Scary Honesty
Susan Livingston
I'm sending this as an email because I haven't figured out a way to
post an attachment on line, and I'm not sure I want this attachment in
our Files section. Also, I'm starting a new thread because I'm
wanting to disentangle the nitty-gritty discussion of the details of
the Relationships proposal from the Scary Honesty discussion that has
been stimulated by it.
The attached is my gift to that Scary Honesty discussion. I've been
working for about the past eight hours to distill a 57-page transcript
I made from the recording of the last day of the November face-to-face
meeting of the CNVC Board of Directors down to an eleven-page document
that I believe to be a very honest representation of MBR's
participation in that day's proceedings.
For those of you who haven't heard this before, I was an observer for
the entire 3 1/2 days of that meeting except for an hour that
overlapped with the November ESAC meeting, and I have over 100 pages
of notes from it that I have been encouraged to share; my reluctance
to do so was born of my preference, based on respect, to give those
who were at the meeting the opportunity to speak for themselves - at
least by posting Minutes. However, now that four months have passed
and all I've seen is a maze of notes with cross references among wiki
pages and google docs along with a whisper that the task of distilling
that meeting down into Minutes has been delegated (abdicated!) to the
GCC, I am out of patience, and I have become willing to share.
Jim, Jeff, Rhonda, Jerry, it is my hope that reading this will meet
some needs of yours for clarity and healing. I ask you, as
CNVC-certified Trainers who have expressed yourselves with Scary
Honesty in sharing your reactions to the Relationships proposal, to
read this attachment from a place of connection to what lives in you
about Relationships among NVC Community Stakeholders, and respond to
this group with any insights or shifts that you experience as a result
of doing so. I also invite you and any other Trainers who are
following this discussion to post this attachment to the Certified
Trainers yahoo group if you think it might contribute to clarity and
healing for other trainers around the world, and to do so with or
without my name attached, at your discretion. Since I am not
certified, I do not have access to that group.
Mercedes and other advanced certification candidates who are following
this discussion, I hope you will receive this attachment as a gift,
and that it will meet some needs of yours, too. And please, don't
imagine that you "have to" read it before the meeting tomorrow! I
don't imagine that we will have the opportunity to discuss these
issues at the meeting anyway; however, it is my hope that the
discussion will continue in this group and that more people will chime
in, and I would welcome a request for real-time discussion and/or
empathic exchange as early as the April meeting if we are able to
consent to the proposal tomorrow.
Finally, for Judy, Faye, and other members of this group who, like me,
are dedicated NVC practitioners who may or may not be on the trainer
certification path, and for those of you who are so new that much of
this discussion is a mystery to you, I hope you will approach the
attached with curiosity and an open heart because I am confident that
you will reap a rich harvest of learning by doing so.
And again, thanks to all of you who are participating, whether
actively or by following the discussion silently and holding it with
care. This discussion is really meeting precious needs of mine around
companionship and meaning.
Peace and Love
Susan Livingston
Administrator, propeace.net
Founder, PANinA.org
276-739-0047
Skype: susan24210
Nonviolent Communication (NVC) Practitioner
Clerk, English-Speaking Americas Circle (ESAC)
Department of Peace (DoP) Campaign
Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR)
Appalachian Peace Education Center (APEC)
Appalachian Community Economics (ACE)
Washington County Virginia Organizing Project (WCVOP)
Norman Pasewalk
Donna S
Thank you for your offering and the work you put into editing this piece. I read your attachment initially with curiosity, wanting to connect and have more of a sense of belonging to/with the greater whole. At the end, I found myself wanting more...closure, perhaps, or continuity to the present state of affairs as regards Marshall's feelings, needs, thoughts etc. About 10 minutes later, I found myself feeling both angry and tearful, on his behalf, so I thought. I said aloud, after all, NVC IS HIS BABY...who are all these people trying to take his baby away from him? Almost longing for time to go backwards to when there were not so many people clamoring to have a piece of this pie. That disconnect of the daddy from the baby, I acknowledge, is from my own past hurt in my own family of origin. So, alas, I find that cannot speak for Marshall or for anyone else. In looking at the bigger picture I see how each of us projects our own past upon our present, and our identity, whether as hero, scapegoat, invisible one, or cheerleader. I have found NVC to be a recovery tool for my own personal growth, leading me from the land of the deaf and mute to the land of authenticity and integrity. To Marshall I am grateful. To my own inner promptings and intuitive Divine Self I am also grateful. I choose to follow my intuition now, rather than to try to play a role or make peace with the organization. My role as I see it now is to foster connections in a smaller part of the world; maybe in my own state, in my own town, and maybe between 4 corners of the SE US....thank you for listening to my reactions and feedback; meets my need to share and be heard.
Yours in truth
Donna Steckal, Ph.D.
CT
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kristin masters
wishes, honesty, empathic responses, proposals, etc. on this ESACircle.
I have been out of the loop, putting my efforts into my local groups and
community, and my own family's needs, so I haven't been a participant in
meetings or much of the google group dialogue. I have kept current with
reading while I stayed on the periphery, focused on development of NVC in
Santa Cruz and in my own being.
Yet I so have enjoyed the LIFE that has entered the dialogue of late, the
honesty and yearning have been palpable. I feel inspired by reading the
struggles, and by reading Susan's transcribed notes from the board meeting.
I feel like I have a clearer picture of a somewhat muddy landscape, and have
a sense of the collective struggle to make it clearer (and more honestly
trusting yet).
Thank you, Susan, for your persistent holding of this evolving community's
mechanism for shared reality. And thank you sincerely to all of you who have
tended to it, on all our behalf. I will likely stay peripheral for a while
yet, but wanted to proclaim my recognition of the life flowing toward mutual
understanding. Ashe!
Namaste, Kristin
Kristin Masters - Mettaguide
trainer-facilitator-coach
831-246-0730 www.nvcsantacruz.org
We are the ones we have been waiting for...