Five finds of the fortnight: Edition 24

Dear reader,

As we step into the last day of 2021, I’m looking back at the year that was. So much seems to have happened in the past twelve months, and I have much to be grateful for this year.

Celebrating a year of self-employment!

Some of you may know that in January 2021, I began doing NVC work full-time through workshops, one-on-one work and other engagements. It was a leap of faith, and I’ve been grateful for the support I’ve received this year: through invitations to lead sessions, workshops and trainings (both public and private), and references/recommendations people have made to groups and organizations that could benefit from NVC. Several of you have supported me with these through this year—thank you.

Self-employment comes with its own joys (having the freedom to do as much or as little as I would like was such a blessing as I was recovering from COVID earlier this year), and it’s own challenges (motivation, questions about sustainability and work-life balance). I’ve made inroads into some of these, and will be exploring the others through next year!

If 2020 was the year of scrambling to figure out how to hold workshops and groups online, 2021 was about consolidation and making the best of the online medium. I found myself more comfortable and more confident about leading sessions online this year, being able to connect with people through Zoom and find ways of sharing more effectively.

The Bangalore Practice Group

This year, we also consistently met online as the Bangalore Practice Group every fortnight (though participation is not limited to Bangalore alone, and we have people from different parts of the country joining us!).

In June, we began studying the Making Life Work course by Miki Kashtan and decided to take it slow—studying the modules in between sessions, and gathering to reflect, share experiences and insights, and practice the exercises together. I’ve found our meetings to be deep and rich; I’m learning a lot with every module and every meeting we have.

Sharing my learnings with the world

This has also been the year I focused on creating and curating content: primarily on Instagram and also through this newsletter. It has been a bit of creative challenge: how can I convey complexity and depth with simple language, and in small nuggets? I’ve enjoyed the process of creating the posts and have enjoyed hearing back through comments, replies and direct messages. I will continue to keep posting on Instagram in 2022, and hope to build a community over the next year.

Project Empathy

Through the second wave in India, Project Empathy offered an empathic space for anyone who wanted to be heard for their experience. This project began as a meeting of friends who wanted a space for connection when the second wave began, and quickly became a public offering.

This was the first collaboration of this year with enCOMPASSion, and over 25 NVC practitioners and trainers came together to make this happen. We kept going for close to four months, and heard from several people that this space offered them much-needed support during the crisis.

Living Bridges

Towards the end of this year, I joined the Living Bridges team as a collaborator. I’m excited about this because I’ve appreciated the work that the Living Bridges team is doing, and because it offers me the opportunity to work in the area of social change. Plus, working with this team has been so enjoyable and it gives me a chance to stretch out of my comfort zone and try something new.

Watch out for our announcement about the Living Bridges program 2022—coming soon!

On a personal note

2021 offered me the space and time to deepen my learning, read a lot more, spend more time with family. I was able to take it slow during my recovery from COVID, and start picking up the pace when I was feeling better.

Looking forward to 2022

I’m hoping that 2022 will be the year when we can begin in-person trainings again. I’ve signed up for a year-long program focused on empathic accompaniment (more on this soon!); I’m looking forward to this learning, both personally and professionally.

What are you celebrating from 2021? What are you looking forward to? Hit reply to share with me—I would love to hear back from you!

Wishing you a very happy new year!

Warm regards,

Ranjitha

The Living Bridges conversations

We’re continuing to host the Living Bridges conversations. While these conversations are a part of our fundraiser, each of them offers a lot of learning and insights from people working at the intersection of empathy and social change in different areas. We’re grateful for the time and learnings we’ve received from each of our guests so far, on a wide range of topics. You can see the whole playlist here—and we have some more conversations coming up in the next couple of days!

A request to support Living Bridges

The Living Bridges fundraiser campaign is ongoing. Please help us reach our target by contributing here (in INR).

If you wish to make a payment from outside India, you can do so by purchasing our Living Bridges resources here.

Upcoming event alert

The first Living Bridges workshop of 2022 is a training program on NVC with children and youth, and is for parents and anyone who would like to apply the principles of NVC with children. The workshop begins on January 18, and we’ll be opening registrations soon.Write to [email protected] to be notified when registrations open.