NVC

I have been working my way through the NVC Language for Life book and companion workbook....it sooo helps at times like these to just reflect where i am at...and I am slowly living it ...not perfecting it ..gosh its a slow journey....but I am at an increased awareness stage ..living it and evolving because of it...I've discovered that I really need to spend a lot of time on identifying what i am feeling .. not the why.. not over thinking the situation or analyzing it within my framework of life' experiences..... and just finding the 'word' for how I am feeling is pretty difficult...
Yes I am pretty emotional but I had never been guided as a child to care about myself or articulate how i was feeling and I have a very limited vocabulary of actual words. I recognised that I needed to be able to do this sometime ago and I have use ART to express those feelings .. putting it into words and trying to communicate it to someone else is very hard for me! I am trying not to identify why this is ..but simply acknowledge that this is the way it is for me and that my brain is hard wired that way.... when there is a lot of physical emotion going on and thoughts fall into 'old patterns' few words come out or too many words but non of them have quite 'hit the spot' of being understood by others is very difficult and I understand that that is not all down to me .....we are all unique so hey I'm fine with that and want to work with it.
So I have repeated chapters 2 and now 3 just to refresh and reflect on my experiences to get a perspective on how behaving differently might have helped and to motivate myself to do more.The way I see it is I have been emotionally enslaved to my working life... since forever my personal life too over the years but it is beautiful now, really beautiful (not perfect but beautiful!) however, my working life has always been more give than the meeting of any of my needs...until being ill last year.... so that's stage 1 identified! I am at present working through stage 2 on my way to emotional liberation! and this is an uncomfortable awareness that I am in that rather 'obnoxious stage'..however, I've done enough work on my internal rebellious teenager over the years to not get completely carried away here!I am saying NO it's uncomfortable, it hurts,I feel sad and guilty but it also feels good recognising that this is part of my organic process and that slowly I may get to that final stage of liberation one day (i'm estimating perhaps just in time for retiring!) So I journalled my needs as intentions in my art journal spread around soothing those critical inner voices by telling my sweet little one what was good about her! and all that came as as I walked and walked yesterday ...and there i was thinking i just had to fix it all myself and what an impossibly distressing and stressful experience it was .....I am hopeful this action will bring some ease to the distress.

The following was meaning to me although it's Marshall's poem...I think I get it from a his perspective.. and my own inner perspective ....disappointment in yourself is a tough one to deal with ...i'm a 'self blamer pre dominently' with just a tint of 'blaming others'...for good measure! my Jackals are internal ones.. its a guilty pleasure of mine to blame others........quite nice though .... and i'm practicing on some self talk in my bestest giraffe voice..........
I can handle your telling me
What I did or didn’t do.
And I can handle your interpretations
But please don’t mix the two.
If you want to confuse any issue,
I can tell you how to do it:
Mix together what I do
With how you react to it.
 Tell me you’re disappointed
With the unfinished chores you see,
But calling me “irresponsible”
Is no way to motivate me.
And tell me that you’re feeling hurt
When I say “no” to your advances,
But calling me a frigid man
Won’t increase your future chances.
 Yes, I can handle your telling me
What I did or didn’t do,
And I can handle your interpretations,
But please don’t mix the two. ---MBR