What’s Up Next?

February 2017 ~ Our Corners & Edges

“We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.” 
~ Archilochos

Inquiry:

What are your conversational street signs (e.g. OFNR, Red/Green/Yellow)?  Rules of the road (e.g. [NVC] Communication Flow Chart)?  How do you stay in your own lane (e.g. Self-Connection Process)?

Tools for this week’s practice group:
Three-Layers-of-Empathy

Jean Béraud (Walters Art Museum)

• Write down an observation/stimulus (or several) from such exchanges.
• Track what were the specific moments, or corners, when these interactions shifted in tone (through the Red, Green, Yellow light spectrum — see Chapman’s “Mindful Communication” beneath)?
• How did your responses attend to ‘what’s alive’ (your own needs/values)?  How not?
• How did your responses attend to what the other may have been valuing?  How not?
• Going forward, identify your ‘strategic discomfort zones’ (growing edges), noting how you might more fully attend to ‘what’s alive’ both in yourself and others (i.e. with greater presence to all of the universal-human-needs on the table).
• Can you envision what might have ‘made life more wonderful’ (strategies that might have served both sets of needs)?

“The course of conflict isn’t determined by the person who initiates but by the person who responds.” ~ Mozart In The Jungle

Wanting Fully Without Attachment – Tikkun Magazine

National Archives and Records Administration

In her book on The Five Keys to Mindful Communication, Susan Gillis Chapman writes about communication that is closed (red light), open (green light), or somewhere-in-between (yellow light).  Initially, Chapman suggest, it’s useful to cultivate an awareness of the more obvious states: green/open & red/closed.  The yellow light is a more nuanced state, often imperceptible (unless mindful), however it may also hold greater potential for increasing our communicative efficacy.

The Five Keys To Mindful Communication (book’s study guidelines)

Delineating Susan Chapman’s five essential elements of mindful communication:

• Mindful Presence (awake body, tender heart, open mind)
• Mindful Listening (encouragement)
• Mindful Speech (gentleness)
• Mindful Relationships (unconditional friendliness)
• Mindful Responses (playfulness)

See also:  The Five Keys to Mindful Communication

Triune Brain – Interpersonal Neurobiology

(Image courtesy of Wiki Commons – ManosHacker)

“First, I realized how I distort my view of other people when I’m reacting defensively. I also saw that when I can open up and see another person in a fresh way, my own self-image transforms. On the surface, these two insights might not seem to be that a big deal. Not as exciting as a dog and a hungry bear rolling in play.* But learning how to switch out of defensiveness into a more humorous, receptive state of mind is a big deal – it is the key to happy, harmonious relationships and communities.”  (Chapman’s “The Five Keys to Mindful Communication”, p. 3)

FYI ~ Polar Bear Plays with Sled Dogs : snopes.com

*The photos circulating around the Internet were of a polar bear and a dog playing together.  I first saw them in a National Geographic magazine many years ago and was captivated by the story.  A dog named Churchill was tied up to a stake in the ice.  His owner spotted a starving bear, just out of hibernation, through the window of his cabin.  He watched in horror as the bear approached his dog.  Feeling powerless to protect his pet from certain death, he grabbed his camera and snapped pictures of the scene unfolding before his eyes.  But to his amazement, what he ended up witnessing was how Churchill saved his own life.  As the bear lumbered toward him, Churchill crouched down and wagged his tail.  In spite of his ravenous hunger, the bear responded to the signal and switched from predator to playmate.  One of the photos shows Churchill and the bear embraced in an affectionate hug as they tumbled and rolled around on the ice.  Then the huge polar bear turned and ambled away.  Over the next few days, the bear returned to the site several times to play with his new friend.  The National Geographic photo essay came into my life at the right moment.  I had been preparing to teach a series of workshops on mindful communication, where students would learn practical skills in bringing awareness, insight, compassion, and choice to their communication…”
~ Susan Gillis Chapman

Bull and bear in front of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Photo courtesy of Eva K.)

Note parallel between Mindful Communication’s “Green Light” (above)
&
the NVC’s “Zero Step” (below)

Taste of Compassionate Leadership Free Teleclass – NVC Academy

Zero-Step

Four Steps of NVC

“In the field of observation, chance favors the prepared mind.”
Louis Pasteur

What is Mindful Communication?

Additional videos:  Green Zone Communication (videos)

Three green-light faculties as the basis for mindfulness practice:

• Awake body, the ability to pay attention
• Tender heart, the ability to empathize with others
• Open mind, the ability to be honest, curious, and insightful.

Red Light

Notice when you’ve become defensive and closed off. Be careful. Communicating in this zone can lead to difficult and painful reactions.

Yellow Light

Pay attention to the limbo between open and closed. Relax with the uncertainty. Pause, reflect, linger there, and let possibilities emerge.

Green Light

When your state of mind is open, feel free to explore your connection with others. Share. Learn. Change. Expand.

---

Susan Chapman – Mindful Communication poster

Mindful Communication – Which of Our Emotions are Accurate?

Excerpted from Chapman’s The Five Keys to Mindful Communication: Using Deep Listening and Mindful Speech to Strengthen Relationships, Heal Conflicts, and Accomplish Your Goals:

“The yellow light describes the period in between the green and red light, the gap of groundlessness that occurs just before communication shuts down. We’ve been caught off guard and we feel embarrassed, irritated, or disappointed by an unexpected event. Below the surface of these reactions, deeper fears and self-doubts are exposed. If we can meet these fears with gentle insight, using mindfulness practice, we can intercept our red-light triggers…” (continues)

Susan Chapman – online class, “working with fear”

Susan Chapman on how “green zones” help us to identify our projections

Open/Closed emotions & how to reconnect to the “Natural Communication System”

Susan Chapman is a marriage and family therapist and author who presents training programs applying mindfulness to conversations, relationships and communities.

Resources:  Green Zone Conversations – Green Light Institute

Click to hear interviews with Susan Chapman

See too:  What is Mindful Communication

In a World in Crisis – Mindful Communication Matters

“Our survival as a species depends on our ability to recognize that our well-being and the well-being of others are in fact one and the same.”
~ Marshall Rosenberg

Trump Picks Wall Street Over Main Street – The New York Times

(Photo courtesy of Wiki Commons via Beyond My Ken)

Krugman: Springtime for Scammers

By Udo J. Keppler (a.k.a. Joseph Keppler, Jr.; 1872-1956),
via Wikimedia Commons

Why Scott Pruitt is a Dangerous Nominee for Head of the EPA

North Pole forecast to warm 50 degrees above normal – Washington Post

‘Beyond the extreme’: Scientists marvel at increasingly non-natural arctic warmth – Washington Post

WaPo on February 1, 2017:  …the high Arctic will rise over 50 degrees above normal…“This is happening now,” he added. “Not in 50 or 100 years — now.”

Donald Trump ‘taking steps to abolish EPA’ – The Guardian

Guardian (also on February 1, 2017): Donald Trump will work towards the abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency – and any employees cleaving to the Obama era should be “very worried” by the prospect of Scott Pruitt taking over the agency, a key aide of the president has told the Guardian. In an exclusive interview, Myron Ebell – who headed up Trump’s EPA transition team, said that agency’s environmental research, reports and data would not be removed from its website, but climate education material might be changed or “withdrawn”…

Click here for requisite “Bull in China Shop” cartoon

Gabriele Giuseppini, via Wikimedia Commons

NYT:  Scott Pruitt Is Seen Cutting the E.P.A. With a Scalpel, Not a Cleaver

NYT’s Coral Davenport:  …“Environmental protection, what they do is a disgrace,” Mr. Trump said after the election. “Every week they come out with new regulations.”

But in Mr. Pruitt, who is expected to be confirmed by the Senate this week, the president has tapped a surgeon, not a butcher, to fulfill those pledges. As much as anyone, Mr. Pruitt knows the legal intricacies of environmental regulation — and deregulation. As Oklahoma’s attorney general for the last six years, he has led or taken part in 14 lawsuits against the E.P.A.

His changes may not have the dramatic flair favored by Mr. Trump, but they could weaken the agency’s authority even long after Mr. Trump has left office…

(Image courtesy of Wiki Commons: Woodennature)

Climate change is simple: David Roberts (Remix)

Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed – Grist

Six degrees may be where we are headed, according to international energy experts, and within this century too — under (fossil fuel favoring) business as usual policies.
Sources: “World Energy Outlook 2011,” P. 40, International Energy Agency & “Too Late for Two Degrees?” PricewaterhouseCoopers, November 2012, P. 1.

6 Degrees Warmer: Mass Extinction? | National Geographic

National Geographic (full documentary):  Six degrees could change the world

Pope Francis releases his own Super Bowl commercial, for peace

“Great sporting events like today’s Super Bowl are highly symbolic, showing that it is possible to build a culture of encounter and a world of peace,” the pontiff said, in a text of the video released by the Vatican Sunday afternoon Rome time.

“By participating in sport, we are able to go beyond our own self-interest – and in a healthy way – we learn to sacrifice, to grow in fidelity and respect the rules,” he said, speaking in his native Spanish.

“May this year’s Super Bowl be a sign of peace, friendship and solidarity for the world,” Francis said.

2017 Europeans – Evgenia Medvedeva FS NBCSN HD

See additional Tweets

Courtesy of Daderot  via Wikimedia Commons