Here below is a story about me and my brothers, about touching moments in dialogue when something suddenly opens up, whether it is an opening of the heart or an opening toward flexibility and creativity.
Small movements out of stuckness that may seem insignificant at first, yet often mark the difference between hope and hopelessness in the art of dialogue.
They help me build trust that when everything seems dark and stuck, there are always tiny hidden spaces that can suddenly open up before us and create new possibilities for love, cooperation, and creativity. Even when I cannot yet see them.
My love for conflict is deeply connected to how nourishing it is for me to experience or witness these movements from hopelessness to hope: the moment a hidden path reveals itself. Often, the path is surprisingly simple, yet it may have remained invisible, sometimes for a very long time.
My Brother, My Power, and an Unexpected Opening
For about five years now, I have been meeting with two of my brothers once a week for an hour on Zoom. The intention is simple: to stay connected and to speak openly about whatever is alive between us, including tensions and conflicts.
And for five years, one particular conflict has kept returning between me and one of my brothers. The details change, but the pattern remains remarkably similar:
My brother would say: “Yoram, I feel that you…”
“Yoram, I feel that you are oversensitive and that you have not resolved your past traumas.”
“Yoram, I feel that you are not honest.”
“Yoram, I feel that you are pushing your own agenda.”
And inside me, something would contract.
What I heard was not his feeling, but his interpretation of me. His judgments about me. His analysis of who I am and what is going on inside me.
Typically, I would then try one of two things:
Either I would try to empathize; to understand what was behind his judgments and what he was actually experiencing.
Or I would try to share my own experience, hoping to be understood as I am.
Yet, again and again, I would encounter resistance. No matter how much I tried, I could not reach him. When I offered empathy, he would either become annoyed that I was “doing NVC” or simply not let me into the vulnerability behind his judgments. And when I expressed myself, I often felt even more lonely and in greater pain, as he would immediately respond with, “But…”, leaving me without the experience of being heard.
There were moments when I freaked out at him. There were moments when he freaked out and left the call.
While I was in pain about the way he spoke to me, he was in pain because the way he expressed himself was not being accepted: That I was asking him to become more “NVC.”
Two weeks ago, the conflict exploded. My brother left the call, and for the first time in a long while, I lost hope.
I wanted one of two things: either to understand him more deeply and feel touched by his messages, or to be understood myself.
Neither seemed possible.
To me, it was clear: the conflict was not about the content of the messages themselves, but about HOW we were navigating the dialogue.
After a few days of reflection, clarity arrived for me: Trying to change the way he speaks or listens to me was only bringing the opposite of what I wanted. It was not helping him listen to me better, nor was it helping me hearing his vulnerability. Instead, trying to suggest changes in his communication style was only escalating the misunderstandings between us.
I realized: I cannot change him.
So I began asking myself: Where do I have power?
The answer became very clear: my power is to take care of my own needs, not by changing him.
My need was safety. It is a sharp pain for me when I express myself and am not understood. I need to care for the pain that arises in me when I share myself
and am not understood. I need to be mindful of what I share, how I share it, and when I choose to share it with my brothers.
So I told my brothers: “I need to take care of myself. I need to be very conscious of when, how, and how much I share. If I open my heart, I need certain conditions that help me feel safe enough to do so. Otherwise, I prefer to protect myself and not share.”
And then something unexpected happened.
The moment I stopped trying to change my brother, he suddenly became open to me. He asked: “Yoram, what could work for you?”
I said: “For me it would be helpful if we make a clear choice who we listen to: Either to you or to me. And that we stay in this focus until the person is understood and that the listener experience a certain opening in the heart towards them.”
And he agreed to give it a try !
What I tried to create since 5 years, suddenly he himself was open to create !
So we took 30m to listening to him. And I was ‘allowed’ to say back what I hear.
And for the first time in a long time- my heart opened up to him. And he sensed it.
It was a powerful reminder. So often, when I feel powerless, I start focusing on what the other person needs to do differently.
Yet my power is usually somewhere else.
My power is in choosing carefully, moment by moment, how to care for my needs.
And paradoxically, when I stop demanding change from others and start taking responsibility for myself, people often become much more willing to cooperate.
A movement out of stuckness.
A movement from hopelessness to hope.