Hello, hello, my name is Sabrina Amina and this is the feelings pod. It is a
podcast where I share a bit about our feeling, my feelings, and talk about how
to navigate emotions with mindfulness. I am an educator as well as a holistic
health coach and Reiki Healer, Reiki Master. And I am on a healing path and I
just really love talking about feelings. So thank you for tuning in, thank you for
listening. And at the end of every episode I share a mindfulness practice
because I am also trained as a yoga instructor and mindfulness coach. So
today's episode is about navigating conflict with mindful communication. And
you know the feelings that come up when we're in conflict can be really intense
and the subsequent conversations that happen when we're activated and you
know angry and just in a fiery place don't tend to lead to connection. So if
our intention, if the intention in our conversations is to nurture connection
then we need a better approach. Well I definitely needed a better approach when
when handling conflict. In the past I was I can still be really reactive when
I'm in a difficult you know interaction but really the tools of mindfulness and
learning nonviolent communication skills have really helped me tremendously. It
helps me not only feel more confident in communicating what my needs are and
validating how I'm feeling, articulating my pain points but also when you're able
to approach conflict with with the tools of nonviolent communication
there's a better chance of you know coming together. The hope is maybe in
some way resolving conflict or you know working through challenge. Maybe a
conflict can't be completely resolved but perhaps things can soften in the
relationship. Perhaps there can be more of an understanding and I find that being
able to name something really that's a common phrase I hear is name it to tame
it like when being able to name an intense emotion or any emotion really
it's like gives it space. It gives it space to breathe and it allows you it
allows emotions to really move through you like speaking your experience you
know is can can be profoundly cathartic and I don't I I mean I don't know about
you but definitely in my experience if I'm feeling tense or anxious or really
nervous I can just say to the person I'm with and just say I just want to say
I'm feeling really anxious I'm feeling really nervous and and just by saying
that it allows me to soften a little bit like so I'm I'm really passionate about
mindfulness I'm super passionate about like like learning and improving my
communication skills all the time and you know so it makes sense to me that you
know the topic of mindful communication would just be a place that really is is
I've spent a lot of time and effort learning about this and I want to take
this I want to use this episode to teach a little bit about what I know so and at
the end I will share my usual mindfulness practice as well as an upcoming
workshop I have if you're interested in going into more depth about nonviolent
communication so Marshall Rosenberg is credited with this four step process of
nonviolent communication and to begin very simply the first step is to
objectively state what happened so not you were such a jerk to me but rather
you hung up the phone before I was finished speaking okay clearly there's a
big difference between those two statements one is objective and the
other one is subjective the other one is the first one the first statement is a
judgment and the second one is naming concretely the events as you as as you've
seen them so step two is naming how the event made you feel so and an important
part of this process is using non-blaming language so every step of the way it's
important not to place blame and the reason for that is when we place blame
the person we're in communication with more often than not we'll go into a
defensive state you know no weren't people generally are not super open to attack
language just by nature like if I'm calling you a jerk chances are you're
not going to receive that positively at all right and you're not gonna want to
talk to someone who's insulting you or you know I definitely don't want to talk
to anybody who's insulting me you know there's just there would there's a
breakdown in communication when we use blame language and in the second step
again owning our experience by naming how the events objectively stated made me
feel how did so you hung up the phone before I was finished speaking I felt
rejected I felt hurt I felt sad and disconnected so there's a lot of
language to describe our emotional landscape without placing blame when I
learned about nonviolent communication it was important an important part of
this step was of again avoiding blame language so like avoid saying well I
felt disrespected because that's just a different way of saying you disrespected
me so we're really like tuning into the the the language of emotion and this is
this is I would argue one of the hardest parts of the practice because you know
after kindergarten first grade early elementary like we're not learning about
emotions really anymore or just like I mean at least not in any formal way or
just kind of winging it after we learn happy happy sad mad glad angry so it's
it's no wonder we have so many communication challenges anyhow so step
three after you've stated the sequence of events from an objective point of view
as much as possible and after you've stated how the event made you feel the
third step is to name how you would like to feel so if you're feeling rejected
something helpful that might be thinking to think about it is like well what's
the opposite of rejected I would like to feel accepted or I'd like to feel more
connected I would like to feel loved I would like to feel joy so the naming
emotions is a really vulnerable thing and so that's kind of the other part that
that makes this challenging is because we're not always necessarily in a
practice or in environments that encourage naming emotions a lot of times
we just have to like suck it up and get through it right like you but this this
practice of nonviolent communication really allows us to kind of slow down
reflect and make space for a deeper conversation a more connected conversation
and finally the last step is to make a request in the future for example if the
event was you hung up before I was finished speaking and a simple request
could be could you wait until I'm finished speaking before you hang up or
could you please say goodbye before hanging up I I mean this is I'm just
clearly trying to simplify things for the sake of explaining there it's it's a
very nuanced work so those four steps are kind of the that's the structure of
of how nonviolent communication works and it takes practice it really takes
practice the first time I did this I I learned it in my yoga teacher training
shout-out to breathe for change which is a special yoga teacher training
specifically for educators and it definitely had a social justice lens and
what I really loved is we learned about nonviolent communication and using the
tools of mindfulness having awareness like you have to be able to build
awareness of your emotions to even have these kinds of conversations and if we
understand that emotions are are you know these these phenomena that like also
have life and in the body manifests like as physical sensation in the body we
are able to tune in more to how things are you know to how we're feeling and
name it with more ease so although it sounds like a simple four-step process
it's it's it really takes practice to get the hang of it and there's also an
important aspect of you know when you make a request there like communication
cannot be if communication if the intention is connection in communication
that the it's it's it's we have to let go of our ulterior motives like using
communication as a means to manipulate or as as a in in other words using these
this framework as like a tactic or strategy to get your way that's that's
not really mindful communication and it's not really coming at communication in a
way that is going to build connection like there has to be safety for for both
parties in the conversation which means this a safety to say no like you can
make the request but the person may not necessarily want to honor the request or
may not have the capacity to honor the request so it's important to have like an
openness and maybe the person you're in in contact with can't honor the request
that you're making but they'll they could come up with an alternative
solution yeah and the it's it's super important to to practice like a non
attachment to a specific outcome because if you're attached to an outcome and
you're trying to force a specific outcome you know if you don't get the
thing that you're after it'll just lead to more conflict and resentment and we're
back to square one so the purpose of nonviolent communication is not
necessarily to get your way but it's it really in my humble opinion should be a
tool used for fostering deeper connection and intimacy and understanding emotional
intimacy and otherwise I mean I'm not sure how much emotional intimacy you
want to have with folks at work but you know that's kind of choose your own
adventure kind of situation yeah so there you have it that's kind of the
nonviolent communication framework in a nutshell I have an email video series
that I'm going to share and if you're interested in getting on the email list
you can send a message to send send me a message on Instagram my handle is
underscore Sabrina Amina underscore and yeah you can join me so let's get into
our practice for today find a comfortable seat today we'll sit upright if
that feels good for you if not again you can find whatever position feels most
easeful for you once you're there allow the eyes to close or soften your gaze on
a singular point start to notice your breath settle into this moment and make
any micro adjustments that you might need to make if you need to move or
stretch in any particular way as you're settling in as you're landing feel free
to do so and as you're arriving in your body begin to notice your breath where is
the breath hello breath faithful companion notice what it feels like to
inhale notice how it feels to exhale what sensations do you feel as you take a
breath in and as you breathe out allow the rhythm of the breath to be your
singular focus in this moment and if your mind wanders away from the breath
that's okay you can give yourself a reminder to come back to the breath and
when you've noticed your mind wandering and you consciously come back to the
breath congratulations you're practicing mindfulness take a deep breath in and
let it go
inhale and exhale as you inhale
notice the parts of the body that expand or move notice any sensation in the body
and as you exhale imagine a softening perhaps the shoulders come down perhaps
the belly relaxes perhaps the jaw softens perhaps all expression leads your
face perhaps you allow the tongue to rest in the mouth
tune into your five senses and as you breathe in and out what do you hear what
sounds are you hearing beyond the sound of my voice do you hear in your
immediate surroundings what sound can you hear that's far away it's the farthest
sound you can hear how far can you hear take a deep breath in let it go
notice a sense of smell notice the sensation in your whole factory organs
organs in your nose take a deep breath in let it go do you notice any smells
is it hard to smell notice any pleasant smells or unpleasant smells can we
notice without judgment
take a deep breath in let it go tune into your sense of taste
now you can just sense whatever you're tasting in the moment or imagine
something that tastes wonderful perhaps one of your favorite foods what happens
when you think of your favorite food what sensations come up in the body
breathe in breathe out
tune into your sense of touch you can feel the temperature in the room perhaps
you can feel a breeze perhaps you can feel the feeling the texture of your
clothing on your body feel what it's like to be you in this moment feel the
weight of gravity holding you in place right now feel the pressure between your
sit bones and the ground beneath you or the cushion or chair beneath you and
finally tune into your sense of sight and if your eyes are closed in this
moment what do you see in your mind's eye what would you like to see perhaps
bring the image of something from nature gives a sense of ease or openness
perhaps imagine a blue sky or raindrops could imagine a vast ocean
take a deep breath in let it go and note to yourself
note one word to name your experience in this moment
thank you so much for practicing with me today my name is Sabrina Amina this is
the feelings pod