed for much improved accountability, adaptability, trust and growth. Every person working for Gerard’s company belonged to a circle and had a voice in company policy and direction. This resulted in greater profit, greater access to everyone’s intelligence and creativity, and greater commitment from everyone to the shared goals and vision of the company.

Since that first success, Gerard has spent over thirty-five years fine tuning and further developing Dynamic Governance. The first English book on Dynamic Governance, WE THE PEOPLE: Consenting to a Deeper Democracy, was published in the spring of 2007.
John Buck, co-author of the book, will be coming to Nelson March 1 and 2 to offer an introductory workshop on Dynamic Governance. John did his Masters in Sociology on Sociocracy and was the first English speaking certified consultant of Dynamic Governance.
For more information on this workshop please contact:
Sunwater at 354-4224 or source@sunwater.ca
Dynamic Governance seems tailor made for the Kootenays and it is my dream that we will be among the first in Canada to flourish under this system.