Anaïs Nin, possibly the greatest diarist who ever lived, was born on this day in 1903. In her honor, great writers (Nin, Woolf, Thoreau, Wilde, Plath, Emerson, and more) on the creative benefits of keeping a diary: https://t.co/ujKZxlXkDCpic.twitter.com/IOba00ACza
If you’ve spent any significant time reading books or articles on the “science of happiness”, you’ll have encountered what I’ve long thought of as the Cheesiness Problem. It’s an inescapable fact that some of the most thoroughly evidence-backed techniques for enhancing one’s mood are also the most excruciatingly embarrassing – the sorts of things that those of us who imagine ourselves to be rational, sceptical types would never dream of confessing to. This is awkward, since (as I’ve written before) it means having to choose between maintaining a pose of sardonic detachment or doing what actually works. For me, the most vivid example is keeping a gratitude journal. On the one hand, it reallyhelps. On the other hand – well, come on. It’s keeping a gratitude journal… (continues)
“Diaries are how I turned myself into a writer—there’s my ten thousand hours.” —Helen Garner https://t.co/A0zeSYuZ5a
Many [NVC certification] candidates report to us that journalling is challenge, so here are some resources we have put together to support you in your learning. Read about one candidate’s experience of journaling.
We would like you to keep a regular record of your NVC learning, growth and insights. Use journaling as a means to explore (question, reflect, and learn) rather than to simply record the internal and external events in your life… (continues here)
In 2006, I was introduced by Jane Connor to a practice which Marshall Rosenberg used, and I witnessed him use it through the years I knew him. He kept a 3”x 6” index card folded in half in his pocket, and “he would pull it out from time to time and write down the stimuli that triggered an emotional response in him.” Later, he said, he processed them, trying to understand the feelings and needs stimulated in himself and guessing what feelings and needs the other person in the situation might have been experiencing. As Jane commented, “One of the most important aspects of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is becoming aware of our feelings and needs and those of the others in the moment that we are experiencing them.” I have been sharing this practice… (continues)
Despite years of knowing that gratitude contributes to life, and suggesting to people in my workshops to start a gratitude practice in their lives, it is only in the last couple of months that I was finally able to start my own practice. In the past, using gratitude as a PRACTICE instead of just when it arose spontaneously (which I am blessed to have happen often) just wasn’t working for me. But the times were hard enough in my life, and the draw strong enough that I started.
So, for a couple of months now, during a period that included some of the most challenging times in many years, I end each day lying in bed, breathing fully and slowly, and reviewing my day, looking for everything that could possibly be a source of gratitude. Not as a check list, but really pausing with each one, putting my attention again and again on the mystery, wonder, magic, and awe that is the experience of whatever happened, whoever contributed to it. My primary focus is on the people who contribute to my life… (continues)
Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, “I developed NVC as a way to train my attention—to shine the light of consciousness on places that have the potential to yield what I am seeking. What I want in my life is compassion, a flow between myself and others based on a mutual giving of the heart.”
"Never question the beauty of what you are saying because someone reacts with pain, judgment, criticism. It just means they have not heard you." ~ Marshall Rosenberg
NVC is a tool, in our toolbox (akin to a paintbrush); how it is expressed, on the canvas of our lived existence, may be as varied as the fruits of each painter's artistic choices & creative risks.
Toolbox – Tools for Call
e.g.
Recommended: Free NVC/MYLApp (as a composting/'posthersal' if/then)
NVC handout from 1980s (note "dreams" - perhaps inspired by MLK)
"From his work with civil rights activists in the '60s, Rosenberg came up with the precise language of Nonviolent Communication, designed to minimize defensive reactions and maximize cooperation." Katy Butler
When once asked about why he, Marshall Rosenberg, opted to shift from "dreams" (1.0) to "universal human needs" (2.0) he offered it was quicker, it simply took less time.
"If I could teach people only one tool for training in presence it would be to pause. The space of one pause can make a world of difference." p. 45 of Oren Jay Sofer's Say What You Mean
"When we are able to include our own needs in the equation fully, alongside, not instead of, others’ needs, we are more likely to experience the possibility of stepping beyond the either/or paradigm, and finding care for everyone." ~ Miki Kashtan
"There are two things that distinguish truly nonviolent actions from violent actions. First, there is no enemy in the nonviolent point of view. You don’t see an enemy. Your thinking is clearly focused on protecting your needs. Second, your intention is not to make the other side suffer." ~ Marshall Rosenberg
"The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light. Gentle work. Steadfast work. Life-saving work in those moments when life and shame and sorrow occlude our own light from our view, but there is still a clear-eyed loving person to beam it back. In our best moments, we are that person for another." ~ Maria Popova
On Listening
“A jest's prosperity lies in the ear
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it.” William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost
"Anger is a signal that you’re distracted by judgmental or punitive thinking, and that some precious need of yours is being ignored." ~ Marshall Rosenberg
"When we are depressed, our thinking blocks us from being aware of our needs, and then being able to take action to meet our needs." ~ Marshall Rosenberg
"I wouldn’t expect someone who’s been injured to hear my side until they felt that I had fully understood the depth of their pain." ~ Marshall Rosenberg
"True forgiveness is not about condoning or forgetting; it's about releasing ourselves from the burden of resentment and finding peace within." ~ Marshall Rosenberg
This blog/call grew out of a "Naturalizing NVC" class I took with Miki Kashtan through NVC Academy in 2011 during which I made a request of my fellow classmates that we might practice together outside of the call. It was mostly just about my wanting to gain "street giraffe" fluency by way of practice and then also cataloguing the seeds of my learning. As I say here, it's likely been sustained by way of "structured procrastination" and lots of tinkering while multi-tasking. As Peggy Smith once put it, NVC is but one fruit amidst a more plentiful fruit bowl offering of the healing powers of resonant language, which animates the arc of my life's journey and is something I hope to write about eventually. Bottom line, I'm merely a fellow practitioner/traveler yet invite any inquiries that this blog may have sparked for you.
What is Conscious Communication? (a.k.a. Nonviolent Communication or NVC)
The Chopra Center: Conscious Communication is the ability to clearly communicate what you want in life, which directly relates to your emotional well-being. The key principles of conscious communication can help you do just that… (continues)
(See also OFNR: Observation, Feelings, Needs & Requests.)
Speak Peace in a World of Conflict
New to NVC?
“If I had just one book to recommend about interpersonal communication, it would be this one.” ~ Rick Hanson
"As NVC replaces our old patterns of defending, withdrawing or attacking in the face of judgment and criticism. We come to perceive ourselves and others, as well as our intentions and relationships, in a new light. Resistance, defensiveness, and violent reactions are minimized." ~ Marshall Rosenberg
"I would like us to create peace at three levels and have each of us to know how to do it. First, within ourselves. That is to know how we can be peaceful with ourselves when we’re less than perfect, for example. How we can learn from our limitations without blaming and punishing our self. If we can’t do that, I’m not too optimistic how we’re going to relate peacefully out in the world. Second, between people. Nonviolent Communication training shows people how to create peace within themselves and at the same time how to create connections with other people that allows compassionate giving to take place naturally. And third, in our social systems. To look out at the structures that we’ve created, the governmental structures and other structures, and to look at whether they support peaceful connections between us and if not, to transform those structures." ~ Marshall Rosenberg
Street Giraffes 