Farewell 2024 & Welcome 2025!

December 28, 2024 CCL

Two hands holding sparklers against dusk sky — Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

The arrival of a new year is often a time for looking ahead: making resolutions, identifying needs or values to live by, choosing theme words to give focus, and planning for activities and trips we want to make happen. I intend to do a few of these and enjoy envisioning my life in a larger context than the day-to-day.

I’ve also been thinking back on this year and recalling meaningful events. … Life flies by and many important moments can be forgotten. At 75, I’m very aware of this! I invite you to look back on the year and pick out experiences you want to carry with you. …

Awe & inspiration

August 25, 2024 Denise Torres

I’d like to share a recommendation from my dear friend, Eliza: To Be In Awe— WISDOM from a 96-year-old. This film features Dot Fisher-Smith, an elder from Ashland, Oregon. She's invited to speak about her life today, and I think she does this with a great deal of beauty, calm, and awe. …

Breaking a rule

February 11, 2024 Denise Torres

Breaking a Rule

Earlier this year I wrote an article for the newsletter that shared the needs I most want to meet this year: fun, curiosity, vitality, adventure, awe, and play, and how I want to meet them. This morning I’ve realized how easy it is to let the day go and not include them—that doing the things I would most love to do has been second in line to the things that just need doing. In a weird way, it’s like putting myself second. Oof!

What I want to do is to safeguard these needs from getting lost. I thought, “Well, maybe I can put notifications on my phone.” I could tell right away that this would trigger a have-to approach in responding to any of them.

Then I wondered, “Why are my needs for fun and delight taking second place?” …

If you can’t do it all, what about doing a little bit?

January 8, 2024 Denise Torres

Man in orange shirt and blue garden shoes interacting with playful, relaxed tan and white dog. Background green grass and foliage. — Photo by @firosnv on Unsplash

As 2023 has come to a close and 2024 opened its doors, I’ve been giving consideration to what I want for this coming year. I know many people think about this as setting a New Year’s resolution, but as my friend Genevieve says, “That can be tricky.” If we’re not careful we can easily set a perfectionistic goal instead of one that’s doable. Because I too am a recovering perfectionist, this is something I want to avoid.

I’d been mulling this over when another friend, Suz, told me how she would answer this question. She said instead of focusing on a fixed goal she might ask herself, “For this new year, what needs do I have that continue to remain unmet?”

This got me thinking. What are my needs for the new year? What are the first steps? And how will I know when they’re met? For me, there’s a lot of flow, ease, and permission-giving in approaching the big question this way. So, I decided to give it a try, and I’d like to share my answers with you. …

Starting at the Beginning

July 17, 2023 Denise Torres

Well worn yellow crosswalk market with bright green button - sticker above says "Push to Reset the World." Photo: @joseantoniogall, Sticker: @Space_utopian — Photo by Jose Antonio Gallego Vázquez, on Unsplash; Sticker Artist: @Space_utopian

Need an NVC reset? Here’s an article I wrote for the Changing Self Talk to Self Care class a few years ago that could be helpful.

“When Dr. Rosenberg recognized that judgments and blame were a significant factor in understanding violence, he saw that if we look underneath them, we can find out what is really going on. Knowing this, we could change course and find kinder, more helpful communication solutions. As a result, he developed Nonviolent or Compassionate Communication (NVC).

NVC transforms judgments (including self-judgments) by using them to find the deeper messages expressed by our feelings and needs. It has a gentle yet fierce curiosity that makes acceptance, self-care, and inner peace possible. To figure out how this works we start by looking at the four foundational principles of NVC. …”

Considering Feelings & Needs with Curiosity

September 27, 2022 Bryn Hazell

Campground lights near lake with dark mountain skyline and a time-lapse sky full of starts — Photo by Andrew Coelho on Unsplash

Compassionate (Nonviolent) Communication was a revolutionary experience for me 20+ years ago when I first heard Marshall Rosenberg.

The idea that Feelings were signals that brought attention to my Needs (Universal Human Needs) was like discovering the manual for my human operating system.

Feeling all the feelings and getting acquainted with my needs (and guessing other people’s feelings and needs) has been such an extraordinarily helpful frame to better understand myself and others. And most importantly, it has helped create connection between us.

Over the years, I’ve learned to add a step when identifying my feelings and needs. …

Celebrating Connection (Thank you, Zoom!)

April 2, 2022 Bryn Hazell

I think it was in March 2020 that Covid started becoming a “thing” that we needed to plan our lives around. For the Center for Compassionate Living (CCL) it meant the end of practice groups and classes at our sweet space on Southwest Industrial Way in Bend. We had just signed a new year-long lease for $850-ish /mo., and we wondered how we were going to make the rent without offering classes, etc. We had a fairly good financial cushion and our community continued to support us as we all waited for things to “get back to normal.” A year later we gave up our space because things were not back to normal, and we didn’t want to continue the financial burden without clarity on when we could meet again in person.

Of course, what “saved” the Center was Zoom, the widely used online videoconferencing software. …

Out from the Back of the Cabinet

July 1, 2019 Denise Torres

Adapted from https://www.flickr.com/photos/ursonate/5057644252. Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

This past week Mike and I had the somewhat arduous task of mouse proofing our house. Because we were in some denial about how significant the problem was we thought just getting a couple of humane mouse “traps” would do the trick. I think this was because we really, really didn’t want to take out each and every single thing from all the kitchen cabinets. And, of course, that is precisely what we ended up doing. …

Let in the wonderful

October 3, 2016 Bryn Hazell

Ah, Fall. It’s my favorite time of year… the cooler, crisper mornings; the spectacular red and yellow shimmer of leaves; the slant of the sun that turns things golden and soft. I am suffused with a joy that seems to reach every cell of my body. One of the great gifts of NVC for me is this being present for and letting in the wonderful that surrounds me.