People are possibly the most
socially complex animals on
earth. The slightest movement
of an eyebrow can have meaning.
Join me as I explain some of the best
tools I have found for improving
one's ability to understand and relate to
other people. In this blog I present tools
from neuroscience, Nonviolent Communication,
Byron Katie, Process Work, and more.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Nonviolent Communication Principle #9

Our world offers abundant resources for meeting needs: When human beings are committed to valuing everyone’s needs and have regained their skills for fostering connection and their creativity about sharing resources, we can overcome our current crisis of imagination and find ways to attend to everyone’s basic needs. ~ Miki Kashton, NVC Trainer

In two weeks, the world population will hit 7 billion. I wonder at what point do we drop the notion of separate tribes and embrace a global tribe? What does it take to make the evolutionary leap from protecting my family, my tribe to seeing everyone as part of my group? Because the moment we truly believe that the family in Africa or Greece or China is as valuable as our own personal family, is the moment we distribute goods and services in a completely fair way.

Elisabet Sautoris, biologist and author of Earthdance, writes about the same evolutionary leap happening to bacteria millions of years ago. That at some point, cells realized that there was more to gain by joining together and thinking of the many cells as one body. Our own bodies once were separate organisms that at some point stopped consuming one another and began to cooperate.

When we buy widgets from a poor country in which the people are not paid enough to eat, we are essentially preying on them. Then when some of us empathize with the suffering and demand that the people be paid properly, we make that same amazing evolutionary leap.

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