Talk

Nonviolent Communication works its magic at B4C workshop

This morning I had the honor of helping facilitate the first ever Breathe for Change two hour workshop on Transformation of the Self at a small, local high school.

It was magical, in no small part thanks to the work of Marshall Rosenberg's Center for Nonviolent communication.

What a powerful process! You can visit this website to access all of the resources, but basically the process has four parts:

1) State an observation about something that happened or something someone did or said that affected your life in some way. Do not include judgement about this or how you feel about it.

2) Use the feelings inventory to state how the thing that happened or that was said made you feel, using at least three words from the list.

3) Use the needs inventory to say that you had the feelings you just mentioned based on your need(s) for at least three needs from the needs inventory.

4) Make a specific request that would enrich your life, preferably one that can be answered yes or no.

I practiced this today, along with the other participants, and relearned how powerful it is and how straightforward it can make communicating even about difficult topics.

Today's song, brought to you by Coldplay, is all about the importance of communication:

Oh brother, I can't, I can't get through
I've been trying hard to reach you 'cause I don' know what to do
Oh brother, I can't believe it's true
I'm so scared about the future, and I wanna talk to you
Oh, I wanna talk to you

You can take a picture of something you see
In the future where will I be?
You can climb a ladder up to the sun
Or a write a song nobody has sung
Or do something that's never been done

Are you lost or incomplete?
Do you feel like a puzzle, you can't find your missing piece?
Tell me, how do you feel?
Well, I feel like they're talking in a language I don't speak
And they're talking it to me

So you take a picture of something you see
In the future where will I be?
You can climb a ladder up to the sun
Or write a song nobody has sung
Or do something that's never been done
Or do something that's never been done

So you don't know where you're going and you wanna talk
And you feel like you're going where you've been before
You tell anyone who'll listen, but you feel ignored
Nothing's really making any sense at all, let's talk
Let's talk, let's talk, let's talk

Yes, let's!

Shiver

Woke up with this song in my head this morning:

So I look in your direction
But you pay me no attention, do you
I know you don't listen to me
'Cause you say you see straight through me, don't you

And on and on from the moment I wake
To the moment I sleep
I'll be there by your side
Just you try and stop me
I'll be waiting in line
Just to see if you can

Did she want me to change
Well I change for good
And I want you to know
But you always get your way
I wanted to say

Don't you shiver, shiver, shiver

And I hate to admit it, but this song was on a CD that my first love made me a few years ago, and I never realized it was Coldplay or that he was saying the word "shiver."

I think I know why it's here this morning, though, and that's this next line:

I'll always be waiting for you

The New Englander has told me several times over the last few months that he can't be responsible for me waiting for him. Part of me hears that and says ok, so don't take responsibility for it. Isn't it my choice whether I wait for him or not? Or wouldn't it be, if I understood what that really means? My best guess is that it means not considering any other men prospects to be my mate.

I gotta say, I don't really feel in charge of that. Not really. I mean I could get on Match.com and set up a profile saying I was looking to meet someone else, but if I'm really not, if what I'd really be doing is looking for a warm body and a kind heart connected to a man who is also still entangled with another love and thus less likely to get hurt in that kind of a situation, well, then it feels a little silly to get on there.

I trust that if the Universe wants me to meet and date someone else, he'll cross my path and make that clear: he'll be someone I'm attracted to, someone I can have fun with, someone fit and funny and smart and kind and empathetic. You know, someone like the New Englander, except for the living in New England part.

We'll see how it goes. I am open. I am feeling like this is a period of expansion for me. Today I had coffee with one of my favorite colleagues from the University, and I told him about my big dreams about the next step in my career, and he really got it. He even thinks he can pull together a group of people to talk to about it, so I'm super excited about that. What's more, he told me how much he admires what I'm doing right now in my career, and how I'm doing it, and encouraged me to stay as long as I can because he's so convinced I'm in the right spot. Hmmm, don't know about that, but I sure appreciated all the love.

Speaking of love -- back to Coldplay -- Chris, there's one thing I gotta disagree with you on after my experiences to date with the New Englander:

And is this is my final chance of getting you

...and that's that there ever is a final chance of getting someone. I don't think there is. I think there are infinite chances when a love is this expansive. I don't see how it could work any other way.

But I am feeling these lyrics:

And on and on from the moment I wake
To the moment I sleep
I'll be there by your side
Just you try and stop me
I'll be waiting in line
Just to see if you care

Except that list line. I know he cares. That's never been the question.

So yeah, even as I open myself to other possibilities, I'll:

Sing it loud and clear
I'll always be waiting for you

Yeah I'll always be waiting for you
Yeah I'll always be waiting for you
Yeah I'll always be waiting for you
For you I will always be waiting

Always is a long time. I don't know about always. I often hear Axl's voice inside my head singing a line from the classic November Rain:

And we both know hearts can change

That we do. And if my heart changes, I'll stop waiting. I promise. If it doesn't, it doesn't. I'm done trying to control it. That's not how I want to love anymore...

Atlas

Exploring the frozen tundra

What a great day! My kids and I started it off by cleaning up the house and making soup in the slow cooker for dinner with our neighbors this evening.

Then we headed out for a rather cold, but awesome walk to Sundance to take in the movie version of the second book in The Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire.

The song to mark this day is the one that was playing as the credits rolled, a song that Coldplay wrote just for Katniss and friends:

Some saw the sun
Some saw the smoke
Some heard the gun
Some bent the bow

Sometimes the wire must tense for the note
Caught in the fire, say oh
We're about to explode

Carry your world, I'll carry your world
Carry your world, I'll carry your world

Some far away
Some search for gold
Some dragon to slay
Heaven we hope is just up the road

Show me the way, lord, 'cause I... I'm about to explode

Carry your world, I'll carry your world
Carry your world, I'll carry your world

Carry your world, and all your hurt.

As for me, I'm learning slowly that I can't carry anybody's world and all their hurt, not even my kids'. It's a tough lesson but an important one, because if we carry too much for others, we both rob them of the opportunity for growth and rob ourselves of some of our own vitality.

Lighten your load, yes. But carry your world? Nope. Not anymore...

Death and All Of Its Friends

It feels like I've been on the edge of a big shift now for months. I had that pain in my lower back this spring and earlier in the summer that just refused to go away, forcing me to get help for it. I started to hear my meditation cushion call to me -- didn't heed the call until just this week -- but I heard the call -- I took my hands off my ears and stopped loudly saying "la la la" to drown out the noise.

I mean figuratively saying la la la, which gets translated a variety of ways, including enjoying not just my usual one tasty alcoholic beverage paired with a meal or capping off a mountain bike ride, but having another more often than just occasionally. Being the child of an alcoholic and the grandchild of an alcoholic and a drug addict, I am finely attuned to the urge to numb and when I notice these urges visiting me more frequently, I tune in, take stock, and see what feelings I might be trying to snuff out without having to feel them.

Usually it's the uncomfortable ones; shame's high on the list, fear, pain. I'd list anger, but anger's got a way of finding its way out with or without my help -- it just comes out in healthier ways when I heed it consciously than it does when I'm less conscious. Plus, I learned a number of years ago that anger is merely a messenger. I don't say that to minimize its importance, just to note that anger comes to announce that something isn't right, some need isn't getting met, one of those other feelings (fear, hurt, frustration) is present but not being openly acknowledged.

I went to see one of my teachers last weekend, the one who taught me about anger, and she too sensed the big shift. She said it felt like a death, and, up early this morning, I turned on ipod shuffle only to have Coldplay sing its agreement:

All winter, we got carried
Oh way over on the rooftops let's get married.
All summer we just hurried
so come over, just be patient, and don't worry.
So come over, just be patient, and don't worry.

So come over, just be patient, and don't worry.

And don't worry.

Not worrying is definitely part of it. When I woke up at 4am this morning and didn't immediately fall back to sleep, I was content to rest, when before I might've fretted about what would happen if I didn't get enough sleep. Eventually, I rolled over to turn on the music, and now I'm taking advantage of the time I have to write while my babes are still sleeping, and enjoying the increasing clarity I get from both the music and the writing.

But it's more than just not engaging in worry. It's also giving up the struggle, in big and small ways. Learning to be with what is, because, like Chris Martin and friends, I don't want to spend the rest of my life fighting the same battles over and over again, many of which were with myself and ghosts from my past:

No I don't wanna battle from beginning to end;
I don't wanna cycle, recycle revenge;
I don't wanna follow death and all his friends.

Instead, I'm asking myself one question as often as I can remember it: "What can I do to be kind to myself in this moment?" I have a feeling this shift is going to have a profound effect on my life. It's already starting to...

The Scientist

Settle in, gentle readers, this is gonna take a while, and it may require kleenex.

I've got a lot of processing to do, and the chorus of this song is on repeat in the background:

Nobody said it was easy

It's such a shame for us to part

Nobody said it was easy

No one ever said it would be this hard

Oh, take me back to the start...

Ah yes, the start. A friend said to me the other day that she still remembered how I glowed when I came back from the first weekend with the young-at-heart New Englander (that's what I called him in an essay I wrote about our love). 

I often think about the comment one of my friends made about that essay: "Hold on tight and there's no telling where it will take you." I love that notion, and having rediscovered that place inside myself that feels free to trust my heart and my body to provide what I need, I feel ready for that ride. 

But I can't do it, I won't do it, with someone who is afraid that holding on tight will cost too much. I lived in that space for many years, and I still visit sometimes when fear takes over temporarily, but mostly I am ready to take an open-hearted plunge into union. And in this post-marital world, that union, with whoever that lucky man is, comes with my two incredible kids, and the desire to build a home together and be a family. It'll still involve adventure -- I'm not going to let that go again -- but, it turns out, it'll be less adventure than the young-at-heart New Englander needs:

Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry
You don't know how lovely you are
I had to find you, tell you I need you
Tell you I set you apart
Tell me your secrets, and ask me your questions
Oh let's go back to the start...

Nobody said it was easy
Oh it's such a shame for us to part...

I'll say. But I have so much gratitude for the time we spent as lovers. I know, in no small part thanks to him, just how lovely I am. And I've found him and told him over and over again how I need him and how I've set him apart, but it isn't enough. Sigh.

And so, I am letting go, not out of fear, as I did the last time we broke up, but out of love and respect for the people we are and the choices we both have made and will make about our respective futures:

I was just guessing at numbers and figures

Pulling the puzzles apart

Questions of science, science and progress

Do not speak as loud as my heart

Keep speaking, heart. I'm still listening. I'm hurting, yeah. But I still trust you, and you're bigger and bolder and more beautiful than you were before you fell in love this last time...

Everything's Not Lost

The ipod shuffled onto this number this morning, and as I listened, I felt a mixture of things. Sometimes it seems like Coldplay's songs are largely gratuitous crowd-pleasers, and this one is a great example of that. But my crush on Chris Martin helps me give him the benefit of the doubt, and when I started to explore the lyrics, I realized that the song, and its connection to my morning, were deeper than I originally thought.

Because, you see, I am wrestling with some demons of my own:

When I counted up my demons

Saw there was one for every day

With the good ones on my shoulders

I drove the other ones away

And unfortunately the good ones on my shoulders don't seem fully capable of driving the other ones away. Maybe building the good ones up is the way to go? It seems like that might work. I shall try it.

In the meantime, I'm happy to say that I feel anything but neglected and I'm keenly aware that everything's not lost:

So if you ever feel neglected

And if you think that all is lost

I'll be counting up my demons, yeah

Hoping everything's not lost

When you thought that it was over

You could feel it all around

And everybody's out to get you

Don't you let it drag you down

Singing out

Oh, oh, oh, yeah

Oh, oh, yeah

Oh, oh, yeah

Everything's not lost

Fix You

The first time I heard this song was at a concert at my kids' school. Two children in the school had recently lost their mother, and the choir dedicated this song to them. It was heartbreakingly beautiful, as it is in the concert video footage linked above:

And the tears come streaming down your face

When you lose something you can't replace

When you love someone but it goes to waste

Could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home

And ignite your bones

And I will try to fix you

Today I heard it during the cool-down portion of my functional fitness class, and I got to thinking about trying to fix people. And you know, it's fascinating. I used to think it was problematic that I tried to fix people that I was dating. And it was, to some degree, because I needed to fix them in order to get them (theoretically) to a place where I could love them. And that never worked, not even once.

This time around, it isn't that I met someone who didn't need any fixing. For one thing, that's not possible -- we're all wounded. And it isn't that I didn't want to fix him. It's in my nature to help people heal their hearts and bodies -- if I didn't bring that to a relationship, I'd be leaving out a pretty beautiful part of myself. The difference this time around is that our relationship started from a place where I helped fix his divorce wounds, and that was great for both of us. But then I fell in love with him, all of him, and the fixing happened as a result of the love, not in preparation for it. And when it happens that way, fixing someone (and getting fixed by someone) is a pretty damn beautiful thing:

Tears stream down your face

I promise you I will learn from my mistakes

Tears stream down your face

And I

Lights will guide you home

And ignite your bones

And I will try to fix you

Til Kingdom Come

When I was a little girl, I went to church with my Mom and my sister most Sundays. My Dad stayed home -- he was (and is) a non-believer. I was all over the map -- sometimes I thought I was really feeling it, really getting something out of sitting in that big, beautiful Episcopalian church with the funny smell of incense and old people all mixed together, and other times I felt I was standing in a room with a bunch of people who'd lost the ability to think or speak for themselves and could only recite the words they were told to recite. One of the phrases I remember saying but not understanding was "Til Kingdom Come" -- it sounded really ominous, but I didn't know what it meant.

This morning my ipod played this song, which sounds a bit to me like Chris Martin and the gang pondering some religious issues and maybe even, as I have, coming to understand faith by falling in love:

Still my heart and hold my tongue

I feel my time

My time has come

Let me in

Unlock the door

I never felt this way before

And the wheel just keeps on turning

The drummer begins to drum

I don’t know which way I’m going

I don’t know which way I’ve come

Hold my head inside your hands

I need someone who understands

I need someone, someone who hears

For you I’ve waited all these years

For you I’d wait 'til kingdom come

Until my day, my day is done

And say you'll come and set me free

Just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me

I know a little something about the waiting of which they sing -- this whole long distance thing can get a little tough sometimes. It isn't something I planned on, or would have thought possible, but isn't that what faith is all about?

Christmas Lights

So many Christmas songs, but this is the one that is speaking to me tonight, because it seems to be about the mixed bag that Christmas can be. It's true -- the lights are pretty -- and they can help light a fire within:

Oh Christmas lights

Light up the street

Light up the fireworks in me

May all your troubles soon be gone

Those Christmas lights keep shining on

But on the other hand, they sometimes seem to illuminate what's missing along with what is here:

Those Christmas lights

Light up the street

Maybe they'll bring her back to me

Then all my troubles will be gone

Oh Christmas lights keep shining on

As for me, I'm not really missing anything that isn't already here or on its way. But I am feeling overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the task of preparing for this magical holiday. I've got a few more tasks to complete tonight -- I'm celebrating with my kids tomorrow -- and before I go to sleep, I think I'll sit and enjoy those christmas lights for a few more minutes and see if I can feel more of the magic and less of the mayhem...

In My Place

I didn't set an alarm last night, but this morning it was as if I had: I woke up to a song playing inside my head. It took me a while to figure out what it was, because the lyric I kept hearing was "How long must I wait for you?" I googled that, and found Louis Jordan whaling on his trumpet. That definitely wasn't the sound I had going on inside this morning. Eventually I tracked down what I was hearing: Chris Martin & the other boys from Coldplay.

As I listened to the song again and read the lyrics, I knew why it had awoken me. Before I went to sleep last night, I unearthed some pretty heavy feelings about a dark time in my life and in my marriage. It was a tough place to be, and not unlike the one the lyrics describe:

In my place, in my place

Were lines that I couldn't change

I was lost, oh yeah

I was lost, I was lost

Crossed lines I shouldn't have crossed

I was lost, oh yeah

Yeah, how long must you wait for him?

Yeah, how long must you pay for him?

Yeah, how long must you wait for him?

And now, rather than ruminating over the price I paid or the amount of time I waited, I am going to sign off, do a forgiveness meditation, and continue to release any hold that place has on me. Because like the past tense in the lyrics -- that time is gone. I wait no longer.