“What does one do to live from this place of gratitude and connection, rather than the deficiency and fear?” Someone in our class last night who practices NVC asked us this. They also asked, “Do you have any suggestions for How I can live more from this place of gratitude?” These questions imply that there is something to get more of, gratitude and connection, and something to get away from, deficiency and fear. I also notice a sense of powerlessness when these kinds of questions arise in myself; I have lost all faith in myself, and I am afraid that if I don’t do something, my life will fall completely apart. When we seek for the answers, for someone “more enlightened” than ourselves to give dawson disease us something that will save us, we miss the whole universe that is contained in those questions. The real question is, “What is the whole universe here that is being expressed through these questions?”
To unpack a universe, it’s helpful to start exactly where you’re standing. Which, in the moment of asking questions like “How” and “What should I do”, is often on the level of thought. The Self Connection meditation, found in our online Learning Materials, guides us in a simple way to explore our present universe. Touching our head, we vent out our attic, expose what we’re telling ourselves to the light of awareness. Touching our heart, we feel again, open up our awareness to the world of body sensations that are happening right now. We give space for them to dance in our being, rather than lock up and store them in our muscle tissue for later. This dance leads us to touching our belly, connecting to the deep, present Needs that have been trying to express themselves through our questions. For the person in our class, it was a deep need of Belonging. Connecting further, there was also a need of Trust in their own Mattering and Enough-ness – a deep self-Trust. Connecting to these needs, the questions abated, leaving a sense of wholeness, energy, and creativity for responding to life.
We all have moments of being disconnected from our wholeness and sometimes this expresses itself as “What should I do” and “How can I do it”. This is the universe’s sly way of inviting us back in. Life is saying, “You’ve lost connection with yourself! Get help!” Self-Connection is one way to get help and it can be practiced anywhere and anytime. It can be practiced standing, sitting, or lying down, and can be done silently or out loud. In other words, there is no reason to believe that passing thought of “I can’t do that Self-Connection thing right now”, and perpetuate the myth that you need something else, or to be somewhere else, before getting self-connected.
“How can I close this article?” Touching my head, the thoughts behind that question come into awareness: “This is really contrived”, “Our readers aren’t going to try this”, “I need to convince them”… Touching my heart, I feel choked up in my throat, vulnerability in my heart, and a quivering in my belly. Resting into my belly and gazing at the Needs Geometry, the words Connection, Community, and Support call to me. I can see that I am writing in part to help create continuity in the “ZENVC” community, to feel a group of us together moving on the Path, and how ultimately that is a kind of support and encouragement for my own practice. As my hands fall open in my lap, the Request that comes forward is to hear from two or more people reading this article: How does it contribute to your life? and/ or What other questions does it raise for you?
Naming that, I feel complete.
I deeply resonate with shifting from thinking to being, to acknowledging and connecting with with what is going on in my heart, as well as my head.
Thanks for the holistic heads up!