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It is my experience just now, of feeling extraordinarily privileged to be present at this particular time in history. I have this sense that i am witnessing the remaking of myself, and watching others in the group remake themselves, in real time.

But for the group, I imagine it as constructing itself into existence. As a noisy act of birth with its necessary labor pains.

Now, to the topic at hand, today i would love to share about how hard it was for me to get my head around NVC.

I first tried to read the book in my twenties. One or two chapters in, i was like, huh, i don't get it. Slam. Looking back, i was far too attached to my sense of the sun revolving around me, to be able to hear Rosenberg's message.

Maybe existential narcissism is the term that i am reaching for here. The inherent self-absorption of the small child. Or more biologically, of the reptile, with it's limited sense of others' reality as separate from it's own.

At 20 something my neocortex was not yet fully developed. And as i have occasionally alluded, i've suffered the bumps of this life, at least as much as anybody. I was in self-preservation mode. Or as Deb Dana puts it, i was a turtle that had retreated into its shell, oblivious to the world outside. That there were other humans, other turtles, (and hares), out there each having their own unique version of this same experience, escaped me.

So, that i got stopped precisely at chapter 2 is no surprise, because that is exactly it's message. That our unowned language directly reflects this animal narcissism.

In my 30s i found myself thrust into a world where i was one of the 25 members of a group that would build NZ's first cohousing project. Because this was the first, no developers would touch it, and no cohousing consultants would come to our aid. We were left to our own collective wits. Not only did we have to learn housing development from scratch, but also to learn to work together. Ah, the irony of the universe. We spent the next several years virtually living in each other's houses, becoming as siblings. And, as an accidental but necessary by product, teaching our selves to work together!

Among the very first acts of this group, was to create a list of 10 communication agreements. They were (and remain to this day) these:

To the astute, this quietly embedded NVC into the project's context. Thanks to members that had more emotional competence than i possessed, these agreements served the project faithfully through 10 full years of housing development, and through about 10K consecutive consensus decisions.

At the time, i was grateful for the "I statement" syntax. While it was a door into NVC, what i didn't understand was that there is a difference between: "I feel that you are doing a great job", and "I feel grateful for your contribution". These i still conflated, lumping them both together as 'I statements'.

Now I know better. And see that Chapter 2 of Nonviolent Communication goes to great pains to explain this critically important distinction.

I don't think i need to share more about how many more years would pass before i was able to make this leap. Suffice it to say it would involve my share of failed relationships. Some time in my 5th decade, i finally made it all the way through the book. It opened my eyes. That if i find myself reaching for: "what you said feels over-simplified", my experience deep down is actually: "i notice that i feel uncomfortable about this for some reason."

Rosenberg explains that the former syntax amounts to a projection, ie. that others are the source of my pain.

This seems like a common trap, and i agree with Rosenberg when he says that this muddled distinction is the source of almost all war, political conflict and marital strife. But more importantly, when i use the unowned form of syntax, i give my power away. I become helpless to change my situation, and all i can do is protest, criticise, and try to change you.

As i say this, none of those feel like happy places.

In the end, I am glad to have encountered NVC, because it would later draw me into the practice of AR. Where i am continually bumped up against my embedded and pervasive tendency to not own my language.

My use of the "you are X" form, only delays my journey from protest to empowered request, from passive victim of circumstances, to an equal part of the solution and the emergent wisdom of this world.

However what i'm just now realising is that the biggest thing i love about NVC is that by owning the feeling, this opens a door to the unmet 'need' (in NVC terms), or in other words, i can finally start to figure out what i want. It's that perennially juicy question that Betty Martin keeps haranguing us with each week.

As a result i am slowly falling in love with a brand new language, one of: I notice, i feel, i love, i desire. But man, is it ever tough work! That old language is mighty stubborn.