Week Four Self-Study
Week Four: Compassionate Communication and Care Identifying our unconscious patterns and pain bodies in order to show up as our best selves to meet each other in conflict and community takes work. So does growing into a new way of being in community that moves beyond duality and self/other, I/we frameworks. While identifying our shadow aspects and learning how to selfsoothe when our nervous systems are triggered is mainly preparatory and behind the scenes work, learning how to show up to meet each other in our hearts and from a place of presence takes continued in-the-moment practice. Mainstream Western society is soundly steeped in an individualist paradigm that places the needs of the “I” before the needs of the largely community. But what if we were able to step outside of this hierarchical, binary logic? What if we didn’t view others as a threat to our peace, or compete with each other about who is most deserving of care? What if we were able to come to understand how by each of us meeting the needs of “me” allows us to show up to better meet the needs of the “we”? Shifting these webs of relation from self-care to community care requires us to step outside of scarcity mindset, out of fear, and out of Ego, and into abundance, love, and Heart. More love and care for others does not mean less love for ourselves. But we need to be able to know our parts and pieces to be able to give ourselves what we need to show up for others from a place of love, rather than duty, obligation, and responsibility—all of which lead to resentment. We are not talking about utopia here, but we are talking about a purposeful rewiring to meet each other in love, even when it’s difficult, messy, and hard. To see each other’s truest, most authentic expressions and to hold a collective social vision of networks of care. The only way to counter this constriction is through expansion, and building relationships of compassion and reciprocity by meeting each other in our hearts moment to moment as a conscious choice.