Category Archives: Express Fully

Vulnerability x 2

I’m a follower of NVC – Non-Violent Communication.  Part of “following” NVC is my own practice and it is tapping into the network of folks who are committed to NVC in their own lives/work.  One of the things/people I follow in that context is Miki Kashtan’s blog – Recently she posted about types of Vulnerability.  Here’s an excerpt:

That was the point when the bigger surprise came. After listening to me, my friend, who’s known me for years, brought to my attention a third way in which interacting with me can be challenging. I hadn’t remembered that I often make it quite challenging for people to give me love and care unless it comes in “just so” forms which only few people ever find. While I have known this, and know where this protection originated in my childhood, I hadn’t until that day related it to my path of vulnerability. Suddenly, I saw the paradox: how could it be that after almost 16 years of being on that path it was still difficult for me to receive care in other forms than the precise ones that my organism favors? That’s when I understood that my path of vulnerability has been on my terms: I come out, by my volition, and “undefend” myself. I express myself and willingly accept consequences. This is only one side of vulnerability. I’ve not yet even begun exploring what cultivating receptive rather than volitional vulnerability would look like. I’ve had a couple of small experiences that have given me pointers to what this could be. One such experience showed me that this kind of vulnerability is about letting go of a certain kind of holding, allowing the world to “catch” me, and taking the risk that I might “fall” and there would be nothing to land on. A far greater risk to this organism than ridicule or lack of acceptance. It’s about stepping, once again and beyond infancy, into the experience of being at the mercy of others. It’s about a form of deep surrender I’ve only experienced fleetingly. Just as much as I wanted to reclaim my vulnerability when I started my path, I can almost feel the yearning to find my place, to rest in the grand scheme of things, to be part of, not so separate, not so alone.

Vulnerability is one of theme’s in my own life – indeed is a “category” for my blog!  But I had not thought about the two dimensions to vulnerability that Miki mentions – receptive and volitional vulnerability.  And I have talked in the past about wanting to be a better receiver – that by deflecting/pushing away/making light of – what others want to give to me, I am taking away their opportunity to be a giver.  I want to be both a good giver and receiver.  So when I read Miki’s blog post, I was stuck once again by the significance of receiving and by this new idea that receiving is another face of vulnerability.

As with most aspects of life, any opportunity for reframing is usually an opportunity for learning and integrating.  It is helpful for me to think of receiving as an aspect of my vulnerability.  So there is comfort in knowing that as I work on my vulnerability I might also be enhancing my capacity to receive.

The invitation now is to direct some of my attention to receptive vulnerability – to finding some spaciousness around what I let in – surrendering to what might come my way that doesn’t arrive in a “package” I’m used to.  When I launch a rocket of desire – something/someone/some idea that I’m wanting to manifest in my life I often add “this or something better, something that serves my higher good.”  Feeling like even more can come into my purview now as I practice receptive vulnerability.

How are you at giving with vulnerability and receiving with vulnerability?

 

Text and Images Copyright © Dr. Catherine Hajnal 2011, 2012

 

Take It Personally

Here’s the scenario:

I’ve sent emails out to two different friends who are important in my life and have not had a response from either of them.  For one friend the norm is to hear back the very day I send the email.  It is now three days later.  For the other friend, I’ve been sending emails for a few months now with no response and phone calls haven’t lead me anywhere either.

My first response, or perhaps better said, reaction, is to assume I have done something wrong. What did I say or do that has resulted in them not wanting to talk to/connect with me?  This is my default shame reaction where I take things personally and I ground them in my sense of a “less-than” self.

I’m a little older and wiser now with all the work I have done on myself these least few years so I can at least see going to that shame place. I usually can’t stop myself from going there, yet now that I see myself going there I have options.  With awareness comes choice.

I remind myself that yes, I may have been a trigger for that person in some way, but I get to give their reaction back to them.  I get to be responsible for my own feelings and they get to be responsible for theirs.  So in actuality I do get to take it personally, just my own personal, I get to look at what is coming up for me.

That “own personal” attention is for me a form of self-empathy.  I get to acknowledge my feelings and explore what is behind them – my needs.  Just as valid as my whatever may be transpiring for my friends.  I have a direct line into me.

So what is coming up for me?  I’m sad these friends have not replied back.  And I’m concerned about them on two fronts.  One, maybe something is unfolding for them that has absolutely nothing to do with our exchanges.  Can I help?

Second, if I have said something to trigger either of them, I would like to know what that is.  Perhaps there is a way I can reframe something. Perhaps I’ve been misunderstood.  And perhaps it is just going to be a tigger – I might have said something that sounded just like one of their parents and depending on their history, they were transported back there for a while.  It can be a bit scarey and vulnerable to step into finding out, but I’m willing to go there.  Here, while I’m part of the exchange, I’m not coming from the place of having done something wrong.

What’s behind all of this is are MY needs for connection, belonging, clarity, consideration, and love.  And those are beautiful needs.  I don’t have to think of myself as “less than” for having those needs. In the past I’ve done an immediate translation to equate anxiousness with the shame response.  Now I can see that the anxiousness means some of my needs are not being met.  I’m whole, I’m just wanting connection.

So the next time you feel to take something personally, believing that you are somehow at fault, less than, for something, I invite you take it personally – your own personal – and look behind the circumstances.  Which of your needs are calling forth?

 

 

Text and Images Copyright © Dr. Catherine Hajnal 2011, 2012

Don’t Ask For What You Want – You Might Be Disappointed!

Had a big “a-ha” recently when I connected my struggle of asking for what I want with an effort to avoid being/feeling disappointed.

Here was my logic:

If I ask for what I want I might not get it.  So to avoid that possible disappointment I won’t ask for what I want.  I then can’t get a no.

Hmmm….

Here’s a recent example.  I am wanting to connect with a friend over Skype.  The exchange happens via e-mail.

Friend:  What time would be good?

Me:  I’ll be home after 9 tonight or my schedule is pretty wide open tomorrow.

I don’t hear back from the friend until the next morning.  I haven’t asked to hear back about a specific time.  I haven’t asked about their availability.  And here’s what I really wanted – I desperately wanted the friend to call that very night after 9 pm when I got back home.  I’m sure you were able to read that into my part of the request weren’t you?  My timing was clear wasn’t it?  The intensity of wanting to connect – I put that out there too didn’t I?  And so what did I do?  I rushed home from a lovely event – remember I’m hoping my friend will call me after 9 pm – and sit around, albeit keeping myself occupied with things I am needing to get done – and every few minutes checking Skype to see if my friend is online.

Here’s the irony – in my attempt to avoid disappointment, I feel it anyway.  My friend is nowhere to be found on Skype that evening so I am disappointed we don’t connected AND I get to feel disappointed in myself too.  Double whammy.

There is a voice in my head right now saying “Pathetic!”.  That is my self critical judging voice – the Jackal voice in the world of NVC.  It is a voice of shame as I judge myself for being weak with expressing what I really want.  The Jackal voice is also the gift of a guide post to step into language that is more life affirming – giraffe language – beginning with some self-empathy.  I personally need a little help getting into the self-empathy space and I often get there by doing some self-reflection, a little logic to digest the situation perhaps.

So a little self-reflection.  I’ve noticed what I will do is make my request in very general terms.  The lack of specificity is another part of the defenses to avoid being disappointed.  I’m sort of expressing what I want – I’ll be home after 9 tonight or my schedule is pretty wide open tomorrow. – I just ask for it so generally I’m kind of expecting the recipient to be a mind reader.  In my mind I’m also justifying the approach by telling myself I’m giving consideration to what the other person’s needs might be.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, it just becomes another part of the defense/avoidance mechanism if I put their needs far and away above any specificity of need on my part.

And now some self-empathy.  It can be hard to hear a No.  It can be awful to think of wanting to connect with a friend and then think you might not be able to connect with that person.  The wanting to connect with a friend is a beautiful want.  We – I – so have that innate need for connection and belonging.  And it is a beautiful thing to want to be considerate of my friend’s needs and to acknowledge the reality they might not be able to meet my initial request.

In NVC we talk about redos – when a conversation doesn’t unfold quite the way you had hoped/expected know that for the most part you can create redo possibilities – a chance to have the conversation again with different energy.  Asking for a redo can be another request you can practice making.  In this instance, without knowing it, my friend gave me a redo.  It wasn’t going to be exactly the same request as time had passed, yet I could now apply my a-ha insights.

Friend:   So, recommend a time that works for you.

Me:  It has been rough start this morning.  Not exactly sure why – a collection of “life” stuff to be sure.  Could really use a hug today.  So would early afternoon work – say 1 PM?  I’m conscious of all that you might need to be get done today so there is a part of me that says “I can’t take a chunk of time out of  the middle of your day.”  and yet you’ve asked me for a time, so I’m just going to say 1 PM and see where we get to…

Friend:  I will shoot for that but can’t guarantee. Just heading off now.  Will try to make that happen. Will text with level of success.

We ended up not being able to Skype at 1 pm.  I did get a connection though.  We were able to talk on the phone at 1 pm.  Sure, it didn’t quite unfold the way I had hoped/requested – we weren’t able to Skype – so on some level I received a No – yet on another level my request was answered – I was able to connect with my friend.

There is power in acknowledging the fear – the fear of disappointment, of getting the No – and going forward with my requests anyway.  Because when I do that, I don’t have to be disappointed in myself.  I can feel good about having expressed my needs, about making my now more specific or direct request, about being open to having the requests fulfilled in different or creative ways, and in being considerate of what might be unfolding for the person I am making the request of.  And with the willingness to be present to the disappointment, it doesn’t have the same hook either.  I can feel the “I’ll be okay.” deep down inside.

 

Shame on ME

I’ve been reading a great deal about shame recently – books by each of Brené Brown and John Bradshaw for example.  I also recently attended a workshop by Sarah Peyton on the purpose of shame and the power of empathy with some Interpersonal Neurobiology  (IPNB) in the mix to bring it all together.  Through this learning and self-reflection I’ve discovered how strong a hold shame has had on me.

My default place to go when something feels amiss is to believe I am somehow at fault, somehow less than, somehow not worthy.  Notice that it is always about me.  Never about the circumstances, or something or someone external to myself.  I make me the problem.  And not even a behaviour, something I’ve done for example, but rather me, the whole me, the essence of me.

The invitation to me now is to speak my shame – to be vulnerable – to seek empathy from others, and to offer it to my Self.  In the words of Bradshaw I am “externalizing” my shame.  Brown would consider me to be building and exercising my shame resilience.  In either instance the goal is not to rid oneself of shame (impossible by the way), rather I like to think of it as loosening the hook shame has into my sense of Self.

Shame unto itself is a very human experience and that’s why on some level it is a good thing that in part serves to keep us safe and humble and why we can’t be rid of it. (Unless you’ve figured out a way to be something other than human!)  Yet when “less than” becomes a defining part of our identity – my identity – then it is time to regroup!  At least that’s where I am at.  I can see now that shame holds me back in my life and I’d like to be able to play bigger.  With awareness comes choice!

Let’s see what choices I can make going forward.  I’ll share my shame and some new choices here in my blog.

Letting Go – pain, struggle, or release and relief?

When is it time to let go?

I’ve been moving into a new place the last few weeks.  I chose a place that I felt served me in many ways – love the location and the space itself made me say “I want to live here.”  And I knew the space was going to force me to downsize.  Not much storage and I was okay with that.

Then came the downsizing.

What if I might some day hold that party for 30 people I’ve been thinking about?  I would need those mugs then.

I do wear those shoes sometimes…

And then there’s the books and files that remain from my years as a grad student working on my doctoral dissertation and then as an academic.  The collection had already seen one purge several years ago.  Much still remained.

I felt heavy – literally and figuratively – as I tried to decide what to do with these items.  That is where the pain and struggle came in.  The memories – good and bad – of the experiences associated with these items come into my consciousness.  Thoughts – oh so many thoughts – came rushing in.  Am I throwing away my PhD if I throw away documents and books associated with it?  How will I prove that I did the work if I don’t have items from the steps along the way?  What if someday I might need this particular piece of information again?

I had lots of advice from friends.  “Don’t think about it.  Just throw it all away.”  Or “You can’t throw that away.  That was from your grandmother.”  Helpful?  Nope.

What in the end worked for me is the following.  It took me a while to figure out this was the process that got me the release and relief I was looking for and no, that doesn’t mean I threw everything away.  I just found peace with the process.

First I checked in on what the item represented.  Maybe there was some grieving I needed to do and in so doing, I would be able release the item.  Maybe I wasn’t living the life at 47 I thought I was going to – the parties for 30 co-hosted by me and my spouse weren’t happening.  No big parties.  No spouse.  And yet I could follow-up that up and say unequivocally that life IS good even though it doesn’t look as I had expected.  So I acknowledged the loss of the unrealized vision and found gratitude in the now.

Then I asked myself about how I wanted to let go of the item(s).  Somehow simply throwing things away didn’t feel right for a variety of reasons. Being able to give them away for reuse, or at least for recycle, felt better.  So I created different boxes for items I wanted to offer to friends, to various charities, and to recycle.

And I gave myself some time.  Those boxes of books and papers – I had to sit with them for a while as they blocked the ease of movement in my apartment.  At first I thought I would send the books to Africa.  Yes, that felt right.  And then it didn’t.  I thought about the environmental impact of shipping.  I thought about whether these were really the books they would want.  In the end the books and papers went happily to recycle because in that question of grieving and letting go I realized I had the fear that without all those goodies, somehow the PhD wasn’t mine any more.  That somehow I was going to be less smart and less capable.  When I recognized that story represented a typical shame (less than) response for me, I knew, one of those body knowings, that the stuff needed to go.  That I wanted it to go.  That I was whole, smart, and capable without those bits and pieces.

I did keep some things.  I didn’t need five of the items I had received from my Grandmother.  One would do so that every time I opened the cupboard, I could remember her with great affection.  And my two friends who bought me the chicken pitcher – well they’ll be happy to know I still have it.  It makes me laugh way too much every time I use it, albeit not very often, so I had to keep it.  For now!

 

 

 

Text and Images Copyright © Dr. Catherine Hajnal 2011, 2012

Wherever I Go There I Am

Sunshine.  Dolphins frolicking in the bay.  Hummingbirds buzzing by.  Monarch butterflies taking a rest on their journey.  Purposeful community.  Connection.  Healthy food in abundance.  Thermal baths.  Hidden nooks and crannies.  A warm comfortable bed at night.

Sounds pretty amazing doesn’t it?  Magical I’d say.

And yet…

…in that same beautiful place I am triggered.  I have moments of fear as I speak my truth.  I feel the shields coming up as I receive positive feedback or when I let someone no.  If I let the connection and love in, when I fully show up, will I lose what I am so seeking?  Do I keep myself alone in order to avoid finding myself alone?

I’m hanging at Esalen for five weeks doing a work study program exploring Non-Violent Communication (NVC) within the larger context of purposeful community.  Learning something one day, applying it in community the next.  It is a magical place.  It is a full life place.  It reminds me that wherever I go, there I am.  Whatever personal development work I need to do comes with me, even to paradise.

Here’s the thing – I’m delighting in that.  In NVC we talk about Universal Needs.  Those needs are foundational to my existence as a human being.  It doesn’t matter where I am, I have needs for connection, for belonging, for expansion, to be seen and heard, for meaning, for safety, for consideration.  If I can explore those needs here, I have the opportunity to explore them anywhere because here’s the thing, once I engage in my life, I can do that anywhere.  Wherever I go, there I am.  I can engage in my life here, there and everywhere.

Wherever you go, there you are.*  What parts of you are calling for some attention no matter what circumstances you are in?  Know that whatever work you do to connect with and heal/integrate those parts of yourself gets to come with you wherever you go. When you do self-work, you are forever the beneficiary of your efforts.

 

*My gratitude to Jon Kabat-Zinn’s body of work for introducing me to this concept.

 

 

 

I Slapped a Friend

I didn’t mean to slap my friend.  And the reality is I didn’t physically slap her.  But she told me it felt like I had when I denied her experience. It was a metaphorical slap of disregard.

I’ve been working on my website.  Learning the ins and outs of WordPress.  Figuring out which theme to use – the look and feel for my site.  The themes I was looking at came with some possible images to use on the header (the top part) of each page.

I was showing an early draft of the site to my friend, anxious to get her feedback.  She told me she liked the image to which I responded “Oh that’s just a canned image anyone can use.”

Slap.

Because she’s such a good friend she stopped me right there, right then and told me she felt like she had just been slapped.  She’s right.  My response denied her experience.  She truly enjoyed the image.  She had told me why she was enjoying the image, describing different aspects of it, and I had chosen not to hear her enjoyment.  She felt devalued – both in terms of her taste and her opinion.

And the reality is it is a beautiful image. There is nothing “just” about it. I truly am grateful that image exists in the world.  I had chosen it because it had touched me too.  It felt like it fit with the vibe I was trying to create with my website.

So why did I disregard my friend so quickly?

I was in my own “stuff”.  I’m a recovering perfectionist.  I’ve been struggling with this website for a while now – hardly able to get started because of the perfectionist’s angst around getting it right, having it perfect. The recovering part of me was able to let go of a lot of “perfect” and get started.  My website is not perfect AND it is more than enough.  Yes, it can improve/evolve.  I look forward to that unfolding.

So where did I get stuck?  On the image.  What I was wanting was to use my own image.  I had it in my head that it would be one of my photographs in use on the website.  When I first tried that, it didn’t work.  I tried a number of different configurations, editing the photo, cropping the photo, etc.  Nothing worked.  So I went with the beautiful image that was offered as part of the theme.

And my friend triggered me by focusing on the image.  It was a sore spot for me.  So I went to the place of shame and blame.  I felt inadequate and I took it out on my friend and the lovely image.

I’m grateful to have this friend in my life for so many reasons.  The gift she gives me every time I see her is her authenticity coupled with her ability to be in the moment and share what is unfolding for her.  Her comment about feeling slapped enabled me to stop and check-in with myself.  I could  then acknowledge my trigger and I could acknowledge my friend.

Sometimes those moments of a friend calling you on your “stuff” can be a bit scarey.  It can feel confrontational.  Coming out the other side however, I’ve found, is always a better place.  A place where feelings and needs have been acknowledged.  Where people feel heard.  It is not about right or wrong, rather it is about being vulnerable and genuine connection.

Here’s the added irony.  I decided to switch to a different theme. The image I had liked was no longer available with the new theme.  None of the new images resonated with me in a way that felt appropriate for my website.  So I tried once again to use one of my own images, and this time it worked!  Don’t know what I didn’t differently.

And the kicker – I think the image that I had poo-pooed in my moment of being triggered is actually a lovelier image than my own.  So I’m feeling inspired to take more photographs and create one that truly feels right for my website. For now the website with my image is more than enough.