Feelings Archives - Seed of Peace

The silent treatment

Posted on January 25, 2019January 25, 2019 by Gesine Schrader

A few days ago I read a Facebook post about two types of silence, when there is conflict. One increases trust and connection; the other decreases it. In the first kind, you let the other person know what’s alive in you, and tell them that you need some space to reflect and self-connect. In the second kind, you withdraw from the conflict without speaking, and leave the other person wondering what h...
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Susan’s gift

Posted on September 25, 2018January 29, 2019 by Gesine Schrader

I want to leave you something, something better than words or sounds. Look for me in the people I’ve known or loved, and if you cannot give me away, at least let me live in your eyes and not in your mind. Merrit Malloy (Extract from a poem called Epitaph.) Grief is present in us for different reasons at the moment. On the 17th of this month, we lost an NVC friend called Susan. The above is part o...
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Empathy Archery

Posted on June 19, 2018June 19, 2018 by Shantigarbha

Empathy is a respectful understanding of another person’s experience. Since I’ve been learning how to empathize, I've often got it ‘wrong’. What I mean is that the person I was listening to told me, either by a shake of the head or by a ‘No’, that my empathy guess hadn’t landed. I had the sense of firing arrows towards a distant target, and most of them falling short or going wide. At those moment...
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NVC tips for surviving and thriving this Holiday Season

Posted on December 19, 2017November 13, 2018 by Gesine Schrader

I met a friend one morning in early December. We talked about Christmas coming up, and about how many people find it stressful. I asked him what, if anything, he finds challenging about it? His response was that it's spending time with relatives, particularly those he's grown apart from. After I had empathized with his hopelessness and frustration, I asked him if he would like to hear some NVC ...
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Feelings are Feedback

Posted on October 3, 2017June 1, 2018 by Shantigarbha

In September 2017 I co-led a module of our NVC Training Programme in northern India. A few days’ later, we met with three of the participants who had stayed in the area. After catching up, the conversation turned to the retreat and its impact. One of the participants from Mumbai wanted us to know how powerful it had been for her, “Just that one sentence, about respecting feelings, this was really ...
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