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I don’t know what the future will bring, but I know I want compassion to be a part of it >
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‘I don’t know what the future will bring, but I know I want compassion to be a part of it’.
That was the clarity I had a few years ago. It hasn’t changed. I think on the one hand a lot is going great, and there is much to be grateful for. Not seeing the overwhelming beauty in our lives is a missed opportunity of unimaginable proportions.
At the same, it could be said things look pretty dire. The incessant warfare of our species, the nuclear reality of the 2020’s— combined with the eerie advancements of AI… Add climate change, the hypnotizing distractions of our internet devices and social media… it can be a pretty grim outlook. Are we already in the ‘Kali Yuga’?
Even though for many, the apocalypse has already manifested with dreadful undeniability, I hope that our worst nightmares will remain in the realm of imagination, as much as we can manage.
Meanwhile, if I look at myself, my life, and also around me, I see a lot of tragic attempts to meet needs of communication and connection. ‘Tragic’, because often, my attempts have resulted in painful separations, little and big. I know I’m not the only one. That’s why I practice nonviolent communication (NVC). I need to, in order to somewhat offset the mind I inherited and inhabit, with its dividing concepts, right-and-wrong-thinking, and utter judmentalness.
Nondual communication is my name for NVC: an approach to language, communication and connecting that goes beyond ‘you or me’ to you-AND-me. I believe that if we look deeply and clearly, we see that your needs not only contribute to my needs, but in a deep way, they are also my needs, and vice versa. As the fabric of humanity we are not ultimately separated—though of course we are individuated.
I also like to call NVC 'mindful communication', because this approach offers a conscious and helpful way of relating to our thoughts, feelings and needs in a way that creates both meta-awareness and Metta--as in loving kindness, for yourself and for others.
My inspiration >
Nonduality >
When we think and see the world dualistically, we are contracted in an either/or mental perspective. This colors our subconscious worldview when we are triggered, or scared. Our nervous system gets activated.
Culturally, dualistic thinking has been a mainstay. Perhaps, as Yuval Noah Harari points out, this is because we are not yet fully accustomed to our position at the top of the food chain. Evolutionarily, we often still inhabit a limbic paradigm of an unsafe world full of predators. No wonder the either/or worldview dominates us so much.
When we take a ‘nondual’ stance, we can see a deeper and-and reality. We are a We. Beyond dualisms such as right/wrong, me/you, self/world, inner/outer and body/soul, we can be free and co-exist. I believe this nonduality marks the true Reality we always already share: when we look clearly into our experience, there are no boundaries to be found. I’m not talking about ethical boundaries, but ontological boundaries. They are not real!
From the deep view of nonduality, nothing is truly separate. Our minds create illusory separations. As Ramana Maharsi said: “fear only comes when you think that there are others, apart from you”.
Needs >
Judgments, opinions, analyses, diagnoses—these are the invaluable tools of our amazing brains. At the same time, if we rely only on our mental capacities, a heartful connection will likely be more difficult to establish. And conflicts are easily born as we fight to defend our ‘mental positions’ (as Eckhart Tolle says).
Nonviolent (or ‘connecting’) communication aims at listening for the feelings & needs behind those mental fabrications—it’s in our feelings & needs that we contact Life. And there lies the ‘field beyond right and wrong’ where we can truly meet. Because there is no conflict at the humanly universal and-and level of needs.
One way to see needs is that they are the general qualities of experience we long for (like peace, respect, connection, or the need to be seen), and the reason why we recognize them when we meet them, is because they are ‘frequencies’ of our own conscious being.
An organism with no name >
I see us, myself included, often trapped in a worldview of reward and punishment, me-vs-you. Who gets the stick, who gets the carrot? This is rooted in complex, interpersonal and intergenerational narrative structures, that we individually experience as our personal life stories, and societally as our ‘cultural myths’.
If we can connect with the anonymous organism beneath this psychological story-layer (literally ‘psycho-logical’), we can begin to have empathy for ourselves. Beyond what I think I am, I sense an organism without a name. Beneath my judgements about what I deserve, I feel it calling clearly for what it needs. This is where I live, and I feel you live here too.
