About

Street Giraffe is a term coined by the late Marshall Rosenberg to connote a more colloquial form of Nonviolent Communication.

(More as to “street giraffe” [jackal/giraffe] origin story here)

“This means prioritizing the consciousness over the form…”
~ Miki Kashtan

[Giraffe-Inspired] TEDx Talk: Own Your Behaviours, Master Your Communication

“…and for all his sweetness, he had the tiger and the jackal in his soul.” Voltairine de Cleyre

Additional information regarding Nonviolent Communication (a.k.a. Conscious Communication) & NVC Mediation Resources

Our free, monthly ‘dialogue lab’ tele-practice group (w/ iGiraffe) has an affiliated Street Giraffes blog — which also serves as a cache of heuristic materials for further, self-discovered, self-appropriated exploration. The intention of both the blog and group format is to blend complementary modalities, such as interweaving Focusing & Mindfulness, towards the end of each having an opportunity to carve out their own, individuated path (as an NVC practitioner).

Please click here to learn more.

And feel free to email me at:

(with any questions you may have)

By McKay Savage from London, UK

&/or follow us via social media:

@streetgiraffes

A giraffe at Giraffe Manor, Nairobi, Kenya
by Push the button

Video via Marianne Van Dijk – Cup of Empathy/YouTube Channel

What is working about your [NVC/dialogic] practice?
What gets in the way of communicating mindfully?
What is your vision for speaking & listening with equanimity/presence?
What next step(s) can you take to enhance the quality of connection you seek?

Handy Handouts | Street Giraffes

Kate Raffin – On Flowers, Tears and Lightbulbs
“Balancing my yearning to grow with acceptance of who I am right now”

‘An NVC practice as dustpan & brush…’
– Kit Miller

Composting from the grist of our everyday lives

Other NVC Learning Venues
Practice Groups | CNVC
Online practice groups | CNVC
Compassionate Leadership Free Teleclass
Fearless Heart Teleseminars (see more)
Ongo Online Retreat: The Practice of Everyday Life – ZENVC
Kinyon’s free online Mediate Your Life practice group

(Via Wiki: Giraffe on the Masai Mara by Richard Rhee)

ZENVC’s Mindfulness & NVC guidebook

Learn more

Praise for The Ongo Book (& NVC as a mindfulness practice):

“I once asked Marshall Rosenberg, creator of Nonviolent Communication, what it would take for me to ‘really learn this stuff’. His answer: ‘Practice, practice, practice.'” (continues)

– Lucy Leu, author of Nonviolent Communication Companion Workbook

“Born from a clever idea – to make long term contemplative practice doable at home – this book brims with useful advice. You will be encouraged to prioritize the values of meditative life, like compassion and clarity, in the midst of your ordinary situation…” (continues)

– Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness and Real Happiness

“For many years, in my own evolution and teaching, it has been very clear to me that, in order to actualize our spiritual evolution, we need the support of a community who share our vision and values. The Ongo Book provides a practical support for this vision.”

– Robert Gonzales, The Center for Living Compassion, Author of Reflections on Living Compassion

“In a hurried and harried world, here are some basic and potentially powerful ideas about how to remain stable and unrocked. My guess is they will become more valuable as our various external crises deepen, and some of the distractions on which we currently lean begin to show their shallowness.”

– Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy and co-founder of 350.org

Courtesy of Andreas Bohnenstengelarchiv

Nonviolent Communication:
A Language of Compassion – Chapter 1

Marshall Rosenberg
(Credit: Etan J. Tal)“I am a girackal. Or a jackaffe. Or some such creature.”
~ Ian Peatey, I Am Not a Giraffe | NVC World

Additional NVC Worksheets:

BayNVC | Worksheets
Mediate Your Life Handouts
Handouts – ZENVC
Radical Compassion – Files: Hand-outs
Matrix | Pathways to Liberation
Work Collaboratively – Resources
Wise Heart – Free NVC resources

Supported Conversations

Along with facilitating the tele-practice group, and for about the same length of time (since 2011), I’ve been a practitioner of NVC Mediation and would welcome any inquiries as to how it might be supportive to you.

John Kinyon and Ike Lasater pioneered this mediation branch of NVC, something they’ve characterized (on their blog and elsewhere) as learning how to Mediate Your Life, which includes exploration of both internal and external conflicts.

(I truly don’t think I would have learned NVC without it.)

(Beneath courtesy of the work of NVC Mediation pioneers John Kinyon & Ike Lasater, Founders – Mediate Your Life)

Ike Lasater (at about the 7 minute mark, beneath): “And, of course, you can use these skills in your day to day life…We use mediation as the metaphor, but this is really about mediating your life: how to go from the conflicts within your head, to conflicts with other people, to supporting — by lending your skills — to people who are in conflict.”

The Three-Chair Model for Learning NVC [Mediation]:
Developing Capacity for Mindful Presence, Connection, and Skill with NVC

By Ike Lasater & John Kinyon
With Julie Stiles

Excerpt: Conclusion

“…We find the three-chair model to be a powerful pedagogical tool that goes beyond people simply learning conflict resolution skills. It provides a unique way to practice with close in time feedback from a coach and others, it offers ample opportunity for personal growth, helps people integrate core NVC skills into their daily life, and supports the development of concrete mediation skills. As we have used this model over the course of years, we see the small shifts people make accumulate over time, fundamentally shifting their ability to be present and connect with themselves and others even in difficult conflictual situations. This gives us hope. With the looming crisis we see ahead—exponential population growth and climate change resulting in huge dislocations of people, all greater stimulus for conflict—we would like people to be able to cope more effectively with whatever lies in the future, collectively and individually. For us, NVC and the three-chair model provide a strategy for people to integrate skills into their lives that allow them to learn a whole new way of being and be agents for the creation of the kind of world that they want to live in.”

John Kinyon’s

3Chairs Project for Difficult Conversations That Change Our World

Vision & Mission

The vision of the 3Chairs Project is a critical mass of people around the world working together to respond to the challenges we face, and creating a peaceful, healthy, and sustainable world.

The mission of the project is people having difficult and important conversations — personal, work, political — using a “3 chairs” structure and process that brings mindful awareness, compassion and collaboration to these conversations. It’s about hearing and understanding each other in our differences and our pain, without needing to agree, and connecting at the level of our shared humanity to contribute to one another’s well being. It’s about having conversations that change us, that create the life and relationships we want, and that move us toward the world we envision…

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

John Kinyon’s Monthly free online Mediate Your Life practice group

Monthly free online Mediate Your Life practice group with John Kinyon. First Fridays of the month (unless otherwise posted), 12-1pm Pacific. All are welcome, regardless of experience with NVC or Mediate Your Life training. The sessions include: Q&A, demonstrations, and information about Compassionate Communication/Nonviolent Communication (NVC) and Mediate Your Life training… (continues)

John Kinyon, “Three chairs can change your life…”

François Barraud – La Tailleuse de Soupe

Taking the Third Chair – Mediate Your Life

Excerpt (via John Kinyon): “Three chairs can change your life. In the world of professional dispute resolution, the three chairs represent two disputants and a mediator. In our Mediate Your Life training, you learn to ‘take the third chair.’ From this perspective, you perceive a different reality. You become more centered and effective in responding to life’s challenges and conflicts…. Seeing the situation from the third chair can be very difficult. Although obvious and simple at one level, the shift in perspective is a radical one that goes deeper and deeper. I have at times found it quite challenging — and also extremely valuable — to live this out in my own life…” (continues)

5 Steps of NVC-Mediation – by Ike Lasater

Essay by Ike Lasater:
What is NVC Mediation? A Powerful Model for Healing and Reconciling Conflict

Lasater, “To be a human being is to regularly be in conflict with oneself and others…” (continues)

Additional videos: MediateYourLife

Muhammad Mahdi Karim

Whether you may be interested in learning more through a one-on-one conversation, or possibly even getting a sense of how NVC Mediation works in practice, please feel free to send an email to me so that we might set up a time to speak.

Free Consultation: Contact Us Here

Three Peasants in Conversation by Albrecht Dürer

More … @MediateOnesLife Credit: Meu

Our referrals for mediation &/or mentoring/coaching are logistically feasible through phone/Skype, however you might also find mediators locally through contacting CNVC or Mediate Your Life directly.

Lastly, I intend to occasionally write @StDispatches blog entries detailing my own, more idiosyncratic ‘experiments with truth’ — a kind of #MediateOnesLife diary — which will blend my experiences as a street giraffe practitioner with other, more personal-as-political preoccupations. I’ll post a link to the first entry here, shortly.

By Schnobby via Wikimedia Commons