I have reported in generic terms about my experiences at the European NVC Festival here: The European NVC Summer Festival.
In this thread I would like to report on some more specific things that I brought home that might be useful for our group.
1. Support systems at the festival
People sometimes get triggered - that seems like a fact of life. To support people and to maintain the harmony in the group, the festival has several so-called support systems in place.
The first one is the system of so-called “empathy angels”. These are people who volunteer for one day. They wear a necklace with a giraffe on it to be recognisable. If someone gets triggered, they can go up to them and ask whether they have space for some empathic listening. This way people don’t stay alone in their state of triggeredness. Instead they can calm down their nervous system by getting empathy for their feelings and needs.
What I find interesting about it, is that I think it’s a good way for somebody to recenter again and find their way out of their judgements. Most of the time the empathy angel is involved in the situation that triggered the person, and so (compared to The Reef, where we are all involved and all know each other very well) it becomes easier to take a distance while helping out a fellow human being.
The second system is a feedback system put in place by a team of four volunteers. The system consisted of a cardboard mailbox and forms. The forms offered the option to get support when you wanted to give somebody feedback, either in the form of empathy or in the form of support during the dialogue itself. I talked to V, the guy who put the system in place, and according to him it reduces the barriers to people providing feedback.
2. Support offered by some participants
Given that NVC is all about making requests (“ask for the moon”) and finding joy by contributing to other people’s life, at some point I was inspired to stand up in a community meeting and say something about The Reef. I said that if anybody would be inspired to support us in our journey, that we would be happy to talk. Below is an overview of the offers that I got (I am not publishing people’s names until I have their consent):
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W, a woman who lives in Antwerp, offered to be our online empathy angel. This is an offer that I would really like to take up (if only for myself and few others who would be interested), so I am proposing that I take this up with her myself and report back when I have news.
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J and her friend whose name I forgot, two women who live in Germany, have offered to come to Brussels and organise a training or workshop for us. @reef-conflict-management would you be willing to take this up with them?
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V, who also lives in Germany, has also expressed his interest to support us, but we didn’t go much into detail yet. He is part of Miki Kashtan’s Nonviolent Global Liberation Community, which seems to inspires his work. I followed three of his workshops on feedback systems and conflict management and found them very interesting. Below are two links that give an insight in what he offers:
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Nonviolent systems: short summary of what can be done in terms of feedback systems, decision making, conflict management and dealing with pain from the past (“shadows”). @reef-conflict and/or @reef-governance would you be interested to follow up with him?
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(edited on 23/08 to add more detail to the last bullet point)