I am back after spending one month in Japan, where I taught three workshops.
I feel moved to share with you some of the insights – or more accurately, the beginning of insights – that I received there.
First, I want to say this: wherever I go to teach on this planet – whether in The Netherlands, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, the US, Israel, France, or Japan – there is one thing that is profoundly the same: wherever I go, I meet human beings.
NVC gives me incredible access to go underneath cultural differences and meet human beings – ‘feelings and needs walking in the street’. It is deeply clear to me that underneath all the different clothes people wear, cultures, professions, and ways of living, human beings are the same. We experience the same core pains, struggle with the same core questions, we judge ourselves, feel insecure, get hurt by similar things, and so many of our actions are attempts to meet our need for belonging and be part of something.
And then there is the layer of culture: a thin layer resting on top of this much deeper layer of similarity, where we are indeed very different. And I find it so enriching to enter another culture and discover other possibilities – to widen my sense of what is possible, both for myself and for how we can be together.
Here are two precious (subtle) gifts I received in Japan:
1. The Sense of “We” we
In the first workshop I taught, I was very surprised to notice something: in a group of 50 people, almost nobody spoke twice (!).
Usually, when I teach in Western countries, there are often 3–5 people who regularly take the microphone and speak multiple times. Here, it was a completely different experience.
It took me time to understand more clearly what was happening and what it touched in me:
I grew up strongly shaped by the sense of “I” and “you” as two separate individuals. But in Japan, I sensed something very different – a very different focus in what people listen to: a listening to the space of the “we,” to the space that exists between people – to the atmosphere between us – to the “MA” (explained below).
For example, I heard people speak about the weather so often, but in a very different way from how I often experience it in the West. Not as small talk, but as something that directly influences how we are feeling in this moment. The same seemed true of the way people spoke about the nature around us, the soil beneath our feet, and even the history that this land has witnessed and carried through generations.
→ The “MA”
“MA” is an important word in Japanese culture. I asked a few Japanese people what “MA” means to them, and all of them responded in a similar way: “Oh… this is very difficult to explain… it is a feeling… mmm…”
It seems to point toward something subtle that is difficult to capture in words. It is the space in between things:
- the atmosphere between people
- the pauses between words
- the emptiness that allows liveliness to emerge
In many Western cultures, I sense that the focus goes mainly toward the visible things: the words, the actions, the individuals.
“MA” points attention toward the invisible – the space between things, the subtle felt sense which is where the actual human experience lives, even though it cannot be directly seen by the eye.
The “MA,” is an awareness that has been deeply rooted in Japanese culture for
centuries. And somehow, I felt it being lived. A sensitivity passed down through the culture from generation to generation, quietly and unconsciously embodied in the people themselves.
As a Westerner person, I find myself feeling thirsty to this sensitivity.
→ The impact on me:
This created a special quality of calm within me. It took me time to understand what this calm was connected to – the experience of inclusion:
During the workshop, when people took the microphone and shared, I noticed that they spoke longer than I am used to. They told the whole story. And often, I only fully understood what someone was trying to say at the very, very, VERY end.
When I speak in groups, there is often stress in me: “Am I speaking too much?”. So I try to be as concise as possible.
And this has an important cost: Maybe I manage to express the point itself, but the feeling, the atmosphere, the deeper lived experience, and the extremely subtle meanings can get lost in the hastiness.
In Japan, I sensed something different. I got the idea that once someone takes the microphone, they trust – or perhaps simplyknow – that the group is offering them the space needed to express the subtlety of what they are trying to say. Their expression is held by the group in an extremely subtle and beautiful way that I haven’t experienced before.
For me, this is an extremely rare, special, and juicy taste of inclusion and belonging – perhaps the deepest thing I am searching for underneath almost everything I do.
2. Sensitivity & Care
I was deeply touched by the different flavor of sensitivity and care I experienced there.
For example, during one workshop, three people were moved to deep tears – two of them men – simply because of the care they felt for the translator.
Another moment happened two weeks before my trip. The organizer wrote to me: “Yoram, I am worried about you – especially with the struggles you’ve been having with your voice and wrists. Maybe it would be better if you don’t come?”
I was blown away by this.
To send such a message only two weeks (!) before the first workshop — after organizing these workshops for an entire year (!) – amazed me.
If I imagine myself in her position, I think I would panic at the possibility that the trainer might cancel.
But instead of pressuring me to come, she actually encouraged me not to come if needed.
And in the end, I am so grateful that together we decided to take the risk. Not only did I come – my voice was completely okay. And strangely enough, this trip helped me trust my voice and body more – I am beginning to understand that teaching is actually supportive to my voice. That the pain comes more when I speak less, not more. So perhaps my sabbatical was not such a great idea after all… 🙂
With a deep wish to learn how to live diversity: the understanding that each culture, group, family, and individual carries an intelligence that can serve us all.
Yoram
