NONVIOLENCE A WAY OF LIFE
Pathways
to Peace
A Language of Love
The movement is spreading
by Aria Seligmann
Nonviolent Communication offers path to heart connection.
across the country, gathering
steam. Politicians, pundits and
preachers have sounded the call
to stop the Iraq War, take back
democracy and create lasting
peace. Losing our passion for
warfare may not be an easy
task, but there are paths to
peace through nonviolence.
A positive approach, based on
cooperation and empathy, will
allow this endeavor to succeed.
As we rise above our personal
self-interest and our right/wrong
Dammit! You left
dirty dishes in the
sink again!
So wash them.
You wash them!
I’m doing something
else right now.
I’m not your maid!
(Storms out).
mentality and work together for
positive change, we will find
peace within ourselves, with our
children and with our neighbors.
It is with this intention we
dedicate this issue of EW to the
concept of nonviolence. Here we
have space for just a few stories
of hope, but there are many
more to come.
— Aria Seligmann
Statewide
Action
In addition to his Eugene appearance,
Marshall Rosenberg will travel through-
out Oregon holding workshops. Of note
is the May 5 Restorative Justice
Community Conversation with
Rosenberg and Dr. Mark Umbreit,
founder and director of the Center for
Restorative Justice and Peacemaking,
from 9:30 am - 3:30 pm at Willamette
University, Mary Stewart Rogers Music
Center, Salem. This is a day of dialogue
on the principles and practices of
restorative justice to heal the entire
community. Global change agents,
grassroots organizations, mediation pro-
fessionals and government agencies will
share their perspectives. This workshop
is co-sponsored by ORNCC and the
Dispute Resolution Center of Willamette
University. See www.orncc.net for full
details on this conference and
Rosenberg’s schedule.
— AS
10 APRIL 29, 2004
S
cene sound familiar? Admit it;
you know it does.
Let’s reframe the preceding
argument, using Nonviolent Communication
(NVC). Here’s how it might sound:
“I’m noticing the dishes in the sink and
feeling overwhelmed and need a minute to
just talk. Could you take a minute to talk to
me about how we can do this dishes thing in
a way that will work for all of us?”
Nonviolent Communication, a process
developed and refined over a period of 35
years by Dr. Marshall B. Rosenberg, pro-
vides a path to the deeper connection. Is our
anger really about the dishes or do we want
understanding about how our needs for coop-
eration, teamwork and support are not get-
ting met? The outcome may not be getting
the dishes done at that moment, but the need
for understanding, for shared responsibility
in the house, may become clear. The tension
will dissolve, and the conflict will end.
Ending conflict is the life work of
Rosenberg, who grew up in a turbulent
Detroit neighborhood. The quest for under-
standing violence led to Rosenberg’s study-
ing and earning his doctorate in psychology.
But traditional psychology did not satisfy his
desire to understand how to resolve conflicts
among people, whom he believed to be
inherently nonviolent.
Rosenberg founded the Center for
Nonviolent Communication in 1984, and has
since traveled the world, holding NVC work-
shops and training others to do so. He is the
author of Nonviolent Communication: A
Language of Life and Life-Enriching
Education. He has worked with individuals,
couples, corporations and nations. Recently,
he was in Israel and Palestine listening to the
concerns of people there. He has also had
significant influence in the field of restora-
tive justice and community restoration,
bringing together perpetrators and their vic-
Marshall Rosenberg
tims to help them achieve mutual under-
standing.
Rosenberg will be traveling through
Oregon in early May, holding a series of
workshops throughout the state. He’ll hold
two workshops in Eugene on May 7. Those
workshops offer an opportunity for peace
activists and others to get training in conflict
resolution and to apply NVC on a personal
level, as well.
NVC centers around observations, feel-
ings, needs and requests. For example: “I’m
observing there are dirty dishes in the sink. I
have already washed all of mine. I would like
to make dinner, and I’m unable to do so
without a clean sink. I’m feeling frustrated
and irritated, because I have a need for order,
respect and support. Would you be willing to
help with the dishes?”
By identifying our needs, which include
basic needs such as food, shelter and water,
interdependency needs such as understand-
ing, trust, respect and support, or broader
needs such as celebration, we can understand
where anger, or any emotion, ultimately
comes from. “All violence,” says Rosenberg,
“is the tragic expression of unmet needs.”
In order to check in with what emotions
we or others are feeling and why, NVC
requires us to slow down, in our speech as
well as reactive tendencies, and consciously
become aware of what we are experiencing.
The techniques are not only suitable to
interpersonal relationships, but apply to heal-
ing oneself, to working with contentious
groups, such as gangs and police or labor and
management, and ultimately can be used to
resolve conflicts among nations.
One of the basic concepts of NVC is
adopting a “power with” rather than “power
over” structure. Rosenberg points to the
domination structures humankind has been
living under for the past 8,000 years. From
the parent/child relationship to political
forces, those structures defeat every human’s
basic need for autonomy. But how are we to
undo what’s been ingrained in us for so long?
Rosenberg, speaking from his home in
Wasserfallenhof, Switzerland, says his
approach is “radical.” Beginning on the
home front, he says, “get rid of the word
‘child.’ When I sometimes work with groups
of parents I put half in one room and half in
the other. Then we break down into smaller
groups. We have a written role play of how
they would communicate with someone