"Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice

Today I participated in the first half of a two-day workshop called Essential Communication Skills in Conflict, which was designed by the Justice Institute of British Columbia and delivered at Vancouver Island University here in Nanaimo.

Our instructor encouraged us to choose an anchor word that we would say to ourselves when our emotional buttons were pushed and we felt ourselves getting angry. She said her own anchor was, "Be curious." Although she said we were free to choose different anchors for ourselves, I actually liked hers and decided to stick with it. Approaching a situation with an enquiring mind helps us to avoid being judgemental.

Earlier in the week, I had confronted a friend by saying, "I feel hurt because you did such and such." At the time, I felt proud of myself for raising the topic at all, as it had involved overcoming my reluctance to bring up a difficult subject.

Secondly, I thought I was doing well, because I started out by saying, "I feel ......." But the second part of my sentence -- because you did such and such -- turned it into blame.

Fortunately the conversation went well and the issue was cleared up. I attribute that to my friend's excellent communication skills, which turned the conversation in a positive direction.

I'm still glad I raised the issue. Although my delivery wasn't perfect, at least it was better than allowing my resentment to build. But, with the benefit of some conflict resolution coaching behind me, I now would start out by saying, "I wonder if you could tell me more about such and such, because I didn't know what you meant by doing it, and I'm feeling confused."

Embracing the work(shop)

When Tree Bressen led Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community in a consensus decision making workshop in September 2008, she said, "Joining a cohousing community will be the longest and most expensive self development workshop you'll ever do in your life."

She went on to model for us a receptive attitude towards life in an intentional community. That is, when there is a bump in the road, we have the opportunity to treat it like a workshop exercise. We can observe it, ask ourselves what's going on, figure out if there is some learning we can extract from it.

Since Tree introduced that concept to me, I have found it very helpful to approach everything like that. In fact I believe that has contributed enormously to the happiness I described in a previous post.

But, while the saying that Tree quoted was cute, I have come to disagree with it. I now would say that life is the longest and most expensive self development workshop you'll ever do!

Cultivating an attitude of curiosity about my life and everything that happens in it -- whether it's supposedly good or supposedly bad -- has felt very supportive to me.