Presenter: Patricia Juarez
Session Description: Why is Nonviolent Communication (NVC) so effective even during the most stressful situations? The current pandemic has brought upon many new challenges and this situation has heightened the stress we were already facing in our jobs, in our communities, in our families. Sometimes, this stress has caused us to say things to our loved ones, or in our jobs, that we later regret. Fortunately, there are a series of communication tools and techniques that we can all learn to upskill and reskill our communication strategies and eventually, even repair and heal our wounded relationships. NVC is one of those sets of communication techniques that renders wonderful results and that we can all use to not only lessen the negative impact of the stressful situations we face on a daily basis both at work and at home but through which we can improve, upskill our ability to communicate to all those around us. The NVC set of techniques learns from these two great animals, the giraffe and the jackal, to symbolize aspects in our own lives that most of us were raised with. The jackal, as an animal, is a scavenger, competitive and vicious. The jackal as a person is one who approaches people (including themselves), places and things through the lens of the binary right/wrong, good/bad. The giraffe on the other hand, symbolizes the life serving, partnership language that inspires connection and community. The giraffe is a very powerful yet peaceful, gentle animal. It has the largest heart of any land animal on earth and the longest neck which allows for a far, overall view of the world around it. A giraffe person is non-judgmental, non-blaming, non-demanding, non-threatening and speaks from the heart.
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