Helping Nonprofit Leaders Transform Conflict

Leadership Coach and Mediator

One sure way to harm your close relationships

Everything in our new rental is nice, shiny, and white. It is so brand new that I hardly dare sit on the couch, scared that my garden feet might stain the cover, even after I have washed them.

But the kitchen knife is too cool not to use. It screams at me “Pick me! Pick me to cut the onion!”

And so I do. It slices the onion as if it is thin air. No resistance at all. And so it does with the tip of my left middle finger.

Within a second I see blood running on the spic-and-span kitchen tiles like the Niagara falls. It takes almost an entire package of bandages to soak it up. I can’t use my finger for a week.

It would have been so much more practical if I had cut my left pinkie. As much as I love my pinkie, doing daily tasks such as brushing my teeth, making my food, and unpacking our boxes would not have been such a hassle if that had been the one that had a sliver of skin cut off.

But of course, that’s precisely the reason why I didn’t cut my left pinkie. The things we use the least, get harmed the least, precisely because we don’t use them so much.

And conversely, things that we use the most, get scratched, stained, and broken the most. Whether it is our middle finger, our favorite teacup, or our cherished fountain pen. 

Or our closest relationships, the people who are our go-to strategy to meet our interdependent needs.

Life is wonderful when they are available to meet our needs for support, acceptance, understanding, emotional safety, and trust. But it gets messy when they prioritize other commitments over connection with us. Then we easily end up with feelings of anger, sadness, or anxiety.

This is especially true when we are undifferentiated, a term David Schnarch, the author of Passionate Marriage, uses to describe a relationship where we either want to assimilate with the other person or try to keep the other person at arm’s length to prevent being swallowed up.

Either strategy is lose-lose.

He writes “Giving up your individuality to be together is as defeating in the long run as giving up your relationship to maintain your individuality. Either way, you end up being less of a person with less of a relationship.”

One way to get out of this bind is to accept that although they are our favorite strategy to meet our needs, we can find alternative ways to meet them.

But be careful! It’s important to understand the difference between strategies and needs. Otherwise what we think is a bandaid for our relationship, is actually a knife that pokes holes in the boat of our togetherness, dragging us down the Niagara falls of conflict.

If you want to learn more about how to prevent that, you can read my whitepaper “Nonviolent Communication in a Nutshell”. Download it here.

P.S. Read more about the Crucible Institute that David Schnarch established.

P.P.S. We will be at 615 East 48 Street, Austin, TX 78751 till September 1. My phone and email stay the same: 512-589-0482 | elly@ellyvanlaar.com.

Here’s one good reason to blame and bitch as much as you want

Our lease won’t be renewed. By April 30, we have to move out of the home we’ve lived in for the last seven and a half years.

My mind goes into overdrive and is bombed with angry thoughts, judgments, blame, and enemy images about the whole situation. Feelings of shame volunteer as the red button for a nuclear missile, ready to destroy whatever is in the way.

Despite 11 years of practicing mindfulness, my loving-kindness for our shared humanity flies out the window like a white balloon trying to defend itself against the missile.

I bitch, blame, and complain with my younger sister. And my older sister. With my best friend. And another best friend. My neighbors. My mindfulness community.

It’s a soap opera of jackal shows, as Marshall Rosenberg would call it. He used jackal puppets to represent that part of ourselves that thinks, speaks, or acts in ways that disconnect us from our awareness of our feelings and needs, as well as the feelings and needs of others.

The jackal doesn’t have a lot of empathy for others nor for ourselves. It rather points out what’s wrong with everyone. It divides the world into good guys and bad ones, victims and perpetrators. Usually, the jackal places us in the first camp, but not always.

To symbolize empathy, Marshall Rosenberg used the giraffe. With its big heart, it has the capacity to love everyone. And its long neck helps it to see the beautiful, universal, human needs of everyone.

But sometimes jackals are all we have. If they take over the stage of our mind, we need giraffes in the audience to translate the bitching, blaming, and complaining into precious, beautiful, universal, human needs.

Fortunately, my family and friends are up for the challenge. And with each conversation, my jackals relax. They are being heard for their precious needs in their tragic expression of unmet needs. The threat of a local nuclear war dissipates.

When we see and accept the needs in our bitching, blaming, and complaining, we can make requests of ourselves or others. And requests have a higher likelihood to get people excited to meet those needs than guilt-tripping, blaming, or shaming them.

If you have your own jackal show running on Broadway, you want to sell tickets to a giraffe audience that can translate your script about what’s wrong with everyone into a script about what would make your life more beautiful.

But pay attention! Some jackals dress up like giraffes and instead of offering empathy, they offer sympathy, one-upping, commiserating, consoling, or advising.

That’s why we start each Leadership Circle for Nonprofit Leaders by agreeing that we bring giraffes to empathize.

After all, we don’t want to blow up our theater by feeding angry thoughts, judgments, blame, enemy images, and shame till they explode.

In the first week of May, we start a new circle. Six bi-weekly sessions, max eight participants.

Schedule your free discovery session to check that your giraffes follow our dress code.

Marshall Rosenberg is the founder of Nonviolent Communication. Watch this video in which he explains the jackal show.

Our lease won’t be renewed. By April 30, we have to move out of the home we’ve lived in for the last seven and a half years.

My mind goes into overdrive and is bombed with angry thoughts, judgments, blame, and enemy images about the whole situation. Feelings of shame volunteer as the red button for a nuclear missile, ready to destroy whatever is in the way.

Despite 11 years of practicing mindfulness, my loving-kindness for our shared humanity flies out the window like a white balloon trying to defend itself against the missile.

I bitch, blame, and complain with my younger sister. And my older sister. With my best friend. And another best friend. My neighbors. My mindfulness community.

It’s a soap opera of jackal shows, as Marshall Rosenberg would call it. He used jackal puppets to represent that part of ourselves that thinks, speaks, or acts in ways that disconnect us from our awareness of our feelings and needs, as well as the feelings and needs of others.

The jackal doesn’t have a lot of empathy for others nor for ourselves. It rather points out what’s wrong with everyone. It divides the world into good guys and bad ones, victims and perpetrators. Usually, the jackal places us in the first camp, but not always.

To symbolize empathy, Marshall Rosenberg used the giraffe. With its big heart, it has the capacity to love everyone. And its long neck helps it to see the beautiful, universal, human needs of everyone.

But sometimes jackals are all we have. If they take over the stage of our mind, we need giraffes in the audience to translate the bitching, blaming, and complaining into precious, beautiful, universal, human needs.

Fortunately, my family and friends are up for the challenge. And with each conversation, my jackals relax. They are being heard for their precious needs in their tragic expression of unmet needs. The threat of a local nuclear war dissipates.

When we see and accept the needs in our bitching, blaming, and complaining, we can make requests of ourselves or others. And requests have a higher likelihood to get people excited to meet those needs than guilt-tripping, blaming, or shaming them.

If you have your own jackal show running on Broadway, you want to sell tickets to a giraffe audience that can translate your script about what’s wrong with everyone into a script about what would make your life more beautiful.

But pay attention! Some jackals dress up like giraffes and instead of offering empathy, they offer sympathy, one-upping, commiserating, consoling, or advising.

That’s why we start each Leadership Circle for Nonprofit Leaders by agreeing that we bring giraffes to empathize.

After all, we don’t want to blow up our theater by feeding angry thoughts, judgments, blame, enemy images, and shame till they explode.

In the first week of May, we start a new circle. Six bi-weekly sessions, max eight participants.

Schedule your free discovery session to check that your giraffes follow our dress code.

Marshall Rosenberg is the founder of Nonviolent Communication. Watch this video in which he explains the jackal show.

Our lease won’t be renewed. By April 30, we have to move out of the home we’ve lived in for the last seven and a half years.

My mind goes into overdrive and is bombed with angry thoughts, judgments, blame, and enemy images about the whole situation. Feelings of shame volunteer as the red button for a nuclear missile, ready to destroy whatever is in the way.

Despite 11 years of practicing mindfulness, my loving-kindness for our shared humanity flies out the window like a white balloon trying to defend itself against the missile.

I bitch, blame, and complain with my younger sister. And my older sister. With my best friend. And another best friend. My neighbors. My mindfulness community.

It’s a soap opera of jackal shows, as Marshall Rosenberg would call it. He used jackal puppets to represent that part of ourselves that thinks, speaks, or acts in ways that disconnect us from our awareness of our feelings and needs, as well as the feelings and needs of others.

The jackal doesn’t have a lot of empathy for others nor for ourselves. It rather points out what’s wrong with everyone. It divides the world into good guys and bad ones, victims and perpetrators. Usually, the jackal places us in the first camp, but not always.

To symbolize empathy, Marshall Rosenberg used the giraffe. With its big heart, it has the capacity to love everyone. And its long neck helps it to see the beautiful, universal, human needs of everyone.

But sometimes jackals are all we have. If they take over the stage of our mind, we need giraffes in the audience to translate the bitching, blaming, and complaining into precious, beautiful, universal, human needs.

Fortunately, my family and friends are up for the challenge. And with each conversation, my jackals relax. They are being heard for their precious needs in their tragic expression of unmet needs. The threat of a local nuclear war dissipates.

When we see and accept the needs in our bitching, blaming, and complaining, we can make requests of ourselves or others. And requests have a higher likelihood to get people excited to meet those needs than guilt-tripping, blaming, or shaming them.

If you have your own jackal show running on Broadway, you want to sell tickets to a giraffe audience that can translate your script about what’s wrong with everyone into a script about what would make your life more beautiful.

But pay attention! Some jackals dress up like giraffes and instead of offering empathy, they offer sympathy, one-upping, commiserating, consoling, or advising.

That’s why we start each Leadership Circle for Nonprofit Leaders by agreeing that we bring giraffes to empathize.

After all, we don’t want to blow up our theater by feeding angry thoughts, judgments, blame, enemy images, and shame till they explode.

In the first week of May, we start a new circle. Six bi-weekly sessions, max eight participants.

Schedule your free discovery session to check that your giraffes follow our dress code.

Marshall Rosenberg is the founder of Nonviolent Communication. Watch this video in which he explains the jackal show.

Our lease won’t be renewed. By April 30, we have to move out of the home we’ve lived in for the last seven and a half years.

My mind goes into overdrive and is bombed with angry thoughts, judgments, blame, and enemy images about the whole situation. Feelings of shame volunteer as the red button for a nuclear missile, ready to destroy whatever is in the way.

Despite 11 years of practicing mindfulness, my loving-kindness for our shared humanity flies out the window like a white balloon trying to defend itself against the missile.

I bitch, blame, and complain with my younger sister. And my older sister. With my best friend. And another best friend. My neighbors. My mindfulness community.

It’s a soap opera of jackal shows, as Marshall Rosenberg would call it. He used jackal puppets to represent that part of ourselves that thinks, speaks, or acts in ways that disconnect us from our awareness of our feelings and needs, as well as the feelings and needs of others.

The jackal doesn’t have a lot of empathy for others nor for ourselves. It rather points out what’s wrong with everyone. It divides the world into good guys and bad ones, victims and perpetrators. Usually, the jackal places us in the first camp, but not always.

To symbolize empathy, Marshall Rosenberg used the giraffe. With its big heart, it has the capacity to love everyone. And its long neck helps it to see the beautiful, universal, human needs of everyone.

But sometimes jackals are all we have. If they take over the stage of our mind, we need giraffes in the audience to translate the bitching, blaming, and complaining into precious, beautiful, universal, human needs.

Fortunately, my family and friends are up for the challenge. And with each conversation, my jackals relax. They are being heard for their precious needs in their tragic expression of unmet needs. The threat of a local nuclear war dissipates.

When we see and accept the needs in our bitching, blaming, and complaining, we can make requests of ourselves or others. And requests have a higher likelihood to get people excited to meet those needs than guilt-tripping, blaming, or shaming them.

If you have your own jackal show running on Broadway, you want to sell tickets to a giraffe audience that can translate your script about what’s wrong with everyone into a script about what would make your life more beautiful.

But pay attention! Some jackals dress up like giraffes and instead of offering empathy, they offer sympathy, one-upping, commiserating, consoling, or advising.

That’s why we start each Leadership Circle for Nonprofit Leaders by agreeing that we bring giraffes to empathize.

After all, we don’t want to blow up our theater by feeding angry thoughts, judgments, blame, enemy images, and shame till they explode.

In the first week of May, we start a new circle. Six bi-weekly sessions, max eight participants.

Schedule your free discovery session to check that your giraffes follow our dress code.

Marshall Rosenberg is the founder of Nonviolent Communication. Watch this video in which he explains the jackal show.

Our lease won’t be renewed. By April 30, we have to move out of the home we’ve lived in for the last seven and a half years.

My mind goes into overdrive and is bombed with angry thoughts, judgments, blame, and enemy images about the whole situation. Feelings of shame volunteer as the red button for a nuclear missile, ready to destroy whatever is in the way.

Despite 11 years of practicing mindfulness, my loving-kindness for our shared humanity flies out the window like a white balloon trying to defend itself against the missile.

I bitch, blame, and complain with my younger sister. And my older sister. With my best friend. And another best friend. My neighbors. My mindfulness community.

It’s a soap opera of jackal shows, as Marshall Rosenberg would call it. He used jackal puppets to represent that part of ourselves that thinks, speaks, or acts in ways that disconnect us from our awareness of our feelings and needs, as well as the feelings and needs of others.

The jackal doesn’t have a lot of empathy for others nor for ourselves. It rather points out what’s wrong with everyone. It divides the world into good guys and bad ones, victims and perpetrators. Usually, the jackal places us in the first camp, but not always.

To symbolize empathy, Marshall Rosenberg used the giraffe. With its big heart, it has the capacity to love everyone. And its long neck helps it to see the beautiful, universal, human needs of everyone.

But sometimes jackals are all we have. If they take over the stage of our mind, we need giraffes in the audience to translate the bitching, blaming, and complaining into precious, beautiful, universal, human needs.

Fortunately, my family and friends are up for the challenge. And with each conversation, my jackals relax. They are being heard for their precious needs in their tragic expression of unmet needs. The threat of a local nuclear war dissipates.

When we see and accept the needs in our bitching, blaming, and complaining, we can make requests of ourselves or others. And requests have a higher likelihood to get people excited to meet those needs than guilt-tripping, blaming, or shaming them.

If you have your own jackal show running on Broadway, you want to sell tickets to a giraffe audience that can translate your script about what’s wrong with everyone into a script about what would make your life more beautiful.

But pay attention! Some jackals dress up like giraffes and instead of offering empathy, they offer sympathy, one-upping, commiserating, consoling, or advising.

That’s why we start each Leadership Circle for Nonprofit Leaders by agreeing that we bring giraffes to empathize.

After all, we don’t want to blow up our theater by feeding angry thoughts, judgments, blame, enemy images, and shame till they explode.

In the first week of May, we start a new circle. Six bi-weekly sessions, max eight participants.

Schedule your free discovery session to check that your giraffes follow our dress code.

Marshall Rosenberg is the founder of Nonviolent Communication. Watch this video in which he explains the jackal show.

Our lease won’t be renewed. By April 30, we have to move out of the home we’ve lived in for the last seven and a half years.

My mind goes into overdrive and is bombed with angry thoughts, judgments, blame, and enemy images about the whole situation. Feelings of shame volunteer as the red button for a nuclear missile, ready to destroy whatever is in the way.

Despite 11 years of practicing mindfulness, my loving-kindness for our shared humanity flies out the window like a white balloon trying to defend itself against the missile.

I bitch, blame, and complain with my younger sister. And my older sister. With my best friend. And another best friend. My neighbors. My mindfulness community.

It’s a soap opera of jackal shows, as Marshall Rosenberg would call it. He used jackal puppets to represent that part of ourselves that thinks, speaks, or acts in ways that disconnect us from our awareness of our feelings and needs, as well as the feelings and needs of others.

The jackal doesn’t have a lot of empathy for others nor for ourselves. It rather points out what’s wrong with everyone. It divides the world into good guys and bad ones, victims and perpetrators. Usually, the jackal places us in the first camp, but not always.

To symbolize empathy, Marshall Rosenberg used the giraffe. With its big heart, it has the capacity to love everyone. And its long neck helps it to see the beautiful, universal, human needs of everyone.

But sometimes jackals are all we have. If they take over the stage of our mind, we need giraffes in the audience to translate the bitching, blaming, and complaining into precious, beautiful, universal, human needs.

Fortunately, my family and friends are up for the challenge. And with each conversation, my jackals relax. They are being heard for their precious needs in their tragic expression of unmet needs. The threat of a local nuclear war dissipates.

When we see and accept the needs in our bitching, blaming, and complaining, we can make requests of ourselves or others. And requests have a higher likelihood to get people excited to meet those needs than guilt-tripping, blaming, or shaming them.

If you have your own jackal show running on Broadway, you want to sell tickets to a giraffe audience that can translate your script about what’s wrong with everyone into a script about what would make your life more beautiful.

But pay attention! Some jackals dress up like giraffes and instead of offering empathy, they offer sympathy, one-upping, commiserating, consoling, or advising.

That’s why we start each Leadership Circle for Nonprofit Leaders by agreeing that we bring giraffes to empathize.

After all, we don’t want to blow up our theater by feeding angry thoughts, judgments, blame, enemy images, and shame till they explode.

In the first week of May, we start a new circle. Six bi-weekly sessions, max eight participants.

Schedule your free discovery session to check that your giraffes follow our dress code.

Marshall Rosenberg is the founder of Nonviolent Communication. Watch this video in which he explains the jackal show.

The one thing you can do when you lied

“Did you see the email I sent you? I was wondering if you were back from the Netherlands?” My best friend invited me for lunch. We are enjoying a chia bowl.

I had seen it. Two days ago. But I felt too discombobulated to reply after my traveling. And I didn’t want to answer without offering a time slot to get together.

Don’t ask me why. I could have just written: “Great hearing from you! Yes, I am back and I would love to get together.” But I didn’t.

Her question comes as a surprise. I feel ashamed that I had been unresponsive. In a split second, I hear myself say: “No, I haven’t.”

As soon as I do, I regret it. And I feel stuck. I want to be honest and I’m afraid that admitting my lie would spoil our delightful lunch.

Coming home, I realize that I want to tell her the truth to support my self-respect and integrity. I also dread doing it. It’s like eating a rotten sandwich and knowing you will feel horrible. The difference is that I trust that she will empathize.

Fortunately, I have enough practice with Nonviolent Communication to know that the dread is a messenger of precious, universal, human needs. I ask David, my husband, and Saskia, my sister, to help me find those needs.

Their empathy helps. I see how much I care for her and how much I want to be seen as a caring and responsive friend.

It takes some deep breathing to overcome the fear of being found out as a person with no integrity. When I call her, I tell her that I had read the email when she asked about it. She laughs: she has been in similar situations.

After I hang up, I have grown an inch. I choose my values over my fears. I feel super proud of myself.

I am not sure that I could have done it without my supportive community. They always help. They encourage me to grow into who I want to be and accept me even when I carry shame for my actions.

You might benefit from such a community too. Whether you want to be honest, be an advocate for racial justice, lose weight, apply for a new job, or work on your marriage.

A community helps you clarify your values and aspirations, encourages you to face your fears and act with integrity anyway, brainstorm to find strategies that help you live your purpose, and celebrate your success and oops as learning opportunities.

The second week of September I’m starting a new coaching group: Pledj. It’s an acronym for Peace, Love, Equanimity, Delight, and Joy. This is for you if you want to live in integrity and work on your aspirations.

Some details:

  • Six bi-weekly group meetings on Zoom
  • You will be paired with an empathy buddy for the in-between weeks
  • Topics like failing and learning, feelings and needs, emotional liberation, shame and self-worth, autonomy, and purpose.
  • Max six participants, one spot left
  • $438 in full or monthly payments of $75

Bonus: you will have access to a virtual platform so you can stay in touch with each other.

Leave a comment if you have an interest in joining.

Vic

Vic is the newbie on Seal Team Bravo, a character in a TV show I watch with my husband.

Vic has had a challenging childhood, missing love, acceptance, safety, a sense of family. When Vic is accepted into Bravo Team, he experiences brotherhood for the first time in his life.

In this episode, the team goes on a covert mission. Unwittingly, Vic throws a grenade in the room where the hostage is being held that the team is trying to rescue. The hostage dies and the mission ends in failure. The team faces serious scrutiny, maybe even charges. If anyone finds out about Vic’s mistake, his membership of Team Bravo will be in jeopardy.

So Vic makes his second mistake, he keeps his actions secret to stay on the team.

He makes his third mistake when his team sponsor and mentor Ray thinks that he, Ray, killed the hostage. We see how devastated Ray is when he imagines facing court-martial and being removed from the team he has been part of for the last 18 years of his life.

Vic chooses a strategy to meet his needs for belonging that violates his values of integrity, honesty, and responsibility. The error becomes a moral weakness.

Eventually video footage surfaces, and we see Vic was the one. Ray is off the hook. Vic is being dismissed from the team. Not only did he betray his own values, but his strategy didn’t even meet his needs. Instead of belonging to the team, he is discharged with shame and guilt.

Marshall Rosenberg calls that “a tragic expression of unmet needs”. We choose strategies to meet our beautiful, universal, human needs that end up sabotaging those very same needs.

I know all too well what that feels like. And you might too. Self-compassion helps with understanding the needs we were trying to meet. Honesty with personal growth when we see which values we violated. And support to discern which values are important and which needs would be effective to nurture those needs.

Would you describe yourself as someone who wants to honor their values and integrity, contribute to others, and nourish self-compassion?

Then you might enjoy coaching with me. I have 23 years of experience with and in nonprofits. And I have a personal practice of empathy, compassion, and mindfulness.

This is what Megan Elkins, Director, Talent Pipeline Success, Workforce Solutions in Austin says about working with me:

“I was just so pleasantly surprised at how much progress I could make. You know, being someone who pursues knowledge for my entire life, you know, I’m constantly trying to learn, constantly trying to self improve, I didn’t realize I had that much potential for growth. Both on like a social-emotional or an empathy scale, but also on a professional scale. I kind of didn’t realize that I had not yet peaked in my ability to communicate with others. And that’s something that was really insightful.”

If you sign up before June 1, you will be grandfathered in at my current fee of $100 per session. And because of Memorial Day, if you sign up for six, you will get one session for free.



What I am reading: Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl:

“Man’s search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a “secondary rationalization” of instinctual drives. This meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone; only then does it achieve a significance which will satisfy his own will to meaning. Man is able to live and even die for the sake of his ideals and values.”

Screaming in giraffe

Adrenaline rush

I’m biking on Duval Street. It is a busy two-lane street, where cars drive 40 miles per hour on average. Since there are no separate bike lanes, I choose to bike on the sidewalk, to keep me safe. As always, I am alert and careful. Especially for cars backing out.

But this one I didn’t see coming. Out of the blue, a black pick-up truck backs out of it’s parking spot at at least 20 miles an hour.

I hardly have enough time to turn my handlebars, jump off my bike, and land on knees and palms on the gravel surface. I feel a bruise growing on my right thigh.

The truck driver probably doesn’t notice me and keeps backing out. “What an idiot! He didn’t look over his shoulder and blind spot! He’s incompetent and a danger to other cyclists!” Infuriated I jump up and bang on his window. “What?” “You almost hit me as you were backing out!” “Are you okay?” “Hardly.” “I’m sorry” and he drives off.

Nonviolent Communication?

When I tell my friend about this incident, she asks incredulously “I thought you were practicing Nonviolent Communication?” “Yes, but this is screaming in giraffe.”

Now I realize I was not. I was just screaming.

Four steps to get support for unmet needs

Screaming in giraffe means we use force to draw attention and support to our needs. Usually we sense urgency about this. I believe there are four elements of successfully screaming in giraffe (versus just screaming):

  1. Awareness of our needs being unmet.
  2. Enough self-acceptance and compassion to see our needs as beautiful(instead of a deficit, as if there is something wrong with us for having those needs, as if we’re ‘needy’).
  3. Transform any enemy image of those, whom we think are responsible for our needs being unmet, so we can ask for their support to meet our needs (how do you think I did on that count?). Like offering our requests with Santa Claus energy.
  4. Openness to explore strategies to meet as many needs as possible: ours and those of other stakeholders (that’s way harder when you perceive urgency).

Listening to unmet needs

When we hear someone screaming in giraffe, it helps to listen for unmet needs. Rather than focusing on how they express themselves (which might just sound like screaming), we can use empathy to deepen our understanding of their experience, listen for needs, and figure out strategies that meet as many needs as possible.

Live the life you really want, with yourself and others

I believe this process helps us to live the life we really want and create the closeness and authenticity we long for.

Contact me

Let me know how this landed for you: I would love to hear from you.

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