On ego, and pain, and connection

[Angela Harms]

It seems to me that there's been a lot of pain expressed on the list, lately, and that it might be a good opportunity to connect with compassion. Only I'm not sure where to begin.

Would anyone like to offer up a brief expression of what they're experiencing, in hopes of making a connection? I think that would help me find a starting place for connection.

Here's mine.
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I have a vision of NVC and other paths to the sacred place as being about holding one another with loving compassion, moving gently toward openness and connection, and accepting and embracing one another (and ourselves) fully. I also envision it being about what *I* am doing, how I am listening, how I am talking. It gets hard for me, though, when someone else tells me... well, here's a quote from a few weeks ago: "You're not in the model." I want it to be about my own actions, but sometimes I forget and let someone else define me.

Sometimes I shame myself that I'm not speaking proper giraffe, or I blame someone else for not speaking proper giraffe. -- In fact, I've noticed in the past that when I've been thinking that someone wants to tell other people what to do, or that they're not being compassionate, I've written them off as apparently being undeserving of my compassion. That is, I'm compassionate toward "everybody but her. She's a bitch."  What's that about?! Crazy stuff. :-)

Anyway, I've looked at various ways to help me come back to myself after being "in my stuff" or "in my story" and found great comfort in several. Some of my favorites are zazen (meditation), bike+river trails, reading or listening to Eckhart Tolle, Neale Donald Walsh, Byron Katie and many, many others, and also working with NVC. I don't find that NVC alone makes it easy to reach that place, where I remember who I am (a spark of the divine fire, of course).
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So now I guess I have two requests. I'll repeat the first one: Would anyone like to offer up a brief expression of what they're experiencing, in hopes of making a connection? And a second: Would anyone like to connect around what I've shared, by telling me what you understand me to be saying, and what's alive in you upon reading?

Angela
 

[Craig Sones Cornell]

Angels, I will respond to your second request first. This is what I
got our of your post.

That you place a high value on gentleness, perhaps part of that is
tenderness and concern for the well being of others.

That there is a is a divine fire of which we are all sparks. For you
the essence of connection (sopmething you treasure) is found when the
divine spark in one connects with and is groked by the divine spark in
the other. Groking back and forth like a cradle of nurturance bathing
each other in a divine fire.

That you struggle with languaging the specifics that NVC seems to be
based on and you want freedom to express yourself as compassionatley
as you are able without having the giraffe police show up either from
the outside or from the inside. Yet you would like to have greater
mastery over NVC and a bunch of other perspectives that resonate with
your intrest in connection and compassion. You would so love to find a
way to increase competence without having to experience the shame and
self-judgment of not being good enough.

Now to your second request. I have experienced an epiphany of self-
fulness from this past week or so. I am much more conscious of how I
want to proceed to meet my needs and hopefully the needs of others. I
was experiencing on the giraffe level needs for clarity, inclusion,
acceptance, and exploration varrying from met to unmet. Feelings were
swinging wildly. Jackals were howling, nipping, and makine a fuss as
their ears flopped in and out sometimes with the ferocity of a
windmill. It was not so much pain as missery and lonliness I was
experiencing.

With the intention to meet you on a field of connection and
compassion, Craig.