Studying Nonviolence

"Inner peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions"

I've been studying Nonviolent Communication now for 4 years. So far I think that the teacher who has contributed the most to my growth so far has been Miki Kashtan.

I have read her book Spinning Threads of Radical Aliveness and have been meditating on the 17 Core Commitments with a goal of one per day. As a part of my practice I am going to take one commitment and write about it openly here as part of  my vulnerability practice

Core Commitment #1

Openness to Myself: even when I act in ways I really don’t like, I want to keep my heart open to myself. If I find myself in self-judgment, I want to seek support to reconnect with myself and hold with compassion the needs that motivate my actions.

I like that it starts this way one of the most profound things about studying Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg is that I had needs, I was allowed to have needs, and my needs made me human.  I had lived most of my life putting everyone's needs before mine. I had lived my life trying to be needless. I wasn't working I was judging myself all over the place for having needs and not being able to overcome them. It was incredibly painful. 

Some days keeping my heart open to myself is the hardest thing I do all day long. But after practicing NVC for the last 4 years it is slowing getting easier. Having the ablity to connect with myself is perhaps the greatest gift that I have received from my practice.  As Miki talks about in her book Spinning Threads living in our society we go through a process of socialization which is to teach us to not have needs since our needs won't be met anyway.  Learning that I was not created as less than has been so helpful knowing that this is the product of the society that I live in and not a flaw inside of me for not being able to comply has been empowering.   In someways reading Miki's book was such validation of what had been going on inside of me for years but that I had not trusted my own experience.  It gave me a place to start that maybe I could trust myself and my own feelings. Another aspect of nvc is that our emotions are connected to our needs either met or unmet and there are 2 sets of emotions that we can expect to experience. Feeling sad, mad, or scared is not good or bad they are only the gauge for which to help me recognize that my needs are unmet. On the reverse so is feeling  happiness neither good nor bad but only a gauge to tell me that my needs are more met than unmet. Pulling myself out of judging myself for feeling so called negative feelings has been very freeing for me. Allowing me to keep my heart open to myself even when I am feeling sad or mad. Grounding myself in the knowledge that my need is unmet pointing me in the direction of focusing on my need rather than my feeling.  Focusing on how it is my having the need that makes me a beautiful HUMAN rather than if the need is met or unmet . This is what brings me back to reconnecting with myself rather than disconnecting over having a negative feeling. 


Oceana SisterMoon is currently living her dream of a sustainable life, raising chickens, and growing food with her 4 children. She seeks to help women unearth their power through sisterhood and healing through self-connection , interdependence, power in vulnerability, and authenticity.