The Heart of Social Change: How to Make a Difference in Your World (Nonviolent Communication Guides) - Softcover

Rosenberg, Marshall

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1892005107 ISBN 13: 9781892005106

Verlag: PuddleDancer Press, 2004

Inhaltsangabe

The tenets of Nonviolent Communication are applied to a variety of settings, including the classroom and the home, in these booklets on how to resolve conflict peacefully. Illustrative exercises, sample stories, and role-playing activities offer the opportunity for self-evaluation, discovery, and application.

This insightful perspective on effective social change is illustrated with how-to examples.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Marshall B. Rosenberg, PhD, is the author of Life-Enriching Education and Nonviolent Communication. He is the founder of the Center for Nonviolent Communication, an international nonprofit organization that teaches peacemaking skills across four continents. He lives in La Crescenta, California.

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The Heart of Social Change

How To Make Difference in Your World

By Marshall B. Rosenberg

PuddleDancer Press

Copyright © 2005 PuddleDancer Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-892005-10-6

Contents

Introduction Striving for Systems Change, 
Paradigm Change Within Ourselves, 
Sharing the Paradigm with Others, and Structural Change, 
Educating Self and Others for Change, 
Conclusion, 
Some Basic Feelings and Needs We All Have, 
About CNVC and NVC, 
How You Can Use the NVC Process (back inside cover), 

CHAPTER 1

Paradigm Change Within Ourselves

Being Motivated to Enrich Life

Life-Enriching is the key concept in my paradigm: every action comes out of an image of seeing how human needs would be met by the action. That's the vision that mobilizes everything. A life-enriching organization is one in which all work in the organization, everything that every worker does, comes out of seeing how it's going to support life in the form of meeting needs — needs of the physical planet, trees, lakes, or human beings or animals — and it's clear how life will be served through meeting of needs. And that's the vision that inspires the actions, purely. In a life-enriching structure, nobody works for money. Money plays the same role as food for a mother who is breastfeeding her infant. She doesn't receive food as payment. The food is nurturance so she has the energy to serve life. It all boils down to human needs, which is why Nonviolent Communication is so rooted in the consciousness of needs. Everything we do is in the service of needs and the pleasure that is felt when needs are fulfilled, especially spiritual needs. Those are the most fun needs to fulfill.

To me, the bees and the flowers are part of a life-enriching organization. Look at how they both meet each other's needs. They don't do it through any guilt, duty, or obligation, but naturally, in a natural system. The bee gets its nectar from the flower and it pollinates the flower.

On Needs

It is hard to separate meeting human needs from the needs of the environment: They are one and the same. Meeting the needs of all the phenomena on the planet. Seeing the oneness of it all. Seeing the beauty in that whole scheme, that whole interdependent scheme of life. Life-enriching structures — the kind of structures that I would like to see us creating and participating in — are structures whose vision is to serve life. And how do we know if an organization — whether it's a family, or work team, or government — is a life-serving organization? We find out by asking: Is its mission to meet the needs and enrich the lives of people within — and affected by — the organization?

And what do people need? Money is not a need. It's a strategy that sometimes might meet a need. Fame is not a need. Status is not a need. These are things that domination structures use to mislead people — take a real need and misrepresent it, and get people to think that these false things are the needs. So, a life-enriching organization, in fact, serves life, serves needs. Next, all work done within a life-enriching structure is motivated by the mission. Not by money, not by salary, not by position, not by status. Every bit of work that a person does is coming from this joy of meeting that mission. And life-enriching organizations give the workers within them the nurturing they need to live that mission. Now, here's where money comes into play. They might get a salary for some food for their family and themselves, but that's not why they're doing the work. They're motivated to do the work purely by the life-serving mission. But the most important part of an organization in this respect isn't the money. A life-enriching organization must be set up to be very good at getting genuine gratitude to every worker. That's the fuel necessary to keep people working in a life-enriching organization. Sincere gratitude. When you do so people can see how their efforts are instrumental in the life-serving mission.

My need is not to teach Nonviolent Communication. That's not a need. My need is for safety, fun and to have distribution of resources, a sustainable life on the planet. Nonviolent Communication is a strategy that serves me to meet those needs. I look for ways to get both that other person's need met and my need met. I'm not trying to sell, I'm trying to get both needs met. So, my first job is to create the quality of connection where I see clearly what the other person's need is, and where they see what my need is. When the person trusts that I'm equally interested in their need as mine, 90 percent of the problem is over. Making a request of someone without getting to the need sounds like a sales job.

The Spiritual Basis of Social Change

MBR: Unless we as social change agents come from a certain spirituality, we're likely to create more harm than good. What I mean by spirituality is that, moment-by-moment, we're staying connected our own life and to the lives of others. And we can discover our spirituality by asking: What is the good life? What are we about? This quality of consciousness will help lead us to a life-enriching spirituality that helps us connect with ourselves and others at the heart level. We are all politically sophisticated, we know all the dangerous structures out there, we're very astute in seeing what's wrong with the world, and we're going to change it. If we do not first make a radical spiritual change within ourselves we're not going to be effective; in fact, we may even contribute to what's already going on.

So, yes, we're going to start with ourselves, but be careful because spirituality can be reactionary if we get people to just be so calm and accepting and loving that they tolerate the dangerous structures. The spirituality that we need to develop for social change is one that mobilizes us for social change. It doesn't just enable us to sit there and enjoy the world no matter what. It creates a quality of energy that mobilizes us into action. Unless our spiritual development has this quality, I don't think we can create the kind of social change I would like to see.

The spirituality that I try to live by is a very simple-minded spirituality. I used to get bored in all of my exposures to churches and synagogues, so I need a spirituality that is alive for me, that doesn't take many words. I like the way Joseph Campbell summarized it. Joseph Campbell is a gentleman who has written a lot about myths and comparative religions. He tried to get at what was beautiful in all religions, and he found that to his ears all of them were saying the same thing — and he liked what he heard them saying. And so what is his summary of spirituality? What all of the basic religions are saying is this: Don't do anything that isn't play.

I predict that when we have that — don't do anything that isn't play — in mind, we will see that the most fun game in the world is making life wonderful. How do you make life wonderful? Don't do anything that isn't play. Wait until it's play. And it'll be play at the moment our full consciousness is on a life-enriching vision. Then use your power in service of human and planetary needs. Use your power to enrich life by meeting needs.

Social change is liberating ourselves from any theology, from any spirituality that is not in harmony with what we believe will enable us to create the kind of world we would like. Get very clear about the kind of world we would like and then start living...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: PuddleDancer Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2004
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1892005107
• ISBN 13: 9781892005106
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 50
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Buchbär; info@buchbaer.de; ; Weberstr. 67; Osnabrück; 49084; Deutschland