fw: nonviolent communication (from the Netdynam List)

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Thema:  fw: nonviolent communication    
Datum:  14.03.2002 01:06:59 Westeuropäische Normalzeit  
From:    susoz at S054.AONE.NET.AU (Ardill/Young)
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>
> No Enemies, No Demands
> Miki Kashtan
> "If there were more people like you in the Left, if I ever felt such true
> compassion and understanding, I would, despite all the pain involved,
> (...pause...) consider moving to another place in Israel."  After only 30
> minutes of receiving empathic listening, Judy (not her real name), a Jewish
> settler in the West Bank, could imagine moving from the West Bank into
> internationally recognized Israeli territory.
> Secular, Left-leaning Jews in Israel often believe that only force will get
> Jewish settlers to leave the settlements and find their homes within the
> pre-1967 borders of Israel. Many still remember the traumatic evacuation of
> Yamit when the Gaza Strip was returned to Egypt, and anticipate, with
> horror, similar struggles in the West Bank. Jewish settlers in the West
> Bank are seen as fanatics who are oblivious to the plight of others.
> In this heated climate, in the mid-1990's, a different conversation took
> place between Judy and Arnina, a Nonviolent Communication trainer in
> Israel. Instead of arguing with Judy, trying to take apart her position,
> insisting on the moral bankruptcy of her views, or trying to convince her,
> Arnina simply reflected to Judy her understanding of Judy's deeper feelings
> and needs. Here are some excerpts from their dialogue:
> Judy: "People forget who we are, and our history.  We go back thousands of
> years  We were chosen by God, and given this land. How can they forget
> this???"
> Arnina: "So you are feeling devastated, because you would really like to
> know that the deep meaning of 'settle in this land' is understood and
> preserved?"
> Judy: "The secular leftists think we are blind and obstinate, while we are
> holding on to the most precious symbol of our existence."
>
> Arnina: "Are you in pain because you so much want to find a way to dissolve
> the separation between you and leftists, because for you we are all one
> people?"
>
> Judy: Yes, yes, yes... Thank you for saying this. This is what's most
> crucial here for me. This terrible wall between us and ... you. Yes, you
> said it, we are all one. And I am desperate when I think, again and again,
> how deep the gap between all of us is, how we only see the external, and
> judge it, while the important things lie deep inside, for all of us. Don't
> we all want to keep living, and here? And how do they think this is going
> to happen, if we give up on this historical land?
>
> Arnina: "Are you really scared, because your hope for the continued
> existence of the Jewish people is threatened by the mere idea of losing
> this land?"
> Finally, when Arnina was confident that Judy was fully heard, she stopped,
> looked at Judy for a long while, then asked gently: "Would you be willing
> to hear what's going on for me now, and how I see all this?" Judy nodded
> silently.
> Arnina then told Judy how much she shared the deep wish of seeing Israelis
> living and thriving, and bringing gifts to the world. Then she added: "I
> want you also to hear just how frightened I am when I see the price we are
> paying for this. I am wondering if you could conceive of the thought that,
> if we all really united in our wish, and not against each other, we might
> find other means of keeping this legacy, while at the same time saving so
> many lives?" It was in response to this question that Judy expressed her
> tentative willingness to consider leaving the land she had so tenaciously
> held on to for so long. It was the experience of being fully heard which
> made the transformation possible.
> The practice of applying empathy in the service of social activism is based
> on a combination of practical considerations and deep spiritual values. On
> the practical level, listening with empathy to those with whose positions
> we disagree increases the chances that they will want to listen to us.
> Until Judy's needs were acknowledged, she would not have been able to hear
> and consider Arnina's request. Once Judy's experiences were heard fully,
> magic happened, her heart opened, and a profound shift took place in her.
> When we use force, blame and self-righteousness instead, even if we manage
> to create the outcome we want in the short run, we distance ourselves from
> those whose actions we want to change. Success in the short run does not
> lead to the transformation we so wish for, neither in ourselves nor in
> those we are trying to change. Sooner or later, those with more power will
> prevail, and we are left bitter and defeated. This cycle is a major cause
> of "burn-out" among activists.
> Moreover, on the spiritual plane, listening with empathy to others is one
> way of putting into practice the fundamental values of compassion and
> nonviolence. In order to hear Judy with true empathy, Arnina had to
> transcend thoughts of right and wrong. Indeed, before Arnina was able to
> listen to Judy, she received a significant amount of empathy from others
> for her own pain and despair. In cultivating empathy for Judy, Arnina was
> able to discover behind Judy's statements a human being like herself, with
> the same basic set of needs. At the end of the dialogue both Judy and
> Arnina discovered and connected with needs they had not been aware of in
> themselves or in each other: a deep desire to keep alive the legacy of
> Judaism, and a longing for unity.
> Even when we want to embrace compassion, structures of domination are
> deeply engrained in us. According to theologian Walter Wink, we are all
> indoctrinated in the myth of redemptive violence: the basic belief that
> violence can create peace. We are trained to enjoy watching the "bad guy"
> get "what he deserves." Marshall Rosenberg, founder of the Center for
> Non-Violent Communication, believes that our use of language reinforces
> "enemy images" of others. When we refer to corporate executives as
> "profiteers," our use of language implies greed; when we refer to
> lower-level managers as "bureaucrats," we imply uncaring. Learning to
> practice empathy requires being able to recognize in others' actions fears
> and longings similar to our own, and to look for strategies of meeting our
> own needs that would allow others' needs to be met as well. The alternative
> to punishing the "bad guys" is NOT passivity, but a subtle dance between
> genuine empathy for the other's needs and uncompromising expression of our
> own needs.
> We all pay a price in the long run when our needs are met at others'
> expense. Accordingly, the goal of the dance of empathy is to establish
> enough connection and understanding so that everyone can unite in looking
> for strategies to meet everyone's needs. When we transcend our own enemy
> images so that we really experience the humanness of the other, we can
> truly show people that we care about their needs. When that happens, they
> are then usually more open to consider ways of meeting their needs which
> are not at the expense of other human beings' lives, the planet, and other
> values of theirs.
> Let's look at another example.
[snip boring example]

> "Dialogue," says philosopher Martin Buber, "is a conversation between
> adults the outcome of which is unknown." True dialogue requires valuing the
> other's needs equally with our own, not less and not more. This entails a
> few steps. First, internally, dialogue requires translating our judgments
> into our own feelings and needs - which give rise to our judgments. Then,
> when speaking, dialogue  requires expressing those feelings and needs
> openly. After expression, sometimes even before, dialogue requires a
> willingness to listen with empathy. Such listening makes it possible to
> absorb the difficult messages we hear in a way that maintains the humanness
> of the other, does not challenge without threat to the needs we identify in
> us. This is what Buber refers to more than any aspect of the dialogue; it
> is this willingness which enables us to go beyond predictable outcomes and
> encounter the unknown-ness of the other person.
> Underlying the willingness to persist in identifying and attending to
> everyone's needs, is a deep well of trust in the abundance of the universe,
> and in the fundamentally benign nature of human needs. The spiritual
> premise which gives rise to this trust is that human needs, as different
> from strategies, are universal and shared by all: tenderness, closeness,
> understanding, safety, the need to be understood, to contribute, to matter
> to others, to be valued. Our conflicts arise from having different
> strategies to try to meet the same basic set of needs, not from the needs
> themselves.
> For the past several thousand years, in most of the world, we have not been
> encouraged to have this trust in each other. We grow up in social
> structures based on domination, and are educated into believing in their
> necessity. Our deep-seated internal beliefs, the "story" we have
> internalized, and the social structures we live in, tend to reinforce each
> other. As a result, if we want to engage in social activism based on
> mutuality, trust, compassion and nonviolence, we are likely to find that
> social change requires changing ourselves within while working on changing
> external structures. As the world around us remains captive to right/wrong
> thinking, we also need to allow for time for organizing a supportive
> community for our social change efforts. We cannot wait until we are
> "ready" before embarking on social action, and we cannot wait until we have
> life-serving institutions before we let ourselves take time to attend to
> our personal struggles and relationships. Combining the two allows us to
> embody the values we are seeking to manifest in every action we take, even
> while structures of domination still continue to exist.

> Miki Kashtan is a certified trainer with the Center for Nonviolent
> Communication, as well as coordinator for NVC and Social Change. She
> conducts public workshops and retreats in the San Francisco Bay Area, in NY
> and in Boston, as well as offer trainings in organizations around the
> country. She can be contacted at BayNVC at mindspring.com,
> Resources: 1) Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Compassion, by
> Marshall Rosenberg; 2) The Center for Nonviolent Communication, which
> offers trainings and materials worldwide. Please visit the website:
> www.cnvc.org, for trainer contact information and other suggestions for
> what you can do to apply these principles in your life. There are currently
> over 100 trainers teaching Nonviolent Communication in 35 countries.