What is Be more giraffe?
‘‘What I want from my life is compassion, a flow between myself and others based on a mutual giving from the heart.’’
– Marshall B. Rosenberg, PhD
Marshall Rosenberg, founder of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) believed that people are compassionate at heart but that many of us have become disconnected from our compassionate nature. This disconnect leads to division and conflict – both within us and between us. This is a view I share.
Be more giraffe is not solely based on NVC. It’s a combination of NVC together with the learnings from my training in NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming) and the various courses I have undertaken, books I’ve read and experience I’ve gained in all my different roles over many years.
I guess it’s my way of joining the dots between what I’ve learned and experienced so far, as a forty-something woman, on my unique path through life. In so doing, I’ve come to the realisation that life can be so much more joyful and simple than many of us realise.
So, Be more giraffe is really a representation of my thoughts about myself, life, people and the world as they stand right now. As such, it’s subject to change - just like we all are.
In NVC, the giraffe represents our natural inner compassionate nature and to me, being ‘more giraffe’ is about reconnecting with ourselves and connecting more meaningfully with others. It’s about knowing that, in any given moment, we can choose what to focus on and how to react to the world around us.
We learn to do this when we understand why we behave the way we do and by taking conscious steps to change the behaviour we don’t want.
In order to do this, it helps to understand the connection between our needs, feelings, thoughts and actions. Once we understand this connection, we are better able to empathise with ourselves and others.
From this place of greater empathy, we are able to communicate using the compassionate, unifying language of giraffe rather than the judgemental, alienating language of jackal.
In so doing, we can choose to live in a big hearted way - with greater connection, abundance and joy.
But Be more giraffe is not only about individual change. I believe that this sort of individual transformation is key to solving the worldwide problem of division and conflict.
Because each individual shift forms another step towards a collective shift away from the divided and violent world we currently live in towards one of greater harmony and peace – both inner and outer.
Does this all sound too good to be true? Find out more about the vision here.