Creating a Life-Serving System within Oneself

International Intensive Training held in Corona – a place near Los Angeles – in the year 2000.

Marshall Rosenberg - Creating a Life-Serving System Within Oneself
Working on peace inside creates the foundation for peace in the world

Watch on YouTube with time pointers to specific content

01:08 Situations where needs were unfulfilled by your actions/choices
04:09 Every human action aims to fulfill needs, is done for good reason. No exception.
05:34 / Empathy for the Chooser Exercise: “Did you do that in order to meet our need for ….?”
06:05 / Example 1: “So we don’t need to be realistic.”
07:00 / If we focus our attention on both needs, ideas arise how to fulfill them
07:25 / Jackal thinking leads to depression
10:20 / Connecting two needs in an empathic way, no enemy images
11:53 / Couple having conflict for 39 years – hear mutual needs – solve in 20 minutes
13:49 / Doesn’t want me to spend money is a strategy – habit of going to strategies in conflict
15:03 / Needs are universal – nobody in this room has a need that another person doesn’t have
15:23 / He’s just like his own father – they both have a depression mentality when it comes to money.
15:48 / We don’t make nice dead people when we’re in touch with needs.
16:10 / „She is a wonderful wife and mother, but irresponsible when it comes to money.“
16:51 / Making others ‘wrong’ in our thinking is at the root of violence on our planet.
17:00 / I lend them my giraffe ears, help them find the others need. After that it was hard for them to express is nakedly, after putting the other into an enemy image for 39 years! Had to pull them by the ears, for them to be able to express it.
18:01 / Connecting at the heart level can resolve conflicts inside, interpersonal and between nations
18:22 / When societies teach their citizens to think in terms of enemy images when conflicts arise, the bombs are never far away.
19:09 / “I am disappointed that we did not spend more time together.”
22:32 / Educator exercise – List most used forms of inner education – inner jackals
23:50 / Find a specific context or invent one, which might stimulate on of the jackals
24:07 / Hear this jackal with giraffe ears – develop this literacy more and more
24:57 / Educator, are you bringing to my attention that my need for X isn’t met? Body answers.
25:32 / Some people hate themselves for 30 years with such jackals.
25:59 / Educator, chooser role play: “I stole some money.” vs. “Expropriating from the rich” (observation: took money)
31:32 / Why the “most wonderful” choice, rather than “necessary” choice?
31:58 / Hitler was engaged in this worderful process called life – same as birds, trees – puts me in touch with the universe – every act we take is coming out of that energy
35:15 / Role-Play – Empathy for Hitler’s strategies
37:06 / Wanting to protect his people is beautiful needs – enemy image story about jews was around for 300 years in that part of the world
39:03 / Buying a different story – The Most Wonderful Game is Serving Life for Everybody
40:11 / Can you name one thing that another person did, that helps you to stay conscious at another level?
41:12 / I saw the presence in his eyes.
43:26 / Having experienced the gift of presence from both ends, we don’t want to play another game.
43:59 / ‘Mourning in giraffe’ is the ’empathy for the educator’
44:40 / Marshall illustrates mourning in giraffe with a restorative justice case – a man raped a woman
45:05 / Woman gets to express herself fully to this man, how his action has impacted her in the past and since then – and Marshall helps the man to give empathy to the woman.
45:45 / Then he asks the man: “How do you feel now, about having done that?”
46:12 / First avoidance reaction, typically: “I’m sorry.”
46:36 / I want them to feel sweet pain – even if it’s deep and dark and scary.
47:01 / Second avoidance reaction: “I’m dirt.” Hating oneself – too easy.
47:12 / Deep, dark, scary, sweet pain.
47:30 / When we get in touch with the depth of sadness of not meeting our own need to contribute to life – that’s giraffe mourning. That’s healing. Apologizing and self-hate is destructive.
47:52 / Empathy for the chooser – Get to understand that this action was the most wonderful thing to do at the moment the action occured. – Step necessary to help that this will not happen again.
48:18 / Third step – “Go back to the time that you did the action, what needs you were trying to meet when you were doing that?”
48:28 / Fourth step: What to do if the same situation comes up again, the same needs? What would be more fun and less costly?
50:45 / When victim empathizes with chooser of perpetrator, that’s forgiveness. After step 1 and step 2 – giraffe mourning, the victim asks: “How could you do it!?”
51:36 / Person can come to the session with intention to kill the perpetrator, but after empathizing in step 3, they have so much energy to help the perpetrator to find ways to meet their needs in a different more fun way
52:00 / Recalling the four steps once more
54:56 / Stopping and making space for self-empathy, when drawn into jackal world
1:00:34 / More about sweet pain. Sweet pain feels good. Mourning is a celebration, really.

For more workshops of Marshall Rosenberg see “Friends of Marshall Rosenberg“.