1:1 Impact Digestion Sessions

Impact digestion is a practice which supports us to understand what may be going on for us as well as transform our perceptions of others with whom we are experiencing challenges or conflict. Within NGL, we have found that this practice can grow our capacity to speak, act, and show up in relationships from an integrated place of tenderness, clarity, integrity, and freedom. We see impact digestion as a core and crucial practice for anyone who wishes to practice nonviolence in their relationships and as a way of life.

As there can be many things that happen in relationships that are impactful for us, many of us end up responding with mistrust and separation, rather than with openness and tenderness. Impact digestion makes possible an alternative approach: one where we grow our capacity to base our choices on a deep understanding of who we are and, from there, to form true alliance with the soul essence of the person with whom we face the challenges and difficulties. 

Impact digestion, when applied with rigour, supports us to see and connect deeply with the full humanity in us and others, regardless of how impactful, incomprehensible or crazy-making someone’s actions are. As we find a way to humanize the other person to ourselves, our own strength and peace return, almost like magic. It is an inner process that does not require openness or participation from anyone apart from ourselves. And yet, doing it all on our own (especially when new to the practice) is not doable for most of us. And this is why we are offering this support now.

We see impact digestion as an essential liberation practice: a wholesome and sacred process of restoring humanity and contributing towards freedom for ourselves, others and the world we live in, starting from within.

• Relief and release of tension

• Open-heartedness in relationships where I previously felt a need to protect myself

• Freedom from obsessive thinking about the dynamics that used to challenge me

• Increased access to vulnerability – in myself and in relation to others

• Greater stability in all relationships 

• Growing clarity around systemic impacts on me and others

• Profound tenderness for myself and others 

• Deeper connection with the assumption built into NVC that everything a person ever does, thinks or says is an expression of needs that are shared by all humans no different from mine

Impact Digestion within an organization can impart practical tools to:

• Support processing of challenging situations, including fears and concerns in uncertainty

• Build capacity for listening and sharing in a way that supports mutual understanding

• Maintain focus at work, even with challenging circumstances

• Improve morale, collective solidarity and goodwill amongst colleagues

• Increase empowerment 

With Impact Digestion, organizations can build capacity for more effective collaboration, to:

• Understand patterns that limit empathy; shift from seeing issues as good/evil or right/wrong to needs-based understanding.

• Become aware of emotions which arise in conflict, and the stories constructed of the “other”; move from judgment and agree/disagree to seeing everyone’s humanity.

• Increase capacity to act from empowerment and true choice when in challenges, instead of submitting or rebelling.

Email outward-facing-projects@nglcommunity.org to let us know of your interest and we will work with you to design a bespoke offering for your organization. 

These sessions are offered as a gift. We never charge for anything we offer.

At the very same time, we completely depend on financial gifts given to us freely to sustain our capacity to do what we do and continue to offer what is ours to offer. 

Because of this, we want everyone who registers to consider their own financial situation and our needs before deciding whether and how much they will give us. If, after this discernment, people choose to give nothing, we see it as a sign of trust in our commitment to the gift paradigm. 

We get pleasure out of knowing that in this way we make our offerings available to some people who usually don't have access to the resources necessary for similar offerings elsewhere even as we mourn that such disparities in access exist in the first place.

How to give:

• If you want to give to us in US dollars, please make your contribution here.

• If you want to give to us in Euros, please make your contribution here.

• If you want to give to us in UK pounds, please make your contribution here.

• If you want to give to us in AUS dollars, please make your contribution here.

Find here more about NGL’s approach to the gift economy.

1. Discover the narratives within the impact

How we make sense of what happened is a big part of the impact on us. Understanding the narrative is a key step to be able to examine it, find the needs it points to, and be able to entertain the possibility of other options for making sense of another person’s action.

2. Connecting to our needs

What we tell ourselves about what happened – including our judgments – provides more information about us and our needs than about the other person. This shift from focusing on the other person to listening in full to our own needs is a profound step of freedom. 

3. Open up new possibilities for ourselves

Once we know our needs, the road is open for more possibilities available to us. By seeing our needs clearly, without attachment to specific strategies to meet those needs, we can connect to our own power – without blaming the other person. This opens pathways to solutions to problems that previously may have felt intractable.

4. Connecting to the other person’s needs

A core assumption of NVC is that everything that everyone ever does is an attempt to meet needs that are no different from our own. If we can make sense of another person’s actions through connecting to the needs they might be attempting to attend to, it would support us in seeing the full humanity of the other person.

5. Telling the story from another person’s perspective 

This practice goes beyond releasing judgments; it is active tender perspective-taking, with a magnifying glass or even a microscope, to find that humanity, however profoundly lost and covered-over it might be. Seeing the story through the other’s eyes might relieve the part of the impact that is lost trust in that person. The more we see the humanity, heart, care, and choice of the other person – and hold their limitations and lack of capacity with tenderness – the more pronounced the shift will be for all. 

6. The systemic lens

Situating what happened within a larger picture of where we are as humans depersonalizes the situation. Bringing the attention to the larger context from within which another’s actions emerge can bring tenderness. The more we know about systemic conditions that affect specific groups of people that this person is part of, the more tender we can be. For example, if the impact is related to a man’s actions, knowing about “male training” can help us remember that no one chooses to act in ways that carry impacts on others if not for previous impact on them. 

7. Strategies and requests

Giving attention to what we can actually do about a situation, and how to do it with care for everyone’s humanity and dignity, shifts us into a different mode of reflecting and thinking. Mourning may surface as we become aware of the realities of capacity, the available resources and potential obstacles. Connecting with what’s possible supports us to step into more empowerment. Strategies we find may involve requests and agreements for ourselves, for the other person, for others. All this can significantly change the nature of the impact we are experiencing, as the charge can be significantly lessened when we see openings in a situation.

I experienced so much care and clarity in the impact digestion process you held for me. I experienced a sense of being fully heard and understood. As you helped me hear the other person's perspective I felt my heart open up to him. When you asked, "Why would he have this understanding of the systemic?" (that there must be an oppressor identified) I had an "ah-ha" moment - he could not see any other way for everyone's needs to matter. You framed a compassionate lens: "He just might not have awareness that everyone's needs can be held," and this comes from the experience of a lot of oppression trauma.

I experienced tenderness for the person but also fear - I identified the fear as "no hope". You asked me "what if I accept that there is no hope, and act from there?"  What a powerful question.

I am struck by the tenderness and clarity. The practice that you suggested for me was to "stay with acceptance and see what comes up and tend to that as the next thing, and then the next."  I am working with this.

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Pam Winthrop Lauer