The following presentation is from a 1 day Introductory Workshop held in San Francisco, CA
NVC Marshall Rosenberg - San Francisco Workshop - FULL ENGLISH SUBTITLES TRANSCRIPTION
First let me begin by clarifying the purpose of Nonviolent Communication. Its purpose is to help you to do what you already know how to do. Why do we need to learn something today that you already know how to do? Because sometimes we forget to do this. We forget because we've been educated to forget.
Now what is it that i'm talking about that we already know how to do? The purpose of this process is to help us to connect in a way that makes natural giving possible.
01:01 What do I mean by natural giving? Let me do you a song to make it clear what i mean by natural giving.
I never feel more given to than when you take from me – when you understand the joy I feel giving to you.
And you know my giving isn’t done to put you in my debt, but because I want to live the love I feel for you.
To receive with grace may be the greatest giving. There’s no way I can separate the two.
When you give to me, I give you my receiving. When you take from me, I feel so given to.
- Ruth Bebermeyer
You all know that giving, you know how to do it, and that's what i'm interested in. Remembering to stay with that quality of giving, moment by moment, in any connection. But we also all know that it's easy to lose that connection, so that instead of enjoying that quality of giving which is possible every moment in every contact we have. In spite of how precious that is we forget.
Instead of playing the game that song is about which i call making life wonderful for us, it's the most fun game i've ever heard. Instead, much of the time we play another game called who's right? have you ever played that game? It's a game where everybody loses. Isn't this amazing? We all know about this quality of giving that this song is about, it's possible every moment, we find that the richest thing to do.
The game of who's right involves two of the most devious things human beings have ever come upon.
one: punishment.
Cause if you're wrong in the game of who's right, you deserve to suffer. Can you imagine a more diabolical concept to educate people? If you haven't already abstained from punishment i'm sure by the end of the day that will no longer be a part of your consciousness no more punishment.
We won't do it in our families we'll get rid of it with criminals. It just makes things more violent. We'll find other ways to deal with other nations beside punishment.
No more punishment, No more reward it's the same game.
It's part of the game of who's right. When you're right than you get rewarded, wrong you get punished.
no more. it's created enough violence on the planet. no more guilt induction. no more shame. no more concepts of duty and obligation. Just what the song is about natural giving.
How did we get off target? We get off target, according to walter wink theologian who writes in his book "The powers that be" we got off target about 5000 years ago, because we started to get some wild thinking that human beings are innately evil.
When you believe that human beings are innately evil than the things aren't going as we would, like what's the corrective process. The corrective process is penitence. The people are evil you think that the way to bring about change when people are behaving in the way you don't like is to make people hate themselves for what they did.
For these political reasons and theological reasons we started to develop a language that i call jackal language that cuts us off from life and makes it very easy to do to be violent very easy to be violent.
In that book i mentioned wink says that in domination cultures, one of the things you have to educate people is to make violence enjoyable. We've done a good job with that we make violence enjoyable in our culture. Two hours a night from seven to nine when children are watching the television the most. In 75% of the programs they watch the hero kills somebody or beats them up, and when does this happen? At the climax of the program.
We've been educated for quite a while to make violence enjoyable. Even thought i think what that song was about is really closer to our nature, this natural giving, we've been educated to make violence enjoyable, educated in a way we can even be violent to our children.
Jackal language is language of moralistic judgment, thinking in terms of who's right who's wrong who's bad. When you mention change, yes we want change at times, so how you get change in the jackal system?
Watch a parent tryin' to bring about change in the child. This is the parent teaching a young child. One of the most important words in jackal:
Say you're sorry
i'm sowy
You're not really sorry i can see it you're not really sorry
i'm sorry
okay i forgive you
can you imagine a game like that? can you imagine a parent responding to a child that way? If a parent is gonna do that to a child in their own family what are they gonna do to people from other cultures who behave in a way they don't appreciate?
Of course you're gonna have violence wherever you've got this thinking. In cultures that do not have this thinking, you don't see violence.
That's how we got off target. Even though we could be playing the game "make life wonderful each moment", we have been educated for quiet a while to play another game - "who's right?"
What are the parts of this game of who's right?
I've just mentioned one of them one part is moralistic judgment. Learning how to go up to our head and think in terms of right and wrong, good and bad, normal abnormal. I learned this game very well. I speak several dialects of jackal.
I grew up in detroit, we spoke a rather harsh dialect of jackal. We might call it detroit jackal. For example, if i'm out driving and someone is driving in the way that i don't like, and again i want to instill change. I roll down the window, "idiot!" Now theoretically the person is supposed to repent. I confess, i was wrong sir, i will change the error of my ways.
It's a great theory, it doesn't work. I've tried it more than once it doesn't work so i thought maybe it was because that particular dialect of jackal, so i decided to get a more cultured use of jackal. I went to the university and got a doctor's degree in professional jackal. When somebody's driving in a way i don't like i roll down the window, "psychopath!" Still doesn't work.
(0:10:33)
There's another part of this language of jackal language.
Amtsprache. A language that denies choice, denies the responsibility for our actions. I use the word amtsprache for this, having read an interview with the nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.
At his trial for war crimes in Jerusalem, Eichmann was asked, Was it hard to send tens of thousands of people to their death? Eichmann answered, "to tell you the truth. It was easy. Our language made it easy."
That interview shocked that answer is shocked. His interview. His interviewer said, what language I come out and said, in fact, my fellow Nazi officers and I, we had our own name for our language. We called it amtsprache.
Amt in german means office and sprache means language. I'd call that bureaucratic language.
He was asked for some examples, Mon said, it's the language in which you deny responsibility for your actions. If somebody asks you why you did it, you say I had to, then you don't feel so bad. If you have to do it, you're not responsible. Why did you have to? jackal? - "Superior's orders. Company policy. They made me do it. I couldn't do elsewise." very dangerous language, amtsprache.
We had giraffe schools - i use the word giraffe as a symbol for non-violence. We'll see today that the language we're gonna study is the language of the heart. I use giraffe language for that, because giraffes have the largest heart of any land animal.
Giraffe requires always being conscious of choice. We never do anything that we don't choose to do. I was teaching giraffe to a group of parents and teachers in one community. We have giraffe schools throughout the world. We have five in israel, four in palestine some in serbia, and so forth.
In giraffe schools of course we wanna make sure that certainly that the teachers and parents never use amtsprache.
One of the most dangerous languages in the world to teach a child "You have to do something. There are some things you just have to do."
I was saying this one time in St Louis, Missouri, to a group of parents and teachers. A mother got very upset. She said, but there are some things you have to do, whether you like to do it or not. It's our job as parents to teach our children what they have to do. i mean there's things i do every day that i hate to do, but there just are some things you have to do.
I said, could you give me an example?
She said, well, easy. There's so many. Let me think. Okay. Like when I leave here tonight, I have to go home and cook. I hate to cook. I hate it with a passion, but I've done it every day for 20 years. Even when I've been sick, I said, I'll be very happy today to show you another way of thinking another language that I hope would open up, happier possibilities for you. Well, I'm pleased to report. She was a rapid giraffe student. She went home that very evening and announced her family that she no longer wanted to cook.
I got some feedback from her family. The feedback came two weeks later when i swung through that city again and was doing an evening workshop and who shows up but her two older sons, she had four sons, they came up at the beginning to introduce themselves. I said, Hey, I'm glad you guys came up here. I've been very curious. What's going on in your family? Your mother's been calling me regularly telling me about all the changes she made in her life since the training?
What happened that first night when she came home and announced that she no longer wanted to cook?
The oldest son said to me, Marshall, I said to myself, thank God.
I said, help me understand that one.
He said, I said to myself, Maybe she won't complain at every meal.
You see natural giving what I started the day off with that song. Anything we do in life that isn't coming out of that energy, we pay for it. Everybody else pays for anything. We do out of fear of punishment. If we don't, everybody pays for it. Anything we do for a reward, everybody pays for it. Everything we do to make people like us, everybody pays for it. Everything we do out of guilt, shame, duty obligation. Everybody pays for it. That isn't what we were designed for.
(0:16:07) Marshall. Yes. I'm over here. My son brought me to one of your seminars and I met you some 10 years ago, in Oakland. I'm trying to bring my son back, and he said last night when I told him I was coming here, he said, well, why don't you go? I have a couple of appointments. Maybe you could teach me something. I thought I would come to learn something. I'd like to teach him to at least give me the time of day to communicate with him. He doesn't do that willingly. When I try to demand it becomes worse. Yes. How do I do that?
That'll be a good situation to work on today. Cause I'm going to ask everyone to think of a situation right now where somebody's behaving in a way you don't like. In this case, it's your son who, when you ask him to communicate, he says, no.
To have that as an objective is itself creating problems. Let's change the objective, let's never try to teach anybody anything or to change anybody. That's your objective. You'll create resistance. That'd be my first suggestion today. Never try to teach anybody anything or to change anybody.
What do you do then give up?
No.
This thinking that's been shaped in us by jackal, the game of who's right. Win, lose. If we can't change and win, the other option, we think, is to be a chump and lose. We've been educated to think in those two ways, win, lose, right wrong.
Okay. Let's get into it. Let's give you a chance to practice it. Some of you have already thought of a situation such as somebody you want very much to communicate with. They say no.
Think of somebody at the moment who is behaving in a way that is not making life wonderful for you. You'd like to get to the place that the song was about, where everybody's needs can get met. People are giving to one another from the heart willingly, not out of coercion.
Let's see if we can show you a process to get there in this situation to get everybody's needs met and where people give willingly, not out of any coercion.
Maybe you are living at home. Maybe you choose today to work on a child that you were living with at home, who says horrible Jackal things such as "no".
(0:19:05) Oh, you laugh. You try living with one for a while. Maybe you are living at home with a Jackal speaking partner who says horrible Jackal things such as "it hurts me when you say that".
We'll see today that it's a violent act to say others make you feel, as you do, to imply that others can make you feel hurt or angry.
Maybe it works. Somebody's behaving in a way you don't like. They come late. They're not producing as well as you would like. Maybe your next door neighbor has been sexually molesting children. You want to pick somebody who's behaving in a way you don't like. You'd like to see how we would arrive at the objective of creating the quality of connection that will get everybody's needs met through natural giving that's our objectives.
Open up your materials to the second to the last page at the top, it says expressing how we are and what we would like.
Think of someone who does something that makes life less than wonderful for you.
This person that I'm asking you to think about, who's presently behaving in a way you're not crazy about. What I'd like you to do is answer this question right here. One thing that the person does that you don't like, we're going to work on one specific action that the person does that you don't like, to get you familiar with the process today. Maybe the person does several things, but we're going to show you how the process works by showing you how to communicate with the person about one specific thing they do.
Write down one thing this person does that you don't like.
When I was here in San Francisco, working with the school system, back in the seventies, the superintendent of schools asked me to go into an elementary school. He said, the parents are complaining about the quality of relationship between these teachers and the administrator. They said the tension in the school is so great that the parents want to take their children out of the school.
He asked if I would go in and see if I could open up better communication between the staff and the administrator. The plan was I would meet first with the teachers and then get the teachers and the administrator together.
In my meeting with the teachers, I started with the question that I just asked you. I said to the teachers, can you tell me one thing that the administrator does that makes it hard for you to work with him? I was asking for an observation, a concrete behavior, what is one thing he does?
The first teacher to respond said this. He has a big mouth.
Can you see the difference between the question I asked and the answer I got? I did not ask what size mouth he had. This teacher was giving me an evaluation and analysis that implies wrongness. We've been so trained to think that way, that sometimes we can't separate fact and opinion, we always see is our enemy image.
Whether it's an individual or a nation, we have been trained to think in enemy images, wrongness, and it obscures reality. We don't see the behavior. We just see our enemy image.
In his book "Out of weakness" Andrew Schmookler says that when cultures are taught to think this way, not to just see the person, but an image, a judgment they've made, bombs are never far away.
I pointed this out to the gentlemen that this was not an answer to my question. I wanted to know one thing principal did. This man was stuck here. He just couldn't get it. The woman sitting next to him, tried to help. She says, well, I know what he's referring to. I said, okay, help him out. What? What's one thing that the principal does, he talks too much.
Too much is a judgment. I asked for an observation, not a judgment. This is how Jackal speaking people think they really have been brought up to think there is such a thing as a just right amount of everything, and too much, and too little and that they know what it is.
It doesn't make resolving conflicts too easy, with them, when people have an idea that there's a right and a too much in a too little and they know what it is. Especially when they mix it up with an observation.
I was just asking, what does the person do? Again, for the second time, this person couldn't see the behavior separate from the judgment. A third person tried to help. Well, I know what they're talking about. Okay. He thinks he's the only one that has anything worth saying.
Telling me what you think he thinks is an evaluation you're making of what you think is going on in his head. I was asking for what does he do?
(0:25:07) A fourth woman said he wants to be the center of attention all the time. I said, now you're giving me a judgment or a diagnosis of his motives. Even if it's accurate, it's a diagnosis of his motives. It's not an observable behavior. My question was, what does he do now? The entire faculty sits there, quiet. Nobody can answer the question. One of the women said to me, boy, Marshall, that's hard to do. Yes.
The philosopher Krishnamurti says that to observe without evaluating is the highest form of human intelligence.
Those of us who have been taught to think in these enemy images immediately to think right wrong, good, bad, normal, abnormal, appropriate inappropriate to this too, that we can't see reality. All we see is our enemy images.
With great help with it, with great effort on my part, I finally got them to get rid of the images and answer this simple question. What does he do?
It was several things, but the one that they wanted particularly to start working with him on was this, that during their once a week faculty meetings, regardless of what was on the agenda, he would relate it to a war experience or a childhood experience. The average meeting lasted 20 minutes longer than it was scheduled. Okay.
That answered my question of what he did. He talked about war experiences, childhood experiences, rather than sticking to the agenda.
I said, have you called that to his attention? They said, well, we can see now that when we tried to talk to him about it, these other judgments get mixed in and he gets defensive. They thought it wouldn't be a good idea to talk to them about it, but they ask if I would be at the meeting just in case. I attended their next staff meeting and I saw rather quickly what they were talking about because almost as soon as an issue came up, the principal would say, Oh, that reminds me of a time. He would start to tell a story. I was waiting for somebody to confront him on this in giraffe. But instead of that, there was a lot of nonverbal, Jackal going on, people were going like this, rolling their eyes, poking the person next to them, yawning, looking at their watches, holding the watches up to the ear.
I watched this scenario going on for a while and I said, excuse me, but isn't somebody going to say something? Now there's a silence. The man who spoke up in our first meeting, I could just see him getting his courage up. He looks at the principal and says, ed, you have a big mouth.
... let's see whether what you answered the question I asked.
My two friends here will help us to make this evaluation.
This animal has been taught to somewhat like a police dog to sniff out narcotics. If there's any Jackal mixed in, he will hollow. If you answered the question, this animal will dance. Sir, what did you write down?
My dad blames my wife for my choices.
He does what?
Dad blames my wife for my choices.
Yes. Blames is a judgment. See, that's already putting evaluation into it.
Dad, do you see yourself as blaming her? No. I see myself as calling attention to the facts. See, dad doesn't see that as blaming. No, I'm educating. Thank you, dad. Yes. Okay. How do we say, see, we need a direct quote? We need to give it to make it an observable behavior. We need to say my father says what?
You are responsible for all of his problems. He says this to the wife. You are responsible for all of his problems, that's it? Yes. Okay. That's a direct quote. That's what he says. That's giraffe language. He made a direct quote. Okay.
As soon as I have the word blame in your consciousness, it's going to change the whole energy with which you approach the person. Cause you're basically making a judgment of him is blaming, which everybody knows is wrong. Yes.
"My son is not doing his history homework."
Okay.
My dad makes harsh judgments and insulting remarks.
Oh my God, you've killed my poor jackal. He could have handled the harsh, was one judgment, but insulting, harsh and insulting, you know? Those are two judgments then.
(0:30:35) Actually he does use insulting words, there is no such thing.
It won't exist. Insults will not exist. I'm going to show you to use some technology today that takes insults and criticism out of the waves airwaves so that no matter what your father says, you can never hear another harsh statement or another insult. We're going to show you today how to use this technology.
With this technology, it will be impossible for you to hear criticism, harsh remarks insults with these ears. All you can hear is the only thing human beings are ever saying, please. Thank you. That's all. We're going to show you today. That all what used to sound like criticism, judgments, blame are simply tragic, suicidal expressions of please.
(0:31:48) My brother yells at me to get in the car, to go to school. Then he makes me late to school
Yells is a little bit of an evaluation. He speaks in a tone of voice. Yes. Okay. It's a tone of voice.
many years ago, I was asked to work with the faculty there. They were having a lot of tension amongst the faculty, racially ethnically. There was a lot of tensions and the superintendent asked me to work there.
I started the day asking, tell me something that somebody else on the faculty does that you don't like. A man, turns to the woman next to him and says, I don't like it when you yell in our faculty meeting.
She says: WHO YELLS?? She was from a different culture than this man. What was yelling in her culture was quite different. About 10 minutes later, when she started to yell at him, by her own definition, I saw a difference.
Audience participation from evaluation to observations
so he raises the voice when he's asking you to get ready for school? yes just kinda gets angry at me.
gets angry, that may be accurate, but it's the diagnosis. We don't know whether he's angry. He might be scared. you're going to miss school. It might sound to you like angry. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't, but raises the voice has smoke coming out of his ear that you can see. You see that's observable. Yes.
Fifth grader, Jesse refuses to do his school work.
refuses is a diagnosis, maybe an accurate diagnosis, but it doesn't tell me what he does.
He just says, no, I don't want to do it says, no, I don't want to do it. That's the behavior.
(0:33:53) My husband doesn't tell me things which will affect me deeply.
Okay. It's the first Jackal husband I've ever heard of. This was a new experience for me today.
Student in my class, incessantly talks loud. Won't stay seated or keep his hands to himself.
I hear about three judgements in there. Let's go over it slowly. Cause I hear three diagnosis. Say it again. We'll hear the three diagnosis.
Incessantly talks loud is your interpretation. Louder than you would like if you want to say it, put it that way louder than I would like
won't stay seated. Won't is a diagnosis, doesn't stay in his seat. After I've told him to, he might in the future. We don't know whether he will or not. That's the diagnosis doesn't at the moment. It doesn't when I asked him to stay in his seat and does not keep his hands to himself and does not keep his hands to himself. Okay.
Since coming to the introductory presentation on Tuesday night, I've been very aware of hearing evaluations in myself and especially in other people. So I started to wonder, are all of those violent communications or would there be a way that some of those are according to this model, nonviolent?
(0:35:17)
I would say that any evaluation of others that implies wrongness is a tragic expression of an unmet need.
Tragic in the sense for two reasons:
First it decreases the likelihood that we will get what we want. Even if we don't say it out loud.
If we are thinking that what somebody else does is wrong, it decreases the likelihood that we will get what we want.
Second it increases the likelihood of violence. What could be more tragic than that than expressing ourselves in a way that gets in the way of our getting what we want, and increases violence?
Anything that we want to say that implies wrongness on the part of the other person I'm suggesting is a tragic suicidal expression of an unmet need.
Say the need, learn a need consciousness, which is what we're going to get to.
We evaluate from the heart, we make judgments, but we make needs serving judgments. We judge whether what people are doing is meeting needs or not. We don't moralistically judge the person for what they did. We judged whether it's serving life or not, because needs are our direct connection with life.
Needs are the life seeking expression within us. We evaluate with reference to that and that requires two kinds of literacy, feelings and needs.
[Underneath where you wrote what the person did that didn't make life wonderful for you], imagine that you are talking directly to the person and express how you feel when the person acts in the way described above and use this form.
We're talking to the other person, You're telling them now what they did. We say, when you do this, I feel, and say how do you feel.
When the person does what you wrote down under a, write that down.
When you do this, I feel angry.
"When you're not ready to leave at the agreed time, I feel anxious and impatient."
"When you speak that loud, I feel intimidated"
Intimidated is the diagnosis, be careful of words that are more descriptions of other people, what you think they're doing to you, like intimidating you.
Write down the following as not feeling words, do not mistake these words as feelings.
- I feel misunderstood.
- I feel used.
- I feel manipulated.
- I feel judged.
- I feel criticized.
- I feel ignored.
For example, aren't there times when you think somebody is ignoring you, don't you feel relieved? At other times, don't you feel angry?
Words like that really say very little about what's alive in you.
They say much more about how you are interpreting the other person's behavior.
Above all, never mistake the word rejected as a feeling. I feel rejected. No. That's not a feeling. That's a suicidal interpretation.
Okay. Who's got the mic?
(0:39:17) Hurt. Disappointed. Disheartened.
Yep.
I feel angry and betrayed.
Angry, yes - AHOOO for betrayed.
Betrayed is one of those words like intimidated, ignored, misinterpreted used manipulated. It's more a diagnosis of the other person than a feeling.
What about contracted?
Contracted, if you mean tense and like that. Okay.
When you call me up and speaking loudly, tell me you're going to cut off funding, I feel angry and scared.
When you leave the dishes in the sink, I feel powerless over my environment and time, which feels frustrating and scary.
Yeah.
When you start talking loudly in the middle of my sentence, I feel hurt because I think you are not listening to me.
Yeah. The feeling is great, but you're going to lose it when you follow the word feel with the words "because I think" anytime you're thinking your chance of getting what you need is greatly decreased.
Especially when you follow the word, think with the word you, then I think you not only won't get heard. I predict the defensive aggressive reaction. It's going to be hard for people to care about your feelings.
When you follow that with a diagnosis that implies wrongness, we'll get to that next cause we're going to see next that we knew. We went after the feelings.
There's two places we don't go, One is up to our head.
We don't go up to the head. We stay in the heart and connect with needs, but we'll get to that.
If we want to use nonviolent communication, we want to be sure that we do not use the feeling in a violent way because feelings can either connect this at the heart or they can contribute to more division and violence.
We certainly do not want to ever express our feelings in this way.
"I feel as I do because you"
We never want to express our feelings this way.
"You make me feel."
(0:41:56) Now that will be a hard habit to get away from because in a Jackal culture, feelings are very instrumental to using guilt as a way of manipulating people.
The way to manipulate people is if you can convince them that they make you feel as you do, then they should feel guilty and change. It's another form of this violent game.
For example, if you are a parent and you want to use feelings in a violent way, rather than a connecting way, you would express it this way. It really hurts me when you don't clean up your room. Or you make me angry.
(0:42:47) I was talking during the break about one of my happiest days as a parent, when my oldest son went to a Jackal school for the first time, he had gone six years to a giraffe school that I had helped create. But then he was, I wanted him to learn how to enjoy jackals as well.
In giraffe schools, we also want to be aware that the children are not always going to be in this setting. We want them to learn how to stay with their own values, regardless of which structure they're in.
He comes back the first day from school and he looked less than happy. I said, how was the new school, Rick? He said, it's okay dad. But whew boy, some of those teachers, dad, I said, what happened? He said, dad, I wasn't even in the front door. I was halfway through the front door and some man teacher comes running over and says, 'my my look at the little girl'
can you guess what the teacher was reacting to? My son's hair was down to his shoulders.
In a jackal school, as we all know, authority knows what's right.
see there's a right way to wear your hair as a boy, and a wrong way. A right way to do everything, and who knows - the teacher
Then what do you do if someone doesn't do it? You use shame, guilt, and so forth. You use the word "girl" as an insult. Welcome to jackal land.
So i'm getting burned up ready to go do a little bat therapy with the teacher forgetting all about my teachings I said to my son how did you handle it? he said: i remembered dad that, what you said, that when you're in that kind of environment never give them the power to make you submit or rebel.
I said to my son. How did you handle it? He said, I remember dad, what you said, that when you're in that environment, never give them the power to make you submit or rebel.
One of the things we want to teach children very early, no matter what structure you're in, never lose track that you are free to choose what you do. Don't allow institutions to determine what you do.
I said, Hey, man, that you remembered that's a big gift. I really love that you could remember that under those conditions. Then what'd you do?
I put on my giraffe ears, dad tried to hear what he was feeling and needing.
I said, you remember that? What did you hear?
Pretty obvious. Dad looked irritated. Wanted me to cut my hair.
Hey, wow, man. I'm really glad you could remember that. How did that leave you feeling?
He said, Dad, I felt sad for the man. He was bald and seemed to have a problem about hair.
We want to teach children the same thing we want to teach adults, Institutions can't make you do anything. Other people can't make you do anything. No human being has ever done anything they didn't choose to do.
A Palestinian in the village of Hebron disagreed with me one time. He said, I don't agree with your Marshall that we only choose to do. Where was my choice, two days ago, a soldier puts a gun at my head and says, take off your clothes or I'll shoot you, where was my choice?
It seems pretty obvious to me. You had a choice of whether to take off your clothes.
He laughed. He said, okay, I got your point. I chose not to take off my clothes. I chose that. Soldier knew I didn't have a gun. He was doing this to dishonor me. I chose to risk my life to protect my honor.
I'm not saying we always like the choices we have, but nobody can make us do anything we don't choose to do.
I said, apparently the soldier also chose not to shoot you or else he was a very poor shot.
From the time they were two years old, they educated me that I couldn't make them do anything. All I could do is make them wish they had
They taught me another lesson that anytime I would do that, they would make me wish I hadn't made them wish they had, they taught me that violence creates violence.
(0:47:23) Okay. The next step, then
I mean, never say "you make me feel" or "I feel because you", instead, we are conscious that the root of feelings, our needs. Behind every feeling, there is a need. Certain feelings tell us that there is an obstruction in our thinking that instead of our being directly connected to our needs, we have chosen to go off to Jackal.
anger, depression, guilt, and shame.
Those feelings are very valuable. They tell us that at this moment, I'm not directly connected to my needs. Instead we are up in our head telling ourself moralistic judgments about somebody's anger. We're making moralistic judgments about somebody else, depression, guilt, and shame.
We're playing that game on ourselves, but we're not alive as I would define being alive, which is connected to our needs.
(0:48:42) Do you make a distinction between needs and preferences? We make a big difference as we'll see, when we get to the next step. Because needs contain no reference to specific ways of getting the needs met. Those are preferences or strategies or requests.
Let's get into that, right now, connect our feelings with a need. Let's not go up to our head and think about the other person. Let's go into our heart and connect our feeling with our need, because needs give us the most power with people.
Giraffe is based on a power model, power with people that increases our power with them in the sense that it increases people's willing giving to us. It increases our power with them in the sense that it increases people's willing giving to us, to enjoy giving to us. That's power with people.
We have been trained in a power-over model, the use of punishment and reward, that's power over people to get them to do things. Not because it's coming from their heart and they want, to contribute to our wellbeing or to life.
Not because they want to avoid punishment, or get a reward. We wanna increase power with people and the most powerful form of communication to do that is to bring people's attention to our needs that are not getting met. When people's full attention is on our needs, they hear no criticism, no demands, it's natural to enjoy giving.
(0:50:34) But if we hear any criticism or demand, we lose connection with that natural desire to give. We want to defend an attack.
[On the page where you've written what someone did and how it made you feel], imagine again that you are talking to the person and express your reasons for feeling as you do this way. When you do what I described, I feel as I've expressed because I am needing or because I need.
Leave the word you out of here. Cause that will next up need and preference. Leave the other person out of here. Just express the need without reference to the other person.
Look at what you said and see whether this applies. If what you wrote down is a true need. Every other human being in the world has that need, we're all created out of the same energy. We really see this at the level of needs. All human beings have the same needs. What differs immensely is the strategies that we have been educated in for meeting the needs, different cultures, educate people to meet the needs in a different way, but the needs are the same.
Who wants to check those out? Okay?
To know that you are responsible and honest...
notice the other person in there, I have a need to know that you are responsible and honest. How do we express the need without bringing the other person in there? We can bring it in one way. I have a need for your happiness for your protection. We can say that. But not the way you're saying it.
Yes.
I need to be seen and heard as who I truly am
To be seen and heard as who I truly am. Okay.
(0:52:58) Now I have a impulse to qualify that and say free to be free.
I have a need to be, the last word in that sentence is, who I truly am free.
(0:53:13) You need to truly be free. Yes. That's a need we all have.
The important thing will come out when we get to a request. Cause that's a request that only you can meet. Other people can't do that. They can't meet that need. If you don't know how to meet it for yourself, for freedom, you won't have that need met.
I'm feeling a bit frustrated because I'm noticing that everything is a strategy. In other words, mine is a need for an aesthetic environment. But underneath that, there is a need for serenity and my serenity doesn't come from the environment.
My entire request, starting from a) is a strategy to get something called serenity
okay, that's the need.
Then I have a need for certain piece, but isn't there a need in there for certain aesthetics that will write that it crumbles the house of cards for me wanting the sink not filled with dirty dishes.
Help me understand that. Why wouldn't, if you have a need for serenity,
serenity doesn't come from a clean sink.
Okay? Then we haven't got the right need then or the right.
Then it's not that you want the strategy, the sink cleaned out,
I'm projecting that need onto the sink, this onto a behavior of someone else.
Well, if the other person's behavior can be getting in the way of our need, if the dishes aren't done and it could be some needs of yours are not being met by that, then you have to identify what the needs are that are not getting met.
I'm not sure. I'm really not sure. that I'm not basing my, an assumption that by having that sink clean, that I'm going to have serenity. I think it's a false distinction.
Well, the nice thing about being clear about our requests is we can test it out.
If I say for my need for serenity, I'd really be grateful. If you would, Clean up the sink, the person does it and I'm still not serene. Okay. That helps. I know that doesn't work.
We never really know what we want until after we get it. After we get it makes life more miserable, then we know that isn't what we want it. If it makes life more wonderful, then we know that's a strategy - that will meet our need that's what makes life fun.
We never know what we want until after we get it that's why paul tillich, the theologian, says strategy that will meet our need. That's what makes life fun. We never know what we want until after we get it. That's why Paul tillers, the theologian says that Christianity requires the willingness to sin courageously.
You ask for what you want, hoping to meet your needs. You get it, it makes life worse. Okay. I've learned that isn't what I want. Wouldn't it be boring to know what is ahead of time?
When you do what I described, I feel as I expressed, because I need respect and acknowledgement and I need to be able to feel safe in my job environment.
I hear needs in there. Yes.
When you do what I described, I feel as I express, because I need to express my desire and need without it hurting you.
No. We've got a bunch of stuff. If you want to avoid hurting other people, the only way I can offer you to do that is to become a nice dead person because of other people have Jackal ears that can get hurt if you have heartburn.
Would I just cut off that second half? Just I need to express my desire and needs.
Yes. Then what you want to say to yourself, and I want to learn to enjoy your pain, which is we're going to show you after lunch, how to enjoy the other person's pain.
It's one of the most loving things you can do, as I will define it, obviously I don't mean in a sadistic way.
I have a couple of them working on. One is because I have a need for predictability.
Okay.
The other one would be because I have a need for privacy.
Yeah. Okay.
My need is for a comradeship and acknowledgement my comradeship.
I have a need to memorialize the life of your father and in doing so honored the life of your entire family,
the need to honor this life. Yes.
I have a need to have communication with other people that is open and supportive life made for supporting of life. Openness. Okay.
When you do this, I feel hurt because I need to be heard and understood.
Yes.
Very important need that need for understanding to be heard, to be listened to.
Empathy, there's different ways of expressing it, but it's a critical need. One that we have daily. Yes.
Bottom line. I have to love you. To let your loving,
(0:58:51) I have a need to love, but don't bring the other person in there.
I have a need for love to love and to let yes.
When we believe that our needs involve another person doing something, we take a very abundant world and make it scarce very quickly. so we don't wanna mix up our needs and request.
We may have a request, a strong request, that a particular person meet our need for love. That's a strategy. We may want this particular person, but we don't have a need for that person to love us.
That's mixing up the need and the request. We have a need for love, we have a strong preference this person takes the action to meet that need, we don't wanna mix up the need and the strategy.
Okay. Let's take one more and then we've got to move on.
I'm confused if this is a need or a strategy. I need to feel loved.
Loved is a very important word. I need love. Yes, but now that word love is so important than it's. We got to get real clear what we mean about it.
When we use it as a giraffe, see, watch what happens when a giraffe and a jackal get together on this love and see this, watch this jackal ask a very dangerous question, but notice that the giraffe is too smart ever to answer this question. Watch,
Do you love me?
Jackal before I can answer your question honestly, I need to get some important things clear. Are you using the word love as a feeling?
Well, of course.
Okay. Well, I needed to get that clear. You mean, am I feeling certain warm, cuddly, tender feelings towards you?
Yes.
Okay. I needed to get this clear. Cause see, we giraffes do not use the word love as a feeling it's much too important to us to get it confused with a feeling, it's a need for us. But since you use it as a feeling, okay, I'm glad to know that. Would you please then, now that I know that, would you ask the question again?
Do you love me?
When?
Well, I want to be honest. I can see how important this is. But how can I be honest with you about what I feel toward you without reference to a specific moment? Feelings change every few seconds. Life is changing. Feelings are part of life. I'd have to know a specific time and place to ever answer your question of how I feel.
What about right now?
No. But try me again in a few moments.
You see to a giraffe, love is a need and it's a need for which we must be very clear about what requests do we have of other people to meet that need. Lots of what happens with reference to that, if we're in a love relationship with a jackal.
I want you to love me.
Oh, so you have a need for love Jackal. You're giving me the honor of wanting.
Do you need to meet that need?
Yes.
I really see how important the need of love is. I want to be clear what you would like from me to meet your need. Could you tell me what you are requesting of me to meet your need?
Now the poor jackals, they don't live in the moment, and to make a clear request. You have to be clear what you want. Watch how the Jackal handles this.
Could you tell me what you want me to do to meet your need for love?
Oh, you know.
No, I'm not sure I do. I really see how important this need is for you. Can you tell me specifically what you would like me to do to meet your need for love?
It's hard to say in so many words.
If it's hard for you to say Jackal, can you see how hard it will be for me to do?
I never thought of that.
What would you like me to do to meet your need for love?
It's embarrassing to get clear.
Yes it is.
Much of our oppression in close relationships comes from saying to people, I want you to respect me. I want you to love me. I want you to understand me without our being real clear what we want when we say that. What are you wanting jackal, when you say you want me to love you?
I want you to guess what I want before I even know what it is, and I want you always to be willing to do it.
Thank you for defining it that way, Jackal, would you please find someone else to meet your need for love?
Most jackals that carry that definition of love around with them. Find out how impossible it is to meet on about their fifth divorce. See, they keep thinking that they're going to find the right person to love them. Not realizing the problem is how they're defining love and what they want from other people to meet the need for love, to see that it's impossible to meet that need, which brings us to the next step in the process.
(64:41)
A clear request defined in giraffe is first, it's a positive action. We say what we do want, not what we don't want.
A woman gave me a very good example of what happens when you say what you don't want, in a workshop. She said, you've really helped me understand what happened to recently, Marshall. I said to my husband, I don't want you spending so much time work. Then I got furious with him, when he signed up for a golf tournament.
A teacher gave me a similar example. She said just yesterday, Marshall, I said to this young boy please I don't want you tapping on your book while I'm talking. He started to tap on his desk.
Saying what we don't want, doesn't make clear what we do want. If we frame our objectives in getting rid of something, it leads to violence, very often. It makes violence seem attractive, when we try to get rid of something.
For example, I was working with some teachers in the school in Rockford, Illinois, their observable behavior they wanted to work on is, on the average every three months, 38 broken windows in the school.
We got down to the request. I said, what do you want different from the students?
It's obvious. We don't want them breaking windows.
You're saying you don't want the children breaking windows. Yes.
What should we do? Kill them?
Research has demonstrated dead children break no windows.
Almost any time we think of what we want to get rid of. It makes violence look attractive. As stupid as that example was, I just gave, you look in the newspaper on any given day and see how many world leaders are saying, we're going to teach them not to. We're going to get them to stop. They think the violence is going to, see this always makes violence seem attractive.
It's only as I said earlier, when we get to questions clear, what do we want people to do? What do we want their reasons to be for doing it? Then I think we'll see violence never works.
We want to say what we want to say in the positive. What do we want the other person to do? What do we want them to start doing differently? Second that it needs to be clear action language.
(1:07:27) We can't do what this one wife did with her husband who came to a workshop with him.
She said, I want you to listen to me when I talk.
He said, I do listen.
No you don't.
Yes I do.
No you don't.
They told me they'd had this same conversation for 11 years. The problem is with the word. Listen, I see what does that. We can use the word, listen as a need. I have a need to be listened to.
But when we moved to requests, we need to speak action language. What specific action do we want this person to take?
We can't use the verb to be. I want you to be more friendly, not doable. We can't use feeling language. I want you to feel confidence in yourself. That's not doable. We need to be able to make very concrete requests, try it out with the behavior you've been writing about, in relation to what the other person did and your feelings and needs in relation to the action.
Imagine you're talking directly to the person and express a request using this form.
I would like you to, what do you want the person to do to meet your needs?
(1:08:43) I want you to obey my instructions.
Let's use the word I want you to do what I told you to do. If you were a giraffe, you would give that to the person with a little card that said, but please do as I requested only if you can do so with the joy of a little child, feeding a hungry duck. Please do not do as I request, if there is any fear of punishment motivating you, please do not do as I request out of hope for reward or that I will like you, if you do. Please do not do as I request out of guilt, shame, duty obligation, life is too short to do anything for anybody out of that.
What I'm getting at is when we do make a request, we want it to be sure that the person trusts that's a request and not a demand. We'll come back to that, but let's just work on the clarity of the request to begin with.
Yes. What is your request?
I would like you to do what was agreed upon.
Okay.
(1:10:04) Give me the space to complete my thoughts.
(1:10:08) Too vague. Give me the space.
(1:10:16) Let me is not doable. Let me show you what I mean, a woman said to her husband who came to a workshop. I want you to give me the freedom to be myself.
He says I do. No you don't.
I said, hold it. Give me the freedom is not doable. Let me no, that's not doable. Allow me is not doable. What do you want from him when you say give you the freedom to be yourself.
It's embarrassing. Yes. Say it?
No, it's embarrassing.
Say it out loud. What do you want when you say all to that? I want him to smile and say it's okay, no matter what I do.
Okay. Now, you're honest. You'll see. What do you,
(1:10:59) I want to express myself.
(1:11:02) Yes. You can do that. Nobody can stop you from expressing yourself.
I'm getting interrupted.
You want the other person to wait until you finish speaking before starting? Yes. Okay. That's doable action. How do we know? You can only tell whether it's a request or a demand by how I treat you if you don't do it.
That's what tells people, whether we are making requests or demands, what is their memory of how we act when we don't get what we want. If people have in their memory, any punishment on our part in the past, when they don't do what we want any blame, it will now be hard for them to trust that we are making a request and not a demand. It will take the joy out of giving to us.
Let's follow that example a little bit more for me to show you what I mean. I say to you, I'm really lonely this evening and would have a need for some company. Would you be willing to spend the evening with me?
You say Marshall, I'm a really preoccupied with some things at work and really need some space to myself this evening. Could you find someone else to be with you this evening?
Here's my reaction. Two days later, you what's the matter?
Nothing
You come on. What's the matter you knew how lonely I was. If you love me...
(1:12:50) Was that a request or a demand?
We can't tell from how nicely it's asked, we need to see how the person treats us when we don't do what they want. That's when we trust that they make requests or not demand. We are going to pay for every time in the past when we used any coercive means to get what we wanted.
At least we don't want to pay for that anymore. We want to be sure that whenever we make a request, it is a request. That doesn't mean the other person will trust it, even if it is, because unfortunately there's been so much coercion in our world that even if we are making a sincere request, the other person might hear a demand.
I was working in one school system with a group of students at the school district labeled as socially and emotionally maladjusted. From what you've learned today, was that a Jackal school system or a giraffe school system?
It sounds like in your example, that the person was really disappointed or really let down, okay.
(1:14:01) Let down, that's a diagnosis. They're really dissapointed, really hurt.
Okay. How could they have expressed without being a demand, but not suppressing their fact that they're really disappointed.
(1:14:16) They could say, You have a lot to do right now. It would really meet your need to be by yourself. Yeah. And, The mood I'm in right now. I really trust that you would meet it better than anybody else I know. Is there some way that we could find to get your work done and still meet my need for connection tonight?
That's what we call dogging for our needs. That shows respect for the other person's needs. I'm not trying to use any guilt or manipulation, right? I'm just trying now to find a way to get everybody's needs met. Okay?
If the person cannot think of somebody to replace them, yeah. It will not be a problem. It will only be a problem if I put on these ears and receive in what they said, a rejection, If I hear a rejection, that's the problem.
You can say, I'm disappointed. As long as you don't say you disappoint me.
As long as you don't stop after saying, I'm disappointed. That's just another way of saying you disappointed me. I'm disappointed. We always have to end the feeling at the very end of it is going to be a request. We don't just say I'm disappointed. We'd have to say we have to take responsibility for asking for what we want.
Given the other person has this other need. Okay? What do you want from them? Well, the Jackal doesn't like that game. They don't like to have to be responsible for what they want. They'd rather say, well, if they love me, if they were any friend, I think it's only fair that they want to control by guilt shame.
(1:16:22) The school district asked me to work with these students that were labeled socially and emotionally maladjusted poor school system doesn't realize that labels lead the self fulfilling prophecies. When you label people that way, they're going to behave that way.
Come on, be honest. If you are labeled socially and emotionally maladjusted, you're one of those students, doesn't that give you permission to have fun in school? Labels lead the self fulfilling prophecy. I knew it was going to be a rough day just by that label. When I walk into the classroom, it already starts. Half of the students are hanging out the window, screaming obscenities at their friends in a courtyard down below.
I made a request. Excuse me. I would like you all to come on over and sit down, please. I'd like to tell you who I am, what I'd like to do today.
Half the students come over. I wasn't sure the other half had even heard me. I repeated it. Would you all please come over? Everybody comes over with the exception of two young men. Just my luck, the two that didn't come over, the biggest ones in the classroom.
Again, I wasn't too sure they'd heard me. I was praying it might just be a problem with acoustic. I said, one of you two gentlemen, tell me, please, what you heard me say? Yeah, you said we had to come over and sit down. You see the problem? I make a request. He hears a demand.
I said, sir, I have learned to always use, sir with people have biceps like he did, especially with the tattoo on top of the bicep.
I said, sir, could you tell me how I could have let you know what I was requesting so it wouldn't sound like I was telling you what you had to do?
He said, huh? See, that's a radical paradigm shift for somebody who's been educated under domination conditions, domination in structures where authorities claim to know what's right, and you have to do it or else. It's a radical paradigm shift in giraffe schools. People don't make demands. They just make requests.
I realized this is not going to be easy with this gentlemen. He's probably carrying with him a lot of traces of being punished when he doesn't do what other people want or blame. I'm not expecting him to give that up right away.
I said, sir, how could I let you know that I was requesting something of you without it sounding like I was bossing you around?
I don't know. I said just what's happening between you and me right now as much that I wanted to talk about today because I was wanting to look at a way we could interact where nobody bosses others around.
I didn't expect life to be so easy. That was all he needed. He trusted at that point that I wasn't trying to tell him what to do. He came over and we had a very cooperative day.
As long as people hear our requests, there's demands. They have only two choices, submission or rebellion.
Neither of us are going to connect us with people in a way that's good for anybody. The main thing that's the difference is not how nicely we say it, but how we treat people when they don't do what we want.
Let's hear a few of these so we can see what reactions you might get back. If you openly express your heart, you try your best. Not to criticize, not to demand. What do you get back?
She gets excited and defends herself.
I needed to hear this specific statement cause I don't know what you mean by defends herself. What does she say? Gotta be specific for the next exercise. We need to know specifically what the person says or does see that's your diagnosis that she's defensive. What does she say?
Sometimes things happen and I'm not ready to leave when I agree.
Okay. That's what the person says.
I can't do that because I have a hard time connecting with people as partners.
The person respond back. He says, nothing I do is ever good enough.
01:21:09 Okay. Here, I guess I should go through the whole thing. She says she doesn't like the way I washed dishes. I'll make the bed. Yes. I feel angry and resentful. Yes. I feel as I express because I need to be accepted for my willingness and ability to do a job the way I do it.
Yes. I would like you to acknowledge my work positively.
Even if I don't feel like it. How do you want me to, how would you like me to respond positively when An idiot could do a better job making a bed than you do?
Okay. That's the, that's the last thing she would say that she can because I never do it the way it should be done. Yeah. The problem there is with the president required,
What do you want from this person? I think what you want is this. I'd like at least some gratitude expressed for my willingness to do what I did. If I could get at least the gratitude for that first, I could better hear how you would like me to do it differently. Would that be closer?
It'd be closer, but I'd still like to accept the way that I do it.
(1:22:25) We've got to translate accept into a doable request. What if this person has a sense of aesthetics? I can already tell what the problem is in your relationship.
I've already made a diagnosis. You want to hear my diagnosis? You are a slob. She's a neat. I know there's these two kinds of people in the world, slobs and needs. For some reason or other, they always lived together. It doesn't make sense to me. So much of this goes on every day, about how to keep the wash, the dishes, how to make the bed.
I once cleaned the house immaculate and my partner came home and said, I thought you were going to clean. True story. You know what I am, right?
(1:23:20) I wrote her a song that night that goes: if you wonder about the cause of my domestic distress it’s that my partner is antiseptic and I’m a total mess.
Last night at 2am I had to go to the head. In the time it took me, she made the bed.
There are these slums and meats and they always get together. I have a plan for world peace, put the slobs in one hemisphere, the neats in another. How does that get back to needs? It has to do probably with this. Then you have to say to the need, I'd like you to agree that there can be different ways of doing things.
Is that what you want? My solution was that I just don't do it anymore.
Who had a typical slob solution? I could've guessed that.
I would really like some acknowledgement. First, I'd like some expression of gratitude for what I did. They're not saying you have to like it, but I'd like to hear some gratitude if it's sincere that at least that I was trying. Second, I'd like you to agree that there can be different ways of defining what is an adequate way to make a bed.
Then if after you agree to that, if you could say what your preference would be without using words that imply that it's right. That would be a lot easier. Something like that.
You sound like you're doing something out of a book.
(1:25:16) Talk like a real person. Don't use any of this psychology upon me. Something like that. Yes. Especially, they're going to say that when you're a baby giraffe, you kCause you're trying a new way and it's gonna take a while and it's going to go slowly. When I was first learning this, I was having a conflict with my oldest son and I was sounding like it was coming out of a book. I was having to stop and think everything I said.
The poor guy, he had his friends waiting for him and he said, daddy, it's taken you so long to talk. I said, let me tell you what I can say quickly do it my way or I'll kick your ass.
He said, take tour time.
(1:26:09) Those who know me in my old Jackal days are very patient with my sounding like I'm coming out of a book.
(1:26:21) There is no value in changing who I am. I'm satisfied the way I am.
We can already tell them this person heard a demand. They're hearing a demand as though you're saying they're not okay the way they are.
That would be how I would bet a person would respond if they hear a demand, different ways that people respond when they hear a demand.
My preference is for how my youngest son wants responded when he heard a demand. I said, would you please hang up your coat? He said, who was your slave before I was born?
I liked that way because I know he hears the demand. Right? It's pretty clear.
(1:27:09) Then there's other people who it's harder to guess that they make, they're hearing it as a demand. For example, you say to them, would you please come over and just sit on the couch with talk with me?
The person goes like this,
Okay. If you're smart, you'll say, Oh no, stay away.
They're hearing a demand, but they're giving in. The worst case scenario, this is the dangerous one you see is if the person hears your request as a demand and they respond this way.
Oh sure. I'll do it. They do it. But they did it to buy your love. They did it because they were afraid that if they didn't, you wouldn't like them.
How will you find out?
You'll find out eventually. You might find out like this one woman did who showed up at my door. Two in the morning, my doorbell's ringing one morning. It's pouring rain outside. This woman, not eight months pregnant, crying. I said, come in. I sit her down in a chair. What's going on? I didn't know how she got there. She told me that her mother had been in a workshop with me a month before. She had just called her mother up to tell her about what happened. The mother said, Oh, there's a man in your town that you might want to go and talk to. That's how this woman shows up at my door at two in the morning.
What was the problem earlier? She said, I just made a little request to my husband, and he said get out. We've been married eight years. He's always been so loving. Kind. He's done everything I want. He says, get out.
Already, I knew what the problem was.
he was a yes-saying jackal he hears somebody he loves wants something and he feels he has to do it, to buy love, to prove that he's a loving person. So how does she find this out?
It took eight years, but then she pays for it one night. I know I was right. How do I know I was right. I got him out of bed. Why should I be up at two in the morning talking to his wife while he's sleeping. I call him up and invite him over and sure enough, you see he was a Yes saying, Jackal. He just didn't know how to say no. He had been giving in for all these years. Then finally this night he snapped. That's how you find out.
After eight years, she found out that he was hearing demands and lovingly giving into them.
(1:29:54) You certainly don't want to ever receive those messages.
Anyone that you've just responded to. You never want to hear what the other person thinks.
Never hear what a Jackal speaking person thinks you'll live longer.
After lunch, we're going to say, do not hear what the person thought, whatever thoughts they expressed, never hear what a Jackal speaking person thinks, especially what they think about you. We'll show you other options then that we'll show you how never to hear a criticism.
(1:30:50)
That's all human beings are ever saying. The only thing is, Jackal speaking people have learned to say please in a suicidal way.
Think about that for a moment. What else are human beings ever saying, except please, you're behaving in a way that isn't meeting my needs, or my needs are not getting met by something else, would you please do this to meet my needs?
We need to know how to say that. To survive in the world when our needs are not getting met, we need to know how to say please in a way that makes it enjoyable for people to give it to us.
This morning, we learned how to do that.
Just learn how to say what you were feeling and needing and make a clear request. Make sure that no words come out of your mouth that imply wrongness on the part of other people. Do everything you can to promote in people that trust when you make a request it is a request and not a demand. That increases the likelihood that people will enjoy giving to you. We studied that this morning.
The other half of the process is how to receive from other people what's alive in them and what they are needing to make life wonderful and how to receive that without hearing any criticism or demand, just to hear what's alive in them. We need to learn how to do this.
Even when these other people are saying please in this strange way, that we've been educated to say. You are all speaking perfect giraffe for about a year.
What I'm teaching you now is really not a second language. It's really your first language. I'm bringing you back to life, to nature, to your first language.
The other half, how do we respond to a jackals please?
(1:33:02) When a Jackal is expressing the please this way, "the problem with you is that you are too". That's please. That person's in pain. That person has a need that isn't getting met. Isn't it sad that they only know that way to ask for it.
Isn't that tragic for this person to be saying please in a way that almost guarantees you're not going to get what you want? or if you do, it's going to be motivated by fear, guilt, or shame, and you're going to pay for it. How sad to be educated that way.
(1:33:43) Now of course it would be even sadder. If when the person says please that way you don't hear the please, you hear a criticism. That's when we have war, somebody in pain does their best to express it, and the person on the other end hear's a criticism.
Let me tell you what the person that you were working on this morning, all of the messages that I heard you relate, what you predict they might say back.
Here's what I heard the person saying. I heard the person you're speaking with saying this back to you.
I'm in pain. I have a need that isn't getting met.
That's what the person was saying in the message that you wrote down.
I'm in pain because a need of mine isn't getting met.
Hear that:
put on giraffe ears and say this back to the person, "are you feeling?", guess what that person is feeling when they say what they did, "because you are needing" and guess what their need is.
I'm asking you to go back to the message that you predicted you might get back. I'm wanting you to imagine the person actually says this to you. If you have giraffe ears on, here will be your reaction: "Are you feeling", guess the feeling, "because you are needing", guess their need.
(1:35:50) A Number of years ago, I was working with a group of women in religious life. They had a conflict for some 15 months that was creating great pain within their community. They asked me to help them resolve this.
I suggested that we begin by having everybody express their needs. What needs of yours are not getting met in this situation?
After the first speaker, second word, I could see why after 15 months, not only had they not been able to resolve the issue, but why it was causing increasing pain.
Can anybody guess what the second word was that expressed their needs?
First word was "I think".
As soon as I heard the second word, I could see why. Notice my question of them was what needs of yours are not getting met. Instead of an answer, I got, "I think". Immediately I knew I was in trouble.
Here's what the rest of the message said. I think that if we are to be in religious life, we must take our commitment seriously and dress in an appropriate way. I asked for a need, that's what I got back. Then, another religious sister said, "sister, I agree, but I think"
Let's see, 15 months. What was the issue? The issue was whether to wear traditional clothing or not. You see this was the issue. 15 months had not been able to resolve it. In fact, that great pain in that 15 months, the community was divided.
I asked, what are you needing? I got thoughts. It took me awhile to teach them never to hear the thoughts, do not hear thoughts. Only use the thoughts as a window. Look through the thoughts to the needs that are behind them, it'll be a whole different world. Don't hear thoughts.
They finally got it. They finally started to look through the words and the thoughts to what was behind. Then it was amazing how, in a short time, we resolved it. My partner, Ruth member Meyer was with me at the time and saw this miracle that comes whenever we hear through the word to what's behind them.
I feel so sentenced by your words I feel so judged and sent away Before I go I got to know Is that what you mean to say?
Before I rise to my defense, Before I speak in hurt or fear, Before I build that wall of words, Tell me, did I really hear?
Words are windows, or they’re walls, They sentence us, or set us free. When I speak and when I hear, Let the love light shine through me.
There are things I need to say, Things that mean so much to me, If my words don’t make me clear, Will you help me to be free?
If I seemed to put you down, If you felt I didn’t care, Try to listen through my words To the feelings that we share.
~ Ruth Bebermeyer
(101:22) With your giraffe ears on you hear the feelings behind the words. You hear the need. Every moment we hear feelings and needs, we're hearing the truth, what's really alive in this person. It's better for you to hear only that, cause then you don't live in a world of criticism or judgment. You take away all power from other people to dehumanize you.
When you have giraffe years, you'll never have to worry about other people's reaction to what you say. You can be honest without fear because you don't ever have to worry about how others respond, only what ears I have on to respond to their response, but I can control that. I can't control how others respond.
If I'm going to worry about something I can't control, I'll become a nice dead person. I'll be afraid to reveal myself for fear of what they say. Well, who cares what they say? If you have giraffe ears on it's a gift. All they're saying is please.
Would I expect my daughter would say: I can't control myself when I'm so angry.
"I could say, are you feeling frustrated because you were needing some other ways to express your anger."
(1:43:04) That's what I asked you to do, to try to hear the feelings and needs.
Even if that's not accurate, notice what it does, even if it's wrong, it demonstrates a value. It demonstrates that you value what's alive in that person, that you're taking the time to try to connect with what's alive in that person. When people trust that's what's interesting to you, we can solve anything.
What makes it hard to resolve things is when people feel the other person is only interested in winning. They don't care about me, they just out to show me that I shouldn't do this. But, just stopping and trying to connect, you've demonstrated a powerful value that you value what's alive in her.
Okay. Yes.
(1:43:58) With my related to my son: are you feeling distressed, confused, because you are needing help?
(1:44:07) That's the idea, again, even if it's not accurate, it brings the other person's attention to their needs, gives them a chance to correct it. Better to be guessing wrong what a persons need is, than to hearing what they think.
You'll be living in a different world when you are trying to connect with their needs, than the world you'll be living in if you hear what they think.
(1:44:37) I need some help in addressing the feelings and needs behind the answer that I got back, which was one of the things that you said before lunch, which can be the most dangerous when somebody just says you make a request and somebody says, yes, I'll do that.
What I wrote down was are you feeling pain because you're needing recognition for the job you're doing.
Okay. I like that. But go ahead.
It feels like there's a huge leap from the response. Yes, I'll do that, to me asking that question.
Yeah. You're trying to sense what's really behind it. That's one of the two giraffe ways. The other possibility that would also be giraffe is to say bullshit and giraffe.
How do you say bullshit and giraffe?
I'm feeling uneasy with your, "okay". I wish I could trust it, but I don't. I'd really like you to take a moment and really tell me whether it would meet your needs to do as I requested.
When I would guess that the okay isn't okay, that's how I would say bullshit in giraffe.
Giraffes are not nice. Much of, I think, the violence in the world is created by nice people. Don't mistake the word nonviolence as being nice.
Are you feeling abandoned because you are needing reassurance?
That's not a feeling, that's a thought. Don't encourage jackals to think that way.
Are you feeling afraid?
Now you're cooking.
because you're needing reassurance that I will not disappear, that your needs will be taken care of
Leave yourself out of the other person's needs. All of their needs can be met without you. How could I satisfy your needs? That's a Jackal question.
If the other person is smart, they'll take the fifth amendment.
This was an answer to when my daughter said, you sound like you're reading from a book
i say: are you feeling scared, separate and alienated and are you needed to be responded to in a genuine, heartfelt way?
Yes, but you're doing it again when you do that.
With such a Jackal for awhile, until you make clear to them why you're doing it so they will have less distrust of it, you would do just as you said, but silently.
I don't think we have to do this out loud for it to be powerful. It can be powerful if we don't say a word as long as where our attention is here. You might have heard just that, but maybe not have said it out loud.
That's all you can hear with the giraffe ears. Even if you're silent, you don't have to say out loud, you can just have heard that, but you'll show that your attention is here from your eyes.
When we're hearing what is in a person's heart, our eyes are different than when we're hearing a criticism or when we're making a criticism, you'll see all rise. It's not, it's not subtle. The advantage of being able to say it out loud is a person can correct us if we're not accurate. But even if we don't say it out loud, we live in a different world. When we're connecting here. Then when we're hearing criticism,
(1:48:56) The question would be that I would have asked would be something like, "I would like you to ask me for help if you need it." Then the person responds "I am afraid of becoming a burden".
No, there's a pretty, it's almost a giraffe response.
How do you respond to this person? I'm afraid of becoming a burden.
If you're a Jackal, you would say, no, you wouldn't be a burden. If you're a Jackal, you will try to reassure. Jackals try to fix people in pain. They tried to give reassurance. They try to make it better. They can't stand pain, and immediately make matters worse by trying to get rid of the pain.
In the book. When bad things happen to good people written by Rabbi Harold Kushner, he's talking about a very tragic time in his life when his oldest son is dying and he said, what could be worse than watching my son die? What could be worse? The things that good people were telling me to make me feel better made me feel worse.
What could be even more horrible than that? What they were doing, what they were saying that made me feel worse were exactly the things I had been saying to other people for 20 years in my role as a rabbi, see, he had been responding by trying to make it better.
We don't want to do that. This is an important message.
Well, I'm afraid that I'll be a burden.
Put on giraffe ears. What is this person feeling and needing when they say that.
Are you feeling afraid? They've already told you the feeling that's easy. Why are they afraid?
You don't trust my offer to help. You need some reassurance that if you're there, you're doing it for you and not for me.
They want to be sure that if you're giving, you're giving out of self fullness, not selflessness.
(1:51:38) Now what about if you're not a hundred percent?
Don't do it.
(1:51:47) I would suggest you heed Joseph Campbell's advice. Having studied all the basic myths of the world and the basic religions concludes that if there's one wise thing that seems present in all the basic religions is don't do anything that isn't play.
Yes, don't do anything that isn't play. It will be play if you're meeting your own needs. Don't do things for other people.
Well, the only right way is...
Hold it, hold it, your ears just dropped off. Put your ears back on. Cause if your ears are on, you will never hear the word 'right'. It doesn't exist.
If you hear that word, it's going to be toxic. Never hear another person telling you what's right. It's not good for them. It's not good for you.
Okay? So just hear feelings and needs:
(1:52:50) I've told you 30 times you don't listen. My God. Can't you see this bed? No you don't, you're proving now you don't. If you were listening, you wouldn't say I listen.
Isn't it funny how he always comes in pride.
(1:53:17) What's this person feeling and needing? let me help you out. Want me to help you out with this jackal? Let me put on some giraffe ears here.
Jackal, is it that it's frustrating when you have a certain sense of order and you'd really like to have that order maintained in the house?
Well, that's a part of it, but that's not the only thing. I've told him over and over again.
Oh. Is it that you feel hurt because you have a need to feel like your needs matter?
Yes. It's like it just doesn't matter to him. He doesn't care.
What's really the pain for you in this is your need to feel like you matter that your needs matter?
Yes. How do you feel when you hear the Jackal say this?
I'm feeling? Um, like I don't, well, that's not a feeling.
No, I'm glad you catch it
Feeling confused. Yeah. Confused. Um, primarily because I can't identify the needs that are being expressed.
You would really like to be able to hear a need like that when it's really going on.
Yeah. I would like that. Yeah.
You don't act like you do
Hold it Jackal. That isn't going to make it easier for him, Jackal, that isn't going to make it easier. You're really, it's really painful for you. It's hard to believe that he cares enough to really matter.
Yes. Cause I've told him over and over.
It's really for you an issue of whether your needs matter?
Yes.
I'm feeling that it's not so much the beds or the dishes though, feeling of something else.
I'm just telling you what it is. It's the general fear I have that my needs don't matter to you.
How do you feel when the Jackal tells you that.
It's still confused? What makes you confused about this? Cause I don't know how to respond to those needs.
What it would take is just empathy. If she could just feel the empathy that I just gave her, if you could just say, are you feeling in pain cause you have need for reassurance that your needs matter.
Yes. Yes. I tried to tell you that for years you don't listen.
I guess now I'm feeling sad because I'm not meeting the needs.
Hold your sadness. She needs more empathy.
This is what often happens. We get to our feelings too quickly.
With my help, we just got started, this is not the end. There's a lot more pain in there that she needs empathy for, before she can hear your sadness.
Jackal am I hearing you that for you, the real painful issue here is not being confident that your needs matter?
My needs have never mattered in any relationship, not in my family or not now. What's real painful is for you to feel that your needs matter. This has been going on a long time. I do everything I can. I've told him over and over again.
You do everything, you know how, and when you need still don't get responded to.
It really hurts.
Well see, it hasn't been easy for me to give this Jackal empathy. I was wanting to jump in an educate him, but the way you're asking for it Jackal, I think is going to make it hard for people to give it to you.
I wanted to say that almost every time. I had to take a deep breath and realize empathic connection before education now is not the time to educate that. The way you're asking for it's going to make it pretty hard for somebody without super powered giraffe ears to hear your needs.
(1:58:01) Question on that: doesn't the situation require some resolution?
The resolution, the solution will find us when the connection is there.
What connection?
Here's your wife's needs. Here's your needs. When she hears your needs without hearing any criticism or demand, and you hear her needs without any criticism and demand, the solutions will find you, the conflict will resolve itself.
It does need to be resolved, but what most of us do we skip this and go right to here.
For example, I sometimes do workshops just with the married couples or other people living together in a love relationship. What we do to begin the workshop. We identify the couple who has had a conflict, the longest outstanding conflict that could not be resolved. I make a prediction. My prediction has been accurate and at least 75% of the cases, but my prediction is this that we will resolve the conflict within 20 minutes, from the point at which both parties can tell me what the other party is needing.
One time we found a couple married, 39 years had a conflict, had not been able to resolve this conflict. The wife said to me, Marshall, I can tell you right now we're not going to be able to resolve this within 20 minutes, we have a good marriage. We communicate well. But this is just one of those things that we're different, we just have a conflict here.
I said, let me correct one thing. I didn't say we're going to resolve it within 20 minutes. I said within 20 minutes from the point at which you can both tell me what the other party is needing.
Oh, she said Marshall, when you've been married 39 years and you've talked about something almost every day, I can tell you we understand each other. The problem isn't that we're just two different people on this issue.
Well, I said, I've been wrong before. I can sure be wrong this time, but let's see. We'll find out within 20 minutes. First tell me what his needs are in this situation.
He doesn't want me to spend any money.
He responds immediately. That's ridiculous.
39 years of communication.
First of all, doesn't want me to spend any money is not a need. Needs, and strategies need to be separated. They had been talking about how much money she could spend and not spend, but the more important issue there was who takes care of the checkbook.
He unilaterally controlled the checkbook which was really the main issue between them, but i'm saying i don't even want the couple to talk about the strategies and the solutions until the connection is made.
When the connection is there, the conflicts usually resolve themselves.
I pointed out to her, no, that's not a need.
Even if it was, notice he's saying that's not accurate.
Let me then tell you what his needs are, Marshall. You see he's just like his own father. They both have a depression mentality when it comes to money.
I said, stop, now i'm hearing psychoanalytic jackal, that's gonna take another 39 years if you get into that. I'm not asking for an analysis of his personality. I'm saying, what are his needs? She didn't know. After 39 years, she had no consciousness of his needs.
I said to him, okay, well she doesn't know why don't you tell her?
Well, Marshall, let me tell you what her needs are. She's a lovely woman, wonderful mother, a wonderful wife. But when it comes to money, she's totally irresponsible.
Here comes another 39 years. I asked for a need, and he gives me a diagnosis. Of course she immediately says, that's unfair. I said, hold it. Hold it. I could see they didn't have a need literacy. I had to loan them my ears.
With giraffe ears, of course I'm conscious that all judgements "she's totally irresponsible" is a tragic expression of an unmet need. You see? So if she would have had these ears, they would have been able to resolve this in the first year of their marriage, but she didn't, she was taking it personally.
I helped them out. I said, when you say she's irresponsible, are you feeling frightened and need to be sure the family is protected economically? He said, that's exactly what I mean. Well, it wasn't what he had been saying for 39 years, but he didn't know how to say his feelings and needs.
Okay. I've got his needs identified. He was scared. Wanted to protect the family. Economically. I turned to his wife and said, could you tell me back what you heard him say?
Because, one time I overdo the checkbook when we were first married. He thinks...
Excuse me, notice what the first word that she said was, "but". She doesn't know the cardinal giraffe rule, never put your butt in the face of an angry person.
I said, what are his feelings and needs?
But...
no no no. What are his feelings and needs? Want me to repeat them?
Yeah, I hear him saying he's scared, but hold it, calm down here. His feelings and needs. See, after 39 years of enemy image, it's not easy for somebody to shift these images. Once we get one of these images in our mind of the other person's wrongness, even when they are expressing their needs, we don't hear it. These enemy images are hard to get past.
So she's been seeing him as cheap and having this depression mentality for 39 years. She can't see the human being behind her image. I said, let me repeat it again. I hear him saying he's scared because he needs some to protect the and needs to protect the family economically. Can you say that back?
Yeah, he thinks I'm irresponsible. Let's try it again. After three more repetitions. Finally, she could hear his needs and feeling separate from her judgments. finally. Yes.
Did you try to empathize with her at any point? Or did you just keep repeating his needs?
Yes. After I had tried twice to get her to hear it, I could see she was in too much pain to hear him. I had to do what I was just demonstrating like this. Actually I had needed to give her some emergency first aid empathy before I could pull her by the ears to hear him.
After I tried two times to pull the Jackal by the ears, it's hard to do that. Cause they keep trying to bite, and then I back off.
It really hurts when you hear criticism. Yes. Yes. So you really need to be trusted. Yeah.
I'd like to repeat what he said and I'd like to have you tell me back what he heard. Yeah, I did have to do a little bit of cleaning up the mess and before I could see every image that she's heard in the past, every criticism, which she'd heard for years, she was irresponsible. It's hard for her to hear the need that was being expressed all along behind that.
Finally I get her to hear his feelings and needs. Okay. We're halfway through. Now this much took me an hour.
I try to help her. Could you tell me now what your needs are? Well, just because I made one mistake. I overdrew the checkbook before, that doesn't mean I'm going to do it again.
He said, yes, we could be out of money.
Excuse me. So you're really frustrated. If I hear you correctly, you have a need for some trust that you can learn how to handle money.
Yes.
Okay. Husband, could you tell me that?
Yeah. We'll be out of money by then.
Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Can you tell me what her feelings and needs are? Would you like me to repeat it? Yes. Okay. About three more repetitions. He hears her. It didn't take 20 minutes to resolve it, at that point.
(128:10) Whenever I go into situations where there's been a lot of conflict, I don't even allow the people to talk about strategies until they're connected at the heart level.
I was working with two tribes in Northern Nigeria, one Christian tribe and one Muslim tribe. One quarter of the population killed in one year. One out of four people killed. It took my colleague six months to get them to agree to come into a room together.
During that six months 60 people killed. By the time it took us to get everybody into a room together 60 people killed.
It's not a husband and wife I have on opposite ends of the table, but the chiefs of two tribes.
I start the same way I did with the husband and wife.
I'd like to hear you express your needs. What needs are not being met?
I'm pretty much guessing ahead of time I'm not going to get an answer to my question, because if people had been communicating at the need level, there wouldn't have been a hundred people dead.
I wasn't surprised when, instead of getting an answer to my question, I got this back:
These people are murderers.
You've been trying to dominate us.
See, I asked for needs. I get back down a diagnosis. Just as with the husband and wife, I put my ears on translate each statement into a need, get the other side to hear it.
It wasn't easy. I had to do a lot of first aid empathy. to get. Cause like when I got this person behind "murders" was, "so you are frightened of any use of violence to resolve conflict and want some agreement to resolve it in some other way".
Yes, exactly.
Okay. Could you say back what you heard then?
Why did you kill my child? So it wasn't too easy. Anyway, it took about an hour, again, for me to get one need expressed, one need heard one need expressed, one need heard.
One of the chiefs who hadn't spoken yet said to me, if we know how to communicate this way, we won't have to kill each other.
He just took one hour to see if they can just stay connected at the heart level, nobody has to die. There's plenty of resources for getting everybody's needs met, but we lose that when we get up into our head and start to analyze wrongness.
(2:10:36) Does this need understanding, develop into a well sort of not necessarily give and take, but where one person would give in to the other person?
No compromising in giraffe, it's not necessary to compromise. Everybody's needs can get met. Nobody has to give in. Nobody has to give anything up.
I agree with you, especially when it comes to doing things for other people, because if my theory is that if I do something for someone else that gives a person power over me. Whereas if I go it,
Put it this way. If you do anything that involves giving in, both people pay for it, nothing has been resolved. It's gonna create problems.
(2:11:18)
Is there a needs, dialogue or needs literacy? You mentioned that. I have the need literacy in my book.
If you want to develop your need literacy, I suggest you do the following activity. First, identify your most frequently used jackals, the ones you use the most and next the ones you're the most afraid of.
Do it this way. First, make a list of how you talk to yourself when you're less than perfect. Those of you over here who said you were perfect, you'll have to skip this part of it. But for those of you who aren't perfect, a list of how are you most likely to speak to yourself when you're less than perfect? So that's Jackal a list.
Next, make a second list. What are the Jackal messages that go on in you when you are angry at others? So when you're judging others and are angry, what are you most likely to be saying to yourself or out loud about the other person?
Jackal list number three:
List those things that when other people say it at the moment you respond to defensively or aggressively and put on that list of things that you have been so afraid that people might think of you, that you've become a nice dead person to avoid.
In other words, put into that list, not only what people have said that got you defensive, but things you're scared they might say.
Now do this exercise to build your need literacy, go back over that first list. Where are you? What do you say to yourself when you're less than perfect now for each judgment, think of what might have been the stimulus for it. See, you got to relate each of these to a specific context.
Let's say the first thing is you have in your list, number one "what a dumb thing to do." Think of what you might have done to stimulate that. Okay. Then put on giraffe ears and hear the need behind stupid. See, I'm saying that all judgements are tragic expressions of unmet needs. Ask yourself. If I, when I say that to myself in that situation, "how stupid" what need am I expressing through that judgment? What need of mine isn't getting met?
Here's where you can use the list in my book. If you can't come up with it yourself, just look through the list and your body will tell you when you're getting close. Oh yeah. That's what my need is. The need comes much closer to the truth than any judgment you make of yourself. Do that for every item on the list.
Second, what you tell yourself when you're angry at others again, identify concretely what the other person might have done to stimulate this. Then ask yourself this question: when i judge people as idiots who're doing that, what need of mine was not being met in that situation?
Again, try to guess it without my list, but if you can't find it, look through my list to find one that comes closest.
The third list, what others say to you to get you defensive. Practice putting on the giraffe ears, imagine what you did to stimulate it. In that situation, guess what the other person's needs were that weren't getting met. It's just learning a new language, learning where every time there are these Jackal judgments to as quickly as possible to bring yourself back to life or more specifically connect to needs that are alive in us.
(2:15:29) My question is, i never know what to do when i know i'm never gonna meet another person's expectation of me.
Yes. Well, first of all, never hear an expectation. That's thoughts, expectations or thoughts. Don't hear it. Don't even hear expectations. Hear what the need is. What is the need that the person is asking for you? You don't want to live up to expectations, but it is fun to meet needs.
Do you think that every, that human beings can always meet other people's needs? If they're real?
All of our needs can be met. I don't think you have to do it. There's several billion. Other people that could meet the other person's needs. Even if you couldn't do it, you may choose not to. That won't be a problem. The other person can hear a no, if they first feel empathy for their feelings and needs, that will leave them feeling at least that their feelings and needs matter.
Right. That makes sense.
Yes. But then again, you're not, you'd have to know how to say no in Giraffe.
That would be good for me to learn.
Let me help you out. Never use the following words when you're saying no in giraffe:
- No, I can't.
- I don't want to.
- I don't have time.
- It's not possible now.
Now you know how not to do it.
Here's how you do it. To say no in giraffe, you need to be conscious that a no is a poor expression of a need. Say the need that keeps you from saying yes.
No.
If you had giraffe years on just You wouldn't have heard me saying no, you would have said, what is Marshall's need? That's keeping him from saying, yes, you might've said back to me, Marshall, are you having a need for completion of other things you'd like to do right now? You would have tried to hear the need behind the no. What I said is all nos are tragic expressions of a need. Say the need that keeps you from saying yes, don't say no.
(2:17:59) The way that I have this framed. I feel as though I am responding to a person's expectations. It's a work environment.
Are you feeling afraid of being held responsible for the quality and quantity of the work that I'm doing?
This is to a supervisor, are you feeling scared and need to protect yourself? That might be the need that I hear you guessing.
Are you feeling scared and need to protect yourself in this matter?
I guess when I hear that, I feel afraid because I'm inferring that there's a danger and that they have a fear of some danger. If this is what you're guessing is alive in them, you're not saying it's right.
We never say "you are feeling". We always say, "are you feeling". We may be wrong, but we're trying to get clear what's going on in this person.
Are you feeling afraid and need to protect yourself
try to hear the feelings and needs without you. You've been, you kWe know what that is in this situation. They're talking to you about some things you've done or haven't done. In the context, we're pretty clear what's going on. What we want to hear now is their feelings and needs. Are you feeling scared and need to protect yourself in this matter?
(2:19:28) In many settings where the people are not used to having feelings dealt. The other person might get very upset with having their feelings being talked about. In which case you'd do it silently. But if you're a giraffe, you hear feelings and needs in every message. Whether you do it out loud or not.
Politically, we adjust when we might do it out loud, but we don't allow anything else into our consciousness except this other person's feelings and needs.
(2:20:04) I think you said earlier that there's no compromise in giraffe communication. I would find it instructional to know how the problem between the husband and wife was resolved and how it was a win situation for both of them.
(2:20:21) Once there is empathy, people feel that their feelings and needs matter, which is done through the empathy. You don't have the competitiveness. Here's how it went. After they both heard each other. He heard that it was really hurt for her not to be trusted that she could learn. Once he felt she really understood how scared he was, that if she were to do what she did, when they first got married and overdraw the account, she could hear that he wanted to protect the family.
I think most six year old children could resolve the conflicts that get nations into wars in which thousands are killed.
If you gave the six year olds, you said, look, here are the needs on both sides, here are the resources, I'm confident most six-year-olds could solve the conflict.
In this, it doesn't take a genius. What did they do? She said, I want to trial period to learn how to do it. At first, he said, I'm scared, cause you you could go through a lot of money learning.
She agreed, during the trial period, he would supervise her until he felt comfortable that she knew how to do it. Okay. That took about seven minutes, but they hadn't been able to get to that in 39 years because of all the enemy images, the hurt and so forth.
(2:21:53) How do you deal with a situation when you have similar needs and you attempt to express them to each other and you sense as the emotions build up because of a apparent competitive edge working that our mutual needs are not being heard
Then you either need to get a third party to give both of them the empathy they need to hear each other. If the two people are in pain, they don't know how to give themselves enough empathy, to be able to hear the other side, then you need to get a third party to give the empathy to each of them so that they can then hear each other. That the party should be together with these two individuals or separately. There's different ways to do that. They're together. There's some advantages, but it could be to give empathy to both sides separately and then help each side to hear the other side and then bring them together.
This morning you made a reference to Giraffe mourning and that there's a different way of saying you're sorry to someone. I wanted to hear what that was.
(2:23:37) Okay. Let's real quick look at what I mean by giraffe morning. Think of something you did that you wished you hadn't done, and identify, recall as best you can how you talk to yourself when you said it or did it, whatever you did. What did you do that you wished you hadn't done after you had done it? Give me a sample of what you said to yourself when you did.
That I was feeling defensive and I criticize someone.
(2:24:27) So, What you did is you said some things to another person that you wished you hadn't done. Okay. What did you say to yourself when you did that?
Well, usually in the moment I feel defensive of myself.
(2:24:43) No, I want to concretely know that for this exercise. I need to know concretely what you say to yourself when you behave in a way you don't like, This is very important to answer your question about giraffe mourning. It's very important to identify your inner, what your inner educator is saying to you.
All of us have an inner educator whose function it is to educate us when we are less than perfect. Most of us made the mistake of sending our inner educator off to a brutal jackal academy for inner educators and so, it's important to be conscious of how our inner educator talks to us that's what i'm asking you - when you said what you did to your husband what did your inner educator how did your inner educator try to educate you? It said what to you about what you had done in the moment or later? Either one.
Well, the point when I start to feel regret or sorry is later
At any point, what did you say to yourself about what you had done? Okay.
Okay. I said, I'm a bad person.
(2:25:58) That's enough. Your inner educator tries to educate you through penitence, through making you hate yourself for what you've done. It uses language that implies there's such a thing as a bad person. Alright. If you apologize out of that energy, that's Jackal, any apology that comes out of thinking you did something wrong is not going to be good for you or the other person. You wouldn't be so far. I know it feels bad. Yeah. I really want you to feel bad in this situation, but I want you to feel a sweet bad, a sweet bad that will help you learn from this without hating yourself.
(2:26:50) When you have a thought in your head that you're a bad person, that's an ugly bad, that's a punitive bad that'll, first of all, make it hard to learn. Even if you do learn, it's out of self hatred. Whatever changes you make are at great cost. That's your inner educator. That was your inner educator speaking to you when it said you're a bad person.
We've been learning today that all judgments are expressions of needs, right? So your inner educator means well, it really means well, it wants you to learn from this in a way that will serve life. It means, well, it's just it's language that sucks.
Okay. We don't want to hear what the inner educator thinks about us. We want to hear the need that isn't getting met, that it's trying to call to our attention. What need is your inner educator trying to bring to your attention that you didn't meet by how you behaved
A need to be in relationship with the other person
A need and what kind of relationship, a mutual understanding, respectful. Right? So it didn't meet your need for respecting and understanding the other person. How do you feel when that need isn't met?
guilty
Then you still got the bad person image in mind. You still think that if there's any thinking, still going on, that guilt comes from the judgment.
I feel separate and isolated.
But how do you feel? What emotion do you feel about not meeting your own needs for understanding and respecting? See the guilt comes from that image of bad person, but what feeling comes from not meeting your need to respond to this person with respect and understanding?
sad
that's a sweet pain. That's giraffe mourning. If you say to the person, you know the way I talked to you, i feel really sad. It doesn't meet my need for respecting you and understanding you.
Ihere's no image in there that i'm a bad person. I'm sad, i didn't meet my own need for respecting and understanding.
check with the other person. whether they'd rather hear the giraffe morning or the apology that you're a bad person.
I'm having a little problem trying to find the teeth in this model somehow. It seems like everything is, even though we're talking to it's on a feeling level, everything seems the way I'm interpreting anyways. It's sort of on a mental level as opposed to an emotional level. I guess I operate a lot from my gut. I'm trying to get down to that somehow. I need some help with it. Tell me how I would be able to use this technique in my daily life. To make it so that it's natural. It's not natural for me to operate this way.
The first thing I would recommend to you is change the word natural to habitual. I think this process more natural than the way you were trained to think. Gandhi says it's very dangerous to mix up the words, natural and habitual. He says we have been trained to be quite habitual at communicating in ways that are quite unnatural. I can't think of a more natural way to communicate than to talk about what's alive in us. Just what we're feeling and needing.
If I feel like saying no, it seems okay to me,...
(2:31:14) But what do you mean by, okay? It's okay to say no. Let me be more specific when you say no, I predict that by saying no., more often than you would like the other person is going to react to you in a way that isn't in your best interest. If you say the need behind the no, that's less likely to happen.
So then if I understand what you're saying, you're trying to, the idea is that is to communicate in a way that the other person would communicate back to you in a way that's in my best interest?
I'm saying the purpose of this process is to get everybody's needs met, and that the needs are met by people giving willingly, not out of any coercive motivation. I'm saying that when you say, no, it gets in the way of the likelihood that everybody's needs are going to end up getting met. If you say the need that keeps you from saying, yes, I predict there's more likelihood that everybody's needs will end up getting met.
If I understand what you're saying, you're saying just to express your needs without saying without saying a no?
I'm saying the need is a clear expression of what you're trying to say. You get more connected to life when you say the need that keeps you from saying yes than just saying no. It's less likely to be interpreted as a rejection as you being defensive. You just say the no by itself, I predict is more likely to get you interpretations that aren't in your best interests.
Sometimes when I don't hear a no, I look at it as being sort of a passive aggressive response to something that I might want someone... If I make an appointment with somebody and instead of them saying, no, they just don't show up. Then they give me a reason why they don't.
Yes. I'm not suggesting that I'm not suggesting that response. I'm suggesting that I would have liked that person to have told you honestly, at the time what their need was. I think if they had done that, you wouldn't have gotten into that situation. They said a yes that wasn't.
Some people are, won't say, I'm afraid. If the reason is that they're afraid.
(2:33:55) It would depend a lot on what has happened in the past to them when they have said no, in whatever way they did it, they did it. If they have not enjoyed very, Empathic responses to it in the past, then they're probably afraid to be honest about it.
I see the value in all of this. I really do. I guess it's idea that it's a touchy feely type of thing that I'm not used to working around that.
(2:34:21) You're trying to figure out, if I'm understanding, how to really put this into a idiom that you can use daily and feels comfortable to you.
That's one way of putting it.
Yeah. So in our training, we first show people how to develop the literacy and then how to put it into their regular language. I had a student traveling with me and he wanted to give me a gratitude. He liked something I did. I was really working a group hard. During the break, he said dictator. That was giraffe because he knew that I knew what he was reacting to. He knew I wouldn't hear a judgment. He knew, I would guess in there what he was feeling and needing to see. He could say that dictator.
After we really know how to clearly identify our feelings, needs and requests, then we can start to put it into a language that can connect us with the people we're speaking with. In this stage of the day after one day, I'm still working with you on making sure you understand what a feeling and a need is. Because if you don't really understand that, it's going to be hard to know how to then put it into your words.
I guess I'm a recovering New York Jackal.
(2:35:46) I'm getting the impression that apology, isn't really the best service of being a giraffe. I'd like to see you model for me an acknowledgement of missing the mark sitting courageously.
If you recall earlier, I showed you an example of that, where I showed the person saying, I feel sad, I would have liked to have responded with more understanding than I did. You're not using the word. I'm sorry. You're saying I'm sad. It's not so much the word I'm sorry. What we shifted from was thinking that I did something wrong that it was bad. It's that thinking that is the problem.
The 'I'm Sorry' follows from that thinking. It's not just that. I don't say I'm sorry. I say I'm sad. If I'm sad, see the word, I'm sorry. It means almost nothing. People can say that and not feel anything. They use say that to by forgiveness. If I'm feeling sad, I say that I'm feeling sad. I would have liked to have been more aware of your needs, for example, where I didn't take the person's needs into consideration, but I don't say I'm sorry. That was inconsiderate of me.
There's no, self-blame I didn't do anything wrong. There is no such thing as doing anything wrong. What I did was not in harmony with my needs. I wanted more than that. I'm sad. I would have liked to have been more aware of your needs. Something like that.
1:37:27 I have a situation with my intimate partner that many times we get together and we argue a lot and I have this need. And that you were saying earlier is inappropriate. That I want her to be happy. I didn't say it was inappropriate. I said it was undoable. Okay. Right. But that's who she keeps telling me. But if you're gonna tell me to be happy, tell me the action to get there that I can do. If you tell me an action that you've predicted. If I do that, I'll be happy at the end. It would be helpful. Tell me the action. Don't just tell me, be happy. Don't tell me to have confidence in myself. Tell me what you would like me to do to feel that confidence, the action will get me there, but just telling me what to feel, puts me into a paradoxical bind. Okay. Um, well, one of the other things would be when we get together, I don't necessarily want to be going somewhere with her. If she's not in a good mood at that time, or if there's some tenseness empathize with why I'm not in a good mood and I'll be in one, but telling me I got to be in a better mood for you to want to go with me. It gets me in the worst one.
(2:38:56) Okay.
(2:39:02) Um, I'm wondering if there's some times when it's over here, it's um, I'm feeling some anxiety about a trip I'm planning to visit my mother soon. We have a dynamic where she really wants to help me figure out every detail of what I'm doing during my stay. I'd like it to be less. Let me show you how to do it. I'm afraid that if I talk to her like this, it's gonna make matters much worse.
(2:39:30) Okay. Then we'll teach you how, if it does, we'll show you how to enjoy it when it gets worse.
(2:39:34) Okay.
(2:39:37) But first let me show you the first thing to do. If we want a person to consider another behavior than the one they're doing, start the communication by showing them that what they're doing is the most precious thing they could be doing this way. Empathy start by empathizing with mother's intent in behaving as she does mother. I'm guessing that when you jump in and want to show me all the things that could be done, you really care a lot about my enjoying myself on this trip and want to be sure you support them. Oh yes. He knows a of things about them. Yeah. It's really very important to you that, That I have a
good time and you want to contribute to it. Yeah. That's step one. What I mean? That's what I mean by starting by showing you understand. The more we're tncerned about that behavior, the more important it is to start wit,hahat's why when I work in prisons and this person has been sexually molesting people or raping people, if I woul,d like this person to find another way of behav
Iing I gotta do is make sure they don't hate themselves for what they're doing. The more they hate themselves for what they're doing, the more they'll continue doing it. I start by empathizing with what their needs are in doing it. Okay. You've got that step. The next step. What we started off the day with, I tell honestly how I feel in my mind feeling torn right now. Cause I'm grateful for your intent, but I really have a need to make my own choices here. Cause I think it'd be very hard for anybody else to really know what I need. I need this space to figure it out for myself. So, Would you tell me what you heard me say, mother? So I can see if I'm making myself clear
(2:41:27)
(2:41:37) Now I know mother didn't hear me now. I know mother didn't hear my needs. She probably heard a rejection. She probably heard that she's not valued. It's important that I not think that her reaction is because of what I said. If I expressed my feelings and needs, it would be impossible for a person to react this way. If they heard it, they would have gotten a gift. They would have the eyes of a little child getting a gift from Santa Claus. That doesn't look like what mother's looking like right now. Mom, could you tell me what you just heard me say? You don't walk me.
(2:42:19) You heard the as rejection mother. Of course. How else could I have heard it? Well, thank you for telling me you heard it
as a rejection mother. Notice I didn't say that. Isn't what I said. If you want to make it, if you want to have people understand you differently, never tl them you're misunderstanding. Never say that. Isn't what I said,.aain, mother, as I do value very much, you're offering to help. Then I have a need to get my own needs, clea,r and structure my own time. Can you tell me wh
Iy? So you think I don't have any intelligence about helping you. Thank you for telling me what you're hearing mother.
(2:43:12) I'd still, I'd like to you to hear it differently. Like you just to hear my needs, that I have a real need to sort things out for myself and structure my own time. Could you tell me what you heard? See, you have a need to get clear for y
ourself, what you want and to figure things out. Thank you, mother. How easy it is to get empathy from a Jackal. Just about three ear pools. I got it righ tow. There are some eight pool Jackal's too. I know that I can tel,la(2:43:51) Tha,nk you. You mentioned, You mentioned earlier th
Ienjoying suffering. Could you elaborate on
(2:44:05) Oh yes. That's. That's very important. Thanks to you for being in back to me about it. Okay. A friend of yours says this to you.
(2:44:15) Nothing.
(2:44:19) I'll never amount to anything. Look it, I, an assistant clerk at age 45 and brothers head of his company, my sister is a top attorney and I'm a nothing. Okay. To enjoy this person's suffering, we have to release ourselves from two kinds of responsibility. First that we didn't cause the pain. We want to release ourselves from that, especially when the other person's trying to make us believe we did cause the pain, see Swift, this person had started and you're at fault for all of this. Why am I enough? Especially when a person says that we do not want to in any way, think we caused this person's pain. Cause you can't cause another person's psychological pain.
(2:45:10) Well, in this case, the person wasn't saying that, so that's pretty easy to liberate ourselves from feeling responsible. But the second one is the hard one to think we have to fix it, to make the person feel better. The more we think it's our job to make a person feel better. The more we're going to make it worse because you can't fix people. The good news is you don't have to. There is a very powerful healing energy, always available if we don't block it. How do we block that energy by trying to fix things ourselves. How do we help that energy do the job by empathy? Empathy requires presence just to be present when we are just present. When we are remembering the Buddha's advice, don't do something stand there.
(2:46:12) When we do that. That energy works through us. There is a precious connection between that person and us and that precious connection is what I mean by enjoying the pain to enjoy that precious connection. Whether this person's feeling joy or pain, if we are present there with them, that's what I mean. But we blocked that beautiful energy whenever we stepped in and think we have to fix things. If we say, Oh, they're there you'll feel better. It'll get over it. We make it worse. When we start to give advice, we make it worse.
(2:46:54)
What does that look like? So you're feeling really discouraged and really would like to have achieved more in your life at this moment than you've done. Yes. Yes. I've had every opportunity and look at me. I've just never made use of anything. Yeah. You're really discouraged and frustrated and would really have liked to have made different use of some things than you have. I'm just present, not trying to fix it. When that happens, there's a very precious connection. That's what I mean by enjoying and that precious connection. Does the healing, not your advice, not your whatever. Yes.
Speaker 11 02:47:37 Can you clarify the distinction between empathizing and sort of encouraging and supporting the soap opera? You kSomebody who is somebody who's suffering and sometimes by being there, it's sort of a subtle encouragement as opposed to
(2:48:01)
The subtle encouragement that I think you're talking about comes about when this person is talking about what happened to them. That for the 50th time, you've heard this story. If I'm really listening to them, I don't hear what they talk about the past, because I know that the more they talk about the past, the less healing will take place. Right? So I interrupt, but I interrupt to bring the conversation to live. They're talking about the past and I interrupt and I say, excuse me, but it sounds like right now you're still feeling hurt because your need for respect wasn't met in there is he cause just letting them talk about the past and asking them questions about what happened about the past is to just keep the soap opera going. I interrupt when they talk about the past, because we don't heal by talking about the past. We heal by talking about what's alive in us right Stimulated by the past. But it's, what's here now. When I connect at that level, they won't keep talking about they'll heal. Last question. Then I'm going to get into the subject that I'd like to cover before the end. Yes.
Speaker 11 02:49:16 Um, I, you talk about having, Let's see if someone else cannot cause our emotional pain. I think about the B the abuse that I grew up with and that I see in a lot of families in the suffering that I've experienced throughout my life, through my recovery and all that. Right?
(2:49:43) Yes. Other people were a stimulus for your suffering and you are a participant by how you dealt with it. For example, if you follow me in my work, you would see this very clearly in places like Rwanda, Burundi, Sierra, Leon, I'm working with people that have had their families killed. Some of those people have such rage that all they live for moment by moment is the possibility of vengeance. Others have no anger have never had anger, same exact stimulus. They have deep feelings, not rage. It is not the stimulus that determines how our emotional reaction is. That part is up to us.
(2:50:31) I have, I work with some women, unfortunately, a lot who've been raped. Some of them feel shame, deep shame, some field range, some feel other things. The same stimulus depends how people take it. Whether they feel shame, rage or other things. I'm working with a woman from Rwanda who had men. She heard her three children being killed. Cause she got two underneath the sink hit underneath the sink and time her children didn't make it to the hiding place. In time they got killed. She heard them, she heard her husband being killed and her brother, she had to stay underneath there 11 days to save her own life because they stayed in the house after they killed the family.
(2:51:20)
This woman has deep feelings, but never once has she had the anger that makes her want to get vengeance. She's put all of her feelings and lots of them into protecting, preventing this happening to anybody else you see. The way she looked at it leads her to want to prevent this happening to anybody else. She came to my workshop because she wanted to know how to deal with the rage toward her, from other people in her tribe who are furious with her, that they don't want. She won't join their efforts to kill the other people. Same stimulus, quite different reactions.
Speaker 11 02:51:58 Okay. I had the stimulus in somewhere. I learned how to deal with it in the way that I had dealt with it. I'm learning to change that.
(2:52:07)
The worst thing of course would be no matter how you did choose to deal with it is to think there was something wrong with how you chose to deal with it. I'm not wanting us to get into one way as right or wrong. I'm just saying that no matter what happens to us, the other person's responsible for what they did. I'm not saying the other person doesn't have,
Speaker 11 02:52:24 That's my question about accountability.
(2:52:26)
The person's responsible for what they did and why they did it. We are responsible for how we deal with that. Okay.
Speaker 11 02:52:42 Let's see. I'm just wondering how a child becomes responsible. I mean, still, you kChildren first
(2:52:47) Wouldn't want to teach the child, the lesson I just taught you until I had given that child, all the empathy that child needed. I would guess it would be a lot. I can see myself dealing with a long time of hearing this child's enormous pain as a result of this. But then in the course of this, I would be seeing this child, having some pain created by how they looked at it. I would see that they're creating pain on top of pain. They, how they looked at it. After the child had all the empathy, he, or she needed, then I would do what I could to get them, to see it in a way that wouldn't create unnecessary pain for themselves.
(2:53:38) This is a baby Jackal. Yes. Okay. What I'd like to do in the precious time that we have left a deal with a very important part of giraffe. Cause I wouldn't want you to get the idea that a nonviolent communication is solely interested in conflict resolution because it's equally interested in celebration. How can we celebrate life? In fact, the part that I've left for 10 minutes before the end is in some respects, the most important part because it's where we get the fuel to stay giraffe in a what's often a very Jacklish world. It's going to be pretty hard to make this radical transformation into back to our nature in many situations, unless we're getting plenty of fuel. Where does the fuel come from? The fuel comes from celebration. What celebration comes from saying thank you in giraffe. Let's see now in the last minute, it's how we celebrate by saying thank you in giraffe, expressing gratitude in giraffe. First I'd like to remind you of how Jackal say thank you. You did a good job on that paper. You are a very person.
(2:55:06) You're a good dancer. Can you see why that's Jackal? Moralistic judgments, positive moralistic judgments are equally as violent in my estimation as negative ones. Namely, they reinforce the idea that the negative exist. If I say you're a kind person I'm implying, there's such a thing as an unkind person, I'm also implying that I'm the judge that knows the difference. No more praise or compliments. Okay? No more praise or compliments, especially when you intend them as a reward. That's the ultimate dehumanization to use. Thank you as a reward to say it for the purpose of trying to reinforce something, to get the person to continue doing it. It's like sending it. You know what goes on at dog obedience, school punishment and rewards. He's giving a compliment or praise for the purpose of reinforcement is giving the dog a, something to eat, to reinforce it for something, what people are not for that treatment. It destroys the beauty of thank you. When people have to wonder, is this being set out of that energy, but it works. What does Jackal studies in management indicate that if managers praise and compliment employees, daily production goes up, studies in school show that if teachers praise and compliment students daily, they work harder.
(2:56:44) Jackal, take another look at the research. I think you'll see that only works for a very short time until people see the manipulation and then it no longer works. It destroys the beauty of thank you because now you cannot even trust gratitude without wondering whether it's being used as a reinforcement as a reward. Well, what about if I want to build up the other person's self esteem, what's wrong with that? So you Jackal you don't see the irony of that. What if the other person can only like themselves when you compliment them, they have no self esteem. You've just addicted them to your rewards. That they only feel good. When you say something about them. They have no self-esteem okay. How does a giraffe say thank you or gratitude. First there's three things that are involved in a giraffe e
xpression of gratitude that give us energy to keep being a giraffe. The first thing in a giraffe expression of gratitude is we bring to this other perso t attention concretely, what they have done that has made life mor,eawer that each one of us has to make life more wonderful.
(2,:58:15) Each of us is a powerhouse. We have wor
Ipower to contribute, to making people's lives more wonderful. We have touch. We can touch people in ways that can make life more wonderful. We can provide services for people. We are powerhouses. The more we remember this, we will not get caught up in any violent games. Why would we use our energy anyway, other than to make life wonderful. When we remember that we have this power. That's one thing we got to make clear in our expression of gratitude specifically, what the person did, not some vague generality. For example, a woman in Geneva, Switzerland came up to me at the end of a workshop. Here's what she said to me. You're brilliant.
(2:59:17) I said, doesn't help. She said, what do you mean? I said, you kMa'am I have been called a lot of names in my life. Really? I have some positive and some far less than positive and I can never recall learning anything valuable by somebody telling me what I am. I think there's zero information value in being told what you are and great danger. You might believe it. It's just, it's just as dangerous to believe that you're smart is that you're stupid. Both of them reduce you to a thing. They said we're much more than either of those,
(2:59:58) But I can see in your eyes that you want to express some gratitude. Yes. I want to receive it, but it doesn't help me to be told what I am. What do you need to hear? What did I do to make life more wonderful for you? Well, you're so intelligent. Nah, it doesn't help. Doesn't help. What did I do? Oh, I gotcha. I got you. She opens up her notebook. She showed me two things that I had said that she had written down. She put a big star by them. I see that helps me now. Okay. That helps me to know that. Somehow my saying those two things made this person's life more wonderful. That's the first thing we need to say in appreciation, we need to bring to the person's attention concretely, what they did that made life more wonderful. Second at the moment, we're giving the graphic today to say how we feel at that moment about the person having done that.
(3:00:59) I said to this woman, could you tell me how you feel now? As a result of my having said those two things, she said hopeful and relieved. Oh, hopeful. Really that gives me much more than telling me what I am. That I'm brilliant. Just to know that somehow am I saying those two things? This person feels hopeful and relieved. When I hear the third thing, I'll be able to really enjoy this gratitude. I said, what need of yours was fulfilled by my saying, what I did that leaves you feeling hopeful and relieved. That's the third thing we need to see in a giraffe gratitude. She said, I have an 18 year old son. I've never been able to connect with him. It's been very painful that we never can connect. I have needed some direction to help me connect with him. Those two things you said, met my need for some concrete direction.
(3:02:04) Had she expressed her gratitude in giraffe, she would have said Marshall, when you said these two things showed me what the two things were. It leaves me feeling hopeful and relieved. It meets a need of mine to connect with my son in a way that I want. Okay. That's how we say gratitude and giraffe, those three things. It's also important how we receive gratitude. Let me show you how a giraffe, a Jackal receives gratitude. Jackal. When you offered to give me the ride that just now over to where I'm going afterwards, I feel very grateful because I really have a need to spend more time with my family. If I took the bus, I'd have an hour less time, nothing, dude, man.
(3:02:55) See if you want to terrorize a Jackal express love or appreciation to it, really, if you really want to scare a Jackal, I've never seen anything. Scared. Jackal speaking people more than sincere gratitude or love. Why do you get some nerv
ous Jackal when you hear it? Well, I don't know that I deserved it. Jackals have this da
ngerous concept in their head deserve. I t a very violent concept. It implies that you have to deserv,earth thin,gs and you'll set up a very destructive economi
Iset up a destructive correctional system. Very dangerous concept.
(3:03:59) Well, that's not the only reason why else do you get so scared when you hear gratitude, Jackal, what's wrong with being humble. You want to have a need for humility? Well, you kJackal, there's different kinds of humility. I'm afraid that you're kind is a Jackal humility. I think you're kind is the gold of my year. The Israeli prime minister was reacting to when she said to one of her politicians, don't be so humble. You're not that great.
(3:04:39) But the main reason that I believe that gratitude is so scary for many of us to receive is beautifully and poetically written in the course in miracles where they say it's our light, not our darkness. That scares us the most. You having been educated in this Jackal way to hate ourselves to think there's something wrong with us. It's a big jump to really see what I was saying, that we have enormous power to make life wonderful. There's nothing we enjoy doing more than exercising. That power. That's pretty, unfortunately a pretty big jump for us to come to, but we can come to it. That's how we say gratitude, observation, feeling in need, same literacy, make sure it's coming from the heart to celebrate and never to praise, compliment reward. Any last comments or questions before our time runs out, I'm grateful for all your time and attention to me,
(3:05:49) .