NVC Life with Rachelle Lamb

Rachelle Lamb
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Nonviolent Communication beyond technique and grounded in real life. Exploring relationships, culture, and the underlying conditions that shape how we relate. To learn more about adopting a life-centric approach to life and love, visit https://www.rachellelamb.com

  1. 6 days ago

    Why Would You Want to Say That?

    One of the most common questions people bring to NVC: what if the other person refuses to use it? Since the word ‘refuses’ is a diagnosis, the more honest question might be: what do we do when the other person isn't meeting us where we'd hoped? In this episode I explore that question through a story Marshall told about working with the Orang Asli, the first peoples of Peninsular Malaysia, whose language has no verb "to be." When Marshall asked how to translate the word "selfish," the translator described what you'd observe instead — and then asked: why would you want to tell someone they were selfish? The Orang Asli were, without knowing it, natural practitioners of NVC consciousness. Not the formula. The orientation. I also look at the difference between high-intensity expression and violent communication, what Marshall meant by giraffe ears, and what it actually means for NVC to "work" when the other person walks away. This is the second installment in the yabuts series — the ongoing thread addressing real objections to Nonviolent Communication. Referenced in this episode: Marshall Rosenberg — Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life The Orang Asli of Peninsular Malaysia NVCLife Episode 6 — The Notes Are Not the Music Find Rachelle: rachellelamb.com

  2. 29 Jul

    The Notes Are Not the Music!

    In this episode, I'm addressing some of the objections people have to Nonviolent Communication which make a lot of sense and are well worth exploring.  I start with one I mentioned back in my first episode of this season: that NVC can sound fake, formulaic, and disingenuous. This is exactly what happens when someone embarks on learning any new language. They will sound stilted before they sound fluent. I walk through the four NVC steps to show why each one is closer to plain honesty than to performance.  I also address the question: does NVC actually require two people? Marshall used to say only one person needs to know it. I expand on what he meant by that.  This is the first episode in an ongoing series. If you have an objection or a "yabut" about NVC, comment below or send me an email via my website. I may take it up in a future episode. Find Rachelle: rachellelamb.com

  3. 15 Jul

    Making Life Wonderful

    Eleven years ago, following Marshall Rosenberg's death, I wrote an essay titled Making Life Wonderful. Reading it again recently, I was reminded of just how profound my encounter with Rosenberg was, and how the encounter continues to reverberate. This episode is an account of what drew me to Nonviolent Communication in the first place .. a powerful way of seeing that asks us to take responsibility for our lives, our impact on others, and the world at large. NVC is revolutionary work in that it asks us to reconsider existing beliefs about human behaviour and what drives us to do as we do. A rarely comfortable exercise but very worthwhile.  The original 2015 essay is available on my blog: https://www.rachellelamb.com/blog/2015/2/12/marshall-rosenberg-making-life-wonderful Find Rachelle: rachellelamb.com

  4. 1 Jul

    Mourning as a Capacity

    Mourning is cited as a need on the Nonviolent Communication needs list, paired with its counterpart: joy. Along with many others, I believe that we have largely lost the capacity to mourn, and that this loss costs us more than we realize, including in our most intimate relationships. Join me in this episode as I draw on the work of environmental anthropologist Sophie Chao, whose Aeon essay *How to Mourn a Forest* documents the mourning practices of the Marind people of West Papua, a community whose ancestral lands are being destroyed by oil palm plantation expansion. What the Marind offer is a glimpse into what I call active mourning, not the private collapse of grief, but a deliberate, communal practice of turning toward loss rather than away from it.  I also touch on how, in my work with couples, it's not uncommon for one of the individual's parents to have recently died and how unbeknownst to them, residual feelings from childhood will quietly resurface within the relationship in surprising ways. --- **Referenced in this episode:** Sophie Chao — *How to Mourn a Forest*, Aeon Magazine, 23 May 2023 https://aeon.co/essays/how-to-mourn-a-forest-a-lesson-from-west-papua Marshall Rosenberg — Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life Stephen Jenkinson — *Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul* "Grief is not a feeling, it is a capacity. It is not something that disables you — we are not on the receiving end of grief, we are on the practising end of grief." The Marind song in this episode was composed by Andreas, a Marind youth, and is quoted within Sophie Chao's essay: **Find Rachelle:** rachellelamb.com

  5. 17 Jun

    Needs Are Not the Holy Grail

    There is often an assumption running quietly through much of how Nonviolent Communication is practiced, including how I practiced it when I first encountered the work 27 years ago. It is the unspoken assumption that our needs are above questioning. I have found it useful to challenge that assumption. Human beings, after all, are not simple creatures. We contain competing impulses, layered histories, and contradictory desires. We can name a need from the very part of us most committed to preventing its fulfillment. We can want change desperately while remaining, at a deeper level, committed to the status quo. Join me as I explore the part of us that would prefer things to stay as they are and distorts our needs. I think it serves us well to seriously consider that needs are not the Holy Grail but rather a starting point. The real work begins when we're willing to look honestly at what's underneath them. Referenced in this episode: John Gottman — perpetual problems in relationships (approximately 69%) James Hillman — Jungian depth psychology Marion Woodman — Jungian psychotherapy Clarissa Pinkola Estés — Women Who Run with the Wolves Rainer Maria Rilke — Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final Walt Whitman — Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes. Find Rachelle: rachellelamb.com

  6. 3 Jun

    Couples Stuck in a Story

    He always. She never. I can't trust you anymore. These aren't simply complaints; they are the architecture of a story. And the degree to which a couple is committed to that story is, in my experience, very close to the degree to which the couple suffers inside it. Join me in this episode as I explore one of the most consistent patterns I encounter in couples work: the pull toward generalization, and what it costs. When two people become entrenched in the narrative of their relationship, they lose contact with each other and the living, present-moment aliveness unfolding between them. And it's amazing how common this is, and how we'd almost rather stick to the narrative than experience a real encounter, despite the fact that we want so much to connect. Referenced in this episode: Rumi, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.” John O'Donohue For Love in a Time of Conflict, from To Bless the Space Between Us (2008) Find Rachelle: rachellelamb.com

  7. 20 May

    What Nonviolent Communication Was Meant to Be and What It’s Become

    It's been 2 years since my last episode and I've decided to return and revisit the foundations of Nonviolent Communication. What Nonviolent Communication Was Meant to Be, and What It’s Become Beginning with the opening page of Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall Rosenberg, this episode centers on two defining questions: • What disconnects us from our compassionate nature?• What allows us to remain connected to it, even under the most trying circumstances? I love those questions. Drawing on the example of Etty Hillesum, this conversation points to a form of compassion that is not sentimental, but instead grounded, discerning, and rooted in a wider understanding of the human condition. This marks the beginning of a broader exploration into relationships, culture, and what it means to relate, not only from personal needs, but in response to life itself. If you’d like to stay connected and hear about future episodes, writings, and offerings, you’re welcome to join my mailing list:https://www.rachellelamb.com

  8. 30/04/2024

    Mothers and daughters

    An exploration of the sometimes tumultuous relationship between mothers and daughters Mentions: After 37 Years My Mother Apologizes for My Childhood by Sharon Olds https://www.writersalmanac.org/index.html%3Fp=7034.html Bloodroot: tracing the untelling of motherloss by Betsy Warland https://www.betsywarland.com/project/bloodroot-tracing-the-untelling-of-motherloss/

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Nonviolent Communication beyond technique and grounded in real life. Exploring relationships, culture, and the underlying conditions that shape how we relate. To learn more about adopting a life-centric approach to life and love, visit https://www.rachellelamb.com

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