You can use this process for internal and external conflicts. Practice self-responsibility and do not participate if you lack trust in the NVC process. Empathy or transformation are not guaranteed outcomes and you take part from your free choice, both as conflict-owner and as empathy partner.
Conflict-owner: choose a situation
Choose a situation for which you seek healing or reconciliation.
Role of the practice partner
Your practice partner takes on the role of the conflict partner. If it is an internal conflict according to the model of chooser-educator, your partner will take on the role of the chooser. If it is an external conflict, your partner will take on the role of the perpetrator. Get only basic information from the conflict owner:
“What was the painful action? – and – Who am I?” Take on your role following your gut feeling, your intuition. If you cannot be empathic, ask for help from a trainer, assistant or a third person in your group.
Steps of the process
Step 1: Empathy for the victim (conflict-owner)
The victim expresses his pain to the perpetrator. “Do you understand me?! Do you get it?!”
The victim can share as raw pain through judgments/jackals or more in Giraffe, taking responsibility for their perceptions/feelings/needs.
The perpetrator (training partner) listens in Giraffe – empathically, with presence.
Find words that make the victim feel truly understood, truly heard.
Step 2: Mourning of the perpetrator (in relation to the effect of his act)
The perpetrator connects with his unmet needs when he fully sees the impact of his actions on the victim and expresses these unmet needs. (Often the most important is the need to contribute to the well-being of others). The perpetrator may need a lot of support to open up to true mourning and to avoid falling into defensive reactions of self-judgment or other-judment.
The victim listens to the perpetrator. “Am I important to you? Do I a matter to you?”
By witnessing the perpetrator’s mourning in Giraffe, the victim can understand how important his or her needs are. Trust can reappear.
Step 3: Understanding the intentions/needs behind the action
The victim listens to the perpetrator exploring his original motivations. The question “How could you act like this?” appears naturally in the victim, if the first two steps are completed. If it does not appear, it means that the first two steps are not completed and you need to give more attention to them.
In NVC we believe that all actions constitue an attempt to meet needs. (They may fail to meet the goal, of course, of meeting our needs.) In this step the perpetrator connects with the needs he was trying to fulfill at the moment when he decided to act.
Step 4: Find strategies together that work for both parties
This step is no longer challenging after successfully completing the first three steps.
Sources: Description by Marshall Rosenberg(listen here)
Listen to Marshall working with a group on empathy for the educator and the chooser here.
This worksheet by John Gather, 2024