Erika

[If this double posts, my apologies, I seem to be having some issues with this page loading.]

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Hi all – Thanks WSYogaTherapy for posting your observation, “per our assignment, watched my desire to say something a little destructive, the desire to relieve my suffering, my frustration, by making someone else wrong.”  I feel like that’s pretty much exactly where I’m living right now.  I have a great spiritual practice, and a great meditation practice – and right now I’m having such a hard time finding my grounded, connected self.  I’m in the midst of a lot of family and transition stuff right now (moving, job search, wedding planning) and I’m finding that my patience levels are decreasing and I’m getting snappier and snappier.  Which is the opposite of what I want to be – open, loving, peaceful, caring.  

I am also identifying a lot with what Kelly wrote.  With as much work as I’ve done on myself, and as much progress as I start to think I’m making – I’m starting to feel like my feelings and emotions are wild children who won’t sit still, won’t listen to me, and won’t go take a nap.  I have a really easy time living and functioning on silent meditation retreats, I have a really hard time living and functioning in “the real world.”  There’s so much data, so much stimuli, it can be overwhelming and hard to focus, to find my ground on a daily basis.  

And if I can’t manage to find my grounding on a daily basis, how can I expect my relationships, other people, society at large to find grounding, open communication, dialogue, and peace?  

And then – so many questions, in my own life, in society about finding the balance point – between self defense, non-violence, forgiveness, self-destruction, standing up for one’s self, believing in one’s own power and worth, not letting someone walk all over you but also not reacting in a reactive and inappropriate way.  How to find balance between taking care of oneself and others, taking care of oneself and society, living in your own life, living in family and community.  Frustration, anger, violence, trappedness, freedom, coming together, pulling apart – it all seems both like the rhythmic ebb and flow of nature and life, and at the same time the destructiveness of frustration, conflict, alienation.  

When we know how truly connected we are, to each other, our community, nature, at a core a base level connected, it seems that peace flows easily and naturally.  And it can just be such a hard place to find/stay/live in.  We have examples, leaders, teachers – and remembering that can be a lifesaver. 

Thanks, Paul!  It is very humbling to fail so often at a job that is so important and I you can’t quit!  😀  I have found that NVC has helped me to communicate with my children, mostly because it helps me to clarify my own needs and intentions.  It also gives me a language that is relatively free of blame – i.e., I need everyone in our family to be safe instead of Stop hitting your sister!  I do think that they are aware of their own emotions and the impact their behavior has on others because of the way we talk about these things….but on the other hand, in the day-to-day grind of parenting it is so easy to lose track and feel like it will always be this way, FOREVER, twenty years from now I will still be breaking up fist fights and sending people to their rooms!  I know, in twenty years I will wish that they were still doing those things.  I am practicing letting go of attachment to results, since ultimately I can’t control them anyway….

Another thing….

I think the Roadmap is going to help me grow my passion for inner work into something that can make a difference in the bigger world.

Sydney

One of the aspects that really drew me to the Metta Center website and kept me coming back was the roadmap tool. I like the strategy and its focus on personal power and how that branches out to constructive programming and Satyagraha for an interplay of these interrelated disciplines.

I have been staring at Roadmap for a couple of months now and trying to figure out how to make the best use of it. I printed out the nonviolence wallet card earlier in the year and have been carrying it around ever since but can’t say I have looked at it as often lately. I feel like it has helped me in some situations though. I like the person power aspect of Roadmap as I enjoy that it is something that challenges in those five aspects listed. While the personal power is an ongoing work in progress I must say I still have not figured out where I fit in on the constructive actions on the map. I am hoping my involvement in this course will help me discover this so I could better focus my intentions.

One area that I am pretty passionate about is working for animals being killed for food. I stopped eating meat about five or six years ago and then became vegan about a year after, so I’ve think I’ve been vegan about 4-5 years or so now. That lifestyle switch shook many of those around me and helped lead to some of them making some changes in that direction as well. In this area I have mostly just focused on eating the way I feel is best and letting it speak for itself. However I have felt the urge to get more involved in this area somehow. I did a little fundraising for a walk last year which I enjoyed, not sure what my next step in this area would be but it is something I have an interest in.

When I look at roadmap one area that seems to draw me is “Gandhian economics”. I just feel drawn to this area. I hope to learn more about it as I go through this course as I feel I have a lot to learn on it still. I feel that many of the economic structures that suffocate us would stop if we refused to participate in them. The swadeshi movement in India is something that seems so powerful, it builds up the individual and helps better economic structures and slowly crush those factions that rely on exploitation. I have been curious of what could be done in this country to create a similar movement. It seems to me that we have such a reliance on exploited labor that not only hurts those being exploited but the exploiter as well. The amount of foreign goods, such as clothing, produced by under compensated  labor that surrounds us is astounding. We train people to become “managers” of the labor of others taking every measure to not do the labour ourselves. This just weakens our society immensely and just leads to continuing violence.  As a result I am interested in learning more and becoming more involved in this area.

Week 4 Roadmap

I’ve not really looked at the roadmap section of the Metta website before but now understand and look forward to using it. I think the New Story Creation story is going to be crucial in the next couple of years. Without this we won’t turn the movement into something globally popular.  I think education in the New Story and Nonviolence could be somewhere I could contribute. I am on the Children’s Meeting committee at my Quaker Meeting House and need to start looking for ways to introduce the New Story to the kids and teenagers. My son Dan is also about to start Senior School with a very progressive seeming Head who said his three priorities are “Kindness, kindness and kindness”. So I’m hoping to talk to him about Nonviolence training for his staff and pupils.

I need to spend more time listening to the new progressive media and less time following corporate media, so I’m soaked in the New Story. I like the term “non-reductionist science”. It sounds a bit less new agey than New Science, which I know some of my friends will be sceptical of.

Further along the compass, I am part of an alternative currency group in Brighton which I could spend more time on. I’ve also made contact with a small group of transition town people in my town. I think that once the course is over, and I have more time, I will reconnect with them in order to have some personal interaction rather than just lots of online campaigning. I think “Be personal with everyone” is a great rule for me. As my job is so social, when I’m back home I sometimes lack the energy to forge new relationships at home. But I think that this is crucial. I might try to set up some kind of new story study group at my local Quaker meeting.

The Government is about to allow an Oil Corporation start exploratory fracking in my county of Sussex. This is the first time in Britain since they caused some small earthquakes in Blackpool a couple of years ago. I think that this is a red line for me. It seems like an opportunity to say “no further” as it is a fresh issue in this country. If we can stop them here, then maybe we can start to push back their agenda elsewhere. I’ve made contact with some early anti fracking groups and am hoping that my nonviolence training will have developed enough so that when the time comes for resistance, I can be of service – with my transition town involvement being the constructive programme side of the equation.

one last question: When will the interactive Roadmap compass go live? I think it will be a fantastic resource to refer people to.

Paul B

Chapter 1

What struck me in this chapter is the idea that we need to clear away a lot of our modern obsession with the details of violence to look at:

What is violence?
How can we stop it?

Its interesting that the popular science view of our nature has become stuck in the story of 50’s reductionist science that is itself grounded in old Newtonian and pseudo Darwinian ideas that we are inherently and solely violent and competitive.

At the same time our popular culture has become stuck in, and obsessed with, this old story. I think this is because, when we lack meaning and a new story which says that “Nonviolence is the unique and defining human endowment”; then life seems worthless and so violence becomes fascinating, exciting and seems to offer a type of meaning.

This is turn feeds back because when we see violence in our science and entertainment, then we expect it to be everywhere and when we see the world a certain way, we help to bring it about.

I love the idea that anything we can do to reduce violence anywhere, ultimately reduces violence everywhere. This is so hopeful.

It’s also interesting to note that the success of the resistance to the August coup in Russia, shows that even a small amount of nonviolence training in a small proportion of people, can offer huge protection to the population at large.

Paul B

Hi Kelly,

That was really interesting what you said about depression being anger turned inwards. I am not sure if I have heard that before. It is thought provoking to hear this comparison. Thinking of depression as a form of violence towards oneself is interesting. I usually think of the negative effects that can occur when anger is turned outwards towards others. I may not have really appreciated the effect it can also have when directed inwards toward oneself as well. Thank you for that thought.

John

I got sick this week so fell even more behind… before I jump in, thank you Jean for sharing your personal struggles, and I am sending you warm thoughts for your family.

Like everyone, I found this week’s lesson very interesting and intimate.  I’ve always wondered how to best express my spirituality through professional and academic discourses, so I watched Dr. Nagler’s videos with interest.  Many of the concepts he shared were familiar to me through my Buddhist training, and I found many common grounds, especially with my personal belief that the life’s purpose is to become absolutely happy, to reveal one’s highest potential, and help others to do the same.

Here are my thoughts to some of the questions:

Why, in studying nonviolence, is the meaning of life important?

One’s view on life’s purpose inevitably impact his or her objectives and behavior, even when one believes that life has absolutely no purpose – which would then lead to suffering, apathy, self-destruction and violence.  For individuals to feel motivated to engage in nonviolence, I would think that they have to have some basic commonalities in their understanding of life and its purpose, along the lines of dignity, respect, and peaceful coexistence.  Whether one believes that nonviolence is way of life or a powerful tool through which a social change is achieved, for one to engage in nonviolence it must be an expression of one’s worldview and how it can be achieved.  Nonviolence is often considered as an effective method for peaceful transformation of a regime or society, because of its consistency as means to achieve an end; underlying theory here is that peace cannot be achieved through non-peaceful methods.  So for one to choose nonviolence, he or she must be at least motivated to achieve peace.  In contrast, for those who believe that life’s purpose is self-gain and prosperity, it is likely that violence, war and deception would be chosen as a way to accomplish their objectives.

What evidence is there for life having a purpose? (Video 1)

Like John mentioned, I think the example in the video of how taking care of life in some form impacted patient recovery was very interesting to me, and offered ‘evidence” as to life having a purpose.  It reminded me that one of the forms of tortures that were used during Holocaust was to coerce the captives to perform meaningless work, such as digging a hole just to fill it up later.  These examples imply that at the very least having a “sense of purpose” in life is important for individuals’ well-being and survival.  Another element of the video that stood out for me was the comment about our eco-system and how it is so perfect for sustaining life – to the degree that it is inconceivable all that we have on the earth were created by accident, without any meaning.  I also feel that the sense of “fulfillment” you feel when you serve others, or even when you feel you are expanding your capacity while facing immense difficulties in life, definitely serves as evidence that there is a meaning in life.