10 Steps to Peace

I like this excerpt from the website of The Center for Nonviolent Communication.

10 Things We Can Do to Contribute to Internal, Interpersonal, and Organizational Peace

1. Spend some time each day quietly reflecting on how we would like to relate to ourselves and others.


2. Remember that all human beings have the same needs.


3. Check our intention to see if we are as interested in others getting their needs met as our own.


4. When asking someone to do something, check first to see if we are making a request or a demand.


5. Instead of saying what we DON'T want someone to do, say what we DO want the person to do.


6. Instead of saying what we want someone to BE, say what action we'd like the person to take that we hope will help the person be that way.


7. Before agreeing or disagreeing with anyone's opinions, try to tune in to what the person is feeling and needing.


8. Instead of saying "No," say what need of ours prevents us from saying "Yes."


9. If we are feeling upset, think about what need of ours is not being met, and what we could do to meet it, instead of thinking about what's wrong with others or ourselves.


10. Instead of praising someone who did something we like, express our gratitude by telling the person what need of ours that action met.

At this moment, the most challenging advice on the list, for me, is Number Three. Of course I subscribe to that value ....... in theory. But talk is cheap. Whether or not I walk my talk is the test.

The dance of life

One of the skills that Marshall Rosenberg discusses in Nonviolent Communication : A Language of Life is expressing our needs. He states that, in an ideal world, other people should be sensitive to my needs. But, by the same token, I have a responsibility to tell them what my needs are.

In my former life, I was poor at this. Since I have been involved with my cohousing community, I have been practicing it.

At our weekly shareholders' meeting last night, I asked if we could change the meeting from a Thursday night once a month. This was to accommodate my desire to participate in Sacred Circle Dancing at the Unitarian Fellowship.

Even as I was asking my fellow owners of Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community to consider rescheduling, there was a part of me that felt embarrassed. I thought it was a frivolous request. But, to my delight, everyone else treated it like a perfectly valid desire.

It is gratifying to deal with people who are alive and who support my journey. You guys mean more to me than you can imagine.

Unmet Needs

One of the nuggets of wisdom I learned from Marshall Rosenberg's book, Nonviolent Communication, is that a person who is behaving badly has a need that is not being met.

When I say a person is behaving "badly," this could mean mildly negative behaviour, like pouting or rolling their eyes at what you're saying. At the other end of the spectrum, it could mean they're holding a knife to your throat.

But, wherever their behaviour is on that continuum, they have an unmet need.

Since I have become aware of this, I have found that it has taken a lot of discipline for me to remember it when someone has been ranting at me. But, wow, it sure improves the outcome of the conversation!

When I have been able to listen to someone and let them finish venting, they eventually have calmed down, and we have gone on to have a rewarding interaction.

Recently my son asked me about the main insights I'd gained from the consensus decision making workshop I'd participated in and my reading of the book on nonviolent communication. I cited the recognition of unmet needs as one of them.

My son then asked, "Well, what has that enabled you to do? Have you recognized what the other person's unmet need is, and what have you been able to do with that information?"

I responded that I had not always been able to recognize what the other person's unmet need was. Sometimes all I had been able to do was say to myself, "S/he is ranting. Therefore s/he has an unmet need."

I told my son that, if nothing else, this helped me to avoid getting caught up in the other person's drama. At a minimum, I was able to stay calm, and listen. This bought me time. I felt that that alone was valuable.

But, later in a conversation, when my initial feeling of defensiveness has quietened down, I often have been able to detect what the other person's unmet need has been. Then I have been able to acknowledge it and, together, we have been able to discuss how the need could be addressed.

My point, though, is that this insight has been valuable to me even when I have failed to recognize exactly what the unmet need has been. Just reminding myself of the existence of the unmet need in itself has been useful.

With that having been said, I do not want to sound as if I am discounting the amount of commitment and self control that are required to implement this strategy. At times, the effort needed to do this is huge.