Blog-Encouragement from a Friend, Part 2

On my walk back from the Chapel service I described earlier, I got a text from another of my best friends, asking to catch up on Skype. My mind, marveling, fluttered back to the moment in Chapel when we were asked us to think of a person who has different ideas from us, with whom we have trouble communicating
(disclaimer: I could be mixing that up with the Nonviolent Communication video, in which Marshall Rosenberg gives a similar assignment. But it was presented this way in Chapel). During the service, I had had trouble thinking of a really good example of some such person in my life. And then suddenly there came a message from my dear friend, who was also perhaps the most important example of just that sort of challenge in my life. 

When I became seriously interested in Christianity a couple of years ago, and started attending an LDS Church, and when my friend concurrently expressed a more serious commitment to her atheism, there was a shift in our friendship. Looking back, I think we mistook our fears for truth. I sensed her disdain for my excited investigation of a silly set of lies concocted for our comfort. And she surely felt the wall that I soon erected to protect myself from her superficial, nihilistic world view. It quickly became clear that religion was no longer an enjoyable or even very viable topic of discussion between us. It was a sad reality that dampened our interactions -- I felt constrained because I had decided I wasn't free to discuss and share some of the most treasured parts of my life with my friend. We had tried discussing this issue a couple months ago, and had managed at least to acknowledge and express some of our feelings, which had resulted in significant restoration of our old affectionate friendship. But we have continued to leave the subject of religion largely out of our conversations.

Yesterday evening we had a pleasant video chat on Skype, towards the end of which I told her about Rev. Jones' sermon. I also told her about an experience I had a couple weeks ago using Nonviolent Communication with my boyfriend, when he and I realized that we had both been wanting more empathy from one another when discussing religion, and that we had both had a hard time giving empathy because of our fear that the other person was going to become fully convinced of the erroneous worldview that they were compelled by. 

At that moment, my friend interjected, "that sounds like what happened with us!" 

I agreed, and went on to tell her about the recent plan my boyfriend and I had devised and written up, using NVC, to approach our future interactions with more open minds and hearts.

Last night, after our conversation, my friend sent me an email about the open-mind/heart plan I'd forwarded her, commenting that it was beautiful. And in yet another email, she said how inspiring it was, and suggested that I start an NVC blog.

So that's where I got the wonderful idea to revive Peacewaves. But my friend gave me more than the idea to write this blog. This friend, it seems, who has known of my interest in NVC for almost three years, and a few months ago expressed more skepticism about it than ever, has felt for herself some of the power of NVC. Her encouragement felt like something of a tipping point in my NVC journey. If the power of loving communication as described in Rosenberg's book is such that merely reading about one of my NVC experiences could change my friend's attitude so drastically, and if actually using NVC can really transform conversations, relationships, and lives, through love, as I believe I have witnessed, then what better thing to do than discuss it, alongside other gems in my life, before the limitless audience of the internet? 

Feeling grateful and excited.