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A student attending Think, Speak, Act workshops,   a series of getting InTouch Communication,  is a Buddhist student and has practiced meditation for many years.  After a short series of workshops and a few private empathy sessions  to learn and practice self empathy and empathetic listening and speaking skills, a comparison was made with what I was sharing with their recent retreat teacher dialogues.

Hearing this I made a request to have some points written down so that I could have more clarity.  With luck another retreat was scheduled.  As promised here are some notes of how they integrated our Think, Speak, Act practices and how it aligns with their Buddhist retreat learning.

• It is to communicate or to speak kindly, to pay attention to the inner voice.
• Our ability to respond in a friendly way.
• It is to be aware, knowing what is going on.  Communication affects us and others.
• It is a language of respect.  It is sharing and opening to other.
• It is getting to know our self better to see what is our state of mind moment by moment.
• When you observe closely you gain insight and recognize the truth in the present moment.
• It is training the mind.
• It is to be able to stop our habitual response, calm down our nervous system, relax and be less reactive.
• It is to get familiar on how do we experience our feeling and how it impacts on us and others.
• Loving kindness or Meta fill our needs by opening the heart and wishing us and for other positive statements.
• When we express our feeling or needs the receiver is more receptive.
• Compassion is honesty, to say the real inner feeling.  (There are no judging or blaming).  There are not too many words to explain “compassion.”One of the statements of compassion is: “May I have ease (space) with this difficulty.”  Stay in the feeling and say:  “I care for that pain or difficult time.”
• When we practice Metta or getting InTouch techniques the circuit in the brain runs differently in different parts of the brain.
• The point of Metta and getting InTouch is to extend your kindness, your compassion to others around us and in the world.
• Metta or getting InTouch is responding to the feeling and the needs in a gentle way.
• It is helping the little self,  “The ego” to not be involved.   To see things as they are…….
• Self Empathy is to observe to see what is happening and connecting with the stimulus without being caught in it.
• It is helping us for a liberation and not being caught in the thinking mind.
• This approach of Metta or getting InTouch cares about us, it is to see with the “big mind, the big picture.”
• We react the way we react because we do not know other ways until we learn the new way of communication.  We often say and do things we regret.
• One of our deep needs is to understand to see the stimulus with “big eyes.”  Take the problem or conflict and understand really what happened, observe, identity the feeling in us.
• Be able to see more than to react to the stimulus, see the old story, the hold picture.

The compassionate communication of getting InTouch is a tool to respond properly to our self and to others.  To be awake is to be able to respond appropriately with loving kindness.

A final comment was that they changed their personal Buddhist affirmations (mantras) based upon having more clarity on how to achieve  success in connection to the statements.  To understand them  with concrete actions and making them doable!