“For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

—Nelson Mandela (1918-2013)
Former President Of South Africa

This a.m. on NPR, I heard a story discussing the riots in Balitmore and how the ones who were rioting and destroying some businesses chose to protect shops and businesses that had African American  owners and they were destroying shops with Asian owners. The NPR story shared 2 sides to the story. Very briefly, the shops with Black owners seemed to offer more respect as a rule,  to those living in the area near the shops and the Asian owners seemed to never really offer respect to the Black residents that lived near the shops.

The NPR story interviewed an Asian owner as she was cleaning up the destruction of her store and she said something like, ” see what they do, I definitely will never trust them now”.

A Black man shared a story of when  he had tried to get a 2 day credit from an Asian store for  a shirt for a job interview and the owner of the Asian store said “no way”.

The whole point of this blog is this: Which side is right here?   The answer; both sides.

Both sides have their perspectives, their feelings and their own woundedness. And, at this point in the story, both sides think they are right and have taken a stance that is clearly against the other. If they maintain this stance, the anger, rioting and lack of connection and Harmony will only continue.

The only way to get past this impasse is to be willing to connect with one’s own truth, speak this truth in love without attack and then be willing to listen the other as they speak their truth and listen in love without attack.

This way of speaking is the essence of a system of communication developed by Marshall Rosenberg called  Non-violent Communication( see www.cnvc.org for more information about NVC). Another version that is quite similar to NVC is called the Feedback Wheel.

the steps in the feedback wheel are these:

1. share the facts

2. share your perception, your thoughts about what happened

3. share your feelings

4. make a request.

I use both NVC and the feedback wheel.

The reason I titled this blog about what you can do is because if you commit to speaking in this healthy way, you will change the world in which you live. If you get your family, your place of work, your church or anywhere else where humans communicate to commit to this way of speaking and listening, you will begin to heal the world one word at a time.

I would love to coach you on this use. Truly, making a commitment to speak this way all of the time or at least when upset with another will change your life!~ I guarantee this.