Living in Compassion

At last here is an introduction to the concepts underlying the work of Robert Gonzales. It has been a few years of devotion to his teaching for me since I have attended the first workshop with him.

Robert was labelled as an NVC poet/philosopher. Even though this intro might strike somebody as ‘touchy feely’ my experience with him and with the insights he offers have been very practical, down to earth and highly applicable in daily life. A true jewel as I see it. Enjoy:

Living In Compassion

by Robert Gonzales

My deep inquiry in life has led me to develop practical pathways of living in the fullness and flow of life as a daily spiritual practice—what I call Living Compassion.  In my trainings and retreats, I teach processes and offer inner maps that support transformation in areas of inner experience that were previously inaccessible.

CULTIVATING FULLNESS IN THE BEAUTY OF NEEDS

A foundational practice of Living Compassion is what I call cultivating and dwelling in the Beauty of Needs.  This involves specific practice in relaxing into fully embodied energetic qualities of life (needs) and developing present moment awareness. Compassionate Communication is a language of the heart. Yet, we are not able to truly live the language of the heart unless we are able to access the heart.  Needs are the qualities of the heart that manifest in us as longings or yearnings. To learn to cultivate and live in the fullness of these qualities is the essence of living the fullness of life itself.

An important aspect of self-compassion requires the development of simple presence.  Presence is simple awareness. It’s not complicated and it doesn’t require an intellectual understanding to come to simple awareness of how the energies we call needs live in us.

'Both - And' Governance

If there is one concise way to describe the essence of Sociocracy, I see it in this John Shinnerer's article. I am thrilled that I found it in the infinity of cyberspace. Judge for yourself:


'Both - And' Governance

 by jschinnerer

In recent weeks, Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and numerous local and regional Occupy actions in the USA have brought ideas of “horizontal” governance into more common awareness. Occupy groups have mostly modeled themselves on the original OWS model, where “General Assemblies” that operate through a form of active, often large-group consensus are a primary means of decision-making. Inclusiveness and equality are commonly stated values of these processes.

The term “leaderless” is also used by Occupy organizations to identify their mode of operation. In theory, there are no leaders of General Assemblies, or the groups they are used by. There are facilitators who delineate assembly processes and attempt to insure that those processes are followed. There is allegedly no one person or small group of people “in charge” of decision-making, or even of any particular decision-making process.

This is contrasted, by OWS among others, with “vertical” governance – in general, a context where decisions are made by relatively few members of an organization, while nonetheless intended to be carried out by all members. Most often the term “vertical” is used as equivalent to “hierarchical.”

So if there are no leaders – how did this all get started? Who decided how a General Assembly would operate? What if someone just joining in disagrees? How is selection of General Assembly facilitators done?

Choosing Interdependence

I see this post as an open invitation for each of us to support Bay NVC - a key organisation promoting the principles of Needs Based Communication. For those who are new to the concept, I believe the Fundrising Telesummit offers a rich and affordable source of learning.

May you be as inspired by this post as I am :)

By Miki Kashtan

Many spiritual traditions converge with certain aspects of modern science in a basic understanding of life as one interdependent whole. In the natural world, for example, if predators are removed from an ecosystem, the herbivores multiply beyond the available grass and the entire ecosystem is endangered. Our global economy is now recognized to be interdependent as well: if one country falls into an economic crisis, a cascading effect can destabilize the entire global economy. On the human plane, recent developments in neuroscience lead many to conclude that our apparently separate brains are interwoven: others’ responses and expressions affect us in a direct way through mechanisms such as the firing of mirror neurons. These phenomena and so many others are examples of interdependence as a fact of life.

At the same time as our awareness of this level of interdependence is growing, our capacity as individuals to engage in behaviors that recognize and engage with our interdependence is diminishing. Interdependence as a practice invites us to consciously engage with ourselves and others in ways that honor and nurture our connection with all of life.

From Self-Sufficiency to Self-Responsibility and Self-Reliance

“Each of us lives in and through an immense movement of the hands of other people. The hands of other people lift us from the womb. The hands of other people grow the food we eat, weave the clothes we wear, and build the shelters we inhabit. The hands of other people give pleasure to our bodies in moments of passion, and aid and comfort in times of affliction and distress. It is in and through the hands of other people that the commonwealth of nature is appropriated and accommodated to the needs and pleasures of our separate, individual lives. And, at the end, it is the hands of other people that lower us into the earth.” -- Jim Stockinger