NVC Life with Rachelle Lamb

On October 6, Marshall Rosenberg would have celebrated his 92nd birthday. In this episode, I share a few minutes of his voice, along with some thoughts on what my time with him taught me about seeing, thinking, and the culture we live in. I offer this as one person's experience of him, and I'd love to hear yours. What did you most appreciate about Marshall, or about what you learned from him? Leave a comment below. Referenced in this episode: Marshall Rosenberg — Needs and Empathy (audio recording, PuddleDancer Press, used with permission), available free at nonviolentcommunication.com John Taylor-Gatto — Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling Find Rachelle at rachellelamb.com

In this episode, I share a striking perspective on human connection from Malidoma Somé, a West African shaman: what if our speech isn't proof of our superiority, but something that actually gets in our way? Watching David Attenborough's documentary on mountain gorillas solidifies the point. Join me as we explore presence, the limits of language, and what happens when we view NVC not as a rigid formula to perform, but as a genuine doorway to contact. Referenced in this episode: Malidoma Somé — Of Water and the Spirit A Gorilla Story: Told by David Attenborough (2026 Netflix) David Abram — The Spell of the Sensuous Robin Wall Kimmerer — Braiding Sweetgrass Marshall Rosenberg — Nonviolent Communication Find Rachelle at rachellelamb.com

Defensiveness isn't the bad guy. It's a natural human response — one that exists for good reason. The question worth asking isn't why other people get so defensive, but why do I? In this episode I explore what defensiveness is actually protecting, why it's almost always about identity, and what it takes to let something land without immediately mounting a defense. Referenced in this episode: Rainer Maria Rilke — Book of Hours, translated by Robert Bly NVCLife Episode: My Partner Asks Too Many Questions (April 4, 2023) Find Rachelle: rachellelamb.com

A question I hear often: I've been studying NVC for years and I still lose my temper. Why is that? In this episode I address the two assumptions embedded in that question — and why both get in the way of what NVC can actually offer. Anger is not the enemy. The problem is impulsivity, unexamined expectations, and the absence of skill where language is concerned. Expressing anger fully requires getting in touch with everything underneath it first. Referenced in this episode:Marshall Rosenberg — Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life Find Rachelle: rachellelamb.com

One of the most common questions people bring to NVC: what if the other person refuses to use it? Since the word ‘refuses’ is a diagnosis, the more honest question might be: what do we do when the other person isn't meeting us where we'd hoped? In this episode I explore that question through a story Marshall told about working with the Orang Asli, the first peoples of Peninsular Malaysia, whose language has no verb "to be." When Marshall asked how to translate the word "selfish," the translator described what you'd observe instead — and then asked: why would you want to tell someone they were selfish? The Orang Asli were, without knowing it, natural practitioners of NVC consciousness. Not the formula. The orientation. I also look at the difference between high-intensity expression and violent communication, what Marshall meant by giraffe ears, and what it actually means for NVC to "work" when the other person walks away. This is the second installment in the yabuts series — the ongoing thread addressing real objections to Nonviolent Communication. Referenced in this episode: Marshall Rosenberg — Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life The Orang Asli of Peninsular Malaysia NVCLife Episode 6 — The Notes Are Not the Music Find Rachelle: rachellelamb.com

In this episode, I'm addressing some of the objections people have to Nonviolent Communication which make a lot of sense and are well worth exploring.  I start with one I mentioned back in my first episode of this season: that NVC can sound fake, formulaic, and disingenuous. This is exactly what happens when someone embarks on learning any new language. They will sound stilted before they sound fluent. I walk through the four NVC steps to show why each one is closer to plain honesty than to performance.  I also address the question: does NVC actually require two people? Marshall used to say only one person needs to know it. I expand on what he meant by that.  This is the first episode in an ongoing series. If you have an objection or a "yabut" about NVC, comment below or send me an email via my website. I may take it up in a future episode. Find Rachelle: rachellelamb.com

Eleven years ago, following Marshall Rosenberg's death, I wrote an essay titled Making Life Wonderful. Reading it again recently, I was reminded of just how profound my encounter with Rosenberg was, and how the encounter continues to reverberate. This episode is an account of what drew me to Nonviolent Communication in the first place .. a powerful way of seeing that asks us to take responsibility for our lives, our impact on others, and the world at large. NVC is revolutionary work in that it asks us to reconsider existing beliefs about human behaviour and what drives us to do as we do. A rarely comfortable exercise but very worthwhile.  The original 2015 essay is available on my blog: https://www.rachellelamb.com/blog/2015/2/12/marshall-rosenberg-making-life-wonderful Find Rachelle: rachellelamb.com

Mourning is cited as a need on the Nonviolent Communication needs list, paired with its counterpart: joy. Rachelle believes we have largely lost the capacity to mourn, and that this loss costs us more than we realize, including in our most intimate relationships. In this episode, Rachelle draws on the work of environmental anthropologist Sophie Chao, whose Aeon essay *How to Mourn a Forest* documents the mourning practices of the Marind people of West Papua, a community whose ancestral lands are being destroyed by oil palm plantation expansion. What the Marind offer is a glimpse into what Rachelle calls active mourning: not the private collapse of grief, but a deliberate, communal practice of turning toward loss rather than away from it.  She then brings mourning into the territory she knows most intimately in her work with couples, where the death of a parent is mentioned as an aside, less significant than an argument about household chores, and where the unmetabolized grief beneath the surface quietly shapes everything. She reflects on her own father's death, and her growing love for him. She draws on Stephen Jenkinson's *Die Wise* — "grief is not a feeling, it is a capacity" — and closes with words from Marshall Rosenberg on the importance of mourning. --- **Referenced in this episode:** Sophie Chao — *How to Mourn a Forest*, Aeon Magazine, 23 May 2023 https://aeon.co/essays/how-to-mourn-a-forest-a-lesson-from-west-papua Marshall Rosenberg — Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life Stephen Jenkinson — *Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul* "Grief is not a feeling, it is a capacity. It is not something that disables you — we are not on the receiving end of grief, we are on the practising end of grief." The Marind song in this episode was composed by Andreas, a Marind youth, and is quoted within Sophie Chao's essay: **Find Rachelle:** rachellelamb.com

There is often an assumption running quietly through much of how Nonviolent Communication is practiced, including how Rachelle practiced it when she first encountered the work 27 years ago. It is the unspoken assumption that our needs are above questioning. In 27 years of working with NVC, in her own life and with others, she has found it useful to challenge that assumption. Human beings, after all, are not simple creatures. We contain competing impulses, layered histories, and contradictory desires. We can name a need from the very part of us most committed to preventing its fulfillment. We can want change desperately while remaining, at a deeper level, committed to the status quo. In this episode, Rachelle explores the part of us that would prefer things to stay as they are and distorts our needs. She invites us to seriously consider that needs are not the Holy Grail but rather a starting point. The real work begins when we're willing to look honestly at what's underneath them. Referenced in this episode: John Gottman — perpetual problems in relationships (approximately 69%) James Hillman — Jungian depth psychology Marion Woodman — Jungian psychotherapy Clarissa Pinkola Estés — Women Who Run with the Wolves Rainer Maria Rilke — Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final Walt Whitman — Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes. Find Rachelle: rachellelamb.com

He always. She never. I can't trust you anymore. These aren't simply complaints; they are the architecture of a story. And the degree to which a couple is committed to that story is, in Rachelle's experience, very close to the degree to which the couple suffers inside it. In this episode, Rachelle explores one of the most consistent patterns she encounters in couples work: the pull toward generalization, and what it costs. When two people become entrenched in the narrative of their relationship, they lose contact with the actual relationship; the living, present-moment aliveness unfolding between them right now. She looks at why the story feels safer than specificity, what the move toward genuine presence requires, and what becomes possible when two people are willing, even briefly, to step out of the narrative and encounter each other directly. The episode touches on Rumi's field beyond right-doing and wrong-doing, and the difference between a conversation that ends in threat and one that ends in acknowledgment. It closes with a blessing by Irish poet John O'Donohue For Love in a Time of Conflict from his collection To Bless the Space Between Us. Referenced in this episode: Rumi, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.” John O'Donohue For Love in a Time of Conflict, from To Bless the Space Between Us (2008) Find Rachelle: rachellelamb.com

After two years, Rachelle returns to revisit the foundations of Nonviolent Communication. What Nonviolent Communication Was Meant to Be, and What It’s Become Beginning with the opening page of Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall Rosenberg, this episode centers on two defining questions: • What disconnects us from our compassionate nature? • What allows us to remain connected to it, even under the most trying circumstances? From there, this episode explores how Nonviolent Communication is often criticized as ineffective, overly focused on feelings, or disconnected from reality. Drawing on the example of Etty Hillesum, this conversation points to a form of compassion that is not sentimental, but grounded, discerning, and rooted in a wider understanding of the human condition. This marks the beginning of a broader exploration into relationships, culture, and what it means to relate, not only from personal needs, but in response to life itself. If you’d like to stay connected and hear about future episodes, writings, and offerings, you’re welcome to join my mailing list: https://www.rachellelamb.com

An exploration of the sometimes tumultuous relationship between mothers and daughters Mentions: After 37 Years My Mother Apologizes for My Childhood by Sharon Olds https://www.writersalmanac.org/index.html%3Fp=7034.html Bloodroot: tracing the untelling of motherloss by Betsy Warland https://www.betsywarland.com/project/bloodroot-tracing-the-untelling-of-motherloss/

In this episode: different names for the moon, Earth Day mission statement, excerpts from an interview with Martín Prechtel by Derrick Jensen, a poem titled: Where Am I? (Strange World) https://derrickjensen.org/dreams/martin-prechtel/

Thoughts on yesterday's solar eclipse and the act of people gathering in large numbers for an awe inspiring celestial event.

"Even to think that we're separated from nature is somehow a thought thinking disorder. You can't be separated from nature." These are the words of the great Jungian psychologist James Hillman. Listen to this episode to hear more about how we're going crazy. Referenced video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tAtDaO8Qdw

Meeting Marshall Rosenberg was life changing for me. It completely altered my way of seeing and understanding the world as well as how I interacted with others.

Nonviolent Communication is often described as a process that, when put into practice, can support people to live in a world where everyone’s needs matter and are met through natural compassionate giving. Is this even possible? Mentions: A Balanced Understanding of NEEDS https://www.rachellelamb.com/blog/a-balanced-understanding-of-needs NonViolent Communication as an Evolutionary Imperative-An Interview with Marshall Rosenberg https://alternativesmagazine.com/29/rosenberg.html

May the one you long for long for you .. and other words of love and longing for Valentine's Day.

Remembering Marshall Rosenberg who left our beautiful planet on this very day in 2015. To view or purchase Marshall's books: https://puddledancer.bookstore.ipgbook.com/

Reflections on modernity's lack of cultural cohesiveness and intergenerational trauma.