Deeper view of MCD

Mindful Compassionate Dialogue is a system of transformation that helps people create the relationships they want. To do that, it relies on the intention to connect and attend to present moment experience, nine foundations, and 12 relationship competencies. 

The intention to connect and focus on present moment experience is key because this is where a powerful paradigm shift occurs. This shift is learning to trust that when we attain a particular quality of connection within ourselves and with another, we naturally want to engage with generosity and creativity to equally identify with care all needs present in a given situation. 

The nine foundations are the key to working with obstacles to learning and transformation. Working with the nine foundations allows you to access skills when you need them most and even count on them as your natural response. These nine foundations are parts of yourself that you want to examine, cultivate, and strengthen. They are the foundation of your well-being - core parts of every person's emotional, psychological, and physical experience. When cultivated and strengthened, the nine foundations allow you to move forward and master the relationship competencies.

As we learn new skills, we may eventually hit a plateau where we haven't mastered the skill but can't seem to move forward. When this happens, we can examine each of the nine foundations for areas to strengthen or cultivate.  The nine foundations are there because they can support us in learning and integrating the competencies (skills) of MCD.  A therapist, spiritual director, or naturopath could help you heal, transform, and strengthen these foundations.

You could say that the nine foundations are places that any therapist, spiritual director, or naturopath would look to help you heal, transform, and grow. 

The nine foundations are divided into three categories: body, heart, and mind. In the category of body  I have included awareness, health, and regulation. In the category of heart - attunement, warmth, and security. In the category of mind are the elements of equanimity, clarity, and concentration.

The 12 relationship competencies are a subtle and comprehensive guide for creating thriving relationships. Each relationship competency identifies six key skills along with specific practices for learning each skill. That’s 72 skills and more than 72 specific and doable practices for learning those skills! The relationship competencies naturally support emotional security, while also promoting healthy differentiation. You learn to:

• Express appreciation

• Listen with empathy

• Make requests

• Access self-empathy

• Stay grounded through reactivity

• Negotiate

• Set clear boundaries

• Cultivate thriving and resilience

• Repair disconnect

Pursuing mastery of Mindful Compassionate Dialogue will increase your ability to relate to yourself and others with mindfulness, agency, wisdom, and compassion.

LaShelle Lowe-Chardé developed the framework of MCD from a deep grounding in mindfulness, Mindfulness based and body-centered therapeutic modalities, and Compassionate Communication (also known as Nonviolent Communication or NVC).

Let's look at the three disciplines which have most informed MCD.

Nonviolent Communication (NVC)

Nonviolent Communication (NVC), was founded by Marshall Rosenberg in the 1960’s. For more history and resources on NVC see the Center for Nonviolent Communication:  https://www.cnvc.org/

The purpose of NVC is to create a quality of connection that inspires a natural giving from the heart. The premise of this work is that our natural state is one of compassion and connection, even though our experience of life isn’t always compassionate or connected. Your experience of life may or may not match this premise, but that’s okay, you can still engage with the skills.

At the center of NVC is the concept of universal needs. This is the proposal that all human beings have the same needs that they are working to nourish and be integrity with as they go through life. Needs are "universal" because they are universally valued by people across different cultures and places.  All humans, across different cultures and historical times, have the same underlying needs. Different individuals, families, and cultures may have very different ways of meeting or relating to those needs.  We want to have a deep respect for this diversity of strategies, while also recognizing the universality of the values or longings that underpin them. MCD Relies heavily on this concept

When you hear the word “need” you might associate it with an idea of lack, weakness, or neediness. On the contrary, in MCD, relating to needs is about a deep sense of self-responsibility and contributing to thriving for yourself and other living beings. Universal needs are like a guidebook for your life. Here’s a very simple example. When you’re thirsty, you connect with the need for water and get yourself a drink. Listening to your need and taking action from it, you contribute to your own well-being which in turn makes you more available to contribute to others.

You can think of needs as a guiding force that lets you know where to direct your attention. Let’s look at a more complex example regarding the need to be heard. Imagine you tell your partner or friend about a big success you had at work and they respond with a distracted “oh, that’s nice.” You feel your heart sink and a feeling of disappointment arises, alerting you that a need has not been met. you to a need not met. Body Sensations and emotions are signals that a particular need is wanting your attention.  

You take a moment and ask yourself what need you were hoping to have met when you shared your news. When you name the need to be heard, you have a sense of how to get back in connection with your partner or friend. You might say something like, “I am wondering if you are available to hear this?   It’s big for me and I am excited to share it.”

Becoming conscious of needs as they arise in the present moment is different from what I call trial and error living in which you take action from a guess about what might work, what you have seen others do, or what someone advised you to do. Knowing exactly what needs are alive in a given situation, it is much easier to choose effective action. Sometimes connecting with a need is the effective action itself. Just experiencing the energy of a need can be nourishing and reconnect you to aliveness and alignment.

Perhaps the most revolutionary part of becoming conscious of universal needs is knowing that everything everyone does is an attempt to meet or align with a life-giving universal need. The more you are able to recognize this in others and yourself, the more compassion arises naturally. You are set free from having to judge people and put them in the appropriate box (e.g., nice, helpful, obnoxious, criminal, racist, fanatic, etc.). Your ability to relate to others in a fluid and authentic way increases.

A big part of having a sense of freedom and power in your life is knowing the difference between a universal need and the strategies that meet a need. Identifying a need gives you a sense of limitless options. When you confuse a strategy for a need, or imagine there is just one strategy (or person) that can meet your need you often feel stuck and hopeless about getting your needs met.  It is also incredibly empowering to realize that needs are never in conflict.  It is only an insistence that they are met in a certain way, at a certain time, or by a certain person, that creates conflict.  As you cultivate creativity and flexibility about how to meet your needs you may find that there is much less conflict in your life.

Lastly, becoming conscious of needs enables you to be deeply self-responsible. The fact is you are already relying on others to meet your needs everyday. You are completely interdependent. To the extent that this interdependence is unconscious, you might attempt to protect or meet your needs using ineffective and harmful strategies such as withdrawing, people-pleasing, controlling, acting tough, over-working, etc. (See this article for more on this: https://www.wiseheartpdx.org/posts/2019/4/9/simple-interventions-for-chronic-reactivity?rq=Simple%20interventions)

Hakomi

Hakomi Therapy is a system of body-centered psychotherapy which is based on the principles of mindfulness, nonviolence, and the unity of mind and body. It was developed by Ron Kurtz and others at the Hakomi Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

Hakomi asks you to become ever more subtly aware of your experience and turn toward your experience with compassion and acceptance. It offers insight into universal patterns of reactivity and healing.

From the framework of Hakomi, you will recognize a set of core experiences or so-called “core material” that may exert unconscious influence on your perceptions, thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and decisions.   

Core material is composed of conditioned relationships between various aspects of experience such as memories, posture, images, beliefs, neural patterns, thoughts, impulses, needs, feelings, etc.  Some core material supports you in responding to life in a satisfying way, while some of it, learned in response to acute and/or chronic stress, continues to limit you (e.g., reactivity).  

Hakomi offers very specific ways to use mindfulness to access core material.

As core material unfolds into conscious awareness it is met with empathy and specific healing responses, and transforms in the direction of integration and wholeness.  This then changes the way you respond to life or, in other words, changes your habits, behaviors, perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes.

Mindfulness is a quality of consciousness and kind attention. With mindfulness you are able to become aware of what goes on in you from the moment you perceive something to the moment you respond. In a single moment, you cycle through a river of thoughts, impulses, images, feelings, and needs. Shedding light on this river of experience helps you to connect to your heart and respond with wisdom and compassion.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is thought to be first described and taught in ancient India before the time of the Buddha.  Mindfulness is characterized by a state of mind free from greed, hate, and delusion.  It is a kind and compassionate attention gently directed toward experience in the moment. It is characterized by non-forgetfulness and the absence of confusion. It arises from clear perception. In sum, it is an enhanced presence of mind, a heightened non-wavering attentiveness, and a special quality of attention.

Relative to Hakomi, mindfulness of present experience, especially experiences of the body, is the primary doorway to bring unconscious core material into consciousness so that healing can happen.  It frees you from the trap of making decisions based on habits, assumptions, and limited or confused perspectives.

Mindfulness allows you to notice when you are connected or disconnected and to direct attention toward what truly serves life.

(By LaSelle Lowe-Chardé)