Let`s laugh together!

I love to laugh.  And I guess that most of the people love it too.  Children love it, for sure. Researchers say that a small child laughs about three hundred times each day. And what a wonderful and joyful laugh!

They laugh unconditionally. They don’t even need a sense of humor to do this. Humor is a culturally shaped trait. The small children don’t have it. They live in a magical world and laugh from their being with joy and playfulness.  It is like they have a superpower.

As adults, we laugh less: just about 30 times on a day. Maybe less.  We lost our superpower and we are trapped in a daily life that looks so dull and hard so often. We are carrying an invisible weight on our shoulders.

And it is a big loss because laughing is one of the most beneficial things that we can do for ourselves. Laugh helps us to improve our mood, our health. It helps us in all the aspect of our lives. On a personal level, we unleash a healthy playfulness that allows us to face more graceful all the challenges that life present to us. We become healthier, more positive, more confident, more creative and more joyful.  On the interpersonal level, our relationships with family, friends, co-workers become more meaningful. Our capacity to deal with people and situation increase.

And the best part is that these changes are contagious, - like laugh itself. Our good mood affects the others, and they can feel better just by laughing with us. 

We haven't really lost this superpower. We just forgot it.

There is still in us, and we can bring it again at the surface. We can learn how to laugh without no reason, and how to wake up the childish playfulness within us. 

We can do this with Laughter yoga session.

Here you have a short movie called ”Happier in 5 Minutes” Enjoy it!

And let's laugh together this week! :)

Hi-hi-hi-ha-ha-ha! Eu amo Lisboa!

One month ago I was searching for an answer to the question:

”WhatI am really good at?”

I have lived almost two years in some small  communities in countryside, I have almost four years of volunteering in Europe and I have many skills: from baking bread, cooking survival food with whatever I have in the kitchen, preserving food for winter, cutting woods, starting the fire, gardening, making dolls, scything ... but almost none of them very useful in a big city like Lisbon.
So, I have written down: cooking - this is useful everywhere. So useful, that sometimes I like to tease myself that I have a cooking passport.
But I don't like to see myself as a cook. Cooking is just a part of what I am doing. A passion, A big one, and I enjoy it a lot, but still just a part. So I added storytelling. Cooking, storytelling, and what else? And then came the answer: laughing! I am brilliant at laughing. Who knows me and heard me laughing knows what I am talking about. And I have written down:

”Laughing, I am so good at laughing, that I am thinking about became a Laughter Yoga trainer!”

Then, because I am a doer, I made the next step: I found a Laughter Yoga course and put myself on the list. With every day, my excitement about my new career grew bigger and bigger. And when the course started, it was like I was born for this. So, now I am officially Lider di Yoga di Riso!

It is my opportunity to share with as many people as I can this wonderful gift that I have - to bring the joyful laugh and childlike playfulness to others.

Many thanks for all the wonderful people that helped me in this journey! You make my life more wonderful! I see the world being more bright, just knowing that you are my friends!

Powerful Compassionate Communication exercise –assuming Radical Responsibility

Nonviolent Communication, also called The Language of Life or Compassionate Communication it is a language that teach us Radical Responsibility. It is like a wonderful 4-steps dance: step-one-observing-the-situation, step-two-expressing-the-need, step-three-assuming-the-responsibility-for-our-feelings, step-four-making-a-request.

As any language, has a Grammar. It is a very simple grammar, with just few rules. And the most important one is to assume the responsibility for our own needs.

Examples:
Grammatically incorrect (denying responsibilities)	I am feeling sad because you   (did something).	We attribute the cause of our feelings to others.
Grammatically correct (assuming responsibilities)	I am feeling sad because I  (have a need that is not fulfilled).	We are aware that the cause or our feelings are our own needs (fulfilled or un fulfilled).

Even there are just few rules, this doesn`t mean that is simple to learn and apply. It requires a lot of practice.

Here is one of the most powerful exercises I came across with it while I was studying Compassionate Communication:

Take a sheet of paper. Think about all the activities that you do and you hate to do it.  Write them down in the middle of the sheet. Let some space before the activities and more space after them.

Then, look at the list and then, for every activity write down:

 I choose to do ........... (activity in your  list) because I need .............................. (your need )

It may be that you will find hard to write down that you choose to do some of that tasks. Don`t give up. It is a process. So, go back and complete the sentence:

I choose to do.................. because I need..............................

The result can be astonishing.

Last time when I did this exercise, I was applying it to a situation that was less than enjoyable for me. I was feeling miserable and I was partially playing what Marshall Rosenberg use to call in his inimitable way PPPPPT – he said that this is the clinically terminology for Pretty Poor Protoplasm Poorly Put Together.

So, I had taken a piece of paper and I wrote down:

I choose (it was not so hard for me to admit that it was my choice, because I practice a lot this exercise)....

.... I chose to stay in this situation because I need.... because I needed a place to feel at home.

Then, everything became clear to me. I was not feeling at home anyway. Staying in that situation, it was not a need but a strategy. A dysfunctional one which was not meeting my need. So, I changed the strategy – I changed the place.  And it worked!

If this looks to simple to work, give it a try, anyway.  You may be surprised.

And I would like to have some feedback about the results!

Permaculture in Zone Zero

One year ago I had a Permaculture Design Course, at Aurora community, in Romania. At the beginning of the course, Claudian Doboș, the main facilitator, told us something like that:

- This will be a life-changing experience.

There is this AnaConda, my strong and very sarcastic inner warrior that was immediately triggered. There are so many books, movies or events that claims that they can change the life of the peoples so is already a wonder why the world is not already full with enlighten people... 

PPDC2 - Portughese Permaculture Design Course - part 2

The Permaculture Design Course at O Fojo it was one of most beautiful learning experience since five years ago, when I left the city trying to start a community in Transylvania, Romania.
I didn`t  know at that time, but that was the beginning of a long, intense and beautiful journey that brought a lot of joyful moments  in my life, and a lot of amazing people.
This particular PDC helped me to create deep connections with the people.
I was amazed to look at myself and see how much I enjoyed to be around all of the participants. Before, I was more into a doing energy. I was more a to-do-list, a human-doing then a human-being.
One particular moment is very alive in my mind in my heart. I already shared this in the morning-circle and now I want to write about it because I gain a lot of joy from what I learned then.

Let`s start with the beginning:
I had a great time with the BAD kitchen team: Barak, Ana, Dalia. The best work-relationship that I had ever. And not just work. The way we feel together, the flow, the hugs, the daily joke, it was like a dream.And one day, in the morning, I wake up with an awful thought:
”This PDC will be soon over, and they will go, and I might never see them again!” And I felt so sad... (even now, when I am writing this, I feel a little bit sad). 

And then, it was that voice that speak to me sometime and help me to see the things differently. And șhe said to me:
”But now they are here!”

And that was all. I knew before that they are still there, with me. But I knew it mentally. In that moment, I embodied it. I felt their presence with my whole being. 
And then, something extraordinary happened: the time extended, and stood still. No tick-tack, nothing. It was just me and the moment.
Since then, I try to stop the time whenever I can, whatever I am doing. I may be walking on a street of Lisbon and watch the sunset reflected in the windows of the buildings. I may be eating an ice cream, or talk with somebody. What I am doing it is not so important. Important is the place where I am when I am fully in the moment.

There is a wonderful place to be!

Thank you, BAD team! And thank you all! I miss you.

NVC - another way to see the world

Nonviolent Communication (Wikipedia Definition):

Nonviolent communication (abbreviated NVC, also called compassionate communication or collaborative communication is a communication process developed by Marshall Rosenberg beginning in the 1960s. It focuses on three aspects of communication: self-empathy (defined as a deep and compassionate awareness of one's own inner experience), empathy (understanding and sharing an emotion expressed by another), and honest self-expression (defined as expressing oneself authentically in a way that is likely to inspire compassion in others).

Nonviolent communication is based on the idea that all human beings have the capacity for compassion and only resort to violence or behavior that harms others when they don't recognize more effective strategies for meeting needs. Habits of thinking and speaking that lead to the use of violence (psychological and physical) are learned through culture. NVC theory supposes all human behavior stems from attempts to meet universal human needs and that these needs are never in conflict. Rather, conflict arises when strategies for meeting needs clash. NVC proposes that if people can identify their needs, the needs of others and the feelings that surround these needs, harmony can be achieved.

While NVC is ostensibly taught as a process of communication designed to improve compassionate connection to others, it has also been interpreted as a spiritual practice, a set of values, a parenting technique, an educational method and a worldview.

There is a story about Gandhi:
At the beginning of his nonviolent resistance campaign, Gandh had visited the English governor of India at that time and told to him:

`Congratulation, we have a conflict together!`

One of the most common obstacles that many of the people encounter when they start to apply NVC in the daily life is that almost mechanic appearance of it. It sounds weird, at least at the beginning.

I even recall someone telling to me (approximate quote): This Nonviolent Communication is really violent. I will not start to think how I feel, what my needs are, and then to speak about observations, feelings, needs and requests. This is no life! `

Indeed, I believe now that the shortest way for a NVC-beginner to make the others to hate NVC is to ask them what their needs are. And this is a mistake that is very easy to do it when we start to apply NVC.

After using NVC a lot in my inner work, I discovered that actually, even the process is called Nonviolent Communication the base is actually not the communication itself. It is not so much about the way we communicate, is about the place from we communicate.

And this place is shaped by the way we think and see the world. There is a dominant-society paradigm (which I call it The Matrix paradigm) and a life-serving paradigm – the NVC one.

Here is a table with some of the most important difference between them:

The ”matrix” paradigma	NVC-paradigma
Good/bad, Wrong/Wright	Fulfilling or unfulfilling the needs, Functional/unfunctional
Normal/abnormal	acceptance, embracing diversity
Criticism, shame, blame	Feed-back
Negative attention – we aim to avoid something wrong – even negative prays	Positive attention – we aim for our dreams
Adversaries  de conflict	Conflict partners
Fear-economy	Sacred economy
Conflict as bad thing, to avoid al all costs or to repress by violence	Conflicts as wrapped gifts, to open by empathy, connection and mediation
Zero-sum game	Win-win game
Rulers	Leaders
Concurrence, competition	Cooperation
Power over	Power with
Guilt/duty motivation	Inner core – motivation – the joy of giving
Punishment and rewards	Consequences
Retributive justice	Restorative justice
Self-ish/Self-less	Self-fullness
Obey/Rebel	Participate (be part-of)
Unconscious irresponsibility: Using a language that deny responsibility  for our feelings and for our actions: ”I had no choice, I had to”	Radical responsibility: assuming full responsibility for our feelings and for our actions
Demands	Requests
What (the fuck) is wrong with you/me?	What is alive in you/me?
Newtonian physic	Quantum physic

How the words shape the world we live in

Some time ago I came across with an article that was describing a study about the power that words have to shape our mood, our emotions and our action. I don`t remember the name of the study or the University that was conducting this experiment so if you remember, fell free to share in the comments any information or link.

The subjects were divided in two groups and they were not informed about the real goal of the study. Instead, they were asked to read and correct a text. First group had a text that contained a lot of words like: old, gray, cloudy, heavy, tired, and sad and so on. The second one had a text with words like: young, energetic, powerful, light - you`ve got the idea.   

Then, they were asked to go to another office, in the same building and now cams the interesting part: the researchers measured the time that the subjects needed to arrive at that office. The subjects from the old-gray-rain-cloudy-tired-and-sad group were slower than the subjects from the young-energetic-powerful-light group.

It may seem like a not so important experiment, and definitely not one that will provoke a big aha-moment. After all, is not so hard to imagine that after being exposed to something that has an emotional impact on us we tend to respond according to that impact.

We experiment this all the time, after we watch the news – sometime we feel literary heavy or powerless after watching some of the bad news…

What this experiment was emphasizing was that even something apparently very insignificant, like some lines in a book, can have an enormous influence, even is a more subtle one.

Words can change our mood and feelings. They can change our image about the world. They can change our reaction to what is happening. The (or our reaction) can change our world. And our lives.

Imagine if a simple story about an old man, with gray hair, that was sad and tired can make us to feel a little bit down, imagine then what an “it is your fault!” or “you are worthless” can do.  

And remember that many of us use the words in this way almost every day! Most of us use a language that in its core is violent, without even being aware about this. It is a language that takes most of the joy of life away, even without using the old-gray-sad-cloudy vocabulary. A language that denies responsibility and disconnects us from what is alive in us.

In the next post I will put a comparative table between the main language that we use in the day-by-day life and the NVC language.