You might find it easier to be more compassionate with others than with yourself. You can even name other's needs before identifying your own. You would like to make peace with your inner critics and be able consider your own needs as much as do those of others. This course is for anyone who would like to live from a centered and confident place. You may attend live or simply receive the recordings and materials. Please indicate in your registration which you will do.
Internal conflict and criticism leaves you feeling depleted and confused. You need a new way through. You have likely given a lot to others and are ready to give some gifts to yourself. It's difficult to know what you really need and how you thrive, especially when a lot of social conditioning exhorts you to maintain an external focus.
In facing difficult situations or even your own high standards, you can sometimes have a whole inner committee of thoughts pulling you different directions. Trying to make sense of it can be tiring work. You need a break from internal processing that goes in circles and self-analysis that leaves you feeling disconnected.
In this series you will get the space and support to make sense of your internal world with a simple and direct framework that also enables you to meet yourself with compassion. You will learn to identify your feelings and needs clearly and take action from grounded self-understanding. In the framework of Nonviolent Communication this is called self-empathy.
Self-empathy is a subtle skill that teaches compassionate witnessing of your experience. Learning self-empathy isn't about affirmations or trying to talk yourself out of your feelings. It's about catching the habits of mind and body that contribute to inner conflict and confusion, and finding your way to your heart's longing.
As you learn the skill of self-empathy it gets easier to translate self-critical thoughts and judgments of others into feelings and needs and the actions to meet needs. Over time, you find that you don't take things so personally and have more confidence in meeting difficult situations.
Class Series Overview
For each class we will begin with five minutes of guided meditation. I will present a particular concept and skill. There will be an opportunity for questions or requests. Then you will practice the skill in a short structured exercise in either pairs or a small group. I will visit these groups just as I would do in an in person course.
You will receive a detailed handout as a part of the class.
Topic Overview:
Introduction & Thriving
We will begin by naming and defining the foundational elements that make self-empathy practice accessible. These elements are:
- Mindfulness: This means having a “you” that can step back from your experience and notice what’s happening with gentleness and lovingness.
- Understanding your experience: From the realm of Hakomi you learn about the flow and nature of inner experience regarding healing, managing reactivity, and thriving in your life.
- Skills from Compassionate Communication:
- Learn and practice an inner dialogue structure.
- Learn to name feelings, and needs, and make specific requests.
Giving and Receiving Empathy for Reactive "Selves"
You will engage in a particular approach to reactivity. I will guide you in an experiential exercise to help reveal your subtle patterns of reactivity. You will practice meeting your experience with mindfulness and then translating reactivity into feelings, needs, and requests.
WIth the help of a couple of volunteers from our group, I will model self-empathy and also help you see how to go into relationship with a particular reactive self.
Empathy for Shame, Guilt, Anger, and Depression/Shut Down
We will practice an empathic relationship to shame, guilt, anger, and depression, as well as learn about the complexity behind each of these four reactive feelings. Shame and Guilt are important alarm feelings and we will spend the class studying and practicing with them. Each one indicates that a certain kind of thinking is happening for you.
Specifically, with shame, you are having some version of a thought that you are a bad person.
With guilt you are having some version of a thought that you should or shouldn't have behaved in a particular way.
In addition to indicating of a certain type of thinking, anger also typically occurs at particular stages in healing and grief work. We will talk about how anger fits into these as well as how it manifests as a reactive state.
We will also study the dimensions of experience (thought, behavior, body, energy, etc.) that promote depression/shut down. You will have an opportunity to practice meeting these reactive states with self-empathy. Shame, guilt, anger, and depression, only arise in relationship to a cherished need or value, so it's essential to be able to turn towards these feelings and connect with the life giving energy underneath.
Facing Others' Reactivity
We will now turn our attention toward external situations that trigger reactivity and how to stay connected to yourself in those difficult situations. We will start by naming common triggers. In addition to the self-empathy skills you have been practicing, I will demonstrate some ways that make it easier to access those skills when someone is in front of you and you feel pressure to respond.
Appreciation/Celebration and Responding to the Inner Committee
An important part of creating a consistent compassionate inner dialogue is the practice of noticing when needs are met. This means giving as much reflection and attention to yourself when you are thriving as when you are struggling. You will practice three different formats for appreciating and celebrating yourself.
At the end of the class, we will do a closing circle and talk about next steps in your practice.
Do you need to know more before deciding whether to join us or not? Please give me a call or send me an email with any questions you have. I am happy to talk with you. 503-544-7583, info@wiseheartpdx.org
LaShelle Lowe-Chardé is passionate about helping people express their deepest values in their relationships and creating clarity and connection with self and others.
She began her professional career with a master’s degree in school psychology. In addition to nine years in public schools, she spent several years facilitating group healing work for adolescent youth labeled “at-risk”. During that same time she led leadership and teamwork trainings for businesses and organizations around Portland, Oregon.
Along the way she found Compassionate/Nonviolent Communication (NVC) and began training with Marshall Rosenberg and other internationally known NVC trainers. She immediately knew that Compassionate Communication was the missing piece. It offers a deep and broad yet simple understanding of human nature along with a concrete set of tools to help us act and live from a place of clarity and compassion. For LaShelle, Compassionate Communication is the hands and feet of spirituality. In 2006, she was certified as a NVC trainer.
In addition to certification in Nonviolent Communication, she has completed a three year training in Hakomi - Body Centered Therapy and introductory trainings in Emotionally Focused Therapy and with the Gottman Institute.
In 2004, she founded her business, Wise Heart (www.wiseheartpdx.org). Since that time she has served as a trainer, private coach, and mentor for the learning and practice of Compassionate Communication and mindfulness. LaShelle teaches locally as well as through video conferencing online. She has offerings for couples, women, and the general public in addition to trainings for local nonprofit organizations. Her offerings focus on combining NVC with mindfulness and a subtle understanding of reactivity and relationship skills.