go for what connects

Written by Niek | 30 June 2010

In my personal welcome in reply to the open letter of Dror to members of CCI, I refer to the fact that some of the (European) CCI members in 2006 were shocked. Because for them, suddenly, participants showed up at this European CCI meeting, without being accredited (by themselves and supported by others) after their CCI fundamentals.

And I stated on May 28th 2010: 'that says something about the international connections and communication within CCI'. This statement needs clarification I think. In my eyes this has everything to do with the way how we communicate, what we feel, how we react, how we word that, first inside and than how we really say it and how it is understood. In one word: how we own what we communicate. We look well after ourselves, we even say! So 'communication' needs to be considered as a top item! And not only in our own CCI circles!
In CCI we do pay, sometimes even overdone, quite a lot of attention to our self responsibility. Rightly, we are indeed self directed! There is nothing wrong with that, though it sometimes can be too much, being out of balance and so even rather selfish. And that is not a new discovery! This item was already subject of discussion when we met John Heron for the first time in 1995 in San Cipriano, Tuscany, Italy.
What I remember from that sharing is, that we agreed upon the fact that this is just the reality. Though it should not be so. And the fact, that we are self responsible for what we do – and what we do not – is still also very obvious. In my opinion again, it still all has (also) to do with communication: the way we say things, how they are meant in the core, and how they are understood. Those three are, as I know especially since my CCI fundamentals, utterly personal. And those three are, possibly among others, the backbones of Marshall Rosenberg's Non Violent Communication.
His work emphasis the acknowledging of and acting and speaking from our own needs. In this respect the need 'not to do to others what you do not like to be done to yourself' is obvious. Speaking from that level to others means, that we have to accept that we all are 'lonely individuals' in our own understanding, coping with how we react on being hurt in our personal history. This reflects directly in how we do balance with our respect to ourselves as well as to others. In my personal view that means, to what extend do we choose 'to go for what connects with others' or being utterly selfish. And I want to go, in my personal responsibility, for what connects as far as I can in respect to both. So being aware of my own and your benefit. In that way it is comparable with our price negotiation in Katmandu (Nepal) in 1993 ending with inviting each other to share if we were content with the result!