The transformation of self and society with Nonviolent consciousness and Empathy

The paradigm (or framework in which we place our understanding of reality) we’re currently living in makes assumptions, that most of us consciously and unconsciously live from. Some of these are beliefs in scarcity and lack, that someone needs to lose for us to win, that we have to use coercion, convincing, reason, manipulation or people pleasing to meet our needs and feel happy and fulfilled, for example. . These largely unconscious programs inform every aspect of our lives, and how we are interacting with ourselves, our families & friends, and the larger systems that we are embedded in.

To really transform our selves and society, I believe personal inner work and work towards societal change go hand in hand. If I am learning to embrace and transform my inner wounds, and transforming my thinking into a more life serving one, I naturally have more energy and motivation to contribute that energy to the structures that I live within. If I am looking at myself as disconnected from the whole, with my own unique brand of personal dysfunction instead of looking at the bigger picture of myself as part of the whole and as my individual symptoms as a sign of a much larger societal dysfunction, then I believe I have more inquiry and empathy to discover and experience. My experience is that when I look deeply at my thinking and my actions, I can see where I am still living from the program that I was raised with based on fear, shame and scarcity. When I notice myself justifying my actions or words, when I see myself abandoning my inner integrity to distract myself from suffering, when I see myself drift into my old habits of seeking comfort and security, I now know to inquire deeply into what I am assuming in the moment and feel grateful to move into a closer intimacy with the parts of my experience that I am fencing off.

I feel sad when I fall into thinking there is something wrong with me personally for acting in ways that do not fully honour who I am, instead of connecting to the knowing that I am a product of my civilization, therefore part of the whole.. I want to use my energy to transform my own self of course and that work gives me the energy to want to share my inner freedom with others and the systems we interact with, support and contribute to, everyday. We each have a lot of power to direct our energies towards lasting inner and outer change by transforming our thought systems that are largely based on our societal mass conditioning. In my experience, the support of a group of like- minded individuals or a whole community is a precious asset in going about transforming our automatic responses to responses based on choice and inner wisdom.

In my practice of NVC, I work with core belief inquiry and transformation to help me look at the root cause of my suffering, which is often in my conscious or sub conscious thinking processes, and I have often followed these thoughts down to the roots unconscious assumptions or beliefs. There are different ways to go about this, we can use transformative role-plays to access parts of ourselves that are holding pain in relation to a specific relationship, or event in the past.

(From: Gina Cenciose www.embodyingempathy.com)