“What I want in my life is compassion, a flow between myself and others based on a mutual giving from the heart.” Marshall B. Rosenberg (October 6, 1934 – February 7, 2015)
Today is the 5 year anniversary of the passing of a special human being who devoted himself to the cause of “making life wonderful” – not through romantic, utopian visions, but rather by changing the world in the most practical and concrete of ways, one conversation at a time.
The power that exists within and between human beings plays out most prominently in the way that we communicate with one another. As Marshall B Rosenberg demonstrated through his life’s work on nonviolent communication, we have infinite choice in the way in which we play this game of life.
To help us make sense of this abundant choice, Marshall spent his life describing two possible games. One possible game – the one Marshall chose to play – was what he called “making life wonderful”. A very different kind of game, he called “Who’s right?”. We are very well-trained in the rules and playbook of this second kind of game. But it is a game where no-one wins.
Sadly, this game is one that we are seeing played out more and more in our oppositional and siloed politics and media-fuelled landscape. It is a game full of moralistic judgement based on a fiction that there is a “just right” amount of everything. And deriving from such either/or, dichotomous thinking, this game is full of ‘enemy images’ that alienate us from each other, ourselves and life itself. It gives rise to what Marshal calls our ‘Jackal language’.
Nonviolent Communication
In Marshal’s preferred game, humans still judge. However, by re-orienting ourselves towards our own and others’ feelings and needs, we judge based on whether our actions are serving life. Therefore, we embody the state of ‘natural giving’ that “we were designed to enjoy” (as opposed to the commonly-held myth that humans are innately sinful and selfish, a savagery that needs to be civilized). This game is played from the heart not the head, and hence is supported by our ‘Giraffe language’ (as giraffes have the largest heart of any land animal).
It is abundantly clear that we still need Marshal’s insights, arguably more than we ever have done. Most particularly, we need these insights to inform a life-connecting network of ‘giraffe’ educators to continue the process of retraining ourselves and our children away from the ultimately life-alienating practices at which we have become so accomplished. This way we can support ourselves and others towards more heart-full #selfleadership and positive change in the world.
Are you interested to step into this #transformation with us?
Dears, I tried to find a testimonial page on your website but as I did not find and it even makes sense to me that you would not try to show off, I would really like to give feedback on your work.
I listened last year to the GESS keynote of Ulrike and I was just buffled. I have never found anyone to connect so easily and so deeply with like her. She does not only promote nonviolent communication, she lives it. As a school principal for 37 years I went to many conferences, work shops and trainings but I never was touched by a work shop on so different levels as during this work shop. I went through all ranges of feelings from pure happiness to tears in my eyes. I later booked a training with her at our school and what a difference this made to our staff and the connections in the team. Until now (10 months later) Ulrike will be quoted in team meetings.
I can only recommend her as a trainer if you are really in for substantial change.
I hope to being able to listen to any keynote any time soon.
Thank you so much, both Marshall and Ulrike.
Thank you Vicki for your heartfelt message. We so appreciate the feedback and we are certainly still striving to live nonviolent communication as well as promote it! And I have to completely agree with you that Ulrike certainly is a special one – even though she won’t appreciate me saying it publicly! 😉
Thank you. I feel blessed that I had the chance to learn NVC from Marshall and it proves again and again that it is such a wonderful tool for connecting with the self and others.
Dear Vicki, also from my side, thank you a lot. I am very happy to hear that the training proved useful for you. I am looking forward to seeing you again at any of our trainings, workshops and keynotes.
Yes I am. It seems so much being a need of our times to say yes to action before our world has been completely corrupted. Empowering each other in this transformation is so incredible important. Keep going. We follow you!
Thanks Ann, you are so right! We appreciate your support a lot, and are happy to work together to generate more and more ‘transformation’! In fact, future blog post coming up on this big and powerful word!
I studied with Marshall and other “giraffes “ through the years and found a better way of life. Yes, we need his teachings even more today.
Brilliant! Thanks Bev. Happy to join you in the mission to spread Marshall’s teachings!
Thank you for sharing. Looks there is a lot of useful stuff in this. Maybe you can explain more deeply how we can apply this at schools and specifically in SLT? Looking forward to hearing more.
Hi Tan, thanks for your question. Yes we will certainly wright more on this topic. I use NVC all the time with my leadership team as it provides such a useful vehicle for so many conversations. I use it to encourage personal reflection, draw out implicit biases that affect our decision-making, and even to frame the ‘needs’ of the school as a living system.
Working in international settings, the other thing that I find so powerful is that NVC doesn’t ever appear to be affected by cultural perspectives. Speaking to the heart of someone and encouraging them to talk about their own needs seems to be a universal language!
It is really interesting to come across nonviolent communication on a leadership blog. But also it just makes so much sense to me. At the end all find it easier to connect to requests and to follow compassionate people in the workplace and anywhere else.
I would like to read more deeply about this connection and how to specifically apply it in an education setting, where still a whole lot is about domination and judgement.
Thanks Pavlo. You are so right that Marshall’s ‘jackal’ language is very much alive and well in education – domination and judgement are everywhere. It’s not that we don’t judge at all with NVC (as I’m sure you know well), it’s that we judge whether it is serving or alienating life. Too often in education judging with our heads, ‘who’s right?’, is the norm.
We will certainly be writing more in the coming weeks about applying NVC in leadership and education settings. Thanks for your support and watch this space!