Be the Worm
About 8 years ago when I moved into this space, I had compost bins built and installed. Real, on the earth bins. Since then, I have learned a good deal. About composting, about soil, about the cycles of life, and a good deal about worms. I am a worm whisperer. Still a little bit afraid to touch them with ungloved hands, yet I have mostly mastered this fear. Mostly.
Worms also have a good deal of wisdom when it comes to relationships. Of course relationship building is something I track on so possibly I see metaphors where others might not.
This past week, I reached out to my neighborhood brewery for some spent grain. The worms love it and it raises the temperature of the bin. The brewer asked me to drop off the buckets, that way when the brew was done, his people would fill them. He assured me that he would put them in the coolers so the grain would remain fresh until I was able to grab them. Funny enough, because the worms don’t particularly need or want fresh. They seem to like the stuff that has gone bad. Super-bad. What I think is gross and smelly are received by the worms as the best gifts. Then the worms turn the smelly stuff into non-smelly, delicious, nutritious soil that feeds new growth fabulously. It is the perfect cycle of life that we humans seem to have abandoned – or maybe jut forgot.
What else is like this?
Yes! You guessed it. EMPATHY is just like this.
Empathy composts the most challenging things that anyone says to us. I recently re-listened to a class that Marshall Rosenberg taught, and I heard something which I have heard before many times, yet so clearly stated this time. When we teach/learn Nonviolent Communication, we learn the mechanics. Yet it is when we remember the intention of the work --connection, compassion, honesty and life serving relationships, that the transformation happens.
Just like the worms transform sh*t into life serving soil, empathy does the same.
Because it is challenging sometimes to offer empathy (see: Empathy Wars), supporting yourself and your partner (parents, kids, co-workers) by remembering the intention is invaluable. When people call me for coaching, or when they sign up for a class, there is a hope of creating something new, never before experienced with a loved one, or a memory of when the relationship was spontaneous and fun that they long to find again. Empathy, or quality of listening is essential for this to happen.
When you remember the ‘why’ –basically the needs you are hoping to meet in your life, then empathy as a strategy becomes joyous, or at very least, worth the effort. It is where your power lies. Having the confidence that you can transform the messy and sloppy words being dumped into your world, the more you will want to. You can easily compost the ugliness into something life giving. It really is that easy. The metaphor works.
With the worms and their composting, there is a formula for success. Carbon (brown), nitrogen (green), air and water are the components. There are suggestions or directions about how to apply these, the order and the ratios, yet in my experience it isn’t all that complicated or essential that it is followed exactly in the order. Just keep to the components and, with time, it will all work out.
With transforming relationships there is also a formula, a structure, the ingredients. The mechanics I referred to. Remembering that helps. You then aren’t required to figure it out in the moment. You can simply look on your sheet and it tells you what to do and in what order (generally speaking). Basically, it is observations, feelings, needs and requests. If you keep your messy conversations in these 4 topics, what comes out will be useful soil in which to grow your relationships. Just like with the worm bins, I find that the order here isn’t quite necessary –and sometimes not possible, just don’t throw in other stuff. Stick with the 4 components and give it time.
One difference between the worms and us humans I would like to highlight. For the worms, the job is easy. They know what to do. They have not been educated out of their true nature. They don’t have to remember that they like what we call mess. They delight in the foods that are being dumped on their heads. Honestly, in the beginning, the worms aren’t even in the bins, they find their way to it. Just like a pile of leaves after a rainstorm, somehow the worms find their way to revel in the slimy bottom of the pile.
You and I have been educated to survive in a punitive culture. We have been taught to look for who’s to blame and where the fault lies. We have been trained to name call and ‘other’ each other. We must find our way back to our true nature. This transformation process of empathy and nonviolent communication mechanics is how we find our way back to being fully human again. Raising our kids in this new soil, will result in them growing up nurtured in the non-smelly, no drama, super-connected and rich soil that you are manufacturing, day by day.
Be the worm.