The Paradox of Why

by Miki Kashtan

In an astonishing number of situations, knowing the “why” – why someone did what they did - is what helps us make meaning, be motivated, transform our assumptions, or open our hearts. At the same time, the “why” question – “why did you do that?” - is often the most difficult to hear, leading us to defensiveness and contraction. Both parts of this paradox have clear reasons (their own “why,” if you will). Once we know them, we can find ways to support ourselves and others in knowing the “why” that are less taxing for all.

Why “Why” Matters

For myself, understanding the “why” is the fundamental bridge between me and another. When I see another person’s action, decision, or choice, or hear their request of me, and I don’t know the “why” – either by being told, or by managing to imagine it effectively enough – a gap forms within me, made up of lack of understanding. The gap may be tiny and temporary, or it may be the beginning of growing and ongoing mistrust. This gap is likely bigger and lasts longer the less the other person’s movements align with my own preferences.

I have heard similar themes often enough to trust that in this particular way I am not that different from others. Just think of the last time someone didn’t show up at the time you expected them and you were irritated, then you found out the why and the irritation disappeared. Without knowing, we tend to fill in the gap of understanding by providing our own “why,” creating our own stories about what someone’s behavior means.

This is where our historical legacy can backfire. Only few of us, as far as I can tell, are truly able to live the assumption of innocence in its fullness. As a result, when we don’t like what someone else does, many of us are prone to coming up with explanations that dehumanize the other person: “She set me up to suffer because she is sadistic” or “He only did this for the sake of having more power” or “This decision came from left field; they don’t know how to plan anything.”

On the other hand, when we do hear the why, something changes magically. I’ve been in rooms where employees heard, for the first time, why a certain decision was made by a boss, and noticed the power of the shift that ensued. I’ve seen people receive a request and tense up only to relax into a comfortable “yes” when they understood why the request was made in the first place. It only works when the reason makes sense and allows us to see the emotional logic. Then we can plant ourselves in the shoes of the other person even if we disagree. This is a clear example of the immense power of empathy, and the distance we still, collectively, must walk to inhabit a spontaneously empathic response to life.

Are Judgments Wrong?

by Miki Kashtan

This piece was born out of my ongoing confusion about how to talk about the vision of living beyond right and wrong thinking. Two questions repeatedly arise, and I am not always satisfied with my responses to them. As different as they may seem, both, to me, are indicative of the same challenge. One question is some version of: “Are you saying that it’s OK to kill someone?” The other takes the form of: “Aren’t you saying that judgments are wrong?” My one word answer to both of them is simply “no.” So, what, then, am I saying?

Our Words Have Consequences

My rather arbitrary starting place in disentangling the many threads in this knot is to explore the significance of our choice of words. Saying that something is “wrong”, or “right”, or “beautiful”, for that matter, has consequences for the speaker as well as for the person hearing the words. This form of speaking assumes a standard of what these words mean that is external to the speaker and the listener. The speaker is not taking full responsibility for being the one making that judgment. The listener is subtly invited to agree with the speaker rather than to understand the speaker. The ensuing conversation, if one takes place, is less likely to be one of exploration and connection than one of making pronouncements and, in the case of disagreement, debate, possibly acrimony.

If, instead, the speaker speaks of their experience, what they say becomes incontrovertible and invites a different quality of relating. No one can argue with me about whether or not I liked a certain movie. Anyone could argue with me about whether or not this was a bad movie. Speaking of our own experience, our own inner frame of meaning, and taking responsibility for that being my frame instead of some truth that lives outside of me, has different effects.

For myself, based on years of learning, practicing, and teaching, I can say with definite clarity that I prefer the consequences of speaking without judgments to what happens when I use judgment words. The quality of connection and dialogue, and the capacity of people to work together to create something they can both live with, increase with the former. In part, this is because saying things from a personally owned perspective tends to be more vulnerable and therefore, again in my experience, invite a response that is also more vulnerable. In part, this is because when the speaker expresses things in that way, there tends to be more of an explanation of a “why” that the other side can then relate to.

Starting the Future Today

by Miki Kashtan

(I am back from a three-week hiatus. For the time being, I am not writing about the Occupy Movement, though I imagine I will return to this theme.)

In April, 2004, in the last week of her life, my former colleague Julie Greene participated, with my sister Inbal and with me, at one of our intensive residential retreats. We all listened for those few moments when she would wake up and speak to us from wherever she was. More than once, she repeated this one sentence which I still carry: “There is no reason to wait even one minute longer.”I know very well about waiting, because it’s one of my coping mechanisms I acquired as a child. I learned to endure hardships by knowing they will end, and counting the minutes, or days, or even years at times. I learned to survive having no capacity to change circumstances, and in the process lost some of my sense of power to create change. I still, to this day, continue to wait, though less and less, in all aspects of my life. For a less stressful time in which I can finally shift an inner pattern, or the compatible people with whom I can connect, or the circumstances that will bring more ease into my life, or the perfect opportunity for making a difference. What would it mean to shift that habit completely and bring the future into the present?

When I remember Julie’s words and leave behind my habit of waiting, I sometimes experience a kind of glee, like a child that just discovered a new way to climb on the counter and get the goodies that were previously out of reach. This is a subversive act, because it means embracing my power, releasing the shackles of helplessness, becoming an agent in my life and beyond. It’s a way to move to another story, of living as if the future, previously a dream, is truly here, now.

There are very personal, almost private, moments of new choices in this new possibility. Sometimes it takes the form of choosing to follow the radical practice recently given to me, the practice of wasting time, for fifteen minutes a day. When so much is at stake in the world, when the organization I co-founded is struggling financially, and when my beloved sister is continuing to struggle with ovarian cancer, it’s no small feat to waste time. I rarely manage, maybe once a month, so far. Because I wait to be done, which never happens, and then the day is over and I “forgot” again.

Sometimes living the way I want the future to be means taking enormous risks in relationships, such as revealing myself to people who may not appreciate who I am, what I do, how I think, what my feelings and dreams are, instead of waiting for people to first show me that they can receive me. Or the risk of loving and trusting and opening to another even when they are so different from me that I experience them as foreign. Or speaking with strangers, often, comfortably, as if we truly are fellow humans instead of waiting until some day when polite disconnection is no longer the norm.

Sometimes it means being willing to take material risks. I have committed myself to a maximum wage (about which topic I plan on writing soon), beyond which everything goes to feed the projects about which I am passionate. I am not accumulating any savings, entrusting myself instead to the radical idea that security lies in community and relationships and not in money, knowing full well this may not work out and I may be one day alone and without the resources to care for my well being.

Sometimes it means refusing to accept so many either/or no-win options we are told are all there is, working instead to find new paths. Are directive leadership or no leadership the only two options, as some would have us believe? I continually strive to increase my own power and leadership while at the same time inviting and expecting others to claim theirs. Are so-called free markets and state planning the only two options for creating viable economies? I envision and, in my own small and largely ineffectual way, coax into being a gift economy, based on needs and natural generosity. Can the whole world be structured without coercion? I experiment, on whatever scale I encounter, with basing everything on true willingness. What systems, structures, and relationships can we have in a world without coercion? I can dream and wait for the day, likely long past my death (if we survive, that is), or I can play, experiment, use every grouping, large or small, to see how it all works, to examine how we can truly work together without even a shred of “should” or “have to.”

I know what I could continue to wait for and won’t any more. For the anxiety to go away that we all have about not having our needs met, because so much of the time that is our common experience in the modern world, especially in childhood. Functioning in a group, any group, with or without leadership, can so easily result in losing all our personal skill, and reverting to separation, mistrust, and judgment.Living the future, now, means recognizing that those of us who’ve had access to transformation, whether through Nonviolent Communication, like me and many who read this blog, or using some other method, are privileged. Choosing not to wait means taking on the joyful responsibility of stewarding the needs of everyone with whom I interact. It means going beyond any notion of fairness to recognize that my training and my skill confer a unique advantage to me in terms of my capacity to work internally with whatever triggers I find and show up for the amazing opportunity almost invariably present of doing the sacred work of creating solutions that address everyone’s needs.

Lastly, on the biggest sphere at which I operate, I can stop waiting for the right person with the right connections to the right other people to be open and receptive to my suggestions. The future will not be significantly different from the present if we all act as if change is not possible or only possible after it’s already happened... I can begin, instead and immediately, to consider everything I do to be the possible seed of change beyond my wildest dreams, and use all the tools available to me within my actual sphere of influence. Creating meaningful relationships with the actual people that interact with me I learn that my sphere of influence is almost always larger than I take note of even if it’s smaller than my wishes. If I bring to bear, with support and community from others, my vision and its application to the specific moment in which I find myself, then I continually take steps towards this vision. A different future is then born, again and again, in each of my small and meaningful acts.

Expressing Our Pain without Blame

by Miki Kashtan

Nina (not her real name) was beside herself with anguish. For months she was convinced that Simon’s (another fictitious name) relationship with his ex-girlfriend still had unfinished business. He acknowledged it, and they talked about it again and again, without any relief in sight. He was responding defensively instead of being able to hear her pain, and they spiraled, repeatedly, to the verge of a breakup neither of them wanted.

When Nina asked for my support in how to navigate this situation, I invited her to take full responsibility for her reactions as an opportunity to grow and stretch in an area of pain. This doesn't mean she won't have pain. It only means that when the pain arises she can choose to own it and be with it rather than attempt to manage it by asking Simon to be or do something different.

This is a deep practice, and one that I imagine can be very liberating for Nina. It's about pulling back, again and again, from blaming and judging and trying to make things different from what they are. It’s about cultivating acceptance of life, Simon, and herself, and stretching and stretching to embrace at one and the same time the reality of love and care between the two of them alongside the radical uncertainty of the future.

This practice is one of several core spiritual challenges that we face as human beings. When someone else’s actions, especially someone close to us, don’t line up with what we most want, we tend to hold that person accountable for our pain. We have been trained to believe that whenever we are in pain someone else is responsible, even at fault. When we then attempt to talk with that person about our pain, they become defensive in response to our blame, and we effectively ensure they can’t hear us.

When we are able to take full responsibility for our pain, to see it as our own, as arising from what we tell ourselves and not from someone else’s actions, the other person often has much more space to hear our reactions. Simon would be able to hear Nina when she takes responsibility, because her reactions will then be about her and her process of learning and stretching rather than veiled accusations and attempts to make things different. As I pointed out to Nina, the reality is that Simon is choosing her, and choosing her, and choosing her, again and again. I saw more solidity in the relationship than she experienced, despite Simon’s continued connection with his ex.

I supported Nina in seeing that her pain in relation to the way he maintains relationships with former lovers is likely to continue. The stretch I invited her to make, and that I invite all of us to make, repeatedly, any time we experience tremendous pain in relation to another’s actions, is to resist the temptation to go into right/wrong thinking about the pain. Instead, I suggested that she could surrender to being with the tenderness of the pain. This is not to say that she was going to like Simon’s actions. It only means not blaming him.

To my delight, Nina accepted my invitation wholeheartedly. She understood that being able to maintain inner peace when her needs are not satisfied is a source of tremendous freedom. She connected deeply with her longing for security, for the kind of love she wanted as a child, for the comfort of knowing she is wanted. She allowed herself to grieve what had happened to her in the past, and felt stronger as she approached a weekend away with Simon.

A few days later I received an email from her. She and Simon weathered another storm with much more grace. One more time Simon acted in ways that clearly indicated that his ex-girlfriend was still on his mind. Nina was able to stay very present with herself.  As in the past, she experienced a lot of hurt. This time, however, she didn’t skip over the pain into anger or separation. Instead, she was able to open her heart and stay present with herself until the pain eventually dissolved. As we had both anticipated, Simon was then able to offer his full presence and very deep empathy. Nina was celebrating that she felt no blame and Simon didn’t get defensive.

Over time, as they continue in this more open approach, Nina will likely come to the present moment and its meaning rather than reacting to residual hurt from her past. She will likely become more resilient on account of finding ways to express, fully, what’s important to her without blaming. Simon, on the other hand, will likely develop more and more capacity to hear from Nina without disappearing or getting angry. He can then find his own opportunities to learn and grow. He can make deeper sense of his choices, increase his ability to see the effect of his actions, and find freedom to show up as he wants. Just as much as we can interlock our pain with other people, we can also intertwine our freedom.  

Transcending Norms of Separation

by Miki Kashtan

One of the things I do in life is talk to strangers whenever I have any inkling of a possible human connection, however momentary. These acts feel precious and a little subversive. Talking about these moments feels oddly more vulnerable than the act of reaching for the connection in the first place, and so I rarely do it. Yesterday I experienced two in a row that were so meaningful I decided to risk the embarrassment for the hope of inspiring others to join me.

I was walking out of the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, and a woman was coming towards me from a distance. Even though I couldn’t see her clearly, her appearance and presence captured my eye. I just loved how she looked. As we walked towards each other, I saw that her hair was completely white, and I thought to myself that she probably wouldn’t think of herself as looking great. As she walked by, I stopped her and asked if I could speak to her for a moment. I saw the expression, the moment of hesitation, wondering who I was or why I would want to talk with her, maybe a concern I might ask for something. And so I told her that what I had to say was unusual, and that I just wanted to tell her that she looked great. Oh, how she lit up in that moment. I mentioned to her that I didn’t imagine she would have that thought about herself. She said she was 76, and I said that was part of what I so enjoyed, that she didn’t pretend to be younger than her age. She smiled and laughed throughout this dialogue, and in the end told me with some glee that she was going to tell her husband. I stayed with it long enough to satisfy myself that she really took it in.

As if this was not enough to make my day, while parking at a grocery store I noticed a young African-American man, probably about 15, whom I had seen previously with other older people who were selling the local street journal for a dollar. This time he was alone, and I imagined he was asking for money himself. Then I witnessed what for me was a remarkable moment as a middle-aged white man approached him and they shared a substantial hug. As I came out of my car, the young man indeed approached me for money. Having just run out of money at the market to the point of owing money to the last vendor, I told him I didn’t have any money, and wouldn’t when I came out either. He was fine with that and thanked me.

On my way out carrying a bunch of bags, he asked me if I needed help. I told him that I still didn’t have money. He told me he knew, and that he still wanted to know if I needed help. As I came around, touched by his offer, he walked across my line of vision with an immense smile, not directed at me. That was when I decided to talk to him. I called out to him and told him I was so happy that he was still able to smile. Whereupon he looked at me for more than a split second. So I proceeded to say some more. I told him I had seen him share the hug with the other man earlier, and that I was so touched, because most young men his age don’t do this, don’t let it show that they need love. He kept looking at me with such intentness. And so I went on, daring the closeness. I said: “Don’t give up. You have some much stacked up against you. Don’t give up. Ever.” Our eyes locked and we looked at each other for a long time. Then I said to him, while still holding his gaze, that in that moment we shared a human connection and knew that we could do anything we wanted, and that no matter what happened, that was always possible, even if everyone told him he couldn’t. His parting words were that he would never forget this moment.

This, too, is possible in our world.

No Pushing, No Giving Up

by Miki Kashtan

One of the common misconceptions about the practice of Nonviolent Communication is that it’s about being “nice.” It’s probably a similar misconception to that of thinking of nonviolence as passivity. I believe both misconceptions derive from our habit of either/or thinking. Most of us don’t have models for a path that’s neither aggressive nor passive. Within this either/or thinking, if the only two models are imposing on others or giving up on our own needs, many of us will interpret nonviolence as the latter.

What does this look like? In our relationship to authority, I already wrote about how we can move beyond submission and rebellion. When parenting, as my sister Inbal described in Compassionate Connection: Nonviolent Communication with Children, we can find a path that’s neither coercive nor permissive. And in our relationships, we can find that sweet spot between pushing for what we want and giving up on what we want.

The either/or paradigm as it applies to human relationships rests on two assumptions. One is that we are separate form each other. The other is that there isn’t enough to go around. It is the combination of these two assumptions that pits us against each other fighting for our needs. It is this legacy that prevents us from having satisfying relationships of authenticity and care. As soon as any difference arises between what we want and what someone else wants, our habits direct us to push or give up. How can we transform this legacy?

From Demands to Requests
If we are habituated to pushing for what we want, the message we convey to everyone around us is that their needs don’t matter. If we are the boss or the parent, our employee or child, as the case may be, is put in a position of doing what we want or suffering consequences. While we may get what we want on some superficial level, the cost is high. Every time someone does something just because we have the power to deliver unpleasant consequences, we lose respect, or love, or both. 

In a relationship of fundamental equality, pushing for what we want looks like a fight. When we don’t have the power to deliver consequences, we can’t officially punish or fire the other person. We can, and do, call them names, or judge them, or get angry, or give them the silent treatment, or take revenge at a later time. That’s what “punishment” looks like between equals. The result is the same. We are watering resentment and fear in the other person, and our own well-being is likely to be held with less and less care by them.

Shifting from making demands and pushing for what we want into an interdependent relationship of mutual care invites us to change our orientation to life as well as how we interact. Making requests is premised on integrating the radical understanding that if something works for us and not for another we pay a price that’s too dear. It also rests on choosing, wholeheartedly, to transcend the fear of scarcity so we can commit to the other person’s needs mattering alongside ours. 

From Agreement to Empathy 
If we are habituated to giving up on what we want, the message we convey to others is that our needs don’t matter, and they can do whatever they want without concern for the effect their actions have on us. Transforming this habit takes two steps. The first is learning to differentiate between agreement and understanding, so that we can offer our empathic presence and interest to another without thereby feeling compelled to do what they want. For many of us this shift requires an inner transformation so that we can take our own needs seriously enough to be willing to offer our hearts to another without necessarily agreeing to do what they want. 

Once we are able to set our own internal limits and trust our capacity to stand up for our needs, we can develop the flexibility and discernment to know when we are caving in and when we are acting out of true generosity of heart.

Asking for What We Want

The second step of shifting our habits and letting others know that our needs matter is learning to ask for what we want. Often enough we don’t ask because of being afraid that we will be seen as making demands. This is where both ends of the either/or split come together. For those of us who find it hard to let go of having what we want, learning to ask is about letting go of outcome. For those of us who have a hard time asking at all, learning to ask is about embracing our power, our significance as human beings, and the preciousness of our needs.

Ultimately, what we need to learn is to shift from pushing or giving up to full engaging with both of our needs.

I will be doing a 2-session phone summer course on this topic and I invite those of you who are intrigued to get more information and consider if this might just be the nudge for you. If you are local to the Bay Area or are open to travelling for a weekend of more in-depth learning, I look forward to meeting you.