how to be a giraffe
Pioneer psychologist Marshall Rosenberg, founder of Non-Violent Communication (NVC), has left behind a treasure-trove of work in creating and nurturing healthy relationships based on peaceful communication, since his passing in 2015.
He was known for whipping out puppets during his lectures to demonstrate a point: an NVC-endorsing giraffe, and a habitual communicator jackal, conditioned in generations of violence. Giraffes, he shares, speak from the heart, without judgement, and speak in the language of the open request, while jackals speak from the head and from hurts, in the language of demands.
I recently watched a foundational 3-hour workshop on NVC - it’s worth every second of the ride! - and am still fully shook with gratitude for Marshall’s life-altering teachings. And it’s free! A must-watch, non-negotiable for those interested in healing relationships.
At one point Marshall promises to help the audience to “enjoy another person’s suffering,” as a giraffe does with a jackal, then dives into a different topic altogether and left me absolutely edging on the edge of my seat. Much to my gratitude, near the end of the 3-hour experience an audience member pipes up to ask what he meant by this “enjoyment.” It’s an explanation rooted in radical self-responsibility and divine sovereignty of every person. Marshall elucidates:
“Now 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 is trying to make us believe we did cause the pain. We do not want to in any way think we caused this person’s pain, because we can’t in any way, cause another person’s [an adult’s] psychological pain. Liberate ourselves from feeling responsible. But the second one, is the hard one.
The second one, is 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. And how do we block it, but trying to fix things ourselves. So 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, just stand there. When we do that, and 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. Enjoying that precious connection. And whether that person is feeling joy, or pain, if we are present there with them, that’s what I mean. But we block that beautiful energy whenever we step in and try to fix things.”