Making Life Wonderful – 2

These were VHS tapes 3 and 4.

Making Life Wonderful – Part 2 (raw text capture)

good morning love [Music] i had to learn you never come alone and when i shut out hurting something in me turns to stone to be in touch with tenderness i bear my blood and bone and i’m so glad to have you back again good morning pain good morning joy good morning love [Music] who’s ready to do some work with all kinds of people so let’s start over my left will work around you got one come on up here i’m gonna need your help no you got 40 giraffe supporters out there but there’s three jackals hidden in the crowd so watch that [Music] okay what is this person did you start with uh what this person says that’s a challenging thing to hear um yeah what did this person say this person said um this has nothing to do with me speak to your father and this is my father’s partner not my mother this has nothing to do with me speak to your father this is a woman i’d like to non-violently kill [Music] well now if if you know that would somebody else like to do this role play if you know already that you have that kind of anger toward a person then we wouldn’t even approach them until you first had gotten rid of all enemy images of the person see the kind of the kind of thinking in other words it makes you angry well you still have that you will create in that person the very thing that you’re concerned about that’s true and so should i pick a different person or should i work on that no this is the perfect person to work on okay because our most ugly aggravating jackal is our best guru we stand more to benefit more to learn from those people whose beauty we cannot see than anybody else they’re they’re our best teachers so let’s go to work first of all on anger let’s let’s see how to deal with anger and we’ll give everybody a chance to practice this okay so so all of you think of somebody at the moment who’s behaving some in a way that stimulates you in the way that she is stimulated by this person you have nice aggressive fantasies toward that and for those of you who have never been angry you can’t even imagine getting that angry so that you can participate in this exercise i’m going to give you the telephone number of my brother call him up and within five minutes you will be angry okay anybody need his number i teased him about this all the time i said you know you’re famous all over the world so if you get some strange calls you’ll know that people are wanting to get angry okay write the stimulus for your anger now what did this person say or do that was a stimulus for your anger and while they’re writing that down what is this person’s stimulus what has this person done that there’s a stimulus for your anger no we’re going to start with what was this person’s stimulus um i haven’t been allowed to see my father yes that’s a diagnosis i ask for a stimulus that’s the cause of your anger that you interpret it that way but she’s not allowing you to see your father and that’s not right and she has no right to keep you from him and so forth we’re going to get to that next that’s the cause of your anger what’s the stimulus what did she say she said um she pretty much said what i said she said this has nothing to do with me speak to your father okay and that’s the she won’t let me talk to her about it it won’t let me that’s a diagnosis so she has said this has nothing to do with me talk to your father that’s the stimulus you see so let’s hear some other stimuli for the anger what else have you written down the person said you need to be criticized that’s your fault i’m leaving and it’s your fault yes you never you never know and if you’re a jackal you’ll remember one time 12 years ago you did just to prove that never is not accurate you always same thing but they said that you always okay you’re always angry you’re always angry you’re not listening yes all of the things that you just said the other person can say can’t make us angry he just doesn’t have the power to do that okay so now i want you to write down the cause of the anger this way when the person does this i feel angry because what is the cause of your anger and let’s have you answer the same thing when when i s when this person says this has nothing to do with me you have to speak to your fun when this person says this you feel angry because why uh i feel powerless and i feel uh cut off from my father not feel cut off you in first it’s not your feeling of powerless that makes you angry that’s that’s a separate feeling you also feel powerless you feel angry but you interpret this person as cutting you off so you have a violent image of this person all the person said is this has nothing to do with me but you interpreted this as this person is cutting you off from your father that’s what makes you angry it’s not this person yeah i’m just doing my work you want to know more no that answered my question i just want you to be conscious that this person isn’t making you angry it’s that thought that makes you angry that they are cutting you off from your father because i will bet you that that is associated in your thinking with the violent word the violent s h word i hate to say it out loud they shouldn’t cut you off from you don’t you do you believe that that they shouldn’t do that to you absolutely see it’s the sh word that makes us angry see if we didn’t have the sh word in our consciousness we wouldn’t have so much violence but the sh word that’s why i don’t like to say it out loud because i think it creates great violence on our planet the sh word because it’s a basically in a sense it’s a handy abbreviation because the sh word basically means the other person is bad and deserving of punishment see it’s all contained in that sh word it’s just an abbreviation since we use it so much and we have so much violence that we want to blame so it’s kind of an abbreviation we don’t have to say it it’s implicit you see it goes with it’s cutting me off from the family anybody will tell you you shouldn’t do that to a dog you shouldn’t cut a daughter off from the father yes what is your what makes you angry when people talk when you’re talking what’s the cause of your anger yes you have double you have a double jackal in there first of all you’re interpreting them as not being fair not giving you a fair chance and the double jackal is uh they shouldn’t do that the reason i asked him raised my hand a second ago if somebody says to you you know you you should do da-da-da if you want to empathize with them do you ask them do you think i should no i do remember what i said never hear what a jackal thinks especially never hear the should word don’t hear it don’t go there life isn’t fun when we join the person in their thinking go to their heart there’s no should in the heart of all the things never to hear coming from another person it’s you should especially someone in authority you know i hope everybody in here has already got your children convinced of that you tell your children never hear what i say you should do you’ve all told your children that i’m sure no i think i think what i think what you’re saying is it’s hard for you not to have that in there because you have all kinds of thoughts about this rascal such as what what do you think about me for not giving you that support in addition that i should what do you think about me that makes you so angry yes yes yes she doesn’t need help at this level she was doing quite all right without your help what else anything else neglecting his son and he’s still alive you haven’t killed him yet with all of that going on inside man you have good anger control i’ve beaten people for less okay yeah any one of those words you see but you know the problem is you pay for those words every time you think that you pay for it if you want to read what i say read about type a thinking and the effect that it has on heart disease type a thinking is in the technical research in medicine basically what i call jackal thinking you know irresponsible shirking this kind of thinking that makes us angry high correlation the more people think this way the more blood the more heart disease because it’s not only destructive to our spirit it’s also very destructive to our bodies because these are not natural feelings you see i’ll show you what i mean by natural feelings see as in daniel goldman’s book emotional intelligence when a need isn’t getting met it gives off energy which we call feelings the feelings tell us the need isn’t getting met they mobilize us for action to get something done so this wonderful energy gets channeled into need-serving action see so a dog gets hungry and it doesn’t just sit there and say oh wonderful i’m hungry you know it starts to act for the purpose of getting some food any living phenomenon this happens the need when it’s not being met needs an energy source which is the feelings but we human beings have had this trick plate on us that i told you about earlier today so the need isn’t getting met but we don’t have a need consciousness we’ve been educated not to be in touch with our needs so we go to enemy images he should he’s irresponsible that’s selfish shirking duties we have we’ve had our head filled with the thousands of these you see and when our head was filled this way we are going to fill one of four feelings depression guilt and shame if we direct the judgment to ourself if i think i was irresponsible i feel guilt shame if i think i’m a failure depression but if we direct it outward anger but notice what’s happened we’re we’re cut off from life we’re not really alive we’re not in touch with life and then what kind of energy does this give us punitive actions not not need serving actions we want to blame and punish this rascal yeah there’s a need down there and it isn’t getting that we’ve lost connection with that when we’re up in our head judging the other person all we want is to see that person suffer especially if we have

the other dangerous word in our head along with the sh word you see so much of our violence comes from the s h word and the d e word deserve yes deserve all you got to do is think somebody deserves something and oh you’re lyla think that because somebody does something they deserve to be rewarded think that because somebody does something they deserve to suffer they deserve to be punished very dangerous word and put those two together he’s doing what he shouldn’t he deserves to are a part of power over they’re one person trying to use the power that they have over another person see so i have some money and you don’t have so i say okay if you do this i’ll give you the money you need to eat i say i’m not gonna give you know unless you do this you’re i’m not going to give it to you so that’s a way of using power over people if you want to see the violence of rewards go into that a little bit more read alfie cohn’s book alfie cohn punished by rewards you want to see how violent the de word is the deserve word you see read walter kaufman without guilt and justice he’s a philosophy professor was a philosophy professor at princeton first half the book he just says from a philosophical point of view just in terms of pure logic pure rational clear thinking that the e word deserve violates every principle of clear thinking to think that anybody deserves anything he shows in the first half of his book violates every principle of clear thinking then in the last half the book he shows then that it’s no secret that our judicial system our correctional system is suicidal because it’s based on a totally ir irrational concept that people deserve to suffer for what they’ve done so even though our own judicial system our own statistics show that people are more violent when they get out of our prisons than when they go in we never learn about this it’s hard it’s hard to see that any time you use punishment it never works not if you’re conscious at two levels if you ask yourself two questions you will see that punishment cannot work question number one what do we want the other person to do if you ask only that question it tricks you into thinking that punishment sometimes works because sometimes through the use of punishment you can get somebody to do something but ask the second question you see it never works second question what do we want the other person’s reasons to be for doing what we want them to do ask those two questions no more punishment same with reward yeah how about setting boundaries for children let’s set boundaries it’s very important but not for children for any human being any human being who is violating a need of yours and is unwilling to negotiate about it tell them what you are going to do and do it use protective use of force but do that with everybody don’t think that’s just with children we all need clarity if if you’re in the basic need of yours isn’t getting that in your relationship with me and i’m not willing to talk about it tell me what you’re going to do to protect yourself and do it but don’t use any punishment don’t get that mixed up with punishment you know children do not need punishment and children do not lead boundaries all human beings need boundaries in the way that i’m describing it what about a privilege that is given within that boundary what do you mean by a privilege a reward the use of a vehicle yes when following certain boundaries that i have so you have a car and if anybody’s going to use your car you would like them to agree to drive it without drinking any alcohol boy you’re a hard mother to live with okay then i would say that at the moment the next time i see you using any drugs while you’re driving i will know i will no longer give you my car i’m not trying it’s not punishment i it depends if you think they’re wrong and you want to make that rascal suffer yes if you have in your thinking that they were wrong and you’re trying to punish him but it doesn’t sound like that it sounds like you would like to protect some property of yours and mostly him or or to protect him you see or to protect him so if that’s your only intention you’re not intending to make him suffer i would say it’s a protective use of force not the punitive the other person may see it is punitive that’s another issue if if persons only know punishment of course they’re gonna they’re gonna have trouble making this differentiation the main thing is that we see the difference that we make sure we never take any action that’s intending to make another person suffer whenever that’s our intention we’re going to create more violence on this planet which is not what we need on this planet yes is it the same concept for rewards when a person gets paid you get paid for a book i hope i don’t i hope i don’t i hope you don’t give me that money as a payment i hope you give it to me to nurture what i’m doing i hope you see that money as a gift i hope you don’t see it as payment i wish we had the time to go through that every time somebody gets a book the only thing is it usually takes me an hour to make this clear to people so i don’t know how i i can get that hour with everybody who wants to i don’t want anybody to buy my book i want them to have it i wouldn’t have written it if i didn’t want them to have it i hope people would realize that for me to have time to write things like books and to do the other work that i do it would help me to give me some money so i hope you didn’t pay money for the book i hope you gave me money for the book how will you know the difference you will have enjoyed it if you gave me the money if you didn’t you won’t enjoy giving it so that’s why i never tried to give money if it’s a payment i try only to give money when it’s a gift yes how about grades the only purpose i see in grades is to maintain a caste system in our society and to hide it as a meritocracy or a democracy now when i was at the university i had a little trouble with this with the registrar i still remember the six week mark when i was teaching at a university in saint louis registrar comes to my office dr rosenberg your grades have not been handed in i said you’re very perceptive registrar did not like my humor she repeats herself the great your grades have not been handed in yes i’m well aware of that why i’m choosing not to give grades but you have to bureaucratic language you have to isn’t this foolish she’s telling me i have to i haven’t done it obviously i don’t have to [Music] can you hear anything crazier than that a person telling me you have to i said i’m choosing not to give grave why it’s against my spiritual beliefs why i said half the students at this university are black half are white blacks get 80 percent of failing grades i choose not to participate in any evaluation scheme that differentiates on the basis of race or culture also research shows that the more grades are given the more students lose perspective on the worth of what they’re learning so then they learn not for the value of what they’re learning but for the extrinsic rewards which of course is what is the purpose in the jackal culture you want people to get used to working for extrinsic rewards things like salaries so they’ll be able to pollute the environment or do anything else as long as their boss tells them to do it they get their reward so that’s what you want to train them for in schools this one i said the one area that they said but we we have to have accountability i said now that i share the university’s desire at that level we do need to know whether people have learned what you know the course involved i said i will give you at the end of the course of instruction a measurable assessment of what students could do at the end that they couldn’t do at the beginning in this respect i’m far more accountable than a teacher who gives you a c or a d you don’t know what that student can do you will know what each of my students can do at the end that they couldn’t do at the beginning so because of that i was being more accountable so they didn’t fire me for that [Music] they fired me because they didn’t like my friends i was working with street gangs at the time and this was a college we were preparing teachers to work in the inner city i had some members of the gang come into my class and educate the students the students evaluated this session incidentally is very valuable that these they really learned a lot about why kids in the inner city weren’t learning but the university had a rule that said that these people weren’t qualified to be brought in as guest lecturers so it was on that basis that that was not a problem i was i wasn’t expecting to stay along around very long the the administrator that got me in there asked me to come in and kick ass a little and stir things up and so he knew he knew i wasn’t going to last long and i didn’t really want to teach long i just wanted to get some things started okay so now everybody anybody else want to read off what the cause of your anger is i hope everybody sees that the cause of our anger is always the same it’s that we are playing a game called punitive god see that’s the cause of anger see when we when we go up to our head and judge the other person as irresponsible selfish stupid this is the game that’s been played for several centuries you see where somebody thinks they know what’s right and they know what’s wrong and that they know who deserves to suffer so i call that game punitive god so we are playing the game punitive god when we are angry yes it feels like there’s a toggle switch between anger and hurt so if someone says you need to be criticized i feel hurt and i feel angry it’s not just one feeling and i’m kind and i’m curious what you’d say about that because if for any moment you get connected to the need then you feel hurt but then if the next moment you then go back up to the

jackal judgment and start to judge the other person so that means your attention is split part of you is connected to your need and the hurt is because you have a need for more respect or something like that that might be the need it’s at the bottom of it but the anger tells you that your full attention is not on the need so you can never be feeling anger and still be needing if you’re feeling anger you would say your thinking is always divorced from needing respect there’s always a part of your consciousness that is not on the need it is up in your head playing the game punitive god when our full attention is on our needs it’s impossible to be angry no matter what the person is doing to you to you you cannot be angry if your full attention is on either your need or the other person’s need yes i hear the same thing about almost every country i work in in which people are afraid that if they don’t get angry they’re going to be passive and not deal with the oppression they’re dealing with so the problem is yes we do if we have a need for health we need to mobilize ourselves and have our full energy going into mobilizing that but i think we’ll have more energy if we get connected to what our need is and not have part of it distracted because i think the energy that comes from anger is not really a fully life-serving energy but if you compare it to nothing see this is what people are afraid of if i don’t get angry i’m going to have no i’m just going to be passive but if your full attention is here you’ll have plenty of energy but it won’t be angry but i think it’ll be more more healthy yeah i wrote down that um when um when the person says their jackal thing to me when she says that i feel angry because i have a need to be appreciated and respected and i guess i i’m having a little difficulty i i don’t think you get angry because your need for appreciation and respect isn’t getting met for example if i come along and i be i say to you get out of my way idiot and for whatever reason you think maybe his wife died and he’s in mourning i don’t think you’d feel angry even though your need wasn’t getting met for respect and so forth it wasn’t getting met but i don’t think you’d be angry because you would probably tell yourself something different than what you’re telling yourself if you’re angry so you still haven’t answered my question of the cause of your anger just because your need for respect doesn’t get met doesn’t make you angry i think i think what my experience is is that i have um anger is the first thing that comes into my awareness and then if i look at it more closely there’s hurt underneath it and fear but it’s like they they both or all three or maybe others coexist at the same time anger is the one that’s the first clue it’s kind of like pain but the first thing that it you’re use i agree with you it’s usually the first thing we’re aware of but it’s not the first thing that happens the first thing that happens is what i’m asking you to get at now which you haven’t gotten at yet and that’s why i’m pushing you to get at it because it needs to be gotten out into the light and that is i think you need to be clear what is making you angry it’s not that your need isn’t getting mad what are you telling yourself yeah some some jackal thoughts yeah but that’s the first thing that came but your jackal your inner jackals speak so rapidly right and it’s been in there so long very often you’re not conscious of it right but i’m just i’m wondering if it can you know i can i for some reason i want to make the distinction between like depression guilt and shame which seem like they’re like really unproductive or counterproductive roads to go down whereas anger even though not productive in the sense of i’m saying all of these are productive can be productive if you do the following work if first you identify the thinking that is making you feel this way and if you use these feelings as an alarm clock to tell you that part of your connection to your needs is being blocked by life alienated violence provocative thinking let me repeat that you see these feelings are valuable if you use them as an alarm clock i get it thank you you got it okay and when you use it in this alarm clock and get connected here you will have more energy not less but the energy will be directed toward getting your need met not to blaming and punishing yourself or others so getting back just to to needs i would as far as i can see i would think that i think as human beings we want to get more at least for myself more pleasant experiences or the kind of experiences i want and less unpleasant experiences yes and i as far down as i can see that seems to be just very very core do you think that’s true and how does that i’m just trying to look at really we keep talking about needs i’m wondering if there’s sort of like this core deeper really getting down into what’s our real needs well i like the way you summarized it and i think if i understood what you’re saying is not too different than what i hear the dalai lama was saying or many other people saying that our basic need is to enjoy life and what then how can we enjoy life if our needs aren’t getting met so to enjoy life is to get our needs met in a way that doesn’t create problems for us later see giraffes are cheap they don’t like to pay for getting their needs met that’s right apart from my situation for the moment we’re coming back to it i know we are but i’m still connecting up to what they’re saying i mean take a an oppressed group of people who or people who are hungry every day for years and years and years and die and die and die and they never get their need met yes they never get it met why so they they know they’re hungry that’s their first babies they’re real hungry and and i don’t blame them for being angry about it i hope i don’t blame them because then i would be perpetuating the cycle i hope i don’t hear no one in here hears they’re being blamed if they get angry i’m saying if they get angry they’re less likely to get fed more likely to get killed and then when i say that to them which incidentally i work in a lot of places where i’m working with just about two weeks ago i was working with people from eight african countries and the hunger was only one of the things that they saw they were the biggest issue they wanted to deal with what do you do when they’re putting your people in concentration yes that was a yes what do you do when these people and they had a whole bunch of judgments of these people that were putting the people into and i said first thing you need to do is transform all enemy images into needs you’re going to have no power with people until you can translate your enemy images so do you think these people are oppressive pigs yes okay we got to work on that then we got to work on that you see because as long as you see that you are more likely to generate counter violence and cooperation see so the first step this was on this was a workshop on social change these were at least people were not interested in individuals they were interested in gangs of individuals gang some gangs call themselves gangs some gangs call themselves multinational corporations some gangs call themselves governments so they were interested in how do you deal with gangs gangs that you see creating great violence okay the first thing is get rid of any enemy image of the gang members see because if as long as you think there is something wrong with the gang members you’ll create more violence i predict than cooperation so we’re supposed to like it that they’re putting our people in concentration camps and not feeding them and i’m not asking you to like it i’m asking you to do more than that i’m asking you to be able to see that that’s the most wonderful thing in the world that these people could be doing what then i explain you see and it has to be sincere explain when i work in with my colleagues that i work at in sierra leone we’re looking at why would this person take a six-year-old child and hack off the eye you see you see if you think that’s evil or bad i’m suggesting you will create more violence good business so the first thing is to realize to be conscious that the person who does that does it for the same reason that you and i do everything we do is that clear each moment every human being is doing the best they can at that moment to meet their needs so this whatever this and whatever need they have i know also that you and i have that same need because needs are universal see so until we can start by trying to empathize with what need is this person meeting by doing this until we can connect with that as long as we think there’s something wrong with this person that they’re bad we’re going to approach it in a way that i think we have less power and more chance to create counter violence now notice what i just said does not mean i have to like that behavior it means i have to see the humanness of the person who’s doing it now i do not ask these people in sierra leone to do this first not until we’ve empathized with their feelings about it you see i wouldn’t want to even think of getting them to empathize with why somebody has cut off the arms of one of their children until they’ve healed from the pain that that’s created so i’m not suggesting that we start with it but then i’m saying if we really want to change this in a way that doesn’t create more violence we need to get rid of enemy images and connect with what this person’s needs are that are being met by cutting off children’s eyes yes i find it um more useful to think of it in terms of the need that the person is trying to get met because um in my thinking the need isn’t actually getting met by what need are they intending to get met by doing this yeah sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t i’m unfortunate unfortunately to say uh

one of the needs that was being met by chopping off the arms of the children did work it was getting mad a need to get attention and more political power call attention to their suffering so the man that’s now that get given a vice president role in sierra leone it was his troops cutting off the arms and get this to stop they basically rewarded him with the position in the government so in this sense it worked yes now they’re going to pay for it see it they got one need met but there’s other needs that i think they’re going to pay for dearly for that but in this the other times that we intend it that doesn’t even meet the need we intended it to me yes okay so uh this gets exactly to what i was getting at about needs that for this person who wanted said had a need for more political power or whatever you just said yes is that really a need we have a need for more power all of us have a need right so more security more safety more than that we have a need to manipulate our environment see the problem is in our culture the use of power the way we’ve been we try to meet our need for power and to manipulate sounds exploitive and violent because we’re used to a particular form of power usage and manipulation in fact we can’t survive without power and ability to manipulate that by itself is is just a human need but how do we meet that need if we meet it through punishment reward that’s a whole other issue but the need itself for power we all have it so or is it the need for power is it just a need to be okay no it’s a need for power we need to be able to control again control in our culture gets seen as a dirty thing because we’re associating it with a certain domination but we all our need is do we have to need to have some control some power with our environment or this is a pretty scary world if we don’t have some power yeah but do we have any power control or is it just just an illusion anyway i think we have enormous power if we speak giraffe if we if we are interested in power with people uh you see enormous power with people yes like hitler’s how does one in listening with giraffe ears avoid meeting a real immediate death so your face you’re up against some people who are using violence to kill people and you are confronting them how do you avoid being killed is that is that true what does one person do in in the face of uh of a killing army well if you don’t have a facilitator like marshall rosenberg there to make two sides meet how does one person meet well you could do you could do it the king of uh you could do what the king of denmark did when the nazis said the next day all jews will come out in the streets with their yellow armbands on we are going to round them up and ship them off to a concentration camp so what can one person do the king of denmark said all citizens please tomorrow wear yellow bands so the nazis can’t tell who is who that’s what one person could do and the next day the poor you feel sad for the poor nazis they can’t tell all their guns and all of their power they couldn’t do anything thousands of lives were saved you spoke about um healing you take place before empathy can register or or kick in and is that healing as a completed series of stages or can it just be an initiated process of beginning to heal because um i would think when one was healing over witnessing that kind of atrocity to one’s kid is not going to happen this may not happen in the course of a immediate exchange with somebody well i’ve been exploring ways of speeding up that healing because unfortunately there’s so much of it that needs to get done in this world now i mean so enormous amount so i was trained in healing and the psychoanalytic model taught to think that even minor pains are going to take two or three years of i now find it in about an hour i can do more than i was doing in three years to heal pain with much even worse pain than that how first of all by not talking about what happened you see all talking about how horrible what these people did waste of time and energy if we can maximize getting the person to have some empathy for what’s alive in them right now so i’ve demonstrated that a little bit today i’ve been playing the other person with giraffe ears you see you notice that and i do that in these situations i play the man who raped this woman and give her empathy now with giraffe leaders i play the role of in algeria the man who took this woman outside and made her watch one of my friends dragged her best friend to her death behind a car and then i took her in the house and raped her in front of her pen i play the role of that man with giraffe ears and she gets a chance to express that pain and have it heard by a person in the role of that of the prison and i find that i can get the healing taking place in one hour that i couldn’t get in three years of traditional techniques so there are ways i’m convinced that we can speed up the healing but there does need to be some healing in the form of empathy in there before we ask this person to do other things okay so now we’ve got your anger clear you’re angry because you got the sh word in your head yes and now uh let’s get that out of your head uh what’s the need that’s behind that sh word see all judgments that make us angry are tragic suicidal expressions of needs so let’s let’s use the judgments to hear the need behind it what’s the need that isn’t getting there i i need to have access to my father yes you really need access connection with your father and now when your attention is fully on that how do you feel a lot of sadness yeah yes see immediately how that now she’s having life-serving feelings tremendous sadness what was rage a moment ago sadness the rage is still there too then then it’s divided but that’s just switching back and forth switching up there i mean but then if i really want to help her heal i will keep bringing her back to the need so you have this real need for the connection with your father and feeling this enormous sadness that need isn’t getting met because i’ll want her to act out of that because that’s much more likely to get her needs met and whatever she does acting out of that anger okay i’ve tried everything marshall so far no i’m left with anger and rage yeah so the one thing i want you to try that i think will have some power but i don’t want you to try it too quick you see which is to empathize with this rascal but i don’t want you even to think of empathizing with this rascal until you’ve had enough empathy for your sadness you see just as i said earlier i don’t want the parents empathizing with the people who cut off the arms and their children before they’ve had all the empathy that they need but i really don’t think we can resolve things until they can empathize with the other person i don’t think she can heal in this until she can empathize with this rascal that says it’s not up to me talk to your father so let’s get get this empathy from this person so we’ll put some giraffe ears on this person i don’t believe that though it’s hard to even imagine that rascal with giraffe ears yeah yeah i had to even imagine it yep so there’s this rage toward me because you see me as cutting you off from something valuable but behind that is this deep need you have for connection with your father and a sadness of not having them that’s that’s a lot of the rage and i can’t i can’t seem to have any effect on that and then on top of this is powerless you feel powerless too what can you do to get the understanding that you need i feel completely powerless to talk to you you won’t let me talk to you and and my father’s terrified of you and he’ll do he’s collapsed he’s completely collapsed into your control yeah so you feel powerless to persuade me and you’re not you feel sad because you can’t imagine that your father could do anything no he’s giving up it’s it’s a side thing but it’s even sadder because my father was a conscientious objector during the second world war and he was able to stand up to the world and he can’t stand up to you so you must be one hell of a jackal yeah it’s especially painful when you recall the strength your father had living in harmony with his values and now to see him so overwhelmed he’s so full of shame and guilt about whatever he’s full of shame and guilt about you can’t make his needs to you known in a way that your needs are so much bigger i guess and you just put in control on him he’s to blame for everything all your pain and i’m the i’m the daughter he feels closest to so i’m the one that you’ve got to punish i guess i’m i’m i’m not this right now i’m not feeling this nice i’m i’m still feeling sadness and i’m just wanna you gotta breathe you’re furious you really want me to see how painful it is to me and to your father you want me to get my needs met in a way that is not so costly to you and your father and this all seems so hypocritical with what you are doing in the world yeah you and my you have a need for some integrity and when you see us doing one thing and working for one thing and behaving this way totally it makes even more pain more pain then i i question everything what’s ridiculous the ears the star in my eye or this ring in my tongue really ring actually the ring actually yes that ring came in albuquerque new mexico and then before lunch said marshall after lunch there’s such a situation so painful for me really i don’t even know how to get at it could we do it after lunch i said what is this that’s so painful my 14 year old daughter wants to get a ring in her tongue and we deal with that after lunch i said okay so during the lunch break the jackal said to me don’t you think it would be more realistic if i had a ring in my tongue i said jackal that’s a fine idea so we went out and found a veterinary who would do this work and so we got the ring in the jackal’s tongue and after lunch

the man sits down and i said okay now let’s pretend like this is your daughter yes and the jackal says dead what’s wrong with a ring in the tongue and he falls on the floor laughing it was so serious before lunch [Music] so anyway after the workshop i went to take it out but the jackal wouldn’t hear of it it loves it so what am i good what am i gonna do so yeah i know it’s i know it’s hard to imagine this person this woman with the ring in her tongue and the giraffe ears on yeah and a star in the eye can you hear me now or do you want me to hear more of you can you guess what my need is and what i’ve what i’ve done i can please do what is my need um i can i’m analyzing her first it’s okay put the analysis out i know a little bit yes i know a little bit about your uh just a tiny bit about your life and that you were um you’re an alcoholic mother and your father left you when you were six and i think i think you’re pretty pretty pissed off about that and and you’ve needed my father’s name and attention and you haven’t gotten it the way you really really wanted it so you’ve got to control everything around him that’s my analysis well let me make it clearer for you okay yes i’m deeply hurt deeply hurt that some of my needs have not been met in relationship to your father and deeply hurt that my pain i don’t feel is understood by you but i’m judged i have a fear that i instead of getting understood by you i’m judged by you how do you feel when i tell you this yeah i’m sure that’s true but i’m like yeah i feel like you’ve just transferred you stuff onto me so you really want to be free from responsibility from what i’m saying i do yes and i’m glad because i’m not wanting to say that you are i’m really wanting to let you know what’s going on in me which is i’m deeply hurt and i’m not wanting to blame you i’m just wanting you to be honest with you need me to be honest with you no i i want to be honest with you are you going to be honest with me now that i have these giraffe years on i’m interested in reconciliation and healing between us so i’m not blaming you for my hurt or your father for my heart but i do need you to know how deeply hurt i feel i’m willing to take responsibility for it but i still need empathy for how hurt i feel [Music] i would have liked more understanding from you and more gratitude from your father i i understand my father turned out to be a disappointment in a lot of ways for you and and somehow i came into that yeah too somehow i fit into that yes i didn’t even know how yes until recently but i and i hate some of the things i’ve said to you like the one you started off tonight quoting but i am in such pain and such hurt that it’s all i can do to control myself [Music] how do you feel when i say that uh i get panicky in my stomach and i wonder if you can’t control yourself does that mean i still you’re you’re still somehow gonna make it so that i can’t be with my father yeah yeah so you’re really afraid that if my panic is so great you’re still not gonna get your need met yep fact if you’re taking responsibility for it or hearing any blame i’m not getting the empathy on you so the last thing i need is for you to take responsibility for it because then i can’t get the empathy okay well as long as you’re not asking me to take responsibility for it well i will when i don’t have these ears on and that’s especially the time when it will be important for you to empathize and not get caught up in this not to hear what i think but i’m making it easy on you now i’m taking responsibility for my pain all i’m asking for is just connection just empathy later i am going to blame you a bit for it just so you can get a chance to try out your new ears but we’re going at this gradually i can certainly do my best so let me say it again and just i’m not asking you to take responsibility for it but just please hear it hear it when i say that i am in such agonizing hurt and mixed all with rage because when i don’t have these ears on the hurt turns into rage that combination of hurt and rage let’s not get into whether it cause is caused by my own childhood intellectually that’s probably true but that kind of thinking will get you in the way get in the way of giving me the full attention i need to what’s alive in me now however it got started what i need is someone to hear just this excruciating hurt i feel in relationship to your father and and to you so could you tell me that tell you how what i understand what i just said yes i hear that you are in such excruciating pain that um that you i need to um you hope that i can hear that that’s what’s in the way of thank you thank you thank you you’re making a connection with me thank you and when i really need you to have the same quality of empathy as you’re giving me now is when i’m communicating in those other ways that makes it a real challenge i need you to not just intellectually know that but i need you to be here at those times that makes sense to me if i’m capable of doing that i certainly try so let’s see if you’re capable of doing don’t talk to me talk to your father uh i’m gonna go slow here yes let’s go real slow blank blank uh you you don’t you don’t uh you feel uh you don’t have to guess right we just have to guess human how am i feeling somebody’s saying i know right she’s feeling angry are you feeling angry are you are you feeling angry when you say that because you’re needing what’s the need behind it because you’re needing me to you’re needing leave yourself out of there what’s she needing because you need me to understand me you need understanding don’t mix up the need in the request right she may want you to do some things to meet the need let’s learn how to keep them separate just to hear the need separate from the request yes but i’ve long since given up the possibility that either you or your father are going to understand give me my formula again so you’re feeling are you feeling feeling and then her need i keep focusing on her feeling in her need so you’ve uh you don’t feel no you’re feeling you’re feeling hopeless about how you’re cooking uh about being understood that’s right that’s right and i’m not going to suffer anymore i’ve suffered enough with it with you and your father so if you want to talk to him talk to him but i’m not going to suffer anymore i’ll tell you that right now i’m not going to suffer anymore you’ve been in a lot of pain about this yes i have yes i have uh what what kind of pain oops it’s my old therapy training yes that shifts from empathy to psychoanalytic change right yeah and and empathy we’re not trying to direct we’re trying to connect with we’re following the other person’s energy you don’t take them to somewhere else what kind of pain they’ll just connect with what’s in them right now right so that you’re yes you are and i’m not going to take it anymore i’m not going to take it anymore i’ve had enough you are you are tired sick and tired of not feeling understood you’re dying right and being exploited you feel you feel taken advantage of don’t go there that’s still a thought what’s the need behind the judgment exploited judgment um oh yeah i don’t feel respected that’s right after all i did for your father to not only not get the respect that i was deserving to have happen to me what i what happens you never felt seen for what happened to you i didn’t get any i not only didn’t get the respect that i deserved i got trumped on yeah you got very got very very hurt and very yes stepped on and now don’t use the images don’t reinforce the images got very hurt yes your need for respect wasn’t mess you keep coming back to the need the need that’s behind the images don’t repeat the images because every repetition of the images just reinforces the jackal thinking that makes sense you got very very hurt and disrespected no that’s that’s another image disrespect see that says that your father disrespected no your need for respect wasn’t meant didn’t leave it does not get into images of the other person disrespected your need for respect wasn’t that your need for respect wasn’t not met that’s right now you’ve done a lot of work there you’ve done a lot of work i ask a lot of people how many times in your life if you’ve been in pain can you remember having someone hear your pain the way she just did just hear the feelings and the need for even one time just even once she’s done it three sequences i’d say half the people cannot remember a time in their life that they’ve gotten this much empathy even when they didn’t express it in a way that was so hard to give it to them but they remember as their parents trying to give them the empathy by saying here here have a sucker maybe you’ll feel better or you shouldn’t feel that way the other people meant well but to get this kind of empathy about half the people cannot recall one time they’ve gotten it one message and now this person even though this person has been a real test for your ears already three interchanges and i think those three interchanges have already created a connection we’re not we haven’t solved anything yet but these connections build the basis for which the solution can happen but without this basis forget any kind of resolution that will meet everybody’s needs yes when sh when the jackal said when the jackal was or you said to the jackal so you want respect and then the jacks yes i want respect in that situation it’s really hard for me at least to like i would be thinking well you want respect well you don’t deserve it and so um it seems like you almost at that point have to just put all your thinking about the situation aside and if you can’t or if you can’t you need to give yourself some empathy in order to just like just don’t even get into the reality of the story but just in in order to keep about kind of just playing with their needs and feelings and if you can’t

then you need to give yourself some empathy you need to stop and hear what’s alive in you that’s keeping you from hearing this person and then it but it just seems that you can’t get into the story at all you just have to keep just reminding yourself to just connect with the needs and generally i would say in almost all of our interactions going back into the story isn’t going to meet anybody’s needs talking about the past neither can is going to heal or resolve i guess what i’m probably saying is when someone says i want respect it’s such a on the one hand i can see that you’re saying it’s just someone expressing their need yes another hand it’s almost like inflammatory because it’s in a way or the way my ears hear it is it’s and you haven’t been respectful it’s implicit and so that’s why how do you deal with that and even if they say you know and then they start to tell me the story because you did this yes so your need for respect hasn’t been met it’s still alive you see it’s still really alive so your need you still have this need for respect that’s not been met yes and so as the giraffe i know that i going into the past isn’t going to solve that so i have to help this person get clear now what are they requesting of me at this moment in relationship to that unmet need for respect two questions though one is if um if they’re wanting respect if they say well i want you to respect me right now yes that may not be given everything that’s happened that may not be an option well the problem is see respect is not a request that’s the unmet need then i have to help this person get clear what is their present request of me to meet this need for respect that hasn’t been met see and to get that from a jackal is not going to be easy because jackals are not used to living in the present and being clear what they want now they lived in the past you say you didn’t do this yes and so jackal could you tell me what you’re requesting of me right now in relationship to that you had no right you did this but jack will hold it now what are you wanting from me right now see it’s an almost unanswerable question for most people because they’re not alive right now they’re living in the past so we need to help bring them to the moment to help them to get clear the healing can take place right now it can happen right now it can’t happen in the past okay just follow with up i’d be very interested in seeing you do that after we finish this because that’s where i get stuck and also um the thing about it is is because when there’s because that’s the it’s those kind of statements which i hear as inflammatory that get that pull me back into the jackal because when they say well um if i were to say if they said well i need your respect i need respect then i somehow get confused that i’m at fault because that i did it to them yes and i’m wondering you don’t if you don’t keep your attention on the present what is alive in here right now what is this person presently feeling and needing and what are they wanting from me right now if your attention isn’t there it will be very easy to hear criticism and once you hear that nobody’s likely to get their need met but i guess what i’m saying is how is it are they criticizing you’re saying that there is no such thing there is no such thing as criticism what we hear is criticism isn’t it a painful expression of please please please please there is no criticism even if they think they’re being i mean there is no criticism if you are a giraffe there is no criticism it does not exist you are aware that what used to look like criticism when you wore jack jackal ears you now see is a suicidal tragic expression of an unmet need that’s all you hear a need that’s being expressed in a way that’s going to be hard to get met by anyone who doesn’t have giraffe using i’m wondering if you’re confusing what i get confused with is that if i hear someone say i don’t get respect then it triggers my own need that hasn’t been met i mean it just keeps if you also have a need that is for respect it isn’t that right it’s going to be hard for you to hear the others because your pain is there right so i think that’s where i and there’ll be no problem as long as you see that as long as you say oh boy this gets me in touch with my own pain right no problem as long as you’re in touch with your pain and or the other person’s pain right no problem well i was brought my culture was being brought up with pacifist parents who’s whose you know the needs of everybody else all the starving children and indian the vietnamese who were burning up and africans who were dying everybody else their needs were more important so i didn’t have any needs either so for me to to be giving susan her needs is what’s i think triggers and i just wondered if it was the same thing it’s what’s triggering my inability to keep hearing her wants her wants her wants her wants her wants her need her need her need and mine keeps getting obliterated so we have to teach you in addition to empathy especially given your background that you say probably before we need to teach you more empathy we need to teach you how to scream in giraffe to get your needs oh it’s a new one what’s that like screaming in jurassic park like this sounds like fun this person says that i’m really feeling hurt and i have a need for some respect for you know what i did and then screaming in giraffes right now i’m in too much pain to give you that because my need for respect hasn’t been met and here’s what i want from you i want you to acknowledge what i did to create a relationship with you you like that i like that yeah notice i didn’t scream any criticism i was screaming what was in my heart i was screaming my present feelings my present needs and my present request that’s screaming in giraffe [Laughter] there’s a lot of pain and if you have jackal ears you’ll hear hostility yeah if you have giraffe ears you’ll receive a great gift you’ll see the excruciating pain i’m feeling if i’m talking even if i’m talking to a jackal that’s less likely to provoke rage than other jackal statements they may not be able to hear my screaming in giraffe but i’ve been very amazed over the years that the more i scream in giraffe even jackals can hear it sometimes because i’m really being vulnerable when i scream in giraffe i’m really putting out my pain and i’ve even been amazed at times how jackals have heard it yes okay i empathize with that first of all most of the time people think they want an apology or vengeance their real need is for empathy for their suffering i’ve yet to see a person who’s gotten real empathy for their suffering that still want an apology but see if they if after i’ve given them the empathy if they say they want an apology i know they don’t want an apology but they want the real stuff which would be they want to hear whether i’m mourning or not and if i am i’ll say that i won’t say i’m sorry i’ll say i can tell you this i feel very sad that i wasn’t able to hear your pain before this and i’ve yet to see anybody who gets that that wants me to say i hate myself i was wrong one of the requests that i want you to promise that you’ll never disrespect me again i am a giraffe i cannot ever promise what i’ll do in the future i can only tell you what my present intentions are and i don’t think anybody who’s honest can ever promise you more than that i can only tell you what my present intentions are i cannot tell you what i’ll do five minutes from now you don’t care enough to tell me that you’re gonna i’m not expecting the jackal to hear that right away i’m just i’m giving you that that if i’m really a draft i know i cannot promise anybody anything about the future all i can do is tell them what my present intention is yeah um i was thinking about my aunt who’s in a lot of pain and has like a lot of stories as a lot of us do and i was trying to visualize trying to have this conversation with her although there’s nothing between the two of us but just in her pain and i could just um i couldn’t think of her being able to actually be in touch with her present feeling no so what you have to do is interrupt her in giraffe and you have to keep interrupting is that very often because see i had an aunt that literally this is serious for for over 30 years she told the same story over and over again hey cousin cousin there’s my cousin uh and that’s because uh none of us knew how to interrupt in giraffe you see uh so what what did we do of course when during the family parties we would try to leave before she got there if we were too late we’d go and hide under the bed uh you know anything not to hear the story again you know and so the whole time she’s telling the story the family is sitting there like this you know looking at the watch holding the watch to the ears i mean because for 30 years she had deep pain and she needed empathy for the pain and she didn’t know that talking about what happened isn’t going to get you the healing you need and we family members didn’t know how to interrupt in giraffes how would we have interrupted in giraffe when we had heard one word more than we wanted to hear we said excuse me auntie are you feeling because you are needing nobody ever did that i’m confident that had we done that she would have gotten her needs met and not have to repeat this for 30 years but she didn’t know how to tell her present feeling she thought that somehow by telling everybody the story she’d get understood telling the story doesn’t get us the understanding we need you guess are you feeling yes yes okay but she doesn’t know her feeling no but that’ll help her get to it faster than anything but don’t expect her right away to do it so auntie i so you be the ante for a moment let’s hear the story i can’t do the action um i don’t is this one hold it up close to your mouth is this useful okay

um my i know my children love me because even though they don’t come to see excuse me excuse me auntie excuse me already i hear the feelings and the needs i don’t want to hear the rest so excuse me auntie i’m hearing you feeling a lot of hurt but you really need some reassurance that you’re cared for no i’m not feeling hurt i’m just i’m just i i just you know i think that your mother does excuse me excuse me auntie excuse me but if you’re not feeling hurt i’d really like to know then what you are feeling angry sad i really like to connect with your feelings well i’m just feeling um frustrated because like every time i you know your mother is always so you’re feeling frustrated because your attempts to connect with people are not working and they’re not getting the connection you would like no i connect with people very well i don’t you know why are you saying that to me i i have lots of friends yes okay excuse me then if i haven’t guessed your needs then i’d like you to tell me what the needs are so i only guess one time you see and then if the person still then i i’ll pull them by the ears to help me here then have them tell me so i’ll guess once to help them get clear but if they don’t i’ll keep pulling them by the ears so that what i’m interacting with them at is the level of present feelings and needs not hearing the story okay do you want to keep do you want to keep going because i could tell you this story and and i will keep pulling you by the ears to get you back here to the present telling me your present feelings and needs because you don’t want to hear my story no because i want to connect with you because i want to connect with you annie and i don’t want to be like i’ve done in the past which is tune you out and avoid you every chance i get i really want to connect with you but in order to feel very hurt that you’re saying that because i feel more connected to you and i feel more connected with you now than you’re telling me this that you’re hurt then i have in the past when you tell me the story so i really want to connect with what’s alive in you auntie i really don’t even understand what you’re saying and i feel more connected when you say that than when you’re telling me the story least we’re here in the present confronting each other i feel more alive i feel more connected [Laughter] [Music] that’s all she needs is people like you i’ll go with you and you go and listen to the damn story for 30 years can you do this with auntie and be in reaction can you listen and speak and giraffe and still be having perhaps your anger and your friends didn’t you see me expressing it there i i got irritated nice and and you know you didn’t seem to be reacting though you were i said i’m frustrated i don’t want to go into the past andy i want to stay right where we’re at right now so even a giraffe can be feeling angry and giraffes are not nice giraffes are not nice do don’t think that to be non-violent requires you to be nice much of the violence in the world is created by nice people who sit back no matter what’s going on no no no giraffe doesn’t require you to be nice it requires you to either be expressing your pain or your joy or hearing the other person’s pain or joy but if you’re not in joy then you’re in pain you let it be known but you scream in giraffe you know you don’t scream criticism you scream feelings needs requests you um please speak into the mic thank you it’s i know that the feeling i have is sort of rage and anger rage and anger okay um you’re i don’t know president clinton or somebody in the government let’s see is that mike working or we have a better mic so i was saying you would be yeah uh you be president clinton or somebody from the government and i’m me wait a minute wait a minute i’m president clinton so i i read recently that recently the u.s government sold 22 million dollars in weapons to the sri lankan government yes and um i feel am i doing jackalope giraffe or just whatever well you tell me do you want me to put giraffe ears on uh on this uh jackal it’s better than a jackal response yes okay so all right now this jackal has giraffe here say it whatever way you want um because with these ears on this person can hear nothing except giraffe first time first response i had was a sense of helplessness and rage and anger at um at the fact of the arm sale and at the timing of it given that apparently norway has been in there talking about mediation between the conflicting parties and just at that time to go in and get involved by selling arms seems really um destructive and i just i feel so so scared of what’s already been going on for the last 20 years and what the scale will just go up through the roof with the the amount of violence that he’s so let me see if i’m uh see now if this jackal politician has giraffe years he’s going to interrupt her because she’s under tremendous time pressure and she’s way over the 40 word limit not realizing that she’s using precious time but now if he’s kind he will interrupt her but not to take the flow of communication away from her but to help bring her to life quicker so that we can make most productive use of this time see so here’s he interrupts but but notice he doesn’t take the conversation away to help her get more connected to life so if i’m hearing you i’m hearing that you suffer immensely because you know what goes on in that country and the amount that people have suffered and you have some hopes about this norwegian mediation and you really would like to support that in the hopes that this might work so then it is enormously painful to you when you see the amount of weapons that we’re prepared to send over there right now have i heard what you’re saying wanting to say to me um yeah except there’s a lot more energy to it you want me to really see just how much you’re suffering from this the rage it’s just it’s so it it defies logic to me that yes yes it is so frightening to you that that this could happen how could anyone do that with an awareness of the history of the situation and to think of what weapons might do over there when there’s already so much suffering it’s just it’s it’s an intense pain you feel when a lot of governments have refused to deal in arms with the sri lankan government because of its incredibly bad human rights yes so in history to give those weapons to a group of people who have shown such violence to people who are different how it defies your understanding to imagine how we could i could have supported that yeah and of course i’m just staying with this now because i’m being a good student what i did in my head when i first found out was you go into the feeling a lot of anger and and blame it it’s like the largest country in the world does not need to make more money by selling arms yes and what’s scary for you is to be in a world where people might do that in order to meet needs of theirs for status for financial security financial gain that people would choose to do that for those reasons at the cost of the suffering it just is excruciatingly painful to you is there anything else you want me to hear let me ask this what is your present request of me now that i’ve heard that this is very important if you are a giraffe when we have limited time with somebody if we don’t have clear present requests we’re not likely to go out of that meeting with what we wanted so she’s lucky that this person has giraffe ears who’s helping her get that because if she didn’t make a clear present request she’s asking for this well i thank you very much for coming in and letting your thoughts be understood because it behooves us all as american citizens living in a country that fosters this kind fosters free expression that it it is wonderful that you exercise your right but you ask for it by not making a clear present request so when you don’t make a clear present request get used to bureaucratic blah blah blah but now put on giraffe ears and make a clear present request what are you wanting from my friend bill here billy jeff yep [Laughter] what i really want is for those arms not to go there good now put put that into a present request mr clinton i’d like you to tell me what could be done to prevent that happening see that’s a present request but don’t just say a general future request i would like mr clinton would you tell me what would need to happen to for those arms not to be sent if that’s what you want but make it a clear present request and in fact i would have recommended if this was a limited time with the president i would have suggested that you start with that i learned this trick from a member of the street gang that i was with became getting close and one day we were trying to get some money from a foundation for funding a school that we were trying to do together for kids that were kicked out of school or pushed out and my friend said to me uh we needed fifty five thousand dollars you see and he said hey b the first time he heard my name is marshall b rosenberg that’s pretty formal for him so from that point on all the gang members ever called me was b they were impressed with the name but it was too much you know so for the next 13 years when i travel hey b hey b don’t you know the guy down there what that that that foundation that you were getting all that money yeah you mean the danforth foundation yeah let’s go down there and get some money yeah don’t i wish but i happen to know that the uh the funding time is two weeks ago you had to get the application in and do you know what you have to do to get a proposal in there you got all this yeah yeah yeah yeah i know that’s what you’re supposed to can you get the appointment i said yeah let’s go down there i didn’t know what he had in mind but anyway i could get the appointment i’d work with the danforth foundation [Music] i was told by the secretary dr schwelk said he would see you since i told him it was important he can squeeze you in between appointments so i we knew we had very limited time so we go into the office and uh i said dr schwelk this is my colleague al chappelle al chapelle this is dr gene schwoek president of the danforth foundation he reaches a cross shakes his hand and says where’s the money [Music] see right to a present request you see and i wanted to hit him you know oh my god you know what the hell is he doing you know really i i was really irritated and what money the money for the fund school what’s the fund school but now notice we’re using the precious time for this person to get the information he needs to decide whether he wants to give us what we want precious time but he’s telling us what he needs to know um we walked out with 55 000. i didn’t make it clear from the beginning i i wanted to play him so that i could get in touch with what happened for me because like because i don’t imagine i’ll actually have a chance to talk with him so i got you so yeah so if you ever do though i just want you to see start any meeting where you have a lot resting on it with limited time start by requesting of the other person that they ask you what they need to know to give you what you want got that start by asking them to ask you what they need to know to give you what you want so i come into your office and i say what do you need to know right now to choose to know whether you want to give us the money for our project what do you need to know well what project see okay so you have to know what project so i’m already asking you to get clear what you need to know to decide whether you want to give us what we want i tell you what i want i want money for this project what do you need to know to decide whether you’re going to give us that i don’t take precious time telling you all about the project maybe 90 percent of what i say isn’t necessary it’s going to get in the way of the time what do you need to know to decide whether you want to give us what we want okay but let’s go back to your request then i guess i didn’t understand so you just wanted some empathy from old bill you didn’t want to change you didn’t want to get these arms not sent i want to learn for him you want to have empathy for him oh well then let’s let’s put give you the giraffe news well it’s not ready for them oh i see what do you need before you can hear a poor bill because i don’t know of anybody that needs more empathy in a situation than that than poor bill i want microphone i want um more help to get in touch with what’s going on because i can only access the rage and the and the fear i can i can get to the fear but then then we’ll put the giraffe ears back on bill okay so tell bill what more you need him to connect with well okay i’ll be honest what’s going through my head is things like how can a group of people or a nation of people be able to sleep at night given that they profit from suffering that that gets caused either by making weapons or selling weapons and and our economy’s so based on it and so what’s exasperatingly painful for you is to eve is not knowing what could go on in in people who would benefit at other people’s suffering what could be going on in us not knowing that it’s just excruciatingly painful for you to think that you’re living in a world where that could happen um i i don’t know i feel really hopeless when i think about people with resources spending their time and energy making and selling weapons and all the energy that goes into the making of the weapons and the selling of them the prophets why what would keep those people from being aware of the suffering that’s going to be created by that why wouldn’t they use that same energy to serve life this this is dumbfounding to you it’s painful too um yeah i don’t know how to have hope when there’s so many smart people devoting so much so many hours people with intelligence education resources how we could do that how we could do that we know what’s going on over there how we could do that i guess i’m ready to try hypothesizing bill uh how do you feel when you hear what you say we’ve got 10 minutes to express all of that do your best bill i could call him bill i used to live in texas it’s enormously painful to me when i hear what you say enormously painful because i i would like to contribute to what you want which is really peace in that region and i’m aware that there are these groups rebel groups that have been causing great pain to citizens and i would like to bring order into your country and one way that we can think of to do this is to say to your government that we’ll give them the weapons to control these violent minorities if they will promise us to change civil human rights practices in the country we will give them all kinds of economic aid if they will promise to do that and i’m putting my hopes that that will be even more effective than what i’m predicting the norwegians could have could do and what’s deeply painful to me deeply painful to me is that you may be right and that what i’ve chosen to do might actually contribute to more violence in that area so i’ve made a choice based on that i have the same needs that you do and it’s very scary to me that i may have made a choice that i can only tell you i think i was acting in the service of the same needs that you were there’s some others yes i it’s it’s complicated there’s other political pressures i’m under but i can tell you sincerely that i acted with the same intent that you want which is how can we stop the violence in that region and i’d like to know how you feel when i tell you this i can only remind myself that a human i i don’t believe you yes and i have no trouble understanding why you would have trouble believing me because i said there’s a lot of other stuff going on too that i must admit is making it hard for me to make this choice i’m under all kinds of pressures from manufacturers in the united states deals that they will make with me to contribute to my needs to make this a safer place if i agree to things that will make for better life for them economically and and i get so lost in the maze of this myself that i don’t have any trouble understanding why you might have trouble trusting my intent but i can only tell you that with all my heart i want to contribute to peace in that area i hope you can hear that i’m in like a whirlwind of pressures and it’s very hard for me to really get clear what is the best way to meet my needs and i suffer immensely to think that i may be making choices that contribute to enormous violence how do you feel when i tell you that i’m having a hard time um getting beyond the distrust i i believe all the feelings and all the confusion all the all of those i don’t i don’t believe that this that um my need and yours is the same in this you don’t believe that i would like to contribute to safety in that region i think if you thought about it you might but i don’t think you’re afraid that i get so caught up in these other things that i lose that i think that’s yeah that’s not in the picture for you that scares me too that scares me too i get in such a whirlwind that i think it’s hard for any other citizen in the world to understand on any given day the whirlwind of pressures that i’m under and i am afraid that what you’re saying is true that i lose connection i wish i had someone daily to talk to me like you’re talking with me now it would help me stay connected i have a lot of people to talk to every day but it’s not at this level and i’m enough of the student of history to know how institutions can make nazis out of us all even people with good hearts like i think i have and that scares me to be the chief nazi in that syndrome beyond what i can say in words how scared i am of that and i think you’ve guessed the big fear i have that i’ll get lost i’ll lose connection with my basic needs so i would like to hear from the rest of the group i made myself very vulnerable as a public politician just now too to reveal that much of myself in public so i feel very vulnerable i’d like to know how you’re all feeling about what i said yes i you know i it’s just like when we drop beneath what appears on the surface to be whatever we’re attributing motivation or you know doesn’t doesn’t jive with our ideas about how things are supposed to be in any given situation and then here this the suffering um and to think about i mean i thought of that sometimes because i because i come from a leftist background not there very much anymore just because of the suffering that that i saw and experienced but um within the left i forget what my where where i was going with that but it’s something to do with the judgments that that we make that we make of other people and and i guess what i was going to say is at some points thinking about well if i would you know if friends said if i were president or if we if we were impressed you know the president you know i just think wow you know what a place to be um so i thought you gave um voice to it that sounded um sincere even if we might not agree with what your with what your actions are so i have i felt a lot of compassion for you as president it does raise the issue about when you’re in a system whether it be a family system or a global system where the paradigm isn’t shared by other people and to what extent can you not be in their eyes a wimp and jeopardize your sort of small security or a global security in other words people aren’t playing by the same rules so so you’re saying in the in the role of the president here yeah how do you keep your humanness within a complicated system where see walter wink says something that’s really helped me he in his book the powers that be he points out that institutions have their own spirituality so how do you connect with human beings when you’re working within an institution that has a spirituality that makes violence enjoyable or if not enjoyable necessary in their eyes if not enjoyable necessary in their eyes well that’s how you make it enjoyable to believe that it’s necessary and you’re protecting the free world and so forth they won’t say enjoyable they’ll say necessary but it’s enjoyable yes how do you keep your humanness in that kind of institution which is what we all need to learn to do it’s critical and then we need to know how to transform those systems so that the systems have a spirituality that supports life rather than greed right yeah what i saw what was the empathy what was the answer the answer yeah the answer is you and me need to first of all know how to create that world that we want within ourselves while at the same time creating what gramski calls pre-figurative relationships that is relationships that model the larger governmental pictures we would like to see in our families and in our workplaces that we can control and at the same time transforming these bigger structures by gathering up other people who share our vision and transforming these structures you and me are gonna do it yeah what i saw was the opportunity that you the president with giraffe ears gave her by stressing your commonality that you needed someone like her every day in conversation oh yes that was important that was an important point and i can understand why she didn’t pick it up because in if this were a real life situation the giraffe years would be invisible and the words might be the same if you were just trying to put her off so it gets cut it does get complicated yes i played that role with giraffe ears on it it could have been a lot more difficult i think the same feelings would have been going on but without the giraffe years it would have been a lot different it would have been yes i see your point and i think it’s well taken and i’d like you to know that we have many people looking into this situation so thank you for coming in next no it could have been a lot harder if he hadn’t had the years on thinking that i mean the difference um i um i don’t know why you played it that way exactly or why we would believe that that’s necessarily true in other words i think that it’s as likely ones as likely to get that first response from the president as the second because after all the first one would have been more effective in accomplishing the goal of connecting with the person without having to change anything or without having to really be sincere about those things i’m not sure what you’re saying i guess i didn’t i i didn’t find myself convinced by the genuine you weren’t sure that even the first one was uh telling honestly what was going on i mean it could have been true but you don’t know you’re not you have a lot of distrust of it yes i have trusted it was true and i have trust that even the people that are doing most of the violence of the world have the same needs that you and i did i’ve talked to them i’ve talked to many of them and i’m sure that they i have no doubt that at the need level we have the same needs i’ve talked to soldiers who are cutting off arms of children and we have the same needs i’m convinced of that but they’re caught up in systems where i think it’s pretty hard for them to stay connected to those needs there’s a whole lot of other competing things going on in them well i’m convinced that they have the same needs but i’m not convinced that they’re troubled you’re not committed to trouble i would agree with you that unless they have a friend like this they’re not going to get in touch with that opinion there’s enough to keep them spinning that they’re not in touch with that pain yeah that i can understand that they’re far from it it would take a lot in the interest of time i shortened this but it would take a lot to bring them down to that level yeah um uh 20 minutes listening to a guy in los alamos and all of that and within 20 minutes he was telling her about waking up at 4am in cold sweat about you know what am i doing so it it doesn’t apparently it doesn’t take much sometimes to bring it out it’s just very hard to listen to it well enough to let it come out i am very grateful to you for suffering as much as you are about this and i know you’re going there soon and i wish you the best [Music] where the hell does the energy come to care for humanity when it’s more than i can cope with taking care of me my government sells weapons when peace is what we need [Music] and our compassionate nature is hidden beneath our greed i see people on the streets [Music] not getting enough but how can i help them when making it myself is tough [Music] where the hell does the energy come to care for humanity when it’s more than i can cope with taking care of me our prisons are disgrace our mental hospitals too [Music] but burying my head in the sand is the easiest thing to do i get sicker every day from all the oppression i see but worrying about losing what i’ve got makes a coward out of me where the hell does the energy come to care for humanity when it’s more than i can cope with just taking care of me [Applause] written in my civil rights days of 1970 i’m a lot more optimistic lots different now that’s different now i’m much more aware of the enormity of power that we have when we band together with other giraffes i see how even an idiot like me can create a mess all over the world it’s just a it’s very encouraging anything else before we stop for the day see you tomorrow [Music] you