Compassionate Giving Defined & Getting NVC ‘Out There’
NVC Challenge: Episode 4 (15-20 minutes)
Continued from Episode 3.
Marshall explains what he means by ‘compassionate giving’:
Where giving is fueled by willingness and the pure joy derived from contributing to life, our own and others. Where actions are not motivated by guilt, shame, fear of punishment, or attempting to buy love by submitting to what we think others are expecting of us.
At the time Marshall was in private practice of psychology. He noticed that those who booked sessions, were all seeing something wrong in themselves that needed healing.
He saw that this concept of mental illness, which implied there was something wrong that needed fixing, was destructive and hindered people’s evolution and development.
Marshall soon discovered that the NVC process was a much more effective healing tool than the psychotherapy analysis model he had been taught at university.
He saw how it was helping all categories of people, whether they were coming to see him because of depression, whether they were kids with challenges in school, or couples with marital problems. At first Marshall was shocked by the stark contrast that became apparent between the teaching of the NVC process compared with the process of psychological analysis.
It seemed too simple that problems could be corrected by showing people a few different ways of behaving, thinking, communicating and using power, compared with months of months of traditional therapy, where there was hardly a shift.
NVC takes to the open road
Marshall knew he wanted to offer these tools in another way, not through consultation in private practice, but he wasn’t sure how. He spoke with those who had found the model helpful and asked for support in getting it out there. As word spread, soon Marshall found himself travelling around the US to different groups all eager to learn and apply the process in their lives.
At the time many groups were concerned with racial relationships, as they had first hand experience of the cost of racism. They were keen to understand how the process of NVC could be supportive in helping people to liberate themselves from the kind of thinking and cultural learning that contributed to racism.
Marshall was working with many of the Southern states, as it was the time of US desegregation in schools, which brought many challenges. People were finding NVC very helpful in transforming racist type of thinking into thinking which was more respectful of differences, and was helping to reconcile warring groups within communities.
Personal insights from Loren: I so LOVE Marshall’s definition of compassionate giving. Imagine a world, where strategies like guilt, fear of punishment, shame, manipulation are no longer employed to motivate behaviours. I also loved his humility in sharing the insight around the effectiveness of the NVC process compared with traditional psychotherapy, and his willingness to step into what worked, even if it was outside the ‘traditional intellectual’ box.
To be continued here Episode 5…
This is the online training program I’m listening to:
