let's talk turkey

Since everyone else will be writing about thankfulness I will write about another aspect that comes up with a lot family togetherness, and that is communication. Communication and conversation can be learned and cultivated.  Yet, when we get together with family members on special occasions we tend to replay old relationship records, and those don't always make for the best communication patterns.

Oftentimes we know what sets off certain close relatives.  Some people thrive on the controversy that arises when we push each others' buttons, others look for an expected reaction, sometimes we just operate from a groove we have been grinding deeper and deeper, a relationship groove in acting out and perpetuating certain roles.  Philip Galanes of the NY Times responded to just such a query in a recent column and recommended adding some new faces to the Thanksgiving people mix to change the chemistry around.

A really good exercise is to put yourself in the other person's shoes because we usually operate from our own emotional needs (not the other person's, we are so egocentric).  When I get upset because a family member put the toilet paper roll in the "wrong" way I am upset at my own unmet need for the toilet paper roll to hang my way, so the paper hangs down the front (and is easier to grab).  So it goes with all our communications and emotional reactions.

In the practice of nonviolent or compassionate communication (which takes a long long time to get used to, practice and acquire because it goes so against the grain of our culture) we try to understand and address the other person's emotional needs and where they come from when they speak.  Something to think about when we sit around the turkey table tomorrow.

spontaneous acts of kindness

"Ma'am, your burger has been paid for. "  When I see articles on positive cultural observations in the newspaper, as opposed to reports on catastrophes, calamities or simply negative observations, I am hopeful that we may be on the right track.  The track to what you may be wondering? The negative stuff is so pervasive in our culture and the media.  We get this quick jolt of negative energy, similar to a sugar high, then it's over and in the long run that constant stream of negativity is draining.

So back to the positive stuff.  The NY Times had a wonderful article this week-end on the apparently increasing occurrence of spontaneous acts of generosity.  Totally gratuitous, these acts do not come from a calculated expectation of something in return, but rather a spontaneous opening of the heart to others. This is more where we're headed - eventually - if I interpret the signs correctly - more empathy, more kindness, more opening of our hearts to others.

Any idea for a spontaneous act of kindness?

what if you had chosen your parents?

I always think that a radically different perspective helps us adjust our outlook on things.  I know the thought of choosing your parents might sound crazy to some or many of you.  But then I have made it my business to further our/your/my thinking and help change our current cultural thinking because much of it has become stale and ossified (I like that word) and could use some refreshing. Do you have an axe or two to grind with your parents?  We easily blame them for what they sent us into this world with; for what they did or didn't do.  Looking at it from a different perspective helps.  As my yoga teacher Aura Lehrer said recently "life is not about right or wrong, life brings you experiences and opportunities."

So think about your parents from that opposite perspective, not the one in which you are the victim, but the one in which you are the recipient of a valuable quality or trait or ability or realization.

I have a lot to be thankful for from my parents. They have been lifelong learners and taught me to become a critical thinker.  We lived in different countries when I was young and so I learned to love traveling, discovering different cultures and how people do things elsewhere, and to explore and enjoy the different foods all these cultures have brought forth.  On the other hand I could blame them for not being very emotional and showing their deep love and appreciation for me enough (they are kind of "Northern" in their emotional behavior - hiding their emotions and you have to read between the lines.

But parents can also teach you by default, by not showing you love or acceptance, or whatever else you think you need.  In that case their behavior may be making you aware of a quality you'd like to add to your life that is currently not there.  You could turn your attitude around and instead of blaming your parents for what they didn't give you, you could be grateful for making you aware of something you need that you are currently lacking.  By default my parents have taught me to tell my children all the time how much I love and appreciate them, something my parents never openly expressed - although they are changing a bit as they are becoming older.

So what if you had chosen your parents before incarnating (oh, another radical thought) in order to learn and become aware of specific themes you need to work on?  Just a thought....

life is here to make you better, not bitter

That's what my yoga teacher said the other day.  It's important to realize that people don't do things and or say things to annoy you.  People do whatever they do, and say whatever they say, from the perspective of their own emotional needs.

We all have common universal emotional needs, such as the needs for love, shelter, safety, nourishment, sleep; and we have more individualistic emotional needs for say beauty, peace, creativity, order, quiet, connection, community and so on.

We usually operate in an egocentric world and thus live from the perspective of our individual needs.   When those needs are not recognized or met we tend to get irritated, annoyed, impatient, angry, or even furious.  These emotions signal our own, not the other person's unmet needs.

When my daughter does her math homework slowly, methodically, not too neatly, I tend to become impatient and raise the tone of my voice.  That signals my unmet need for neatness and organization, and my self-imposed desire to get on with it and on to other activities.  I need to remind myself that I irritate myself, my daughter doesn't irritate me for the sake of irritating me.

So, instead of becoming bitter at others for supposedly annoying us all day long, hassling us, wanting to irritate and frustrate us, bitter at what life throws in our way, let's dig a bit deeper into those emotions.  Let them make us better, more compassionate and understanding.

compassionate communication

Most of the time we are quite unaware of how much we actually express in our verbal communications beyond the mere word content, through tone of expression, volume and voice timbre, facial expression, and body language.  Sometimes I notice that something I said came across all wrong (although it did express entirely how I felt about it).  Usually, we communicate from the I-am-the-center-of-the-universe perspective, and that often doesn’t come across as too pleasant.   When I say to my kids “I need the table set NOW, please!” I may have said “please,” but the emphasis on the “NOW” and the sharpness in my tone can come across as quite nasty, although it merely expresses my own need to get dinner on the table soon.  As a matter-of-fact, the sharp tone has nothing to do with how I feel about my kids, and all about how I feel internally at this moment – (self-imposed?) pressure to get dinner on the table.  But that goes unexpressed, and therein lies the problem. The art of compassionate communication entails expressing what we need to communicate without hurting each other, as well as listening with deep understanding of the other person’s perspective. NVC or nonviolent communication, as Marshall Rosenberg calls it, trains us to understand the role of emotions much better because we need to take into account our and others’ emotional needs in order to communicate respectfully.   Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish have also written some terrific books specifically on how to communicate more compassionately with children.  They influenced me deeply.

We all have basic needs such as food, shelter, safety, love, and respect; and more individual needs like order, beauty, creativity, acceptance, or perhaps challenge.  We reveal in our emotional reactions, expressed through the above indicators, how well, or not, those needs are being met.  That awareness should probably make us take a deep breath next time we are about to raise our voice.