Welcome to SilentNBC,
A guided meditation bringing together mindfulness and nonviolent communication.
I invented this meditation in 2011 when I was a trainer at Occupy Wall Street and in a nonviolent direct action training,
A room full of 100 activists wanted to know what nonviolent communication is all about and had about 20 minutes to spare.
So this meditation offers a taste of the attitude,
The guiding curiosity in the process of nonviolent communication.
This meditation can also be very helpful for everyday situations when you would like to stop for a couple of minutes to ground yourself and connect to your body,
Feelings and needs.
Everything I say are only invitations which you can follow or not.
Don't push yourself to anything.
In case of doubt,
It's much more important what your body says than what I say.
Your body is the true guide here.
Find a position that's comfortable for you,
That allows your back to be upright,
Relaxed and awake.
Lying down is also an option.
Take some time to settle in.
You can change your position at any time if you feel the need to move.
You can either close your eyes or find a place that you can rest your gaze on.
We will start and end with the sound of the bell.
You can start by taking three deep breaths.
Inhale as deep as you can and exhale as deep as you can.
Maybe you feel your belly rising and falling.
Maybe you feel the ground underneath your body holding you.
Now I would like to invite you for a little walk of your attention through your body.
From the top of your head,
Very slowly,
With a lot of stops,
To the soles of your feet.
While your attention wanders through your body,
You can see whether there are places that want your attention,
That are maybe warmer or colder,
More relaxed or a little tense.
Stay with these places for one breath.
Embrace them with the in-breath and let them go with the out-breath.
Then after wandering through your body with your attention,
You can ask into that space,
Into your body,
How do you feel right now?
Just listen for answers from your body.
Even when you discover the feeling,
Or maybe several feelings,
You can follow the idea.
If you feel tired,
You might need rest.
If you feel lost or irritated,
You might need orientation.
If you feel joy,
You might just need time to enjoy it.
What do you need right now?
What needs are alive in you?
When you've found a need,
Or several needs,
Choose the need that is the most dear to you right now.
Connect to one situation where that need was fully or partially nourished.
Choose a concrete situation where that need was last met.
Where were you?
Were you by yourself or were there other people?
What was done or said?
What could you hear or smell or taste maybe?
And how did that feel in your body?
And when you can feel how it felt when that need was met.
Look whether you can think of a request,
Something you can do,
Or you can ask someone else to meet that need today.
Something concrete,
Doable,
Positive,
Maybe very small,
That you could do or ask someone else to do,
To nourish that need a little bit today.
And when you've found one request,
Think of a second request if you can.
Because people might have good reasons why to say no,
Or you yourself might have good reasons why to say no.
And your need is way too important to leave it up to one request or one no.
So that second request,
Maybe to yourself,
Is a loving way of taking care of that need.
And when you've found a request or two,
You can take your time and slowly come back,
Maybe to your breath,
Maybe to what you hear.
You can slowly open your eyes and continue your day.
I hope it's one full of loving action.
You might ask what this meditation has to do with nonviolent communication.
NVC is based on a very simple but radically empathetic assumption.
Everything we do,
We do to meet our needs or the needs of others.
Sometimes we just have really effed up strategies to do so.
I might have the need for food,
For belonging and comfort,
And I might call up a friend and ask them,
Hey,
Do you want to hang out tonight to cook and eat together and just catch up?
Or I might have the same needs for food,
Belonging and comfort,
And I might call up that same friend asking,
Why didn't you call me in two weeks?
I think our friendship is not going anywhere.
The underlying energy comes from the same needs.
In the second case,
It's just highly unlikely that I get what I need and very probable that I might hurt others and myself.
So it's really important to gain clarity on which needs are alive in us and how to take good care of them.
I don't understand needs as a deficit,
As a hole that needs to be filled.
Instead,
I understand them as a directed energy.
Because I have the need for food or rest,
For community and communication or for autonomy,
I have a lot of energy to try to make that happen.
If I understand from which needs other people might act,
I have a chance to connect to them,
Although I might not agree with their actions.
The practice of nonviolent communication really supports me to get clarity on my needs and open to the needs of others,
And then to find ways how to take care of all the needs on the table.
An awareness of intersectional power relations and structural forms of violence is crucial for realizing whether that table is skewed to one side or the other,
And for finding ways to counter that,
To hold all needs equally dear and to meet them.
Trauma-sensitive mindfulness can be a precious base from where to engage in all these challenging processes,
To stop,
To connect and listen deeply to the body and to cultivate care and spaciousness that knows that our bodies and nervous systems are formed by our histories.
That's why I teach nonviolent communication through an intersectional lens and hold it with trauma-informed mindfulness.
I hope this supports you too to see the beauty and power of your needs and the needs of others,
And to meet them with joy.
