Challenge of Believing vs. Living it

Yesterday, I met with other giraffes (just a playful name for someone who practices NVC), and in our group interaction, we ran into the challenge of 'believing in a way of life' vs. 'living it' (i.e. when the words do not match the actions or life of the people involved). In this context, my experience is that our group had a little of both aspects present in the group, so we were able to talk about them after one of our participants voiced her concern (i.e. honesty) that her needs for connection were not being met, and she was feeling sad and disappointed.

What happened was a few of us (yes, I was one of them) got excited about some historical cases in which the words expressed or written were confused with the original meaning intended, resulting in lots of violence. As a sample of the dialog, I had just reminded the group of Marshall's quote of "don't confuse the map with the territory." So, in short, the emphasis of that part of the dialog was on thinking and analyzing the intricacies of NVC, and the interactions between people were mostly intellectual. And this was not meeting the needs of one of the participants, and she spoke up (i.e. using NVC by giving her honesty in a way in which she made an observation without judgment, stated her feelings and needs, and made a request of the group). The group responded with empathy, where we listened and echoed back to her what we were hearing in her heart (i.e. her feelings and needs), and then we came up with some strategies in which all of our needs could get met.

So, by her speaking her honesty to the group, she contributed to all of us getting our focus back on living the practice of communicating from the heart through NVC. And we were all happy that she did, and there's a chance that this group of people will meet again. She shared afterwards how scary it was for her to express her honesty, as she was wanting safety and acceptance. I must admit that there are times when giving honesty is also scary for me; I am sure that this topic will come up again.

In making this blog entry, I am excited because this meets my needs for authenticity, contribution and meaning. I have run into this sort of challenge of belief vs. living the belief in other circles. I am curious if anyone else has run into this challenge, and I would also like to know if anything I said stimulated anything in you (if so, please 'comment')?