Meditation 101

Week 6 - Mindfulness and Communication by Dave Potter

Lake & Mountain Meditations

If you were to think over all the truly stressful situations in your life, you'd probably find that many if not most involve other people. This week, we focus on communication and what it means to be mindful in our interactions with others, whether it be family members, co-workers or neighbors. Our focus up until now has been on our internal world (thoughts, feelings and sensations); now we move from the intra-personal to the inter-personal, taking into account another's world, and the place where their world and ours meet. This means recognizing that "the other" (person or persons) have their own perceptions, feelings and needs, which are almost certainly different than ours, especially in times of conflict.

Accommodate, Demand, Withdraw as ways to deal with conflict

Most of us have a favorite strategy to deal with conflict that was learned early in life, one that is habitual and embedded in our interactions with others. Some of us learned to accommodate: "be nice", "go along to get along", "don't make waves". Others of us learned to demand: "don't let anyone walk over you", "take care of number one", "my way or the highway". Still others learned to withdraw: "It doesn't matter to me", "I don't care", "I'm not going to play this game". When a difficult conversation stalls or escalates, as it often does when we only have accommodate, demand or withdraw as strategies, we often resort to compromise, where everyone gives a little and everyone gets only part of what they wanted.

A fourth way - Blend

There is a fourth way, one that involves investigating both your world and the other's world, that can sometimes yield a surprising and creative solution that honors both worlds. In the martial art, Aikido, this would be called blending, a move that harms neither party and turns conflict into more of a dance than a fight. Marshall Rosenberg, developer of Non-Violent Communication(NVC), has developed a way of interacting that brings this sense of blending into the world of inter-personal conflict.

Videos

In the first video for this week, Tara Brach talks about The Sacred Art of Listening, and in the second, Awakening Through Conflict, she begins to answer the question of how one deals with conflict in communication. In the third video, Non-Violent Communication, Marshall Rosenberg expands on this idea and also gives you a sense of the man behind Non-Violent Communication (NVC). If this introduction to NVC is intriguing, there is a much longer video and a book by Marshall in the supplementary materials section.

Reading

Conflict Management Styles is a one-page description of the four ways of dealing with conflict and The Heart of Nonviolent Communication is one of the best descriptions of NVC I've ever seen. Pema Chodron, in The Answer to Anger, describes a way of dealing with anger that is a middle way, neither exploding nor imploding.

Daily Practices

This week, we introduce the Mountain Meditation and the Lake Meditation, one of which we suggest you try at least once this week, in place of one of your normal 30 minute practices. These are both shorter practices (20 min), so on the day you do one of these meditations, you will have a shorter practice session (if you'd like a full 30 minutes, you can add 10 minutes of silent meditation on your own that day).

For the formal practice this week, we are now at a point where you can freely choose between any of the three main practices you've experienced so far: Body Scan, Sitting Meditation, Yoga (and the Mountain Meditation or Lake Meditation at least one day).

The informal practices up until now have been focusing on the intra-personal (what's happening inside you) and now we begin paying attention to the inter-personal, using the Communication Calendar, noticing what happens when we bring mindfulness into relationship.

Videos
The Sacred Art of Listening by Tara Brach [19 min]

Awakening Through Conflict by Tara Brach [9 min]

Non-Violent Communication interview of Marshall Rosenberg [21 min]

Reading

Conflict Management Styles summary of communication styles

The Heart of Nonviolent Communication article by Marshall Rosenberg

The Answer to Anger by Pema Chodron

Practice sheets

Formal Practice - Body Scan, Sitting, or Yoga (including a Mountain or Lake Med.)

Informal Practice - Communication Calendar

Supplementary materials related to this week's topic

Non-Violent Communication video of Marshall Rosenberg [3 hrs.]