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64 Days for Peace

Peace Training

Week Nine - Harvesting and Planting the Seeds of Your Future 

Thoughts and Intentions for the Week

This week marks the end of our beginning.  For the past 64 days we have become familiar with a new way to express ourselves and hear others.  We have been shown a new way to think about judgments and feeling and needs.  Perhaps we have even begun to sprout some giraffe ears of our very own.  This week we will review our learning, talk about what needs you may have about learning and integration of NVC and practice appreciation and mourning.

ALL NIGHT EXERCISE #1 - As part of our celebration and initiation of our new ears, this week we are going to be aware of how we are feeling... all night.    As the evening progresses, anyone in the group may raise their finger.  That signals an instant check-in, where all the members of the group simply say how they are feeling... quickly.  Just a feeling word, no more.  The purpose of this exercise is to help us be aware of how we are feeling AND to notice how often and how intensely feelings change from moment to moment.  There is also an embedded challenge of noticing when doing this (raising your finger to begin the check-in) will serve needs for the group.

Optional Preparation

- Read chapter 11 to 13 in Marshall Rosenberg's book Nonviolent Communication, a Language for Life"

- Review notes for clarity of what you understand and what you would like more clarity about.

-Bring candles for the group

Reading and Discussion

Appreciation or Praise

Many of us we’re taught thru our childhood to react to “met need experiences” (feelings) by saying things like, “nice job.”  However, if we say “nice job” it doesn’t really identify a need.  Right?  What it identifies is a judgment that you did something nice, which is not connecting to the need itself.  So the energy of that need being met doesn’t actually get distinguished in the expression of “nice job”.  So if you’ve ever wondered why often times “nice job” falls short, perhaps it’s because a need wasn’t present in the awareness.  In “NVC appreciation” what we’re doing is connecting to what that feeling is really when we appreciate something – what is that?  When it just wells-up inside of us… because we’ve had a need met and we feel that we want to express that.  A need for expression perhaps?

And so in an NVC appreciation we pay attention to what happened (the observation),  how it feels and what need just got met.  An NVC appreciation connects us to the very need that’s being met and the feeling that we have when that happens (which is really a profound experience when you consider that needs are how life runs through us and so it is a way to connect to the life force in us).  So NVC gives us a deeper experience of life, a way to bask in it and express it… an NVC appreciation. 

Discussion Questions

Choose as many of the discussion questions below as the group or group facilitator desires.  Try to include an examples or short role plays for clarity and fun.

1) What is NVC? What is the NVC model?

2) What is the difference between "Doing Giraffe" and "Being Giraffe"?

3) Do other people cause us to get angry?

4) How are judgments and anger an expression of life?

5) What's the best thing to say when I'm angry?

6) What do I do if I have translated my judgments, do perfect OFNRs and people still react as if I'm judging them?

7) Why is it so easy to see someone's needs at one time and difficult at others?

8) Why is it so difficult to be empathic with the people I love the most?

9) How do I interact with people (or for that matter the world) when I'm the only one that knows NVC? 

Exercise #2 Empathy Circle Part V

KEYS:

a.    NVC empathy is a process of guessing another person’s feelings.  “Accuracy” is not necessary for empathy to take place. If the person does not connect with our guess, he or she will let us know and we can then make another guess based on this new information.

b.    Keep yourself out of the empathy guess, making sure to connect the person’s feelings to his or her own needs, not to you, even when their feelings seem very much about you. Example: Instead of saying: “Are you frustrated at me because you want me to understand you?” you could say: “Are you frustrated because you’re needing understanding?” Keeping yourself out of the empathy guess will help both of you to remain clear about the source of feelings and give you more room to hear those feelings without either “defending” yourself or “attacking” the other person.

This exercise is designed for Diads.  In this exercise have your partner tell you about what they liked and didn't like about the 64 Days For Peace practice group over the past nine weeks.  Give them empathy and identify the needs met and not met.  Think of Requests you could make of yourself or others that you think would contribute to that need being considered or met.   After 5 - 10 minutes switch and repeat.

EXAMPLE:

1.  “I hate the way we take so much time to make decisions.”

Are you feeling: Frustrated?

Because you’re needing: movement?