One Year Ago…

Exactly one year ago I graduated from Hampshire College. In some ways it doesn’t feel that strange that a year has passed, but it’s amazing to think back on what this past year post-school has brought for me.

In the past year I fulfilled my dream to work as a backpacking guide (CO), I traveled across the world and worked on my own (China), I met many of my Chinese family for essentially the first time (HK), I returned on my own to a place I love deeply (Cuba), and I settled into a US city as a young person to figure out what the heck I want to do (Portland).

Through all of that there was confusion, beauty, connection, boredom, and lots of adventure. I probably learned as much about what doesn’t work for me (work, living) as what does work for me. I learned more about what makes me tick and how I can be of benefit to others. Here are some brief highlights:

CO: Dressing up like “An Amazing Mountaineering Woman of the 1800s.” That was a theme of ours, and at one point we backpacked in bonnets and long skirts.

China: Co-leading a mangrove field study, visiting a Mangrove swamp with our students.

HK: Farewell dinners with my entire family. They took us to a vegetarian restaurant, which was so incredibly thoughtful.

Cuba: Nelson, myself, and some of his friends listen to a rumba at LA UNEAC. It starts to pour rain, so everyone clears away to hide underneath the outside patios protected by the roof. The band keeps on playing. Nelson and I run through the rain to grab a friend, and we stop in the middle of the dance floor. We look at the band still playing, and that at each other, and stop to dance in the rain. Onlookers cheer us on.

Portland: Yesterday, working at the preschool, I have one child on my lap because if she’s not there she will wiggle and downward dog her way through the whole lesson, and I have one child on each side of me holding my hand because they want to.

I am so thankful for all of these experiences, even when they were crazy or simply dreadful.

Where has the last year seen you?

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The Great Bike Race

On Tuesday night I biked from NE Portland to the far end of SE Portland. I had gotten off of work at 5, so I joined the other bike commuters on the Springwater Corridor next to the river. At one point I found myself in the middle of a pack of bikers (a few of them were spandex clad as well), and as we approached a right turn a few people stuck out their hands and made the high five right signal and we all turned seamlessly together. I wanted to giggle or maybe scream out loud, “Hey! We’re all biking together!”

A casual bike ride or a thrilling race with a pack? This was a great pro-Portland moment for me.

Oregon Coast

Today we walked  along the Oregon coast. We are sun dazed, Portlanders  adjusting to the summer. I am grateful to spend today near the ocean. What are you grateful for this weekend?

The Art of Practice at YogiPianist

My sister Angelica has been writing a lot over at YogiPianist about practicing, creativity, and entering “flow.” I just wrote a guest post for her on “The Art of Practice.”

It has me thinking, though, that figuring out how to practice best is a very experiential task. It takes testing to see how one works best. I don’t think I have really settled on when I write best, with the exception of having to write for the pressure of a deadline, but that’s often stressful and sometimes not conducive to work I’m proud of either.

I’m curious about your experiences with practice and when you do work best. What patterns have you noticed?

Learning with the Kids: Compassionate Communication

About six years ago I volunteered with a Restorative Justice group in Boulder, CO. We met once a month to learn Non-Violent Communication (also known as compassionate communication) and mediation skills, and sometimes we would be called in to co-facilitate or act as a community member in restorative justice sessions.

At the time I didn’t exactly understand what “non-violent communication” meant. I liked the mediation skills I was learning in the group. We were taught to use active listening and repeat back what we heard in a descriptive (read: nonjudgmental manner) so people felt truly listened to. In my training at that time I didn’t progress to the next steps in NVC, clarifying needs and requests.

So what is Non-Violent Communication? It’s a method of communication that comes from a place of compassion for all beings and an acknowledgment that our actions are strategies to meet our human needs (which we sometimes do effectively, and sometimes don’t.) The methods of NVC are designed to help people more clearly express what their needs are in a way that can resonate with others. Communicating using NVC methods often uses this model: 1) Observation 2) Feeling 3) Clarifying Needs 4) Making a Request.

To borrow an example from Marshall Rosenberg’s seminal book, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, a mom frustrated with her teenage son’s mess could say: “I see that there are clothes on the floor in our living room. I feel frustrated when I see this because I have a need for a clean and tranquil space. Do you think you could pick up your clothes and keep them in your hamper?” To be fair, the teenage son may not respond positively anyways. But there’s probably a much greater chance of empathy and understanding the needs between them then starting off with a screaming match.

One of the most amazing things I have realized as I’ve been engaging with these ideas is what can come out of our mouth after the words “I feel…” We use that phrase to describe all kinds of sensations, thoughts, and judgments, but it’s not often what we’re feeling. How many times have I said something like “I feel like that’s a good movie,” or “I feel like that’s probably a bad choice,” etc. Those aren’t feelings. They are judgments or thoughts. In contexts like these, “I feel” would better be replaced by “I think.”

This is where I realize that I’m very much so learning alongside the kids I work with right now. I have been using NVC methods with the preschoolers, especially as conflicts arise, which is at the very least ten times a day. I asked one of the boys to empathize with me, asking him how I might feel when he ran away and didn’t respond to my calls for him to come back. He looked up to me, and said, “Upset?” He was right, and he chose the word that I have most often been identifying in myself when I try to clarify my feelings when my needs are not met.

Lately when I pause to consider what it is that I am “feeling” in a situation if it is negative, so often the only words that come to my mind are upset, frustrated, irritated. Shouldn’t there be more words? Shouldn’t I know how to describe my feelings more aptly, or do all the negative ones fit under those three? Just like the preschoolers, I am learning to expand my vocabulary, this time in a way that is more direct with what I am feeling in response to my needs not being met. (There is a helpful “feelings” inventory list through the NVC website, and a needs list as well.)

In the heat of conflict or just in general, is it easy for you to actually pinpoint what you’re feeling, and why? Have you come across ideas of compassionate communication/non-violent communication before, and have you used them in your life? What methods of communication work well for you?