It almost seems that the reasons that brought people together is irrelevant; whether it is politics, spirituality, activism, art…, there will be a tendency for a specific hidden hierarchy and dynamics to sprout, and a culture of believing that “we are special, our path is special and better than any other, our leader is special, we have all the answers to all the questions…”.

And if you are a part of the group, it is sometimes rather hard to notice these tendencies before you get fully cooked, as in the metaphor of a frog being slowly boiled alive (actually not true – a frog is smart enough to jump out once the water becomes too hot). So I wish to describe a few attributes of cult systems that are rather easy to notice; perhaps it will help somebody somewhere.

Idealised image of the leader

There tends to be a suspicious focus on the leader and their idealised image. For example, the leader will be seen as a very, very special person who knows the ultimate truth and everybody can only be grateful for being able to learn from her/him. Such a privilege indeed! Sometimes it all looks like a fan-club: “wow, he is so compassionate, and look at his beautiful blue eyes, and she is so incredibly smart and knowledgeable, wow, the way she responded to that question…”

The leader is seen as having no shadows, no personal issues whatsoever… and if her/his message is not received by the world, if the leader is being rejected and criticised, this only means that the world is not ready yet, people cannot yet handle this depth of truth.

There will be stories about the leader, anecdotes and quotes, repeated again and again. Those, who have more stories and quotes to tell because they are closer to the leader, will be higher in the formal or informal hierarchy of the organisation. Facts about the leader that are not in line with this idealised image, will be kept in secrecy (which then makes abuse so easy…).

Another version of this is seeing the leader as a martyr. She/he is on a mission to save the world and is exhausted and tense and edgy because of that and everybody needs to understand this and care for the leader, tenderly and with loads of patience.

Firstly I want to mention that the tiredness of the leader is their own personal responsibility: if they made different choices in their lives, for example to eat less and healthier, to exercise more, to make sure they get enough rest and needed support, and primarily do work on their own traumas and patterns of behaviour, the result would be different. In any case, the leader is a grown-up and not a toddler that the whole family needs to take care of.

I would also wish to keep asking myself: “What is the reason we are here, in this group? To heal ourselves, to contribute to the world, to carry out projects and create…, or to appreciate the leader and follow her/him? What is this all about; the community or the leader?”

What we talk about and how we do it

In a cult system the agenda is tightly controlled, mostly by the leader, who will this way exercise a strong influence on the group. For example, there will always be time and space for her/his stories, thoughts, comment, interventions, jokes…, and there will never be a time nor space for some challenging issues. In one of the cults I was part of, the leader would erupt on meetings when a challenging topic was brought up, saying that it makes him nervous (he was a meditation teacher!), that he will not be listening to nonsense (he was also a communication teacher, teaching listening with heart…), that he just does not have enough energy for this crap (sure, he ate very unhealthily, did not move much, was overweight…, sure there were energy issues, but whose responsibility was that?) and, of course, the whole community immediately jumped and adjusted, the topic was dropped. Did we ever drop leader’s topic because it was making a member nervous? Of course not…

The main reason for the above is that there is no equality: the leader is more important and the students are less important. This is why the way the leader wants to be treated is very different from the way she/he treats others. This is why leader is never to be challenged, disagreed with, criticised, directly or indirectly. In one of the two cult systems I was part of (both were about spirituality and communication), there was a very clear and explicit guidance written in our core materials, saying that if we were witnessing our leader being criticised, we should immediately walk out of the situation and report the person to the leader. So much about spirituality and communication…

The idea of a humble, servant leader, who would be following the community and leading by example of his own integrity, was not anywhere in our universe. Despite all the lofty words about spirituality.

So, I would want to keep asking the questions: “Can we talk about everything we want to talk about, or are there prohibited, censored topics? Is the leader to be treated in the same way as everybody else, and vice versa? Is the leader living with integrity to the values she/he is preaching and asking of others?”

Inner vs outer universe

Be it a political party, an environmental movement or a spiritual community, the cult elements seem to always show up in drawing a clear line between us and them, creating tension between the two: “We know, and they don’t. We are right, they are wrong. We have so much to teach out there, and there is not much more for us to learn from the outside…”

The need for belonging and togetherness gets further met by the specific vocabulary that often the leader will develop (wow, she/he is so awesome, even inventing a new language!!!) and everybody else will adapt. It becomes almost a secret code; we all use these specific expressions, we all share the same ways of reacting and responding. I remember, decades ago, spending a couple of days around a group that not only spoke their own exclusive mystical language, but I suddenly realised that they looked all the same: very thoughtful, very serious, no joy/smiling/relaxed laughter ever expressed, most of them even had eyeglasses with the same frame – same as the one of their leader, of course. I still vividly remember how surreal it all seemed.

And, of course, there is at least a slight scent of: if you are not with us, you are against us.

Again, I would wish to keep asking myself: “Is there curiosity in our community, to go out and learn from others, or do we just want to teach and change others out there? Is outside world seen as fellow humans that we want to connect with, as we are all pretty much similar, trying to make sense of this journey of life, or are they seen as ignorant or even dangerous?”

Atmosphere

The last characteristic I want to mention here, while being aware that this is by no means a comprehensive set of them, is the one of the general atmosphere in the community. While, of course, every group of people, every organisation, every community will inevitably keep going through various waves of group dynamics, in a cult system the atmosphere will tend to get stuck at becoming heavier and heavier.

Even in bright and light moments, there will be this lifelessness and heaviness just under the surface. Namely, constant inner personal conflicts of members between what they are doing on the one side and their own gut feeling and their own integrity on the other, constant tensions between members that never get resolved because of hidden hierarchy, lack of transparency, integrity, safety, empathy… will start taking toll and draining the group energy field.

Again, I would want to keep asking myself some questions: “Is there transparency, honesty, openness present in our community, or are there secrets and unattended elephants in the room? Are we spending most of the time sorting out our inner system and power struggles, or do we actually do the work we came here to do? Is there a sense of a progress, evolution and celebration of this evolution, or does it feel more like a lifeless sinking into the quicksand of hopelessness, burnout, despair…?”

Of course there is, as I was trying capture in my The Lonely Trainer post, there are personal wounds and traumas behind it all, and needs, heart longings…, and it is not my intention here to judge leaders and followers. And I am also aware that it takes two to tango and so just waiting for the wounded leaders to heal and transform might be a very passive approach to it all. However, if we learn to do our part of the dancing, take care of our own healing and learn to notice whether a specific group has a nourishing and joyful effect on us and on the world, and then make grown-up choices when we notice lack of such, then it seems to me there is more chance for transformation to happen.

Later I was pondering what happened. Yes, I did like the Beatles and I did like George Harrison among them best, but the extent and intensity of sadness was puzzling.

As I was staying with the emotions for the next couple of days, I started to realize that this world suddenly felt a lonelier place to be. As if a dear brother of mine, a soul-mate had left and I was more alone… And it also felt as if an important voice, bringing a specific and much needed energy into this global field, has gone.

Next time it happened after I have seen the movie Cirkus Columbia in the local cinema in Ljubljana. It was a beautiful movie about the last days of Yugoslavia, country in which I grew up, full of tenderness, specific humour, with some legendary Yugoslav actors… While unlocking my bicycle outside the cinema after the movie was over, emotions suddenly erupted in me and I ended up sobbing for next 15 minutes, right there, on the cinema’s parking lot, with my then-wife holding my hand.

It was a deep mourning and sadness running through me. About the beautiful country with six nations, three languages, three religions, in pursue of togetherness in diversity… Sadness about what we had and what we lost. And a deep and scary sense that this was gone for good, and that even the memory of that energy field, beauty and love is gone and in a generation or two it will all just be some dead letters in history books.

Next time I remember it happened when I learned about the death of David Bowie – again I felt sad and lonely and shaken for a couple of days, not only having a sense that I was somehow lonelier in this world, but that an important messenger of the world left. Again a sense of loss for the whole world.

The last time it happened I finally also started to understand it all. It was in February this year, ten days after my birthday, that I heard the news from my friends in Slovenia that Đorđe Balašević passed away. While most people in the territory of ex-Yugoslavia will know who this is, of course, I want to say a few sentences about this man for readers from elsewhere. You see, Đorđe Balašević was a Yugoslav singer, songwriter, a poet… He emerged on the stage in late 70’ and remained very much present until his departure. Strictly speaking he was Serbian, but in his heart and voice he was devoted to Yugoslavia and his songs were about simple beauty of life, about nostalgia, about melancholy, love, tenderness… Amidst the war in Yugoslavia he was one of the loudest voices for peace and one of the loudest critics of Milošević’s regime. He was also the first Serbian musician to perform in Sarajevo, Bosnia, following the four-year siege and bombing of the city, by Serbian forces. The hall was full, and everybody was crying.

Like I was crying the whole day after learning the news of his departure and seeing live footage from every capital city on the territory of ex-Yugoslavia, where people started to gather on town squares, lighting candles for Đorđe, singing his songs, holding hands, hugging, crying together…

This time I knew I was not alone crying, it felt like a collective Yugoslav heart crying, remembering it all for a moment, standing in a long and warm embrace, singing together. This time I understood that my tears were mourning the departure of beauty, of the memory of the beauty also of the messengers themselves.

And I started to understand that the messengers of possible beauty inevitably leave, yet the messages stay and need to be picked up and carried on.

I believe it is your job and mine now, to carry the message on, to continue …. until we learn to live in harmony and flow.

And I had very solid reasons for that belief.

You see, I grew up in Yugoslavia, which was one of the initiating countries of the Non-Alignment Movement that focused on fighting racism, imperialism, colonialism and, during the cold war, posing as a third way, between NATO and Warsaw Pact. Most members of the Non-Alignment Movement were from the Global South (Yugoslavia was the only European member) and membership consisted of about two thirds of UN member.

So we were brought up within the ideology that the West was really corrupt and evil, all about money and capitalistic abuse of workers. And that the East was just plain stupid and cruel. Yet, that African countries, for example, were the holders of innocence, beauty, honesty, virtues… Our villains were both Reagan and Brezhnev, while our heroes were Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Yomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi of India, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, … etc.

So when I decided to run away from home and from my meaningless life at 17 (you can read more on that in my memoir This Miraculous Life), I naturally ran to Africa and did not think even for a moment to go West or East. No, Africa was the place to go, that was the promised continent for me. This was where I would find sisters and brothers, peace and love, meaning and joy. Africa was the promised land.

Also later I was always drawn to travel extensively in the so called Third World, Global South, get excited and inspired by meeting the cultures… I considered myself as a champion for diversity, love, equality… A true global citizen indeed.

So, white supremacy, racism? Absolutely not my issue!

And how shocking it was when, as I finally gathered enough courage to explore my own cultural conditioning and blind spots, these stories of mine started to fall apart. Most of them as I was grinding my way through the excellent book Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad, as I discovered, again and again, that practically every topic explored in this book had a spot somewhere in my cognitive realm, somewhat colouring the lenses through which I perceive and interpret the world. Suddenly the illusion of my innocence and not being affected is gone. As well as the illusion of me being above and beyond these culturally conditioned divisions. And many more.

While it is at moments scary, disorienting and embarrassing, it is also relieving.

Namely, every image about myself that I keep putting up will drain my energy as well as prevent me from meeting life in full authentic. So the more of masks and self-illusions I drop, the more I get naked in front of the world, the more I am in my full authenticity, in my full integrity, in my full aliveness.

By not having to protect my image of “a nice white guy” anymore, I am able to see what are the culturally conditioned traces of white supremacy and racism in the fabric of my being, and I can bring them to the light, lovingly, and then choose how do I want to proceed.

It is not about blame, fault, guilt, right and wrong. It is about courage to meet my own shadows and about the way I want to show up in this life. And it is about how do I want to nourish and co-create it.

And, it was not just somebody. It was a Greek god embodied! A tall and muscular young man in his late twenties, as handsome as a man can ever get, with longish black curly hair and a very attractive and dignified energy aura radiating all over, smiled at us charmingly and invited us to follow him to the car. Which we did, in silence, both amazed by his incredible appearance.

Car was in perfect condition, I signed the papers and as my then-wife was fiddling with her luggage, the Greek god gently pulled me aside and asked me with a quiet voice:

“Are you familiar with this car model?”

It was a soft-top 4×4 that I have never driven before, so I said: “Not with this particular one, no.”

He asked me, still rather quietly: “Do you know how to open and close the roof?”

“No, not really, never tried before…”

His voice became even more quiet, checking over my shoulder whether my then-wife could hear us: “Would you like me to show you how to do it?”

I was getting confused with all of it: “Sure, yes, of course, please do…”

Realizing that I obviously was not getting it, he leaned closer and smiled friendly: “You know, I don’t want to make you look stupid in front of your woman, so therefore I ask first. OK, let me show you now…”

While I did not quite share his somewhat patriarchal and machoistic values, I was astonished by this and had been marvelling at what happened for the rest of that week.

There was this incredibly handsome young man, probably already completely used to people swooning around him, who not only did not have to prove to himself nor to the world how amazing he was, but even had care for this middle-aged tourist, trying to help me, to support my self-image. Like: “Yes, I am indeed very much enjoying myself, and I would love to help you to enjoy yourself too…”

Instead of competition there was the sense of companionship, mutuality, and, yes, what in Nonviolent Communication we like to call “power-with relationships”. I want to shine in my power, and I want you to shine in your power too.

Though not a fan of Margaret Thatcher, I find these words of hers very relevant: “Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you are not”

Doubting our own power and beauty, and then wasting our lives in trying to prove it to ourselves and to others by crowing endlessly, is a result of trauma, of course. A lack of unconditional love, appreciation, acknowledgement, welcoming… in our early years that taught us that we need to deserve love, that we need to be this or that in order to be good enough, etc etc…

I so much hope that, in a couple of generations, we might have considerably less traumatized individuals in this world that will find it very natural and spontaneous to collaborate rather than compete, to care for each other instead of fighting, to openly and authentically connect with others instead of trying to impress them… Not because that would be wrong, but because they would be so comfortable with themselves, so not stressed-out by the fear of not being accepted and loved, so settled and whole. Who would naturally live by the Ubuntu wisdom: “I am because you are because we are” because they would feel it deep in their hearts and bones.

Yet, on the second thought, witnessing how very persistent is the culture of conditioning children into obedience, with punishment and reward, with shaming and blaming, with power-over attitude when they are still in their most vulnerable first years of life…, yes, witnessing all of this on a daily basis I am afraid that it might take much, much more than just a couple of generations.

Even in the midst of all that is moving in the world, three experiences left me particularly shaken today. Each gave clarity about what NVC can offer in the midst of these times, and where we need to be vigilant. Here are the three events that shaped my day.

I awoke this morning to a post by a white friend to an NVC listserv. She asked that white members in our group pause and post any messages about the most recent murders of Black Americans to a subgroup that had been created for white people. She wanted to create space for people of color on the listserv to share their experiences and be received with empathy and wanted to spare them from having to process the reactions of the white listserv participants. I felt a contraction inside.

In the afternoon I went to the post-office to buy stamps for my postcard-writing campaign to get out the vote. I stood in line between two white men, six feet apart from both. They started talking loudly to each other, over my head, about the “thugs” who are rioting, predicting “feral outbreaks” and stating that the murder of George Floyd was no reason for people to destroy their neighborhoods. They spoke only of the riots, of damage to stores and businesses. After listening for five minutes, I said, “Please, it’s really hard for me to hear you talk about this, to hear you focus on the riots without acknowledging why they are happening. I’d like to hear what comes up for you when you think of what stimulated the riots, when you think of George Floyd being killed by a police officer in the way he was.” One man apologized and stopped talking, soon called to the clerk’s window. The other man started explaining how he was raised not to see color, that he did not see me as a black woman, because “we all bleed red.” He insisted he was raised to treat everyone the same. He then raised his voice as he said, “The thugs would shoot me because they weren’t raised like that. They just see a white man, and that’s why I have a gun.”

I came home, and in the evening saw the first message about George Floyd’s death (and indeed, about Breonna Taylor or Ahmaud Arbery) on the CNVC trainer’s list. The trainer who sent the message has been active in the NVC network for decades and had stated in an email ten days earlier “those teaching ‘privilege’ topics in our network are – in their use of that phrase – as much abandoning NVC as I am if I speak of ‘conspiracy theorists’ ”. His message’s subject line was, “CNVC: In Some Cities, Police Officers Joined Protesters Marching Against Brutality.” He described, “I feel some hope and celebration….to see evidence that major barriers of stereotypes (“cops” “protesters” “thugs” “leftwingers” “blacks” “whites” etc.) and enemy images can maybe be crossed on a significant scale….I’d like to hear from anyone who can share in this celebration?”

I did not share in his celebration. As genuine and honest as I perceived it to be, there was a significant lack of shared reality. His invitation to share in his celebration landed as a dangerous lack of awareness of the impact and consequences of shifting the focus to the police officers’ efforts in this moment. Holding up these police officers’ actions in support of the protesters lands as similar to the “very fine people on both sides” argument that was made after Charlottesville. I don’t deny that there are many police officers out there who are appalled by the murder of George Floyd and stand with us in condemning it. Why ask us, however, to acknowledge them in this moment of grief and outrage? Is the officers’ support, in what the trainer described as being of “significant scale,” supposed to be equivalent to the centuries of deliberate murder and degradation of black people in this country, often enforced by the police? There hasn’t been a shortage of positive images of the police in many decades – movies and television shows with positive depictions of the police abound. My protesting the systemic, prolonged attack on communities of color by police does not mean I do not simultaneously believe that there are police officers who find such treatment abhorrent. I do. Despite the abundant coverage of these recent murders, most of the deaths and the vast majority of the abuse of black people as a result of systemic racism goes unacknowledged. Asking that equal attention be given to the police officers’ support of the protesters as we give to a specific police officer’s murder of another black citizen that is but one small example of centuries of murder, creates a false equivalency that serves to minimize the depth of my anguish and rage. Instead, I invite you to a different possibility. Create space for the depth of mourning, despair and rage that black and brown communities are experiencing. Give that expression all the space and time it needs. Don’t try to shift it by reminding us of the other possibilities. Don’t ask us to touch hope and celebration before you have created space for us, and if it’s true for you, joined us in the pain and rage. This moment is happening because for once the continued, relentless attack on black people was captured in a way that could not be minimized or denied. If you find our pain and rage and despair unbearable, so do we, but we have had to bear it since this country’s founding. if you need to touch hope – then do so, but do so in a manner and place that does not shift the focus from the depth of our experience finally being seen, finally being held as not a black or brown problem, but our country’s collective problem.

At the end of this day, as I sit to write this piece, my despair is huge and, sadly, familiar. After each experience, I received empathic support from people I trusted who understood why these events were so challenging for me. But my fear is that if we, collectively, don’t do a better job of truly understanding the experiences of black and brown people in America who have been suffering since this country’s founding, we re-injure and harm those who come to us, those who we may be actively trying to support. There is much that NVC can offer in these times, but it needs to be with an awareness of the different worlds we navigate, the immense differences in the type, frequency and intensity of harm we often bear — simply by virtue of our ethnicity — in this American society.

So, what can these experiences teach us? How can NVC help us respond effectively in these times?

Empathy.

Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, the founder of NVC, noted, “Empathy is a respectful understanding of what others are experiencing.” (pg. 91). Empathy is a powerful tool for healing, connection, and deep understanding of another being. Most of us were flooded with deep, painful emotions as we witnessed an innocent jogger gunned down in daylight, a man pleading for his life, calling Mama, while his neck is compressed by the very people society tells us are our protectors. We are grieving the thousands of black and brown people who have died disproportionately in the United States, and the tens of thousands more who, despite knowing the risk of death and health complications is high, show up for work each day to make sure we have food on our tables, our packages delivered, our hospital rooms cleaned and our loved ones cared for in the hospital, and so much more. Empathy can help us process and grieve. It can lessen the loneliness, provide the affirmation that someone sees our anger and despair. So, show up. Offer your non-judgmental ear to those open to receiving it. Hold the full range of emotions someone expresses, whether it be anger, rage, hopelessness, determination, hope – receive it all.

I believe that if we want to see the murders stop, if we want to live in a world where the color of my skin is not a significant predictor of my chance of dying in childbirth, living in pollution, getting a good education, and more, then we need to truly begin caring for everyone. When we leave people outside the circle of care, we create the conditions that breed desperation, hate and violence. Each person – the mother wailing over their children’s shattered bodies, and the officer who did the shattering; the person evicted from their home because they are unable to keep up with the exorbitant mortgage rates black and brown people were given, and the banker who devised those policies – each one needs to be held with empathy. NVC invites us to look beneath the most heinous strategies and find the needs those strategies were designed to meet. When we uncover the needs, we are not saying the strategies are okay. We’re not saying, “Gee, now that I know your intention, I forgive you.” We can fully acknowledge the incredible loss and pain stimulated by certain strategies, working to stop the use of the strategies, while still seeing the need those strategies were trying to meet. By seeing the need, we can then work towards new strategies that result in far less harm.

Imagine someone who is jobless, watching their family go hungry night after night, seeing no options for new work or new ways to gain sustainability, looking for a reason that gives them both an understanding of their experience and promises hope things could change. This person might adopt the political rhetoric that says people don’t have jobs because immigrants are taking work from them. In their hopelessness, they may accost Somalian refugees in their community, yelling, “Go Back to Africa.” What would I do if I brought an NVC lens to this situation?

First, I would want to establish safety and stop harm from continuing. As a bystander, I might stand up to the person taking those actions and tell them to stop. As a member of their community, I might reach out to others and ask them to intervene with me. I will use the least amount of force necessary to stop the harmful actions, but I will take action necessary to prevent harm. The pain is real, but anger is misplaced when it focuses on victims of scarcity rather than the system that creates the scarcity in the first place.

Simultaneously, I would establish empathic support for any refugees and others in the community who experienced harm. What emotions were stimulated for them by these actions? Fear? Anger? Hopelessness? More? What needs – maybe safety, acceptance, shared reality – were not met? I would find out — are there other actions that could help the immigrant family recover?

And, I would empathize with the person who took these actions. I would try to understand their feelings and needs. To understand the deep fear and desperation, longing for hope, change and sustainability that drove their actions. I would make clear how much I value those needs, and how strongly I want to help find a different strategy that would support safety and acceptance, shared reality, hope, change and sustainability for all. 

And finally, ideally, I would bring a full NVC restorative process to this situation, one that addresses not just the individual interactions, but the systemic conditions and structural inequities that impact each community and contributes to the violence. I would focus on helping both the immigrant community members and the unemployed citizens come together to address the policies and laws that are making it difficult for both groups to earn sustainable wages while simultaneously pitting them against each other.

If you want to show up and help, you can offer empathy that’s grounded in the belief that everyone’s humanity matters. However, don’t demand or even expect that those who have experienced harm are ready to step up and empathize with those whose actions were so painful. Don’t ask the mother or the un-housed homeowner to be the ones to empathize with the police officer or the bank officer. If they can, if they want to – great! But if they can’t, surround them with empathy exactly where they are, and find someone else to empathize with and support those who have been the stimulus for such harm.

Empathy is a gift, not a demand. Even as I know how deeply empathy is needed, there are times when it is offered with a demand, or at minimum a strong expectation, that it be accepted. Sometimes the demand is explicit. I’ve been in NVC circles where people kept insisting I share vulnerably and receive empathy, with no awareness why I might choose not to do so. Other times, empathy is implicitly offered. Remember that message asking white people to share their messages elsewhere so that people of color could share in the community? The people of color in that group had not asked for this space. First, there is the subtle, uncomfortable othering one of my friends identified when reading that request. How do we strike that balance of making sure voices of those historically marginalized are not continuously decentered in group spaces, while still seeing their voices as part of, not separate from, the community. Next, now that this space is cleared for us, are you ready to hear our, “No, thanks,” in whatever intensity it is delivered? Are you open to the message that, even if you were the most skilled empathizer in the world, I might not be ready or willing to bare my heart to you? While there are a number of reasons why I might not want empathy at this moment, I’ll focus on some of the challenges of receiving empathy across power differences that might contribute to my saying no.

Many people of color report a pattern where white friends and colleagues request that they share their most vulnerable selves. Are you going to your friends who are people of color now, asking them how they are doing? Are you offering empathy for the first time to a Black coworker after news broke of the latest murder of an unarmed black person by white vigilantes? If you did, you may have been met with a short no or even an angry response. There are several reasons for this.

First, there’s an experience people of color often complain to me about. If you say you want to empathize with me, and I take you up on that offer, stay with empathy! Too often, when the topic turns to race or privilege or power differences, even highly skilled NVC people forget their skills and drop empathy. Instead, people of color are often asked to defend their experiences, prove it, justify it. We’re asked to constrain our language and our expression. If we agreed to have an empathy session, and I say, “I’m furious this racist person spray-painted my house!” I want empathy. I don’t want to hear, “The word racist is a judgment.” More subtly, if I say, “I’m scared because my boss picks on black people in the office,” I don’t want to hear in response, “Maybe you’re misinterpreting things. She’s tough on everyone. How do you know she’s singling out only the black people.” If you cannot meet me with empathy, ask yourself why not. What makes this topic the one that so consistently engenders a non-empathic response? What fears and judgments do you hold about the topic of racism, anti-Blackness, structural inequity and privilege that makes it difficult to translate my words and meet me with empathy?

There’s another reason I might not want to accept your offer of empathy. If you’re only now reaching out to offer me empathy related to George Floyd’s murder, having never before attempted to hear my experiences with racism and police brutality, please know – this is not new. Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd – they are not rare deaths in our communities. The disparate health outcomes for African-Americans, Native Americans and Latinx folks – this is not limited to COVID. If you are truly holding my needs, the needs of my community, you’ve been working to address these issues long before this specific moment in time. You’ve been out there – educating other people, putting your resources of time, money, and energy into education and change. If you’ve been doing this work, I’ve been receiving empathy through your actions. I see you stepping forward to challenge a comment on a listserv, showing up in my community to clean up the graffiti someone sprayed, working to challenge the laws that permit stop and frisk or biased sentencing. When I see you in action, I experience your empathy. I get from your actions that you see the urgency, the fear, the anger, the hopelessness. And if I’ve never seen these actions from you, hearing from you in this moment somehow makes all the other times I’ve not heard from you even harder to bear. If you reach out now to support me, I wonder – why now? What do you really need? Because my need for accompaniment and support and shared risk has been here ever since I set foot in this country. So why now? Are you wanting me to know there are white folks who see and mourn and grieve with me? Have you just finally woken up to the inequities that exist, and are wanting to finally show up and be supportive? Is there a part of you longing to be seen for your intense rejection of what has been happening? If there is, if you’re experiencing loss of connection, fear, longing for your solidarity with black and brown communities to be known, this is the time for you to utilize self-empathy – another core NVC skill. Get clarity on all the needs you’re trying to meet when you reach out to me. And if you need more support as you connect to your own mourning for the ways communities of color have been slammed for so long by systemic racism and inequities, if you’re struggling with self-acceptance over the ways that helplessness and fear, internalization of the racism embedded in America, or even just overwhelm in daily life have prevented you from standing up for people of color before now, ask your white brothers and sisters for empathy. I’m holding quite a lot already. If you come to me with any of that energy that says, “Help me feel better. Help me know you still see me as one of the good guys, somebody who would never do this,” I’ll say, “No thank you.” Because I’m barely holding on, for myself, my children, my community. I don’t want to expose all that’s stirring inside of me at your request, so that it helps you feel good about yourself, or because right now, in this moment, you finally want to take action, to contribute. I want to open myself in my own timing, when I know I can let go, and knit myself back together enough to continue caring for my community. I want to receive empathy from people who can accept all that’s inside of me, in all it’s messiness, without questioning its form. I want an empathic connection where I know I’ll be met with that deep resonance that comes when we have shared the same struggle, when I can relax into my truth without worrying that I’m being judged as not enlightened enough, or too angry, or too hopeless. When I can let go without tracking your well-being, taking care of your fragility or reactivity. When I move towards empathy, I do it in those spaces where I feel safe, because it helps me release enough, heal enough that I can face another day of sending my children out there, not really trusting that they will come home safely. So remember, your offer of empathy is a gift to me, and I truly see it as that, but I am free to decline your gift.

Empathic Action.

I’ve already touched on another place where NVC can help, which is in identifying action addressed at meeting needs. Start asking yourself – what might this person need? What would help ease the burden they are carrying? I’ve read story after story of business owners showing up at their ransacked business, standing daunted in the face of destroyed buildings, broken windows and shelves, ash-covered, water-soaked merchandise. And someone walks by with a broom and says, “How can I help you clean up?” That, for me, is empathy in action. Guessing at a need for support to tackle the heartbreaking task of restoration, when supplies were likely to be limited, people are identifying the strategy to meet those needs and showing up, making that empathic offer. It could still be refused, but in the cases I read, it was gratefully accepted. NVC provides us with an ongoing practice of identifying the need, and making guesses to check the accuracy of that need. You can continue to do the same through empathic action.

Yesterday, my son showed me a text from his college advisor that provided another example of actions we can take that landed as deep empathy and care for him. She sent all of her students of color a simple text, letting them know she was standing in solidarity with them, and was offering her ears, legs, and resources for them to use however they would find useful. And she also offered a specific form of support, asking to be notified of any student who is joining the protests and who might need legal or financial support because several faculty were coming together to offer that kind of support. This was empathy in action. They were empathizing with the depth of pain and rage the students might be feeling that could drive them to participate in the protests. And by imagining the outcome of such participation, offering legal and financial support lets the students know their urgency for action is recognized, the shared reality about policing that is different for black and brown bodies is seen.

The other form of empathic action is to step in when you see something happening. In the last month, we’ve witnessed racial violence inflicted on people and racial stereotypes weaponized to harm black and brown people. Think back to the less intense example of the post office. If you were in the post office with me this morning, listening to the two white men talking loudly about “thugs” over my head so they could hear each other 12 feet away, would you notice my distress? Would you have spoken up? I longed for any of the people standing in line to say something. No one spoke or even made eye contact. When we stay silent in the face of these events, we may be choosing safety. Maybe we’re genuinely confused about how we can actually intervene. If we’re not the ones being targeted, and especially if we’re not the ones historically targeted, we have the choice to stay disengaged, to observe. Unfortunately, when you do that, I don’t know what to make of your silence. Does it mean you agree with what is being said or condone what is happening? Does it mean you are afraid and not trusting anything you could do would help? So many unknowable possibilities. And in the absence of any action from you – the bystander – I’m left with the lonely experience that as I was being harassed, beaten, insulted, killed – you stood by and did nothing. So what can you do?  You can take steps to prevent harm, remove barriers to action, and resource and educate yourself.

• Get empathy. Get clear on what risks you’re willing to take. Are you willing to risk being harassed yourself? Losing your job? Being physically attacked? Dying? Understand what needs are met for you and not met for you at each level of risk. Grieve what you are not currently willing to do, while honoring the needs you’re meeting, and use some of the steps below to better prepare for what you can do.
• Brainstorm and practice some distraction techniques that might allow the targeted person to escape.
• Start practicing. Role play with your friends what you’ll say the next time you witness a microaggression or an act of outright violence.
• Get in touch with your own needs that are not met when you witness these acts, and practice speaking out against them, naming your needs.
• Have empathy circles devoted to addressing whatever keeps you from action — your fear, your helplessness, your worry that your help will not be wanted — in order to ground your commitment to taking action.
• Do some research on internalized racism, anti-blackness, other forms of dehumanization and othering, then get empathy for how it shows up in you. Being able to acknowledge and work with the messages you’ve internalized can help you to support the targeted person without moving into a savior role and assigning them victim or less-than status.
• Role-play the actor – the person committing these acts of violence – so you can humanize them. Strive to understand the actor as much as you can so any intervention you make will stem from your condemnation of the strategy while still holding your compassion for the actor.
• And, most importantly of all, intervene. Even if you have not yet had time to do any of these preparatory steps, still, intervene. If your messy, judgmental, inarticulate intervention permits the targeted person to walk away unhurt, with an experience, finally, that someone recognized the violence and stood up to prevent it, it’s worth it.

The more you practice how you can recognize and respond in situations where someone is being targeted, the more available these skills will be for you. And if you’re not sure an intervention is wanted, in general, or by you specifically, ask, “Do you want me to say something?” or “Do you want me to get someone else who can intervene?” Take the risk of receiving a no, and stand up.

There are also numerous sources online that point us to the needs of communities of color and organizations that have been addressing those needs that are still longing for support. I’ve provided a very short list at the end.

NVC offers us a transformative way of thinking about the world and connecting with other people, that moves us away from dichotomous, moralistic thinking. It helps us gain clarity on what actions are serving life – making this world one that works for all beings – and which actions are too costly in their impact. We can differentiate the action from the actor. We can work to change painful strategies to more life-serving ones without denying anyone’s humanity. We who are committed to NVC are urged to step up and use it now. Those who are experiencing generations of harm and those who are directly targeted today need our support. Those who have been creating harm need our compassion and a protective, not punitive, use of force that is connected to needs and does not rely on making anyone evil or wrong. And, as we support individual healing, liberation, growth and connection, we can unite and work to repair the generations of harm that have been inflicted on black, brown and indigenous communities. We can identify where the systemic damage is great, and direct resources to attend to those needs. We can work together to overturn the systems that condone, entrench and incentivize racist violence and inequity. We can look beyond the individual and ask ourselves, “What actions can we take to create a society that serves all its peoples? To have systems that don’t privilege some at the expense of others? Ones that are truly committed to attending to the needs of all? Audre Lorde said, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.” It’s time for us to put down the master’s tools of blame, shame and judgment, of separation and division, and pick up new tools — resistance grounded in empathic understanding and compassionate embracing of all our humanity — if we hope to create a world where everyone has the conditions they need to thrive.

Unpredictability is something our dear minds have a huge difficulty with, as they are designed to neutralise it. Namely, our minds do everything they can – and they certainly can do a lot – to keep creating an illusion of stability, predictability… They work hard on keeping us sane in this experience of life, making it all appear simple enough, manageable, predictable… And so they keep seeking explanations, producing personal belief systems and models of the world…, this way creating illusions that we know what this is all about, that we are safe as we can predict the future, that we are safe as we can read other people and influence their behaviour. Creating an illusion that life is controllable, stable, safe.

Yet, in my understanding, to believe these illusions is a certain march into an on-going war with life, which we are likely to lose in frustration, helplessness and pain. Because life is not a predictable and stable experience but rather an experience that will forever keep presenting itself to us as ever emerging infinite richness of unexpected possibilities.

So for me the question is not how I can make life more predictable, how I can control it in one way or the other, but how can I flow smoothly with it, how I can dance with it. In other words, how can I be with life as a wave, and not trying to make life a specific particle, fixed in a specific way, just for me.

In my life I have been noticing two essential elements that help me slowly wake up from the confusion of illusions into the present moment and help me learn how to move with the flow of life.

The first one, as it seems to me, is to listen attentively to life. To first wake up to this moment, this very moment in which I exist, to wake up fully into the awareness of being, with the fullness of what I am experiencing as myself. To relax into beingness and to then start listening. Patiently, quietly, attentively, with the wholeness of me.

By listening, sensing, I start opening up, in curiosity, in innocence, to the unknown. And then, perhaps very slowly, I will manage to start hearing from the outside of the known self and the known world, known life. I will slowly start becoming conscious of aspects and movement of life that so far I have not been concussions of. Relaxing into the unknown and listening to it, I will start becoming aware of new dimensions, new possibilities…

And the second of the two elements for me is that, while being grounded in the moment, I start learning anew to move and flow with life. To learn to respond with yes, with curiosity and presence, and to dance with it all. Like a dancer dances with their partner. Like a surfer on a wave of life.

I also noticed that my ability to fully move and dance with life, in fullness, in flow… is primarily influenced by the place I am experiencing life and existence from. If I am in a space of fear, contraction, freeze, pretty much stuck within my worried mind, then I will not be able to flow at all.

Yet, if I healed myself from my traumas and wounds, if I learned how to be in the wholeness, how to open up from the fullness of the being into the wholeness of existence, if I learned how to stay in the present moment and sink into the multidimensionality of it, if I learned how to create and witness at the same time, if I learned to surrender to the flow of life and let it move and create through me…, then suddenly this dance becomes not only easy, but very full and enjoyable.

And then I can, while following it, forever marvel at this miraculous life unfolding in front of my eyes, right now, int this one and only moment.

“Robert, in all your explorations in your life, all your travels, have you ever met a fully enlightened, a fully liberated person?”

This question hit me like meeting a long-forgotten world. Of course, back than it was all about the spiritual duality: enlightened vs non-enlightened, liberated vs caught in ego, spiritual vs non-spiritual, fully enlightened vs just partially enlightened… Yes, while we were, with our very best intentions and all the sincerity we were possessing, doing our best to figure out this mystery of life, we were, again and again, getting lost in the swamp of duality between good and bad, the desired and the not-desired. Chasing some mental images about how we were supposed to be, versus how we actually were. And at the same time condemning duality itself. 😊

As I was remembering these times I was also noticing how incredibly far these concepts were from how I have been experiencing reality nowadays. Instead of understanding it all in a linear way, this is to say along the line from prison to freedom, from darkness to enlightenment, I experience it all as a multidimensional flow of evolution and creation in this omnipresent field of possibilities. The pre-cosmic consciousness exploring possibilities, creating new combinations and, at the same time, innocently marvelling at the creation. Observing it from infinite number of viewpoints.

It all seems so incredibly far from a sense of being imprisoned and having to break free.

An ongoing creation and exploration, an ongoing creation of a work of art of cosmic proportions.

A rather similar experience I had just a few weeks later, when another friend, in a spiritually inspired conversation, asked:

“Yes, but what if all these mind-blowing and ecstatic spiritual experiences of oneness and timelessness and omnipresence that we have been experiencing, what if all these are actually just an illusion, created by some very biological principles in our brains in order to keep us happy and content and to keep procreating? What if none of this is actually true?”

Again I had to smile at this polarity: truth vs illusion. Which, of course, would mean truth = good and illusion = bad. How persistent our poor minds are, trying to make sense of it all.

While I am actually not sure there is such a big difference between the two. In a way, everything we can possibly experience is an illusion, is a creation, and at the same time it is the only truth that can ever be. It all seems to be within the ongoing creation, which is illusion and the objective truth at the same time.

Although it sometimes may seem to me that I have been struggling with the same patterns and fears throughout my life and have not progressed much, at these specific moments of having been asked these questions I felt full of celebration. As it was in an instant and in a very embodied way clear that I have covered a huge piece of journey in these decades. It was clear how deeply peaceful, settled, in ease and inner spaciousness I am now around these questions, while remembering all the frustration and tension and fears that used to be struggling within me.

Even more, the duality that seemed like an arch-villain back then, I actually celebrate it now, seeing beauty in it. Namely, to me duality seems to be holding the portal for creation open, making the creating as well as witnessing the creation possible. If there is no duality present, then we have static oneness and no creation. Not that this would be bad, of course, but the field of possibilities and potentials would remain unexplored and unexperienced.

Yet this way, with the portal of duality kept open, the explorative dance of consciousness can continue, exploring new combination of movements and qualities, like a giant cosmic dancer…

Am I making any sense?

Namely, very often the questions were asked by psychologically or physically abused people. There was much pain, despair in their questions, yet the answers almost always seemed to have an undertone of: “Well, you need to understand that your father/husband/aunt/boyfriend… must have had a hard childhood too, and are probably dealing, in the best way they can, with their inner demons, traumas… So, try to be understanding and patient, and trust that things will change…” It was not always said so directly, but somehow this message seemed to have been floating between the lines – the abuser needs to be understood, and the victim, well, aren’t we all victims, we all had difficult childhood, so let’s find our way through it, someday things will change…

I have gone through a lot of abuse in my childhood too, mostly psychological violence from an alcoholised father that traumatised me deeply, and on a few occasions where I tried to share my pain and helplessness with my aunt, or grandmother, I would get an advice: “Well, you need to understand him, he has been under lots of pressure in his work, you know that he has a very responsible position in his job, just move away when this happens again, because you need to respect your father, you see, he loves you very much and he is working so much in order for you to have a carefree childhood. And all this will pass anyway, you will grow up and live your own happy life…” Needless to stress how useless these advice were.

An acquaintance of mine had been sexually abused by his father, which, of course, traumatised him heavily. In his thirties this acquaintance of mine finally broke out of his deep depression, opened up and started to share these experiences with people, also with family members. The result was that the whole family immediately completely rejected him and he remains excommunicated to this very day. How could he speak like this about his beloved father, that humble religious man, that well-respected member of the society…?

I would not want to generalise it all here, yet it does seem to me that most of our societies are functioning in some sort of a collective pressure against honesty, openness, against authenticity. Don’t speak up your truth if it is inconvenient, if it endangers the status quo in the society.

In the last few weeks I had a very similar conversation with quite a few friends of mine and it turns up that, in our middle age years, many of us seem to slowly be waking up to an authentic relationship with our parents. And are slowly learning that by having always been patient, kind, nonviolent, respectful, by having stretched again and again and again in order to accommodate their behaviours and to not upset them, that we were not only doing a disservice to ourselves, but also a big disservice to them. Namely, deep in their hearts our parents, in the same way as we all do, long for authentic meetings, especially with their own children. This is what, deep in their very souls, they have been yearning for, although they get upset when we actually offer authenticity to them, as they have never learned, in this society of ours, how to handle it.

And so I am, at 53, learning about true authenticity, especially in the present moment. I have already managed to shorten my response time from months to a couple of hours, but a real-time authenticity is still not quite tangible.

As the real-time authenticity does not seem to be a static state of beingness, a static form of myself, but it looks more like riding a bicycle and learning how to flow in a dynamic balance. As in riding a bicycle it is all about development of my sense of balance and moving from one moment to another, also in the case of real-time authenticity it seems to be about developing a certain sense so that I will immediately capture inner deviations, slow down a bit to get back in balance, and continue… So, yes, slowly, clumsily, I have been learning… Living with a master of this art certainly helps.

And what is most important for me is that I am exploring this capacity of full real-time authenticity not because it is better to be authentic than not authentic, not because it is more spiritual, evolved, but because it brings more fullness to my life, it takes the imaginary boundary between me and not-me away. And because it supports me in landing fully into this experience of existence.

Well…

The thing is that in my twenties I had been an active member of two spiritual cult systems with strong hierarchy and sexual abuse, and I have observed the particular dynamics that got created. Later I started to work as a psychotherapist and continued so for 12 years. Somehow I became rather popular among cult and abuse survivors and I spent my share of time listening to wounds and scars and pain that spiritual teachers, trainers and therapists left on people that came to them for help. And this is what I have learned so far…

The concern here is not so much about sex, but about power dynamics in asymmetric relationships. On the one side there is a person who needs help, support, wishes to outgrow certain patterns, for instance core-beliefs that they are not good enough, that they don’t deserve love, that they have to be in a specific way in order to get acceptance, belonging, connection. This person comes for support to a retreat, training, therapy and keeps revealing themselves, digging up painful and vulnerable content, exposing it again and again, continuously re-experiencing the pain and shame and fears that caused these wounds to be suppressed so deeply.

And on the other hand we have a trainer, coach, therapist, who is always warm, welcoming, asking powerful questions, giving guidance and answers. Compassionate, patient, well…, just perfect. And this trainer has power, guides the process, and does not reveal much about themselves. Unless they want to which than makes them even more impressive: “Oh, he is so humble and honest.”

You know, there is an asymmetric relationship even between my dentist and me, though on a very superficial level. I always come there in pain and with concerns, while she is always happy, shining, professional and so, so very all-knowing. She keeps digging into me, while I lay helplessly surrendered. She knows everything about my teeth and cavities and stuff, while I know nothing about her. I just keep revealing my wounds to this perfect professional.

OK, this might sound funny, but imagine a setting when it is not about teeth, but emotions, fears, patterns of thinking, traumas, core beliefs…

And then the projections and transference kick in.

The client, participant will tend to subconsciously project feelings towards the therapist, trainer, perhaps experiencing how suddenly needs that were so painfully unmet in their childhood, are all getting fulfilled: “This trainer sees me in my very essence and inner beauty like nobody ever did. I feel so deeply understood. And appreciated for who I am. And loved. And safe. There is so much connection here, and beauty, and trust… And he is looking at me so deeply, I feel like I am really special, chosen…” And these feelings may guide the client, participant into moving in a way they would perhaps not move outside this asymmetric relationship.

While I was working as a psychotherapist, I had experiences that often left me shocked. I had a gorgeous woman coming to weekly sessions wearing most provocative dresses, with extremely high red heels, shortest skirts ever…etc, insisting on describing again and again to me, within the therapy, how amazing she was in bed. After several sessions she finally admitted that all she had really wanted was to seduce me. Another young lady asked, after a very emotional session was complete, for a hug, only to then whisper into my ear that she was eager to go all the way. Yet another came with her boyfriend for a mediation, called me up after the session to tell me she decided to break up with him and wanted to switch to individual sessions, in which she was then behaving in a very seductive way. For a couple of sessions at least, while she was still holding some hope, I guess. I had ladies approaching me during the retreats I was leading, inviting me into intimate relationships while my then-wife was being at the event too, as an assistant. And so on…

Needless to say, these kinds of situations almost never happened in my “regular” life, yet quite regularly in these asymmetric situations.

And of course, we, the trainers, therapists, will not be immune to these projections and will experience our own counter-transference: “Oh boy, look how much appreciation I am getting, look how they laugh at my jokes, look how they really see me, I really finally shine…” As a trainer, therapist you may quickly become seduced by this all, as you are finally experiencing appreciation, respect, acknowledgement that you were longing for from your childhood.

So now, when the trainer invites the participant into intimacy, or vice versa, is it really two adults making adult choices, or is it wounded children being guided by their un-healed pain? We cannot know really, I believe, and this is why many organisations and schools have certain ethical guidelines, to, for instance, not enter intimate relationships at least 6 months, or 12 months, or two years… after the professional, asymmetric relationship is complete. And the magic spell hopefully disperses at least to a certain extent.

For the sake of transparency; I met my life companion on a large training on which I was one of the five trainers. Feeling attracted, I was very cautious and reserved and we only had a couple of conversations. For about a year we practically had no contact at all, just a friendly line every few months over FB messenger. We entered a friendship about a year and a half after we had met at that training, and became intimate almost two years after. So, though it all seems pretty safe and contained, I still wish we had met someplace else.

To conclude, I can only wish that all of us who are working in helping professions would get all the help and support that we need, all the therapy and healing, so that we would not be giving therapies and leading retreats in order to meet our own needs for appreciation and acceptance and closeness and intimacy, but to primarily support our clients and participants to grow in the directions they want to grow, to find healing and spread their wings.