http://eqi.org/p3/unfin/nvc_advanced_training.htm
The following is a slightly edited transcript of a training Marshall Rosenberg led on Bainbridge Island, Washington, USA, October 20-21, 2000. We are grateful to Lin Rose for transcribing this training. Please note that Marshall sometimes uses Giraffe and Jackal as metaphors for Nonviolent Communication and life-alienated thinking and speaking, respectively.
There are two kinds of celebrations to be conscious of to help us to enjoy life more. celebration of what we did that felt good celebration of what we did that brought us pain
They underscore the enormous power that each of us has to act in a way that makes life wonderful. It’s endless and enormous, this power we have. And the way I remember it is to stop and do what we just did, express gratitude.
GRATITUDE EXERCISE: I’d like each of us to celebrate the beauty of how we have spent our "dash" so far. [Here, Marshall read a poem, the dash is what will be on our tombstone between the dates designating our birth and death.]
Briefly choose an instance from your life that you want to celebrate, then write:
- What did I do,
- How do I feel now when I think about it, and
- What need was met by my having done that?
First, I asked you to celebrate in relation to something you had done.
I also like to be conscious of what others have done to enrich life and then celebrate that. Because the more I remember this, the more I can put this in a perspective I like. Reading the newspapers, I don’t like the perspective of what we’re like as human beings. It’s important to me to remember these things, the awesome power we have. But to believe that, I have to make it real by attributing it to specific actions, the things we can do. Offer someone a ride, for instance, as one of the workshop participants said in her example.
The first celebration was to celebrate the beauty of how we have spent our "dash" so far. The other kind of celebration I like is to celebrate "mucking up." I like to celebrate it in this way, I use my muckups to learn from. It’s possible to re-interpret everything I don’t like in this "dash." I want to celebrate my muckups as an opportunity to increase my enjoyment of the dash. Everything I’m not too happy about I can use as an opportunity to choose to make things different. MUCKING UP EXERCISE: So identify something going on that you don’t like between you and another person, the way you’re living your dash. Write down 2-3 lines of dialogue that shows what you don’t like that’s going on, what they say and your response that you’re not enjoying. Remember to give empathy first to establish connection, then give your message, e.g., "You’d be more willing to do this if you could do it when you’re ready and not when you’re under pressure, is that right?" Practice the way you’d like to respond differently, then empathize with yourself. What kept you from doing that? This is how you celebrate the muckups. You learn without hating yourself. Remember that whatever anyone does, it is an effort to meet a need. Think of another way that might have gotten closer to meeting the need on a more successful or heartfelt level. SILENCE. Silence is when we don’t say what we’re feeling and needing. Others have pain when we don’t express what we have inside. Say, "I’d like to think you’d like the meeting that I do. When you don’t respond, I stand there feeling bare and lonely." Marshall sang his partner’s song about "I’ve said the first thing for the last time." Question: What about when people don’t want to hear our feelings and needs? Marshall: The more you try to prevent people from freaking out when you speak, the more you become a nice, dead person. Put your attention first on whether what you say is in harmony with how you choose to communicate, whether it is in harmony with your integrity, and then learn to enjoy the way the other person reacts. With Giraffe ears, you don’t hear what they "don’t" want. You try to hear the need behind the "don’t want," or the silence. If you hear that silence is actually their need, then you can hear that silently. ESSENTIAL NVC PRINCIPLE THE OTHER PERSON’S REACTION. Just remember that we never have to fear the other person’s reaction. When you think the other person’s reaction might be a problem, you’re putting your security into the other person’s hands. How the other person might respond doesn’t matter. Our only job is to make sure we keep our Giraffe ears on. It’s our reaction to their reaction that we have to fear. It’s when you interpret No as rejection, then the problem is not in the response but in how you receive it. So if you open up and express your needs and the other person says whatever, it’s what we hear that determines what happens, not the person’s reaction. If you have an image of someone cutting off a relationship, it’s the cutting off that will lead to your suffering. If you see the action as their need being expressed, then the message is within them, not you. Any interpretation you put onto another person’s message (such as passive-aggressive, withholding, etc.), you will pay for because of how you took it. Not getting our needs fulfilled is painful — but it’s a sweet pain, not suffering, which is what comes from life-alienated thinking and interpretation. Some of the words from Marshall’s song at that moment went like this,"I sure hate to see all the power that I give away, letting whether I care for myself depend on what you say. I wish I could remember there’s something of worth in me when the depths of myself shows through, and you say no to what you see." Instead, hear the needs behind the No that someone gives. Imagine that I’m someone that you want to be around. I say, "If you want to do something to please me, I’d like to see your south side going north" — i.e., I need some space, time to myself. If your attention is on the need, you will be living in a different world than if you hear a rejection. There is a lot of beating up going on around the world, so I’ve had a lot of experience. At the least, teaching a woman to have a Giraffe response to having been beaten up requires that she learn not to take responsibility and think she somehow deserved it. There’s evidence that when children and wives can be trained to give empathy, there is less chance of getting hurt. Of course, it would be better to be working with the men. The middle stage of this learning is when the person gets obnoxious, it’s when they say "that’s your problem, not mine." That’s cause for celebration because at least the person no longer feels responsible and isn’t being an emotional slave or having to deny her feelings and needs. The goal, however, is to get to Giraffe. Guilt is such a prevalent form of power over people, so empathic listening must come first, the education for other options to deal with the situation. We can’t get rid of our Jackal images (nor should we), but we can go into them and transform them into a life-serving type of energy, empathize with ourselves for the need that isn’t getting met. Then we can hear the other person’s situation. ESSENTIAL NVC PRINCIPLE It’s dangerous to learn how to empathize if we don’t also know how to scream in Giraffe — i.e., we need to hold onto our needs and not do anything for others until we’ve learned how to get our own needs met. Women have been so educated to meet other people’s needs, that learning to empathize can be dangerous if we don’t have the other piece. There’s a big difference between Self-full, selfish, and self-less (i.e., being virtuous according to the Jackal world ideal means having no needs). Anything you give that isn’t for totally Self-full reasons, the other person will pay for, all that loving care will cost the other person if it’s not given from a Self-full place. This entails never doing things for others, only things to meet our own needs. One of our most precious and fun needs is to contribute to and enrich life. There’s nothing we enjoy more than that kind of giving. The other person will not have to pay for that. We’re not doing that for them, but for ourselves. So how you feel about giving is your first clue, don’t give with guilt, resentment, etc. Question: Someone in the group brought up a work situation. She’s a nursing supervisor who is upset because in an emergency situation, a nurse didn’t do something she was told to do. Put yourself in the person’s shoes. Look inside and see what’s keeping me from doing X, since I share your need of having the thing done. Part of what I hear is an order, which threatens my need for autonomy. You sound like you’re making a sales pitch to show me how I should do it. I see you as having single mindedness of purpose. It’s like I’m supposed to jump and do what you want. I’m torn, part of me wants to do it, but it goes very deep in me when I hear anything that sounds like an order. What would help? First, if you would say "are you willing to," and next if you give me empathy in a way that I can tell you have no expectation that I have to do it as an order, and also that you give me empathy about why I have trouble doing it. (Marshall told a story about nurses who didn’t feel respected as equals during non-emergency times and so would "forget" and not do important life-support procedures.) In a Giraffe institution, the head nurse job would be to serve the nurses, not to control them. Teachers are there to serve the students, not control them. Universities are some of the worst Jackal institutions. Marshall told a story about research being done on the effects of punishment on learning. Students pushed buttons to give increasingly strong electrical shocks to someone in an adjacent room that could be seen through a window. They didn’t know the person was an actor. A frighteningly large percentage of the students kept pressing the increasingly strong shock buttons even though the person in the electric chair was in tears, suffering, even getting fatally electrocuted, according to the label on the button saying the charge had the potential to kill the person. When asked why they did that, they said, "Because I was told it was part of the research. That’s what they wanted me to do." It’s a matter of indoctrination instead of education. Otherwise the student picks their own subjects because that’s what is life serving, there are no grades, rewards, punishments. Never give power to authority to tell you what’s right,not for one second. ONLY hear needs and feelings. "You have to get this done tomorrow." Why? Because you said so? I refused to give grades in my classes. I told the furious department head that those who didn’t get "good" grades wouldn’t get "good" jobs, which meant their only other option was the military and being sent off to get killed in Viet Nam. Is that what she wanted? The university didn’t fire me for that, anyway. Question: What did they fire you for? Marshall: They fired me for (among other reasons) bringing in street gang members to educate students why they weren’t happy with present education and why they were burning schools. Students said it was some of their most productive learning. I learned to like being independently poor rather than work only for money in a domination structure. You’d be better off scavenging through garbage cans for supper that night. It takes too much out of us to do any work for money. ESSENTIAL NVC PRINCIPLE We often mistake an adrenaline rush as an indication of being alive. But really we’re only alive when we’re connected to needs. We’re not in the world of human beings if we’re in the smoke and noise of a Jackal show of Jackalish judgments. So when you hear "you never," then enjoy the Jackal show. It’s suicidal to tell myself I shouldn’t be thinking this Jackal judgment. It destroys my body and spirit to Jackal myself by telling myself that I shouldn’t be Jackaling myself. GIVING EMPATHY TO OURSELVES OR OTHERS — essential elements: ESTABLISH CONNECTION by giving empathy EXAMPLE — Hearing the need behind anger. Giving myself empathy: When I recognize I’ve got anger, then I realize it’s because I have a need that’s not being met (I do this silently inside my head), and I drop the anger because I know it’s really that I’m sad. Giving someone else empathy: Reflect back what you hear. So I can say to my partner, "It sounds like you’re unsatisfied because you need to get yourself understood." (Part of the enjoyment of the Jackal response is saying inside "you have your head so far up your ass you’d need a cellophane navel to see outside." Now I can laugh and be empathetic to my partner.) Get it all out. Then I say "Is that everything? Do you need to say more?" REVEAL YOURSELF Set up guidelines. When the person indicates that they’re finished, then you say, "Well, I’d like to say some things, but would you be willing to stop me if at any moment you hear a criticism?" State your feelings. Then you say, for example, "first, I’m sometime s scared that I’ll never be able to meet your needs for understanding. Ask for reflection back. Would you tell me what you heard me say?" They give their interpretation. Give acknowledgment/gratitude for response. You say, "Thank you." I may have been thinking "that’s not what I said, etc", but they did what I asked — they told me what they think I said, so I said thank you, for doing what I asked. Re-state your feeling. Then you continue, "I’d like you to hear me differently. I’d like you to hear my need and my fear." Ask for reflection back. TIMEOUT. If your inner Jackal is starting to rage around because they’re staying in their Jackal beyond your ability to stay in empathic mode, it’s OK to ask for a timeout, "Timeout! You’re not going to like anything I say from here. I need to do some work on myself before we can continue." SCREAM IN GIRAFFE. Or if they started saying, "Well, if you would only,.," then I can say, "excuse me, excuse me. I’d be grateful if you can hold off giving me advice before I finish telling you what I want you to know." Address their interpretations — make sure they didn’t hear a criticism or a demand. Keep being sure I’m connected to life before I open my mouth and let out the Jackal feelings/interpretations/response that’s in my mind. "So you have a need to be in charge of how you communicate? How can I make a request in a way that you won’t hear as trying to control you?" (as a criticism? a demand?) "So you’re feeling hurt right now? You want to be accepted for who you are. I have the same need. I’m trying to tell you that. Can you tell me if you heard something different from that?" "I’d like my request to be heard without your hearing a demand, an attempt to control you. Otherwise, I have two choices — not to express myself or have you say I’m trying to control you. How do you feel when I tell you this?" See? We’re starting to connect now. See how easy it is? [Laughter] Can you see why I decided to be a hermit? Just get yourself some puppets. Don’t fool around with human beings! AVOID FOCUS ON SOLUTIONS First, connect at the heart level. In the dialogue, I tried to stay away from solutions. Once we’re connected at the heart level, then solutions will follow. Reveal yourself. Never ask people what they feel until you have first revealed your own needs and feelings behind the request. Don’t just make the request "what do you feel?" First, make clear what is alive in me behind the question I’m about to ask. Either guess what the person is feeling, or say what I’m feeling and needing, which leads them to tell me what they’re feeling and needing. Fear. If you have some fear about what their silence means for example, remember that any unexpressed feeling on your part will be interpreted as and be responded to with aggression. KEEP YOUR GIRAFFE EARS ON I try never to hear what another person thinks of me. I enjoy life a lot more when I spend as little time as possible hearing or thinking about what other people think about me. I go to the needs behind the thoughts. Then I’m in a different world. In years past, I realized I was thinking in a certain way whenever I was angry and depressed. I realized that feelings of anger and depression were only expressions of distorted awareness resulting from my thinking, instead of a clear awareness of my feelings and needs. I decided I’d rather be in a world of my choosing than in one of anger and depression. So I practiced being conscious whenever that was going on and translating the anger and depression into my needs and feelings. GETTING BEYOND SOCIAL NICETIES. A fun Jackal response when you get, Huh?? is to respond as my father did by saying, "I can kick a pig in the ass and get a better answer than that." To get beyond social niceties, say "I’m a little scared to say this, but I’d like a good connection , one that’s good for both of us. Would you be willing to use some different forms than the ones you usually use?" Huh? "Would you be willing to stick around long enough for me to tell you what I mean?" Telling what’s really going on in us is a gift to others. When you asked what you did (how are you?), I was guessing you really wanted some connection. Is that so? So it was just a social greeting? Well, as a social greeting that’s fine. But when it never gets beyond that, then I get sad because I think there’s more to life. I’d like to know how you feel when you hear this. A couple interchanges are fine, but that’s about my limit and then I want to transform it or leave it." Choose where to invest your energy. We can change any relationship that we want into one that’s life serving, but we don’t always want to put in that much energy. We choose when we want to do it. Sometimes I’ve said, "I need to get clear about whether you really want to hear... because right now I have a lot of crap going on within me, and I don’t know whether that’s what you want to hear." If they do want to know, then I’ll be glad to answer them. And a lot of the time they do. Really, it’s rare not to want to know what goes on in the other person in relation to what you’ve shared with honesty. [A class participant said he’d heard of a general principle that states: don’t express your honesty if you’re not prepared to give the other person empathy for their reaction to what you expressed.] CHANGING YOURSELF. It’s a fundamental life decision to want presence and connection rather than superficial interchanges. Making such a decision brings up how much self empathy that requires, especially for things that get in the way. When I first decided I wanted to live this way, I started taking notes of what was going through my mind from moment to moment. I filled a notebook in the first hour. The more we think in a Jackal way, the more strain it puts on our bodies. It was a flood of Jackal thoughts. For each situation where I didn’t like my thinking about it, then I’d try to empathize with what was alive in me. I made a commitment to try to learn from each Jackal judgment and response I made. I got aware of such deep pain and fear that was stimulated in me when I saw what I had done. And I realized how I would have liked to respond differently. Then I empathized with what the other person was feeling and needing. Then I felt sad because I realized we probably didn’t have a real conflict, the strategies for meeting needs might be different, but the needs may not have been. If I can keep learning when I blow it, then whatever happens is a good experience.
ESSENTIAL NVC PRINCIPLE It’s only when we get off the needs that we get estranged. The commonality is what we see at the moment, what is alive in the person at this moment., that’s the commonality. That’s different from talking about trying to find a commonality, which is a strategy. We don’t have to talk about it as a strategy, that’s setting it up as a goal. It’s the thought and strategy levels where the violence usually happens. When we stick with the needs, the commonality surfaces naturally. JACKAL WORDS AND LABELS. Exercise: Write down all the things that another person might tell you that you are , that you’re afraid that you might be. These are the world’s most frightening messages,, you are a bitch, selfish (on the top 10 world-wide judgment lists), a fake, a victim,.. Judgments. The only time a message (label) can scare us is if we think there is such a thing, and that such a thing is a disgrace. As a Giraffe, there is no verb TO BE in your consciousness — no one IS generous, normal, abnormal. There are only behaviors. So someone calling me a fake can only bother me if I think there is such a thing. Limiting ourselves with labels. Any time you think of what you are, you lose, because the label limits you. For example, self esteem is something you feel at certain moments; at other moments you don’t, because life is a process, it’s continually changing. So saying, "I’m a wonderful person" is as useless as saying, "I’m a terrible person." What does self esteem mean? I don’t think anyone has or doesn’t have it. I think there are moments when people feel it, but it’s not something I think we have. Two seconds later we can feel bad about ourselves. So any statement we make about ourselves in static language puts us in a casket, whether it’s a positive or negative judgment. I’m a wonderful person, I’m lovable, I’m unlovable. They all limit you. Vague expressions. When you say "I wonder" it doesn’t clearly communicate what you want back. If you just want to say something and then don’t say "finished" at the end of it, it’s hard for others to know whether they have cut you off. Confusing, dangerous words. There are several words we use that are dangerous because they could be either a need or a request. Acknowledgment is one of them. Appreciation. Acceptance. Respect. Recognition. I’m worried because of what I see in domination structures. As Giraffes, we need different words and other language for our needs than these because the Jackal interpretations take one of our most important needs and trick us into trying to get the need met in a way that is very destructive to us. Sometimes I would use the words the need for meaning, a need to contribute to life, to make life wonderful. Viktor Frankl says that by far the greatest need of humans is the need for meaning. Whether concentration camp prisoners lived seemed to depend on this need getting met. The importance of feedback. Confusing approval with feedback. Now, in domination cultures, people get educated to think that having the need for feedback fulfilled is the same as getting approval. This is where it gets complicated. We need to get feedback from the other person to tell us whether our intent to serve life was successful. For instance, if I cook myself a meal, the feedback is instant. But if I cook for you, I need feedback as to whether I’ve succeeded in meeting my need to serve life by what I did. In schools this has been perverted to working for the grades themselves. We get trained to work for the reward, not for honest feedback. If I enjoy negative feedback as much as positive, then I’m on the right track. I need to know whether I'm meeting my needs to serve life. If I think there’s such a thing as a good cook, then I’ll Jackal myself if I hear negative feedback. I don’t need a report card. I don’t need approval. And until I get feedback, I don’t know whether my need got met or not. This is a strategy. Immediately, follow your need with a clear, present request. With any expression of pain or need, if we don’t follow it up with a clear request, it puts the other person in a real bind, especially if what I need is empathy. Guide people through the empathy you want. It can drive them crazy to give you what you don’t need when they don’t know what you need. So make those specific requests. "I need some response from you to let me know you care about me and what’s alive in me, and then I want to hear about what’s alive in you." Love. I knew the word love didn’t mean warm, tender, cuddly feelings. That wasn’t what was meant by love in the world’s spiritual traditions. This led me over the years to see that the best way to my needs for love and those of others is to do a Giraffe dance, sharing what’s alive in me and hearing what’s alive in you. For instance, saying, "If I could get these two things from you, it would meet my deep need for caring. When I openly express my feelings and needs to you, it would help if you would reflect back to me what you heard. It’s a big confirmation to hear that you understand. Then it would be a gift if I could get in touch with what your feelings and needs are when you hear what I say. If we could relate in that way, that would meet this need I have to feel cared about." Be aware that feelings means to most people being manipulated with guilt trips, being blamed that your actions caused their unpleasant feelings. Parents and children. There are no children in Giraffe, only humans with needs and feelings. We would never talk to neighbors like we talk to our own children. Assumptions. We don’t assume. We always question the other person as to their need and feeling; and the other person is always the final authority of the accuracy. We need the feedback because, as Giraffes, we can never meet our need at somebody else’s expense, and we won’t know whether we succeeded unless we get the feedback. If what we said or did wasn’t meeting the other person’s need, then we’ll pay for that in many ways if we were just doing something to meet our own needs. It doesn’t always have to be verbal feedback; it can be through body language, for instance. We may think we’re very giving, but we won’t know unless we check out with the recipients whether they felt given to. EXERCISE: Take 5 minutes to come up with a need that might be hard to express. Then coach a person in your group who will play the role of the courageous giraffe who is going to express this need. Coach this person on how to express the need in a Giraffe way. It could be an observation/feeling/need/request, or just the need. But be sure to follow up the expression of the need with a clear present request. Think of what response we might fear getting back. Write a script for the challenging Jackal. Coach the Giraffe role how to deal with this. Respond with empathy verbally or non-verbally, etc. Have at least 3 lines of dialogue. ESSENTIAL NVC PRINCIPLE Marshall gave feedback after a skit about only 2 people out of 7 getting to volunteer their ideas during the group process. A woman had given up her need to participate because she saw the urgency of the needs of the 2 people. Never connect yourself with the other person’s pain. Just hear their need. Leave yourself out of the other person’s feelings and needs. Any time you throw pain at a Jackal without a clear present request, within a millisecond he’ll jump in. What made the need demonstrated in this skit difficult to express? It was the need to balance one’s own need with those of the group members who also needed to be heard. In this case it was the time pressure, and also it had to do with taking away from the flow that other people seemed to be enjoying. So there are two needs. Needs are never conflicting. When we say that, we are only saying that at the moment we aren’t seeing how both needs can be met. That leaves an opening. When you think in the way I’m suggesting, you’ll often find a way to get most needs met simultaneously. But often we’re not conscious of both needs, and so judge ourselves for having our personal need. So say, Right now I’m torn because I have a need to keep on schedule and to hear the needs of everyone. Then decide which person at this moment do I want which reaction from ... that’s who I make the request to. Say, I’d like to see a show of hands of those who feel as I do or share my concern. Then maybe ask for a show of hands of anyone who would not be willing to move to the next step. This gives respect to everyone. If you give up or give in at any time, then that’s cruel to the other people because they will pay for it. Your body will tell you whether you’ve given up or given in. DOGGING FOR YOUR NEEDS. You have to know how to dog for your needs. Marshall used the Jackal puppet poking him in the chest as an example of continuing to pester like a dog who wants to be petted. Pretty soon he was petting the dog and enjoying it. ESSENTIAL NVC PRINCIPLE DEMANDS V. REQUESTS. But don’t get addicted to your "requests." Your objective is needs, not requests. Because then it becomes a demand. The objective of Giraffe is never to get what we want. It’s the development of a quality of connection that allows everyone’s needs to get met. If I can’t give fully without resentment, it’s probably better to keep moving. BULLSHIT IN GIRAFFE. The next skit was about a wife confronting her husband with possible infidelity. He said, "how could you not trust me?" This is a good chance to practice bullshit in Giraffe. A group participant went first to telling her feelings. She said, "I’m feeling distrustful, the lipstick on your shirt doesn’t resonate with what you’re telling me." Marshall said that first we need to establish connection. So first, go for the empathy. He suggested: "I’d like you to tell me if you have any fear about telling me what really happened. I’m having a hard time making sense out of what I see, and it would be a great relief to me if you could tell me what was going on. It would be a relief to me to have that honesty." That way gives a better chance that your feelings and needs will get heard, rather than the person hearing an attack and defending against his internal Jackal guilt. EMERGENCY FIRST AID EMPATHY. Also, this Giraffe stepped back and gave herself empathy by inwardly saying, "am I supposed to believe this crock of shit?" SCREAM IN GIRAFFE. Another possibility is to scream in Giraffe, "I’m filled with fear, and it would be a big gift if you would just listen to what I have to say and feed back to me what you hear me say." TIMEOUT. If that would make matters worse, then I call for time out and rush to the phone for my Giraffe empathy team to help me deal with the fear, hurt, anger and other stuff going on inside me. Stop and list all the things you’re saying to yourself about the situation. Then take a breath and decide how much of the pain is related to your need (losing a relationship, losing your life to terminal illness, whatever), and how much is a result of your Jackal show about it (e.g., it isn’t fair after all the work I’ve done taking care of myself, etc.) instead of mourning the loss, feeling the sweet suffering. It’s the Mormon Taberjackal Choir — the Jackal show. What’s worse than that is Jackaling yourself for Jackaling yourself... the Jackal hall of mirrors. The next skit was about a person who agrees to make dinner and then doesn’t. Marshall’s feedback: As soon as you say, "are you feeling X because I,." Then the Jackal starts to salivate because he can educate the person that he’s the cause of his pain. What need of his isn’t getting met? It’s the need for trust and reliability when an agreement is made (leave yourself out of it). COMMITMENTS. Giraffes know that any time you make a commitment it’s not true, it’s only your intention at the moment. You want to be clear about that. You don’t know that you won’t die between now and then. So if my intention changes, I will be willing to tell you. The point is that the other person will pay any time I do something out of a sense of obligation. Be sure to phrase to yourself, I am choosing to do this thing because I want to, This doesn’t say anything about whether we like it, only that we want to. I may not like the choice I have to make, but I still have choices in every situation. I can still plan. My thinking cannot be controlled. For instance, we may get on the train to the concentration camp as an alternate to being shot on the spot. It’s not a choice I like; but it is a choice. The way I think about my experience after being raped is my choice. Some choose to feel shame and self blame, which isn’t productive in the sense that it doesn’t contribute to enriching life. There’s a Gary Larson cartoon of two guys in chains hanging on a dungeon wall. One says to the other, ", so here’s my plan." ESSENTIAL NVC PRINCIPLE ALWAYS MAKE CONNECTION FIRST! Acknowledge the other person. "Thank you for telling me what you heard. I’d like you to hear me differently." One of the big problems in conflict resolution is they get into the strategy immediately without making the connection first. They are saying there’s a conflict of needs, when really it’s a conflict of strategies. Don’t even think strategy until we’re connected at the heart level. UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. I once asked my 3-year old son if he knew why Dad loved him. He said, "because I do thus and so?" After a couple of guesses, he asked for the answer. I said, "Dad loves you just because you’re you." That became a touchstone between us, even with humor, throughout the boy’s growing up years. Unconditional love means I show the same respect to a no as a yes. The person gets the same quality from me, the same empathy. It doesn’t mean I agree or like what I hear, but the person is free from any judgment from me. It’s a way to love that I can really do. Remember the standby approach: From what I’ve just expressed, I’d like you to tell me if you heard any criticism. If so, I’d like you to tell me what I could have said that would have told you my message without your hearing criticism. GIRAFFE MOURNING. Giraffe mourning helps us learn, but apology implies there is such a thing as doing something wrong. Throughout our life we do things we wouldn’t do if we knew then what we will learn later. I start with the assumption that drug and alcohol users are meeting their needs in the best way they know how. Instead of trying to change them, I explore with them other means to meet their needs in ways that are more fun and less costly. Their inner Jackal is the biggest problem, that’s why they stop then start again. They get overcome from their self Jackaling and their "shoulding." With that kind of thinking, there is a war going on inside. Once the person is very clear about the needs, there are many other methods to meet the needs that are more fun and less costly. It’s the inner Jackal that makes the behavior an addiction. Dealing with the chemical problems in the body is not the big problem. Whatever their needs, you won’t see anything strange because you have those needs, too. For instance, the need for community. All you have to do to be part of a community is buy everyone a round at a tavern. My father loved AA meetings even though he didn’t drink — it was the sense of community he loved. The needs are reduction of anxiety, to relax; to express oneself (drinking puts the inner Jackal to sleep so the person can open up). So instead of getting drunk, find or form a Giraffe community. Why spend all that money? Giraffes are cheap!
PUNISHMENT. Around the world I see people who say all they live for is to punish the bad people. What is the need? When we think we want punishment, we’ve been distorted by our culture into thinking our need for empathy is changed into "teaching them a lesson." It’s a distorted need for empathy, wanting the person to know how you have suffered. If we ask two questions, we can see punishment never works at any level. #1 — What do we want the other person to do? Using only that question tricks us into thinking punishment will work. #2 — What do we want the other person’s reasons to be for doing what we ask them to do? Punishment only teaches violence. If we have the basic belief that people are evil, then we also believe we have to teach them to suffer to learn a lesson. Guilt, shame, reward or punishment has a high cost which we will eventually pay. I had a situation with my young son about swimming alone in the ocean. I told him, "I’m scared about anyone swimming alone. I have a need for your safety." "I can swim." "You want some respect for your ability to swim?" "Yeah." "I’m not sure you’re hearing my need for your safety, for anybody’s safety." "Well, I can swim." So we went back and forth until he saw my need without connecting it to my not trusting him, trusting that he can swim, that anyone can get a cramp no matter how well they swim. I helped him to see my need separate from criticism of his ability to swim well. He needed to hear that he had my respect for his swimming ability. PROTECTIVE USE OF FORCE. Protective use of force is necessary if the other person is not willing to engage in dialogue (or there isn’t time in an immediate situation), and during that time a vital need of mine is being endangered. In that situation I’ll use force to protect myself, my interests. Giraffes always do things only for themselves, not for other people. For instance, my children — I had a big investment in my kids, so when I saw them running in a busy street I grabbed them to protect my investment in their well being. So I said, "if I see you running I will put you in the yard." This was nonnegotiable. I didn't hit them, but I grabbed them. In Sweden there is a Giraffe prison which is a protective use of force until the person finds a way to behave that will get everyone’s needs met. After that, he can safely return to the community. EXERCISE: Write down your most frequent judgment that you use. Make an inventory of your most frequently used Jackal judgments, then identify the stimulus. Get the stimulus clear. Then put Giraffe ears on and ask what needs of yours are being expressed through those judgments. Translate them into needs, that’s what they are. As long as I’m thinking a person is wrong and needs to be punished, I’m part of the problem. Whoever does behavior like molesting children isn’t any different than you and I. They’re trying to meet needs. They know what they do doesn’t meet some basic human needs of theirs, but their other needs overrule that. PUNITIVE FORCE v. PROTECTIVE FORCE. There are two ways to differentiate between protective use of force and punitive force. What is the thinking? If there is any thinking involving an enemy, then it’s punitive. The same if the intent is for the other person to suffer. If the intention is only to protect my own need, then it’s justified. That’s the only time force is justified. I must have no desire to make the other person suffer. So I sure want to use force to stop the molesting of children, and I want confinement of the person until we can get them to see their need and a way to meet it in a way that doesn’t hurt others. I’m reading a book right now called "Spirit Matters" by M. Lerner. It’s about people who think they’re in touch with their needs but have them mixed up with cultural strategies. It’s really not a need, but what has been educated via the culture — like status, approval, national security. We all want power, but have associated it with something dirty and ugly because of how often strategies to exercise it are hurtful. The power to be able to affect things is basic to life. Some control over our environment is a very important need. But how that power is often used is what gives it a dirty name. As long as you have an enemy image in your head, your objective will be hard to accomplish. And your political power is weakened. In some places in the world we are asked to teach the police how to use protective use of force in a Giraffe way rather than with guns and gas. Then they can intervene in a Giraffe way. HOW TO MEDIATE. Person A and Person B have some strong needs. To apply Giraffe in this situation you need the following skills. I’ll show you at full speed first, and then we’ll slow it down. (Marshall demonstrates, using the puppets and mouth noises. In quick succession, he pinches the Jackal’s mouth shut, pfft, then he pulls it by the ear, pffzt. Laughter.) Here are the skills: First, being able to translate any Jackal message into a need, because these people aren’t going to be able to express this very well. You know how to do that with your Giraffe ears. If they say, "stay out of this," you empathize with that. Next, you need to be able to pull Jackals by the ears to hear what the other person is saying. "Excuse me, hold it, slow down. Can you tell me what the other person’s needs are?" You need to be able to use 1st aid self empathy when the Jackal tries to bite you when you try to pull them by the ears. And you need to know how to say shut up in Giraffe. Sometimes we have to do what I call sticking my nose in other people’s business. I express my needs to have people get their needs clear and have the other people hear them. I need this because I’m tired of hearing continuous squabbling or having people getting killed. I like to hear what needs are going on that aren’t being met. Of course if people are killing each other, they’re not in touch with their needs. The same things with parents and children. I translate each message into a need, help the other side to hear it, pull the other side by the ears, and finally the situation solves itself. I’m not saying it goes immediately. It might take me two hours just to get the needs out in the open. Pulling a Jackal by the ears means what I did in Nigeria. "These people are murderers." "Sir, are you saying you have a need for safety and some ways to resolve these issues?" "Would someone from the other side of the table repeat what this man just said?" The next man shouts back, "then why did you kill my child?" "Excuse me sir, before you react, would you just tell me what his needs are." PULLING A JACKAL BY THE EARS. There are two steps to pulling a person by the ears. Excuse me, excuse me, sir, (i.e., stop!) Before you react, would you please tell me what the other person said. If the person is in too much pain to be able to stop and just keeps shouting, then I give him some empathy. ESSENTIAL NVC PRINCIPLE DISTINGUISHING STRATEGIES FROM NEEDS. Strategy. A strategy is a way to meet a need and deals with specific people being asked for specific things. Need. Needs contain no reference to specific people taking action. All human beings have the same needs. So "I need you to," is not a need because not everyone needs that person to do something. A "male-chauvinist-pig" judgment situation was described, and Marshall modeled a response: "When I hear you say that, I feel a sort of sick, angry feeling inside, scared, angry, a whole lot of stuff, because that doesn’t meet my need when you say/do that. Now, can you tell me what you heard me say?" After they reflect my feeling, I say the need, "I have a need for women to be respected, and my need isn=91t met by that discussion." As long as you have an enemy image, your chances of getting your needs met are not very good because you’ll provoke the kind of behavior you don’t want. So what do you tell yourself? It’s not fair, etc. How do you translate that into a need? I have a need for people to be treated fairly. When you get in touch with that need, how do you feel? I feel sad it’s not happening. Now you’re ready to open your mouth and go in. Sad tells us we’re connected to our needs. So you say, when I see this differential handling of situations, I feel really sad because I have a need for equality in this situation. I’d like you to tell me if you would be willing to change our structure so there is an equal response to both people. Assuming that you start that way, how does this person react? He’ll say, well it has nothing to do with what sex the person is, nothing whatsoever. It’s unfair of you to make any assumptions. I have a job to do and I want to do it well. Anyone who knows me sees I don’t discriminate. I can’t be bothered when people are sensitive about everything little thing that comes along. So now what do you say? I sense that you have a need for integrity. Yes, that’s right. And anyone who knows my record knows I’m fair to people. (Do some quick empathy inside, because your inner reaction of course is "bullshit"). Be sure you empathize.. this is where the person needs the most empathy. So you’re feeling really annoyed because you need recognition for your efforts to treat everyone equitably. That’s right, and its just you who complains. If its not one thing its another. Empathizing doesn’t mean you have to agree with him, you just have to recognize and empathize with his human needs. Then you say, I’m annoyed when I hear you say that because I can give several examples where that looked different to me. A woman who studied with Marshall was in a meeting with him with "MC pigs" and did a beautiful job when she was provoked by their language and statements. As she starts to flush and steam, she exclaims, Time out! She turns aside and gives herself some emergency first aid empathy. Then she turns back. OK sir, but I need you to know what I feel when you say that. He puts his hand on her knee and says, Listen girlie, don’t be so sensitive. She hotly pushes his hand aside and again says loudly, Time out! Then she turns back and says, I want you to hear how I feel when you do that! But I , Stop! I want you to hear what I have to say. ESSENTIAL NVC PRINCIPLE Giraffe requires consciousness. One of the central concepts is interdependence, to see that our well-being has to do with the well-being of others. Naturally, this also includes the environment. Anything that harms the environment doesn’t meet our needs. When we really know what the world is all about, we bleed if someone breaks the branch of a tree. I feel very heartened by some powerful Giraffes who are trying to make this point. "Spirit Matters" makes very clear how we have to see that our well-being and the environment are one and the same, and any other social change won’t work if we don’t see that. Korten wrote "Post Corporate World" about governing structures being set up to be patterned on living systems. Transcript of 2-Day Advanced Intensive October 20-21, 2000Bainbridge CommonsBainbridge Island, Washington, USA The following is a slightly edited transcript of a training Marshall Rosenberg led on Bainbridge Island, Washington, USA, October 20-21, 2000. We are grateful to Lin Rose for transcribing this training. Please note that Marshall sometimes uses Giraffe and Jackal as metaphors for Nonviolent Communication and life-alienated thinking and speaking, respectively.
Practicing Empathy Healing & Reconciliation Gratitude — how to express and receive Structures/Institutions — how to stay with the Giraffe process within them
QUESTIONS: Practice group brought Marshall their issue: Needs v. request, not speaking up with our needs because we want others to have their needs met. Remember, others can get their needs met even if we speak up with a request to meet our personal need; e.g., "I’d like to see a show of hands of those who were in the practice group with me yesterday who would be willing to continue that today." For the person forming a splinter group, she asked for a show of hands of those who did not want to do X. Be careful of the tyranny of the majority. Someone spoke up with his need for inclusion, then got stuck on his present request. A woman requested him to identify his feelings, and Marshall pointed out that he answered with a thought. Two others clarified and asked if that was what he meant, and he said yes. Person asked Marshall if she could ask a question. Marshall said, Never ask a person in a position of authority to tell you what’s right or OK, it perpetuates domination. ESSENTIAL NVC PRINCIPLE Three ways to know you’re in empathy (i.e., making the connection): Intention. Be aware of the intention behind offering empathy to another person. It’s important that you be conscious you’re not giving empathy for the other person’s benefit. Don’t listen unless it meets your need to connect with the divine energy. By that, I mean that to know God, we have to know people. It’s a deep need, our need to connect with the beauty, the divine energy in this person, to be in harmony, to flow with that divine energy. We give empathy to others for our own benefit. With this intention, you can’t tell which is the giver and which is the receiver. We don’t do it for the other person, because that puts them in the one-down position of being helped. There is life coming through this other person, and we meet our need by connecting with it. Presence. This means we can’t bring anything from the past chattering in our heads, such as theories about humans. The more you know the person in front of you, the harder it will be to empathize. That’s why Martin Buber says our presence is such a precious gift to give another. It’s approaching this moment like a newborn infant. That infant has never been before and will never be again. I learned this when I worked in mental hospitals and found that the best way to connect with the patient was not to read any of the reports. Focus. The focus is on what’s alive in the person now in this moment. The best way to do that is staying connected to feelings and needs, especially the past feelings that are the root of the present feelings. The person may be wandering around with reference to past, memories, etc., but you don’t go there with them. Just stay connected to the needs and feelings behind what they’re expressing. All of this can be done silently. The most important parts of empathy are done silently. ESSENTIAL NVC PRINCIPLE WHEN TO VERBALLY REFLECT BACK. There are two times that we might want to say out loud "I heard you say," but the most important part is done silently. Here are the two conditions that are present when we put our empathy into words: When it meets our need for confirmation. This means we’re not sure we’re connected. So we say it out loud not as a technique, but as a need of ours. I really want to be connected to the beauty in the person. This is a strategy for checking on whether I’m really with the person. If it’s done as a technique with everything the person says, it’s a Giraffe parrot. When we sense the other person would appreciate (needs) a confirmation. Sometimes the other person makes it easy and asks for you to tell them back... is that clear? you know? So you say, Well, let me see, and then reflect. This is better than just saying Yes, I understand. Sometimes reflection is disruptive, so it’s a guess. Stay with the person until the person has received ALL the empathy they would like. The first message may be only the tip of the iceberg, and there is a whole lot of other stuff going on. How will we know we’ve reached the bottom is that "it feels good." The problem may not be solved yet, but it feels good just to have that presence. Everyone in the room can usually just feel the ahh in the body. Often that feeling is accompanied by silence. If the person has an urgency to talk and says and and and and, has an urgency to talk, then he’s not finished. There may be other levels they want to get to. So be conservative about moving away from the focus on the other person’s needs. You might check and say is there more you want to say? You may need to bring the person back to life by saying, excuse me, are you feeling and needing,? They may be saying things from the past, but you don’t go there with them. Be very slow to go into looking for solutions. ESSENTIAL NVC PRINCIPLE POST-EMPATHIC REQUEST — (you’re looking for their implied request) Now we move to the post-empathic request. What do they want after the empathy? Most of the time they have been very vulnerable by having what’s alive in them heard by another. They’re usually hungry for honesty and it will come out as, You must be tired listening to all this; You must think I’m stupid to feel this way, i.e., it’s a request for the feelings of the listener, what’s going on inside of the listener. Sometimes the person wants some advice about how to meet their needs. Sometimes the person might want some specific need-related thing (like would you be willing to spend time with me), some need-related action. So we need to check out what is this person’s post-empathic response. It’s best to guess rather than ask. We’re giving the answer to the implied question, How do you feel about what I said? Self-disclosing mode — sharing your similar personal experience. This is where you might say you’ve had a similar experience. But the other, the empathy, has to be clear and out first before getting into your personal experience. I might say, Would you like to hear how I’m feeling about what you’ve just said? If you have your own stuff, then I’d come out and say what feelings I have inside about what I heard. If you have Giraffe ears on, the person is a perfect Giraffe speaker at all times. HOME STUDY. Use the intellectualization exercise to list all your most frequent intellectualizations about people and translate them into needs. If you have consciousness of needs, if you can guess and sense, you can be living in the world of feelings and needs, not the world of thoughts. You just have to train yourself to live in this world. If your guesses aren’t met with a yes when you’re giving empathy, then say, "I’m confused. Would you please tell me what your feelings and needs are." They may be twitchy, so say, "Are you feeling annoyed because you need...?" Yes. "I’m trying to understand so I can feel connected with you and what you’re saying." For example, a man says, "I judge myself as being unskilled with meeting people." All such judgments are expressions of unmet needs. His belonging and connection need is not met. The more you practice hearing this need, the more you live in the world referred to by the poet Rumi, "There is a world beyond rightness and wrongness. I’ll meet you there." Use as few words as possible to reflect. And don't try to be right. Its better to guess than ask because questions will often be heard as aggression. Start with your own feelings, "I’m lost. Would you be willing to tell me what you’re meaning, feeling,?" Giraffes live in the world of life, which changes every moment. But we’ve been educated in a static language that implies static labels of who people are. ESSENTIAL NVC PRINCIPLE SYMPATHY V. EMPATHY. Giving empathy is very hard when you mix up your feelings with theirs, that tells you that you’re sympathizing instead of empathizing. If our own pain is so great we can’t stay with the other, that’s OK — be conscious of it. But just don’t mix up the two. If we’re feeling something, we’re not with the other person. To give empathy, we don’t have to experience what the other person is feeling. In fact, if we do feel it, we’re not empathizing. Look at it this way, When we are involved fully in a good book, we don’t feel our toothache. That’s empathy. Our attention is entirely on the book. Of course, we can’t keep that all the time. So just be conscious that when you have those feelings, then you can’t say anything empathetically in a truthful way. That’s what is so hard for the person in pain, they’re telling you their feelings and needing empathy, and in the middle you say, Oh I feel so sad for you; or, Let me tell you about when that happened to me, etc. Sympathy would feel good to the other person later when you’re in the self-disclosing mode. But when it’s mixed up with what you say in empathy, it’s extremely painful. The listener thinks they’re understanding when they say, That must be horrible, I feel so sad that you feel that way. It’s later that would be helpful, not during the empathy. A good book about this is "When Bad Things Happen to Good People." It was written by a rabbi after his devastation at the well-meaning but painful things people said to him in regard to his family tragedy. Worse, he realized that these were the very things he’d been saying to his congregation for years. GIVING EMPATHY. SMALL GROUP EXERCISE (yesterday we practiced an exercise to ask for empathy). Give coaching after person A has tried to give empathy to Person B. Offer feedback to the person. The person receiving the empathy will also be a coach, giving feedback about what met their need for empathy and what didn’t work. Coaches, be watching. Evaluate the quality of the presence. You can see this in the eyes of the person if they are really connecting. How was the reflection, too much, too little? Was feedback connected to people/things outside the person (when your brother did X, you felt,)? Remember that the other person’s words or actions can be a stimulus, but not a cause. Also remember — a need is not something that requires being met by a specific behavior or by a specific person (those are strategies). It doesn’t meet your need for X when person A does Y. ESSENTIAL NVC PRINCIPLE MAKING REQUESTS. We need to look at two different kinds of present requests — Marshall draws a picture — here’s us, and here’s the other person. When each sees the other’s needs, then we can resolve the situation. So first, we make sure the connection is established, REQUEST FOR CONNECTION (the first kind of request): Example #1: You ask for empathy for yourself. You say: Here’s what I feel about X. REQUEST: Would you please tell me what you heard me say? How you felt when you heard me say that? We may not be sure what’s going on in the other person. To find out or confirm our guess, we say, I’d like you to tell me what you’re feeling and needing, or how you felt about what I said. This way everybody’s needs get met, not just our own. Make sure neither person heard criticism or demand in the feeling statements and/or empathic reflections that get exchanged. This shows each person values the other’s needs equally with his own. Example #2: You might establish connection by focussing on them by offering empathy. (Be sure to reveal yourself first before asking them a question.) You might say, As you know, I’m upset about X and I’m trying to understand your side. REQUEST: Would you please tell me, are you feeling X because you need Y? Would you please tell me what you heard me ask? How you felt when you heard me say that? PROBLEM-SOLVING REQUEST (the second kind of request): Once connection is established, we proceed to resolution/problem solving. REQUEST: State our clear, do-able, present request for change. I have a need for X, and I would feel so grateful (or whatever) if you would be willing to do Y. Would you be willing to do that? Would you please tell me how you feel when you hear me say that? Were you feeling X because you heard a demand/criticism? Question: Someone said information (pictures and words in their heads) often appear psychically in relation to the person they’re talking to, and the speaker didn’t know whether it fit into the Giraffe approach to tell them to the person as a form of education or whatever. Marshall: If that’s so, then it’s a gift. Still, use your intuitive gift second, after the empathy. If you offer it first, it’s likely to be heard as assumptions or going somewhere else, because you’re inside on your psychic journey instead of being with the other person, it’s a form of analysis. After they feel that connection, then the psychic insights may be valuable for the person. It can be an impression that goes off in you, whatever, but the timing is important when you put it out. You don’t want to switch the focus away from them until they’re ready. Then you can ask the person if they’re willing to hear what is going on inside me that might be helpful to them. INTERRUPTING IN GIRAFFE. If the conversation isn’t filled with beauty and awe, if we’re not enjoying the speaker, there’s a high probability that the speaker isn’t enjoying it either. The moment the conversation loses life for me, its likely that the speaker isn’t getting life out of their own words either. In fact, they may have heard themselves voicing the words for 39 years, and its only the 10th time for me. So immediately stop the conversation and re-establish the connection, "Is this meeting your needs? Can you tell me what you need? Feel?" Try stopping people when they have said only one word more than you’ve wanted to hear because their words aren’t full of life. Say, "Excuse me, are you feeling X because you are needing Y,?" Connect with what’s alive in them that’s leading them to say the words. It will be a gift to the other person because it brings them back to life. I don’t think anyone really wants to keep talking when they’re not enriching the life of the listener. The reason they go on and on is that they’re not getting their needs met. If you empathize for what’s alive in the person, then the usual family aunt or whomever won’t have to keep re-telling the story over and over hoping someone will understand what’s behind the words. If they get upset, even if they feel hurt, people want you to stop them. You’re doing it to protect yourself, not for the other person. Find the point they’re trying to make. Where is their heart? If you feel bored, i.e., if you are having to wait longer than you want for the story to unfold so you can hear what the person is saying, then at that moment stop the person. Remember that most of the empathy doesn’t come from the words themselves. Parroting doesn’t help. Silence and showing the feeling in your face and eyes can be a better communication. ESSENTIAL NVC PRINCIPLE HEALING. We need healing when things have happened in the past and we’re still carrying the pain, which is getting in the way of how we want to go forward and live life. ROLE PLAY #1. Marshall does a role play as the person who was the stimulus of the pain. He’s the older sister. He’s playing the sister, wearing Giraffe ears. He starts the dialogue by asking, "What pain are you still carrying within you from the past?" Her: Pain because I would like to connect with you, and I feel afraid to even feel anything about what you’re facing in your own life. And I know that I want to connect with you, but I’m afraid to open a conversation or offer anything helpful to you in your situation. M: You’re feeling a lot of sadness that your need for connection with me isn’t being met. And now you’re aware of pain that I’m going through, this might be an opportunity to make this connection. And you want to protect yourself from what you expect might happen if you were to offer this. So I’d like to know what else you’d like me to hear now that I have these ears on. Her: I would enjoy connecting with you, going for a walk. Spending time in nature with you is something I really want to do. M: This is a deep loss for you, a source of sadness for you that we can’t enjoy having a walk, a conversation. Her: I’d enjoy just being there and sensing you connecting with life. M: Its scary to say you’d like to see me enjoying life more. Is there anything more you want me to hear besides your sadness and your fear. It would help me to understand what the need is behind your fear. Her: I’m afraid that if I try and offer anything to you, that you’ll reject it out of needing to feel you can handle your own life and your own problems. I would enjoy being able to talk with you and offer any information I have, just as an offering. M: So you’re afraid I would have needs that would not be met by talking, and that you would take it as a rejection. Her: I have a fear of being scolded by you. M: You’re fearful that instead of being able to hear my needs, you would take it as a scolding, which you would believe, and then hate yourself. So your need is to protect yourself from it? Her: Um hm. M: Is there anything more you want me to hear before I react to what you said? Her: No. M: First, I feel some sadness that I would like to contribute to this need you have of closeness and connectedness. I would like to be able to meet that need. I have similar needs that would also be met, so I’m sad that I haven’t been able to see what has kept us from this connection. When I’ve expressed my pain in the past and seen in your eyes the pain of rejection, then I don’t feel the safety to be myself and know that you will just receive what’s alive in me. Would you tell me back what you heard me say. Her: I’m hearing you say that it’s painful to you to express yourself and be received by me as if it were scolding or rejecting me, and that you would like me to hear what your needs are. M: Thank you. Yes. I see how painful it is to see how much is resting on my reaction. And that doesn’t give me the ease that I would like in close connection. Can you tell me that please. Her: That because I’m feeling these fears, when you hear me or sense the fear that I have about your reaction, then you also feel some fear, and there’s a burden.. M: There’s a frustration because I want to protect myself when I’m not certain what you’re going to do with what I say. And there’s guilt when I tell myself that I’d like to be a different kind of sister. I just have a need to protect myself, so I withdraw from any kind of closeness with you. So thank you for hearing that, and Id like to hear how you feel when I say that. Her: I feel a lot of empathy and caring for you when you tell me that. I’m sad that we haven’t connected in the past, but I actually feel more connected when you tell me that. Marshall: So I’m out of the role of the sister now, how was that for you? Her: It put me back and forth in two different places. It got me into the new avenues of communicating. The points where those came together is where there is hope to be connected with her. ESSENTIAL NVC PRINCIPLE The three phases of healing. I wanted to use this little situation to outline the three phases of healing and then to show you different ways that this can happen. I see healing going on when the person in pain (PERSON A) gets empathy for what’s alive in them now in relationship to what’s happened in the past. I didn’t have to go into what had been going on before. I just asked what’s alive in you now. We can guess that this pain has been the same in the past. I engaged in Giraffe mourning by the offending person in the role of the sister (PERSON B). Essentially this takes the form of Telling how I feel now that I’ve seen the other person’s pain, and What needs of mine are connected to the other person’s feeling. I also have a need to connect, and I’m sad that what was going on in me was such that I was not able to meet your need. Notice that this was not an apology. Apologies are violent things to do to people, because at that moment the person is mostly needing empathy. And if the apology comes out of my thinking that what I did was wrong, then it’s associated with guilt and shame, and the other person will pay for that. I talk about needs of mine which were not met. It would have been my own need to contribute to her well being, as well as my own need for closeness, so I’m sad and sincerely regret whatever kept me from doing that. It’s a loss of what could have been, not a blame of what should have been. If anyone has experienced empathy and sincere mourning, they will not expect or need an apology. Its saying I would like to have met my own needs differently, not that I "should" have done something, i.e. that I was wrong or bad. Empathy for the offending person (PERSON B) by the person in pain (PERSON A). That is, empathy for what was alive in the other person (the sister) that led them to behave as they behaved. The person in pain is asked if they are willing to hear from the offender what was going on inside them, the feelings and needs that were behind their hurtful behavior. For instance, working with a woman who had been raped, I played the rapist and first gave her empathy for what she was feeling now (suffering during 9 years). After hearing that, then I got in touch with how horrible it felt to me (the rapist) to get in touch with my way of meeting my needs, of how I’d created such pain for someone by my behavior, and how I now realize that my way didn’t even meet my own real needs. Then the "victim" screamed, "How could you have done it?" I kept saying, "Is there more you want to say?" Once this person gets understood, there is usually a hunger to know, why. What was going on in this person that would lead them to behave in this destructive way? When you empathize, there is nothing left to forgive, so forgiveness and empathy in Giraffe are essentially the same thing. I warn you of the danger of going too quickly to get to closure. (Count to a million before going to step 3.) My experience is that one hour in this is worth 4 hours (or more) of talking about what happened (i.e., going into all the details of the story). ROLE PLAY #2. Marshall plays a woman’s brother. Her: I’ve stayed away from you because I don’t feel safe. I have to put myself down and be willing to take any garbage you want to give me if I want to be in relationship with you. A number of years a go you invited me and my family to your home. I said sure but needed to resolve some unresolved things first. M: So the pain you’re feeling and sadness is, if I understand you, that you need a caring relationship and what hurts is that the only way you know to keep the thing going is to let me say anything I want and you put up with that, and still there’s no connection. Your example was to show me how hurtful it is to you when you do all you can and it’s not responded to in a way that meets your need. You can probably recall lots of past events where you’ve reached out and not had that connection. Her: You’ve twisted and turned what I’ve said to make yourself feel better. M: Instead of giving empathy to you Her: Yes. I feel at risk to share anything about myself because you will use it. M: You’re afraid and need to protect yourself from the pain you’ve felt in the past. And yet you still have hope that your need for closeness and connection can be met. Her: Yes. I’ve almost given up. M: You’re feeling kind of hopeless. Her: The whole thing keeps starting over and you make it into my fault that we cant connect. M: You’d love not to have to deal with this, to protect yourself from it. It’s annoying. You’d like some understand and be able to get the family together with real connection. Instead of understanding, you’re hearing blame. Her: yes. M.: Anything else you’d like to hear before I react? Her: I would also like some understanding from you for how your behavior has affected me throughout my entire life, how your choices have affected me. M: How my choices have been painful to you, the enormity of it, not just some things, but how much of your life has been caught up in the decisions I’ve made. Her: Like sexually abusing me and my daughter. M: ,how much that has stayed with you right to now. Her: Right M: Wow. Its pretty scary to deal with all that’s going on in me right now and open up to what you’re saying and to see how your life has been affected by my behavior. I’m irritated at how I would have liked to handle my pain in a way that had not contributed to that for you. I wish I could express all the stuff that’s going on inside me without blaming you. Oh, how I wish that I had known this. Her: I wish you had shared your pain with me instead of hurting me all the time. M: I feel sick inside when I realize that that would have been a gift to you instead of creating so much pain. I feel sick inside that I didn’t know how to do that., how to handle all that was going on inside of me. And for me, the suffering that I have gone through, and didn’t know how to handle my pain differently. Her: I’m truly sorry for your suffering. I didn’t want you to be in pain either. But when you didn’t share it in any constructive way, there was no way for me to be there with you. M: I need a moment to try to empathize with myself about what you just said. I’m dealing with all this irritation, frustration, sadness, and then to hear that you still have this caring for me and are still concerned for me. I have to stretch to put on my Giraffe ears and not let my Jackals block it off and say I don’t deserve it. I do trust that you feel that caring, but its hard for me to take it in because I’m so irritated with myself. But Id like to tell you what was going on in me without continuing to blame you when I sexually abused you. It’s scary for me to say. Real scary. As you know, I have an enormous amount of pain inside. Rage. Not toward you. I think you can guess , enormous rage and hurt and need for closeness. I haven’t known how to express my pain in a way the enabled you and others to reach out. So I just get into more range and just want to hurt others because I don’t know how to get that understanding except to blame others. Then I don’t get the understanding and the rage builds up worse. Would you tell me what you’re hearing. I don’t know if I’m making sense. Her: ,reflect back. M: It’s so scary to look at why I would have treated you so badly, the one person with whom I’ve always sensed your caring. How do you feel when I tell you about all this pain? Her: All I need to hear from you is that you care about the pain you caused and that you don’t want to hurt me in the future. M: I’ll say it again. It was the very fact that I care for you, the one sense of warmth in my life, you gave me so much, and I tried to meet my needs in a way that was so painful for you. Her: I appreciate hearing that. I don’t know if I can make it all go away. M: I don’t want it to go away. I’m just deeply grateful that you can hear the pain for what I did. Her: I just want to feel safe and cared about. And I don’t want to be blamed for something I didn’t do. I don’t want to be called names and be put down, and I don’t want you telling everyone else that I’m a sick person, because I’m not the one who did it. M: When I don’t have these Giraffe ears on, its very scary for me to look at how I feel about what I did. Its such a dark place, I’m afraid to go there, so what comes to me is "if you hadn’t done.. if you weren’t.." I was feeling so desperate. This combination of hurt, longing, rage was overwhelming. It’s scary for me to go there. It’s so much easier to blame. Her: How can you profess to be such a good Christian and a believer in the church at the same time that you’re doing all this? M: It helps me to hide from my feelings, to keep from looking at what I’m doing. It’s scarier for me to look inside and see what I was feeling when I did this. I’m afraid I’ll get into such a dark place that I’ll never come out. Her: I wouldn’t let you get stuck there. I’d be there and help you get through it if you’d just face it. M.: I trust that. I trust you in this. But my fear is keeping me from that. Marshall: May I ask for reactions from the group about what you felt as you heard this? Woof!! The Black Lab in the room barked, and we all laughed. Question: I wasn’t clear that you weren’t connecting what he did with her pain. Marshall: I was using idiomatic Giraffe, speaking of his behavior as a stimulus for her pain, not the cause. He was not saying he was responsible for her pain. Question: This exchange felt healing, but the brother is still out there. With this insight, do you still need to make connection with the brother? Marshall: Even though she won’t hear from the brother in this way, the hope is that she will remember this exchange when she’s dealing with the brother. When she walks in the door, I’ll guess that she’ll see him different already and will be shocked at the change in his behavior from now on. This happens so often that I wouldn’t be surprised. But of course I’m not promising this. There’s still a lot more work that could be done. Question: What gave you the clue to go into the 3rd phase of healing? You have said to count to a million before going there. Marshall: I counted by thousands. And I asked if there was more she wanted to say, and if she was ready to hear me. Question/Comment from Group Participant: I got in touch with the depth of the darkness inside, what a dark, lonely place that was. I wanted to know that I had it in me to reflect back the beauty of that person. I’m in that place often working with individuals in prison. I’d like to have it within myself to reflect back that beauty behind the darkness, the scariness of going into the combination of the rage and hurt, how dark and frightening that is, to be able to go there with that person and see the life energy and connect with the person’s life energy. Marshall: I’d like to go back to the question about playing the other person’s role and whether or not I was playing it. Very often the person opposite me will be astonished that I’ve said exactly what the opposing person had said in real life. What gives me that ability is that I’m just being myself. We’re all created out of the same energy. Each of us is the same. There is no one who doesn't have these things going on that we don't have experience of at some level. So I'm just being myself. Question: In other words, you know from being a human being what she must have experienced in response to how the brother treated her, that what must be going on in her is some pain and rage and anger that would be just like yours in a similar situation. And you know what you’ve experienced when your actions have been the stimulus for pain in others, so you know the pain and remorse and self judgment the brother was feeling. Marshall: Yes. I experience that. A male in this culture wouldn’t even imagine that he could openly say and express these kinds of things safely. The inner belief is that everyone will have contempt. It’s a shock to see love and respect instead, so then the inner messages and feelings get even more confusing. Men come out in blame and abuse because they haven’t been trained that expressing their feelings is a gift. Question: Marshall, how do you take care of yourself? Marshall: Well, what’s not wonderful about being in touch with whatever is alive? For those who have pain about what they’ve stimulated in another, then mourn in Giraffe, either within or with the other person, they’ll come out of it with something beautiful. Question: Where is the point where you let it go, just drop the issue? Marshall: You never know what’s right until after you’ve done it. If the behavior mucks up your life, then you’ll know it wasn’t useful. There is no right thing. You made a choice and met a need. So the forgiveness is in admitting that I just made a choice — I wanted to protect myself, and so I chose that behavior. There wasn’t a wrong or right choice. SPIRITUALITY AND NVC. Question: [I couldn’t hear the woman in the back of the room very well. I think she acknowledged hearing the spiritual underpinnings of NVC and asked Marshall why he doesn’t mention them very much.] Marshall: People have not had good experience with white men preaching spirituality. So I’m hearing your gratefulness at a very great depth. Some years ago, a woman with a strange accent, who was older than most in the group, came to my training in San Diego. She stared at me the whole time. Afterward, she came up to me and said, "The next time you come to my town, would you stay at my house because there are some questions I want to ask you." At that time I was traveling a lot and needed a place to stay. So I did. I couldn’t imagine what she had on her mind. So I’m eating at her house, and she says, "May I ask you the questions now? Why do you hide the spirituality in the process?" I said, I’m glad you see that. I hadn’t really thought that I hide that. I trust that people come to see it. I’m reluctant to talk to people about it because the results have been that I find myself with experiences of people who feel very sensitive about the subject and my talking about it — Native Americans, Blacks. So I said that I don’t see that I hide it. It’s more that people come to it. She said, "Well doesn’t it drive you crazy when people use it mechanically as a technique?" So it started a dialogue of how to get the spiritual part of the message integrated and heard without falling into stimulating a feeling of boredom, because historically people have taken the beauty out of these messages and turned it into something ugly. ROLE PLAY #3. Marshall is again a brother. M: You want to protect yourself because it’s been so painful in the past, you feel kind of hopeless to create the quality of connection you want with me. Her: Whenever I’ve seen you in the past years, you were drinking, making jokes about sex, you would forget about anything that was said. M: So you’re worried about not being able to connect. Her: I’m confused. I’m wanting connection and at the same time giving up. When I look at you I feel very sad about what I see. You’ve become very different from what I knew when I was a small girl. You’re some kind of ghost-- constantly smoking and drinking, agitated. M: Its painful for you. You hope that I could enjoy life more. Your need for my well-being and happiness is not being met. You’re in pain because your need for my well-being isn’t being met to your satisfaction. Her: Yes, and one of the ways I could connect with you is if we could both admit that inside you’re not feeling the way you are showing me. M: So if your assessment is accurate, then you hope we could talk about it. That would give you some hope that maybe something could change. It’s doubly painful when you don’t see an openness to talk about it. I’m wondering what need of yours is being met when you’re so concerned about my well-being. Her: I enjoyed your beauty so much when you were a child. Now there is the pain I still have about the one incident where there was sexual abuse, which is still affecting me. M: So you still recall with longing the beauty of what you saw in me, how much you enjoyed aspects of me. And its painful for you now when you see such a contrast. You still have very painful feelings about the experience that we had. Her: Yes. And when my mother, our mother, died of August last year, there was a family reunion. I had tried one or two times to mention this, not to blame you, M: So you’re frustrated when your need for honesty between us cant be gotten. Its very painful for you. Her: I have such embarrassment to have been involved with sexual abuse and having the family members know about it. What’s worse is that my sister who’s a physician said, "So what? I see small children even who have bruises. So now I’m resenting my sister as well. I just want you to know that I haven’t healed from that. M: You want some understanding that the pain is still with you. My reaction and your sister’s and others’ left you feeling very alone with your pain. You have sadness that you couldn’t have had the connection. Can you imagine getting this empathy from us? Her: Takes a lot of imagination! M: I sense you have enormous sadness about the hopelessness of your position. You just want some understanding of the pain that was created. You just want some understanding of the suffering that was stimulated in you by that experience. I’d like to hear what’s still alive in you right now. I want to hear about what you felt at that time that makes you want to talk about what happened. Her: I don’t know what kind of pain it is. Sadness maybe. I want to protect myself. M: Deep sadness. You’re aware of how frightened you are, how much fear is left in you, especially of men, what can happen between you and men. Her: I have fear that if I open up that sense of invasion will come back. M: So you need to protect your space. If you open up, things will get past where you’re comfortable. Her: I’m afraid of losing connection with myself if I get too close. I’m confused about what I need. It’s not just you, brother. It’s all the men in my family, the violence, physical and in other ways. It’s a strange combination of unpredictable sweetness and then suddenly violence. I never know when it will switch. Now I’m back in how much I was enjoying your beauty before and how much I lose by protecting myself. It affects how I am with men I meet now, M: You’re afraid to move in that direction because of what you said, that things can happen that you don’t want to happen, you’ll maybe lose connection with yourself. You’re afraid of what might happen trying to get connection and warmth. It’s the same ambivalence with men you meet, you’re afraid things might get out of hand and you’ll lose connection with your needs. Her: I don’t trust myself anymore. I wish you had taken care of your distress in our family in some way other than at my cost. I remember the fear I had then ,. M: What is your feeling now when you remember that fear? Her: I just have tension. M: You feel tense right now as you recall that fear. Her: And I remember a third person, my mother. I’m having compassion for the difficult situation of the little girl I was, the disgust and confusion. It was a fear of death if my mother had come at that moment, the door was open, M: So you’re telling me that now because of what need? You’re getting further from the present the more you focus on the past. Is there anything else alive in you right now that you want me to hear? Her: What’s still alive is the compassion I feel for that little girl and how she handled her loneliness at that time. And I’m losing connection with myself and not enjoying it. M: Perhaps you don’t have any more feelings right now. Her: Well, I’m in some kind of limbo right now. I get scared when I go blank like this that you’ll leave me in the middle of this. I need some kind of completion with this. I need reassurance that you won’t leave right away, that you’ll stay awhile until then. I’m interpreting this silence as you preparing to leave, even though I know you get very empathetic in silence. 3rd Person: Are you afraid that you’ll never get healed from this pain? Her: It’s that there are so many other things, too. M: So you’re overwhelmed with how many things you have over so many years, how you’ll ever get it sorted out. Her: And when I join a community like this, I get in more trouble with pain coming up from the past. M: So instead of being able to connect with the present community in a healing way, you are afraid of replicating the past and never getting your needs met. So you want me, your brother, to understand how what has happened in the past continues to affect your relationships with others. Are there any feelings you want to talk to me about that are alive in you right now? Her: I’m aware of the comfort of 3rd Person’s hand on my back. M: As your brother, I’m wanting to know of the feelings that are alive in you right now in relationship to me. Her: Well it’s a relief to be talking to you when you’re not smoking or drinking. M: Is there anything else you want me to hear, or do you want to hear anything from me? Her: I’d like to know how you feel right now. Would you make a connection with me? M: I feel very sad that I haven’t been able to meet your need for understanding and closeness, and I would like to have been in a position to have provided that and contributed to your well being. I would like to have been more present and not caught up in alcohol and smoking. I’m sad at how much that affects me and the people around me, and how it cuts me off from life. You’re helping me understand some of the confusion that I felt in our sexual experience. Your fear of getting close, I was confused, because there was an attachment. I got confused as to how all of the different needs within me could be sorted out and how to be clear about them. I was very frightened about what happened between us. Is there anything else you want to hear from me right now? 3rd Person: (whispering to her, are you feeling angry?) Her: When I hear that you were frightened, I get angry. I don’t believe it. You just got your rocks off at my expense. Now there is no trace of fear in you. You were just taking advantage of me. M: I’m hearing a lot of anger, lack of trust in me. You’re still very angry about not having your needs considered. Her: No they weren’t. Damn right. M: Would you like me to hear more about your pain or whatever? I have more to say, but if you’re in too much pain to hear that, then I can hear more from you first. Her: (says more angry statements) M: I’d like to hear more of what you want, to make sure your need is understood. I need to have you be able to trust what I say. So I’m willing to hear the pain in you that keeps you from that. Her: I want you to know it’s not OK to take advantage of someone to get your needs met. And I wish you had done that some other way then. You have plenty of imagination. M: You want your needs to be met and to have consideration without someone taking care of their needs at your expense. Her: I’m holding back this anger. I don’t want to be a Jackal and say a lot of judgments. M: You’re full of judgments about yourself, which makes it hard to get it out. Her: Yes, I’d like to smash your face bloody. And shake you awake. M: You want me to understand the pain you have. And you think I’d understand that if you made me feel pain. Her: It’s that you go on talking about sex all the time. And that’s something I want to leave behind. And I’m confused. On one hand sex is no big deal, on the other it triggers this pain. And whatever I say I have a fear I won’t be heard. And I’m getting nervous about taking time here. I blank out and feel scared about losing connection. M: So you feel hopeless. And what’s most alive is the fear of going blank. And I’m getting fatigued listening to you, and I would like to be able to take care of my need to do something else without stimulating a feeling of rejection. So how could I let you know my needs without you getting it mixed up with rejection? Would you let me know how I could phrase my need so you won’t hear rejection. That leaves me with the choice that I can’t express my needs or if I do, then you’ll see it as rejection, which will make things worse next time. Her: What makes you fatigued? M: I’m fatigued from the time and energy it takes for me to stay with you when you’re not in your feelings and needs. My fear is that you’ll want me to listen beyond my endurance, and then next time there will be another round of pain, only deeper because it will be one more time where it’s no use talking, etc. Would you tell me what I said? Her: Would stopping now and continuing later work? M: Well, that depends. I want to protect myself from getting into this place again. Her: I am willing to stop now. I hear the danger that I could take it personally. I’m going to think about that. M: I’m satisfied with that much reassurance. And I’d be willing to talk again. Every time she started to talk about the past, I brought her back to her present feeling that was being stimulated by the past feeling. As soon as she started to go into the past, my energy started to drop, and that’s my cue to look for the person’s feeling and need and bring them back to the present. Her present pain was too great for her to give me empathy for what I was trying to say. She wasn’t able to hear me right now , not because of the past, but because of what’s alive in her right now. ESSENTIAL NVC PRINCIPLE FINDING THE FEELING BEHIND THE BLANKNESS. Question: How to get past the hump of going blank? M: First, be quiet for however long it takes. A week, a month. Don’t talk. And don’t try to figure it out. The more you think, the more you look, the more the feeling will hide. Just listen. Then the feeling will come. The only time it hides is when you look and when you think. BEING A THERAPIST V. AUTHENTIC PRESENCE. Question: Do you have concern about leaving someone in an unfinished place? I ask because I’m a therapist. M: I try never to be a therapist when I’m in the role of counselor, when I’m in a healing role. I hope that we can reach a point where both of our needs get met. I didn’t want to lead her to her anger because she wasn’t angry at that moment (when 3rd Person asked her if she was angry). I didn’t get into the second phase of mourning because she wasn’t finished with feelings that were alive in her now. When she’s in too much pain she can’t hear. INTERRUPTING IN GIRAFFE. Question: I’d like to hear a way to interrupt in a way that communicates my intentions. Often this triggers pain in the other person about my not being willing to be there with them. M: The person picks up the irritation if we don’t interrupt soon enough, after that first word that was more than I wanted to hear. Say: It would really help me listen to you if you could tell me what you want from me when you say these things. You don’t want anything? Then can I read while you tell me? I’ll kill you if you do! [laughter] When I expressed my fatigue, she realized that by the time she got through 99% of what was bothering her, my brain was burned out. EYE CONTACT DURING EMPATHY. Question: I noticed there wasn’t much looking at or even facing each other during the exercise. M: Eye contact and looking at people is a cultural thing. In my case, I listen much better to what’s alive in someone when I’m not looking at them. I do that if they tell me they need that, but I actually do better when I look elsewhere. And the other person can be so fearful of their feelings that they may lose contact with themselves if they look at me. I hope that every relationship we have with another is good psychotherapy. Martin Buber said he didn’t think you could do psychotherapy as a therapist. Carl Rogers asked what he meant. Buber said, You know from my writings that people heal when they have an authentic connection with an authentic human being. And that doesn’t happen when one has the label as a therapist and the other is a patient. Rogers said he thought therapists could heal themselves of that. Buber said it’s the process of the patient having to make an appointment and pay a fee that destroys the authenticity that’s necessary for healing to take place. ESSENTIAL NVC PRINCIPLE GETTING OUT OF BEING STUCK IN PAST TRAUMA. Question: How can someone who has experienced something traumatic and has a need to be heard not get stuck in the past? M: If we’re into healing, we don’t have to have them tell the story. It will get in the way with healing. We don’t need intellectual understanding. We need empathy, which is probably what we’re needing most of the time. When we need to be understood, we have this misguided idea that we have to tell what happened. But it’s what is alive in us right now in relationship to what happened that is the key. As I think about a past trauma right now, here’s what happens — I lose touch with my present feelings because I get lost in telling the story. I need to be conscious of what is alive in me now, not to go back and re-experience and re-tell the story. There’s always a need behind telling the story, if the need is for empathy, then often the story is a destructive strategy for getting that need met. All you have to do is remember that experience, but you don’t have to talk about what happened in the past. Stay with the present feelings and needs that are stimulated by being there. [Review the three phases of healing on page 28.] DOMINATION STRUCTURES. How to stay human under difficult conditions when someone has power over you: Bring attention to needs rather than to requests. Keep our consciousness on our feelings, but with other people search for language that will connect us at the need level, because otherwise it’s too weird for people who aren’t used to it. Avoid thinking in terms of labels. The #1 thing in this kind of structure is never to see a "boss," someone in charge of us. Don’t get caught in the labels. That’s hard when you have to go through 3 secretaries to get to the big guy. And then he seats you on a little potty seat by the door while he’s on the big throne. I would leave my house in the morning determined to be a human being at the university, and after the 3rd student that morning had come cringing with some question or other, then I’d get caught in it and say, Can’t you see I haven’t had my coffee this morning? When I’m training people how to stay human in that setting and they’re nervous about an appointment with the big boss, I say, Do the exercise of taking 10 minutes to see them on the toilet. Someone suggested the book "Your Money or Your Life" as being potentially helpful. The co-author is in the group (Monica, who does the bookstore with Jim). Avoid self-Jackaling. Don’t give them the power to get you thinking that you did anything wrong. Don’t give them the power to make you rebel or submit. You may need to do your empathy silently. In the Jackal world, the only way to be safe is to be a nice, dead person. GRATITUDE. We’ll look at several aspects, that which we would have liked to receive and didn’t, how to be sure we don’t mix up reward with the intention in gratitude, how to express gratitude in a way that is rich for people and not mixed up with compliments or praise, and how to receive gratitude. Let me make clear once again that we don’t want to get gratitude mixed up with reward. Never use it as a reward. Reward is dehumanizing. Many parents and teachers have been taught to give children compliments to build up their self esteem and to get them to do what they want. Gratitude is too beautiful to use as a manipulation to get people to produce. What if I just want the person to like themselves? If it works, you’ve conditioned them to like you or anyone who tells them they’re a good boy. We do this so that when people get into industry they will work for smiles, pats on the back, do what their bosses tell them. Positive judgments are just as dehumanizing as negative. In either, we’re putting ourself in the role of God and telling the other person what they are. We want to communicate a celebration of life. Life has been made more wonderful for me by something someone has done. I’m not doing it to buy something from them or so they’ll like themselves more. ESSENTIAL NVC PRINCIPLE HOW TO GIVE GRATITUDE. We need to make three things clear when we give gratitude: What specific action I want to celebrate that made life more wonderful. How I feel now as I recall this action. What needs of mine were fulfilled. When the person hears just these 3 things and sees there is no other game or manipulation, when they receive that, they have a jolt of Giraffe energy. It’s like fuel. It’s a natural reaction when they see how their actions enrich life. It’s a natural joy. And the more we experience that joy, the more energy we have, which is what we need in order to keep living a Giraffe life in a world that makes it a challenge to do so. So that’s why it’s so important that this is the center of the work setting, of a relationship. We need to keep telling employees how their actions are making life more wonderful. EXERCISE: Part 1 — Think of a gratitude you would love to have heard from someone but didn’t, because they didn’t say it. What would it have sounded like if they had said gratitude in this way? Thank you for staying up 91til midnight just listening to me pour out my hurts, sorrows and frustrations. I’ve been needing to have someone listen quietly without advice, etc., just hearing me. I feel more connected with you now, which I especially like since you’re my sister. Part 2 — The second part is to use your imagination and go to this person and say, I was just in a workshop and we did an exercise on gratitude. And we were asked to describe a gratitude we would have loved to hear from someone. I picked you, and I’d like to read out loud to you what I would have loved to hear. Id like you to tell me what kept you from telling me this. Write down their answer (use Jackal if that is what they would say). Samples from class participants: 1st person: I thought you knew that. 2st person: I did tell you thank you. I said it’s time consuming planning workshops. 3nd person: You call that support? What about what I really do? I could have stayed home with the kids and you could be out working. Marshall: OK, so give 3rd Person some empathy. When Jackals need empathy the most, they’re communicating in a way that makes it the hardest to give it to them. Look at how the poor Jackal communicates, J: Yeah, some gratitude would be OK once in awhile. You: "Oh I can see we both need some gratitude. I feel sad that we’re both under such pressure that we don’t take time to celebrate each other. How about if we take 10 minutes a day to celebrate our relationship? Person: Well, we’ve been through that stuff. Marshall: OK, then we can use the 10 minutes to express whatever we want to say. Marshall’s example: A mental ward patient returned 2 days early from her home visit furlough and had been crying ever since. Marshall called the husband. He said, "you haven’t fixed Her, Doc. She came home and cooked and cleaned and asked me to say something positive about the meal. I said, 91well I’m eating it, ain’t I?’" I’ve learned that people would still have liked to have heard gratitude, even if they understood it was in my heart or attitude. Marshall’s next example: A man picks his wife to work on, Marshall: Tell her what she did. Man: When we started to have kids some 20 years ago, you had your own way of doing it and, well, it wasn’t how I woulda done it, you know. And now I see how it turned out, and I like it. And if I’d done it my way, it would have been terrible. Marshall: Good start. Now tell her how you feel. Man: I feel you were right. Marshall: No, no. That’s not a feeling. Tell her how you feel. Man: Well, you know when I think of, well, I feel grateful, boo hoo hoo, ,and he starts to cry. I look around the room and nearly all the other men are crying, too. The German translator and I look at each other. Is this the same group? (This was a bunch of gruff, poker-faced German business men). The rest of the time, this man never said another word. But when the workshop was over and it was announced that I was moving on to another city to give a presentation, he rushed up and wanted to register. I knew it was already full, but sensing his urgency, I said, "of course." Part 3 — Now, think of something that enriched your life, and you express gratitude in Giraffe either classically or idiomatically to make these 3 points clear. When you stayed up 91til midnight telling me your sorrows and hopes about your girls, I was very touched. I’ve been wanting to get to know you and see what’s behind the brother I like and admire so much. We get more out of the transaction when we include these 3 things. Likewise, people would rather hear this as a way to say I love you. They really like the classical thing when it really comes from the heart and includes these three things. How would the person receive this? Even if it embarrasses people, they still want to hear it. Think what might be going on in him that would make him have trouble hearing you, make it hard to receive your gratitude, e.g., I don’t deserve it, you don’t mean it, I’m supposed to be humble. There’s a vulnerability that comes up when we see the power we have to meet other people’s needs. "The Secret of Staying in Love" by Powell mourns that he never expressed gratitude to his father because he didn’t know how to deal with his feelings of hatred. He said that behind all that anger was such gratitude as well, but by then his father was no longer alive. After reading that book, I made a list of the gratitude I hadn’t expressed yet. I thought of my father. It was so important that I do this. I was on the road traveling, but I didn’t want to miss the opportunity. He answered the phone and I started to cry because the gratitude was so strong. And then he didn’t know if I was being held for ransom or what. I scared the poor man half to death. They may take it wrong, etc., but it’s too important not to get it out. Later, he said "I want to go over this again." I told him, "I really want you to hear how much it’s meant to me, many of the things you have done." It was torture for the poor man to repeat back to me. "Wait, wait, Dad! Could you just tell me..." The poor guy would rather have been beaten. But I’ll tell you, he thanked me for that repeatedly. He told me for years afterward how meaningful that was. He could never recall any gratitude that was told to him by his parents. I believe in tormenting people sometimes. If they’re going to be tormented by gratitude, then let’s get them used to it. I say, "Excuse me, excuse me, Id like you to know how painful it is to me to express gratitude and not be really sure that you got it. Just tell me these three things. I’d like to make that feeling just a little clearer. My need was really met for X." Just keep pounding. It’s important to them that we keep it up until they hear, because we all need gratitude. A class participant spoke up and said it took him awhile to get used to realizing he liked being appreciated. "Thank you" is idiomatic Giraffe for gratitude. If you know the person will receive these 3 things, that they can see it in your eyes, then "thank you" is enough. HOW TO RECEIVE GRATITUDE EMPATHICALLY. I had to tame those Jackals in my head to allow me to take it in. A friend wrote me a song to show me how painful it was not to have gratitude received. Then later she had trouble receiving my gratitude. Marshall sings his friend’s song: "To stand before a gift of self unable to receive, why is it so hard to believe that love could come to me? Your trust affirms my love for you and lets my loving live. To give is domination if I’m not also willing to receive." EXERCISE: Keep a journal and start by thinking what you did that made life wonderful for yourself or another. Write down exactly what you did, how you feel as you’re writing, what needs were met. Take time to savor and really take this in, to see the power you have to enrich life and how good that feels. Think of what someone else did in the previous 24 hours and do the same thing, savor how they enriched life. Sometimes you might find out you didn’t say your gratitude to the other person, and now you can get another shot at it and go back and do that. IDIOMATIC GIRAFFE. "Stop, you’re an idiot" is idiomatic Giraffe when it’s an agreed code because it’s shorter than the full-blown "it’s not in harmony with my needs" classical Giraffe statement. "Stop, you’re an idiot!" was the code set up in one instance at the request of a violin student to his teacher. Then there’s the common Jackal line, "[whining voice] You never listen to me..." Reply: "that’s why." Their surprise and "huh?" will give you the opening to point out the tone of voice and why it doesn’t meet your need. A young man who had been traveling and going with me into prisons as a student saw me riding a group hard and afterward looked up toward me and said, "dictator." He knew that I’d know in that context what he was referring to. He was giving me gratitude. And I knew he was communicating admiration and excitement. "Classical Giraffe" is a learning tool. The idea is to get us connected in a certain way. It doesn’t matter how — we don’t have to use certain words. Here’s a dialog: Person: I hate it when you talk NVC to me. You talk like I’m a 3-year old. Giraffe: (making attempt at "classical Giraffe" empathic feedback) Are you feeling annoyed because you need,. ? Person: There you go again. Giraffe: You just want us to speak more naturally? Person: See what I mean? Marshall: Hear the need for authenticity. (Marshall Role plays the Giraffe): You hate games being played on you. Person: Yeah. Marshall: This is more idiomatic than, "are you annoyed and needing to trust that, etc.?" Or you can do it silently. Hear the need for respect, acceptance, equality. Idiomatic Giraffe might be to say nothing. Hear from "there you go again" that she wants me to learn from what she’s saying, and doesn’t want to hear unless she can trust the message is coming from a place of equality, etc. Also, think about your intentionality — are you getting lost in the method? or coming from the intentionality, the purpose? You don’t want to do the mechanics without the consciousness. Prepare people that we’re practicing something new. We can prevent a lot of these common problems if we go home and have a session with the family that will communicate to them why we’ll be sounding weird for awhile. You might use a dialog something like: I’m going to be asking for something pretty funny. I hope you can remember what it is not — it’s not because I think you’re stupid and I’m a teacher. I’ve been coming from a safe place where I haven’t been showing much of my heart. This takes more courage to come from my heart. So like now, Id like someone here to ask me if you heard what I said. It wasn’t easy and I want to know how it came across. This probably isn’t necessary if we’re living with someone like a flight control operator or a surgeon — they never assume that message sent is message received. But other than that, we need to educate people, because most of us live in a Jackal world where we take turns using the other person as a waste basket for our words. Who cares whether anyone hears you or not? So that’s one thing we need to educate people about. Say to them, The thing is that I’m going to reflect back, and I’m doing this to make sure I’m hearing correctly. This preparatory about why we’ll be sounding weird can prevent a lot of trouble. OPEN SESSION ON QUESTIONS. Question: Do you use the puppets when you talk to these executives you tell us about? Marshall: [laughter] I never anticipated what settings I’d wind up using them in. The woman organizing my workshop at Standard Oil one time called to remind me to bring the puppets. I said I wasn’t sure the executives would exactly appreciate them. And she replied, "how do you think I got them to agree to have you come?" And prisons, it looked to me like this was not a puppet crowd. Whatever gave me the craziness to bring one out of my bag, I don’t know. I’ll never forget the big guy who pushed someone out of the way to get to the front... "Lemme talk to that Jackal!" Then the Israeli police... I worked with them a full year before I thought I could risk it. When I took these puppets out of the bag with that group, the assistant police administrator wanted to run out of the room.