Workshop Wednesday

Tonight I was able to attend the first of a three-part workshop on integrating the yamas and niyamas (guidelines for ethical living) with Non-Violent Communication. According to the Center for Non-Violent Communication, one of the purposes of this type of interaction is to "create human connections that empower compassionate giving and receiving".

As yogis, we are highly attuned to bodily awareness. Through this communication method, we learn to focus on the physical sensations that accompany our emotions and use these cues to help us identify our feelings.

To adapt our communication styles using Non-Violent Communication, we were given three steps:

1. Observe and identify any feelings.
   
2. Identify what needs we have that may not be being met, giving rise to the feelings identified above.
3. Explore strategies for meeting those needs in a non-judgmental fashion.

We did some role-playing to address one class member's specific situation, a conflict that arose for him at work. Through our discussions, we were able to identify feelings and needs that he had not realized he had experienced, empathize with the feelings and needs that the other participants in his confrontations may have been experiencing, and help him find alternative responses and reactions that he could have used in that situation. It was useful to remember that in a situation, we cannot control the other people involved, we can only control ourselves and our reactions to other people.

Our homework this week is to identify two feelings in ourselves - one where our needs are being met and one where they are not - and then track those feelings, our physical sensations when we experience them, our discourse, our thoughts. The two feelings on which I will focus this week will be: impatience and contentment.

Today's workout:
5.26 mi run w/ strides