Certification and trainer fee dilemma

The following has taken me several hours to write over the course of 2 days and it’s my beliefs that the issues I raise (essentially matters of integrity and responsibility) deserve even more than I have taken the time to articulate here. Please bear with me as I jump to a few different things .. I promise I will bring the threads together at the end. Please do not be disappointed that I offer very little in the way of solution. And please know that this is my response to Maria’s questions though it will be clear I am answering questions she didn’t specifically ask. I have chosen to send it to the trainer network instead of sending it solely to Kirsten .. because I have a deep need to know if I’m alone or have company in how I’m seeing things which will determine what I do next. 

For the past several weeks, months .. (dare I say years even) I have been wrestling with my NVC “CT” trainer designation and subsequently with my affiliation with CNVC which, as far as I can tell, sadly extends no further than being listed as a certified trainer on the CNVC website. Whenever I reflect on that affiliation, I have no real sense of what I am concretely agreeing to uphold and belong to despite reading the trainer agreement and the goals and visions expressed on the CNVC website.  

If Marshall’s words are at the core of what CNVC stands for, and I could see concrete proof of it, I would find it hard to resist. I unfortunately fail to see how the non human needs of life can occupy its proper central place when a human-centric orientation continues to be prioritized. I understand the focus on human relating and I don’t dismiss its importance but given Marshall’s words and vision as expressed above, and given the ever growing amount of harm and damage done to the non human world by virtue of a human-centric focus, I don’t think trainers would be out of line if they were to expand the circle beyond human relating and place life in the centre which is where it surely belongs. It’s my theory in fact, that much of what generates strife in human relationships is the disproportionate focus on the self at the expense of the community of life that grants human life (a conversation for another time).

At 27 minutes into the recent Open Board Meeting recorded on April 30th, Maria Arpa spoke: I want to imagine, if all of the people in the certification group all became trainers in the next one to three years .. and we have an organization where we have 1,000, maybe 2,000, or 3,000 certified trainers .. and a huge proportion that don’t speak English, and a huge proportion for whom Marshall Rosenberg is just a name on a book, how are we bringing that on? .. how are we going to manage that? .. how are we going to create quality and consistency, and still live our values? And where’s the money coming from to prepare for that? That’s going to take some doing. We are going to need technological platforms. And someone needs to be doing that. And I can’t hold that and hold what’s right in front of me .. and that’s actually the work of the Board. And then I come along and say, "what have you decided?” and you say, “we’ve decided this” and I say, “right, let’s go and enact it.” That’s kind of how things could be being done. I very much appreciated the points Maria raised and the energy she brought to that meeting. After Maria spoke these things, the conversation shifted immediately to finance, quarterly reports, balance sheets, projections, etc. I wish there had been a response to what she said but I also recognize the limitations of meeting agendas. I’m curious to know if that conversation will be picked up again given it’s relevance. I am in my own way responding to it here.

While Maria didn’t say it explicitly, I also heard in what she said (as per the section I underlined) that as well as being uncertain about CNVC’s financial future and viability, she expressed uncertainty about how to manage inconsistencies and ensure quality and consistency in the delivery of NVC trainings. And that’s where I wish to place my focus right now. I can’t help but imagine inconsistencies to be anything but “inevitable” given that there appears to be no way, under the current organizational structure, for CNVC to genuinely promote, maintain or guarantee a consistent message of what NVC is beyond the basic OFNR steps and the abstract notion of “NVC consciousness”. Perhaps that’s enough but I’m wondering: is it actually enough? and does anyone believe that trainers are, let’s just say for now, at least 75% aligned with each other in what they believe Marshall taught? .. or 75% aligned with each other in how they believe NVC can be most effective in this troubled time? .. or 75% aligned in their understanding of what the unfathomably complex nature of our troubles actually is? (I am speaking of “troubled time” and “troubles" as they apply to the world and not to the CNVC organization).

It is not my intention to initiate a discourse into what NVC is or isn’t. I would however like to bring attention to the following point and wonder with others about its implications: that even though needs are described as “universal" within the NVC framework, the lens through which people understand those needs and the strategies they will adopt to satisfy them will vary significantly between people depending on their respective world views, cultural influences and what they are accustomed to having in their lives. Said differently, the importance of world view and cosmology plays an enormous role in determining how people ultimately conduct themselves in their lives and inside their relationships and I experience this point to be gravely missing from NVC curriculum as it becomes overlooked in NVC parlance when trainers claim that “everyone shares the same needs” .. as if identifying needs is the magic bullet. 

Based on my own experience and the experiences of others I’ve spoken with, people are unlikely to seriously examine their own complicity with life alienating systems unless their attention is somehow drawn to that tragic fact. Some of you may remember Marshall telling the story of having worked with the indigenous Orang Asli people of Malaysia. He described them as being “natural giraffes” who were trying to defend themselves and their thousand year old traditional ways of living from the government jackals wanting to take control of their land. These indigenous peoples didn’t speak OFNR but they were very much in tune with the needs of their own people and their natural habitat; they spoke and lived accordingly. By speaking about his work with them, Marshall was also raising awareness that: the dominant culture's exploitative way of living is NOT universal, there are whole groups of people imbedded in “NVC consciousness”, and that there are people in the world who can live contentedly with very little while maintaining harmony with their environment. Tragically the struggles of the Orang Asli have only worsened as they have for most of the planet’s indigenous populations. We might wonder how their already established NVC consciousness together with Marshall’s time with them has concretely improved their situation? What chance does a small group of giraffes realistically stand against the clearly formidable and armed power of jackals on a mission to exploit? 

I was always under the impression that Marshall was doing his best to teach a genuinely life-serving orientation to life. The approach he often took during his trainings, at least as I perceived it, was to draw attention to the intricacies of human exchanges as well as to the socio-cultural influences responsible for creating the conditions for alienation (being "educated to enjoy violence" for instance). At the same time he would share stories similar to the Orang Asli story which he shared regularly .. stories that could jolt audiences to deeply reconsider the profound significance of how the great majority of people within the dominant culture are not only educated to live within a life alienating regime that is underwritten by alienating values, but how they come to accept it and perpetuate it. Add some good raucous humour and heartfelt songs and people would listen to Marshall with rapt attention for hours. I suspect that I’m not alone in how I perceived Marshall’s teaching methods, but I also suspect that there are others who might have come away from Marshall’s trainings with a much different understanding of what he was doing, not to mention what he was saying.

Yesterday I read the following Guardian article about the legal destruction of the sacred site of Puuntu Kunti Kuurama in Australia. The company responsible for the destruction is Rio Tinto, a mining and metals company operating in about 36 countries around the world whose "purpose is to produce the materials essential to human progress” Those material are: iron ore, copper, diamonds, gold and uranium. Apparently we “need” staggering amounts of these raw materials for cell phone, batteries, jewelry, etc .. so much so that the company has over 45,000 employees and in 2019 reported a revenue of $43.16 billion USD. 

Curious to learn more about this company that I confess not being familiar with though I’ve very likely had some form of contact with their product, I read the following from the career page of the Rio Tinto website (featuring a photograph of a healthy young Aboriginal man wearing a hard hat, safety goggles and beaming smile): Working at Rio Tinto means touching people’s lives: from exploring new materials to finding ways to tackle climate change. Our five values – safety, teamwork, respect, integrity and excellence – define how we treat each other and how we work together. We are committed to an inclusive environment where people feel comfortable to be themselves. And we want our people to feel that all voices are heard, all cultures respected and that a variety of perspectives are not only welcome – they are essential to our success. Reading the article about the destruction and then visiting the company website is deeply disturbing and illustrates just how far removed people can be from a shared understanding of needs as well as just how insidious colonial takeovers continue to be. Notice how safety, teamwork, respect, integrity, excellence, inclusivity, feeling comfortable, and being heard are utilized to sell mining and extraction. (Here is a more detailed story on why and how the desecration of this Aboriginal site was completely legal in disturbingly bureaucratic terms.)

Here is where I question what it means to be a trainer. If a trainer is invited by Rio Tinto to teach NVC to its staff, what are the chances that Rio Tinto employees and shareholders will question the status quo to which they are bound? What are the chances that the hired trainer will inquire into the needs of the indigenous peoples and ecosystems that are harmed as a result of Rio Tinto’s mining practices? I’m not suggesting by these questions that the trainer “should” proceed in this manner .. I am however highlighting a dilemma that I don’t believe NVC trainings will ever be able to resolve. Additional questions: What is a trainer’s responsibility in a time of trouble? Is the primary allegiance to: give people a communication tool so they can better work out their interpersonal differences while the troubles deepen around them and are in a large part generated by them? Or is the allegiance to radical social change .. which in our time probably means speaking up about the fact that the survival of future generations and of life itself is being ongoingly threatened by how we understand and fulfill our needs within the dominant culture? 

Would we not be wise to take our cues from Marshall who refused to grade students as he recounted in one of his stories about how he voiced his unwillingness to participate in a system that he claimed was merely pretending to be a democracy? Or the story of how he walked away from his psychotherapy practice and ended up driving a taxi cab to help make ends meet? Did he not, in all of his trainings, make it clear that he was trying to subvert alienating systems and structures and that he was trying to change the way people saw themselves within those systems while at the same time providing them with communication tools to support them through that change?

I can’t help but think that the best way for me/us to honour Marshall is to emulate him, especially during these times when civilisation seems poised for collapse. And during this Covid 19 pandemic that has forced a “pause” upon people world wide, what lies central to most conversations I overhear is the much anticipated “return to normal”. The fact that the dominant culture version of “normal” is so destructive and ultimately suicidal that we might want to consider not returning to it at all simply doesn’t occur to most. Do we really need anything beyond the basics of air, water, food and shelter in order to live? There is plenty of evidence that the amount of stuff we believe we need does not translate into a deeply lived life, if anything it increases suffering. I personally can’t help but wonder how it is that "hope” is regularly bandied about as a sign of sane and responsible orientation to some vague "improved" future when capitalist interests and consumer driven lifestyles clearly prevail and continue to promote human progress primarily in terms that are destructive to life and void of any sense of right living and deep accountability.

And how does all this relate to CNVC and being a trainer? Here’s how: when I read about the NVC online festival featuring "AMAZING trainers" who will among other things: "ADDRESS the crisis and potential of this moment in history together” and I consider Maria Arpa’s words and remember Marshall’s stories and reflect on the ongoing unsettled conflict between indigenous interests and capitalism driven interests (rooted in vastly different world views), I am curious to know how this so called crisis will be addressed in the upcoming festival? To be fair to the organizers, presenters and registrants of this event, I don't know anything about what will actually be going on within the zoom technology space and I don’t ask these questions in order to critique the trainers involved in this upcoming event who will no doubt be abundantly and rightfully praised for their offerings. Rather this is a plea that we all consider the very real possibility that we are not actually accomplishing what we likely set out to accomplish by becoming trainers and that the same is true for CNVC. 

I truly don’t, for one second, doubt the good intentions of trainers, but I’m frequently unsettled about the language used to promote NVC: how can anyone for instance claim to be able to address the crisis and potential of any given moment in history? especially when they are deeply mired in the very systems that perpetuate the imbalances and inequities that are a threat to both human and non-human life? How can we honestly envision a world "where everyone lives from a consciousness that connects with the universal life energy and natural oneness of life?” when we ourselves are unable to do it? How can I make such a claim while a polar bear is unable to sustain itself due in part to me driving a car? The only claim that I am able to make is that I’m willing to learn how tragically and profoundly removed I am from living in natural oneness with life .. an affliction that I have inherited by virtue of being born into the dominant culture and being shaped by it. Full stop. 

As Upton Sinclair astutely observed: 'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.’ Today it could be said, “It is difficult to get a person to understand something when the preservation of lifestyle and comforts depends on them not understanding it.” What is the crisis of this time? Do NVC trainers know what it is with any real certainty? Does anyone know? Is Covid a crisis? Is death a crisis? What about the normalized crises people have been enduring before the arrival of Covid? Do trainers include the fact that 60% of wildlife has been wiped out by human activity in their trainings? Is this not a crisis of even greater magnitude than the human deaths caused by Covid? Do trainers wonder about the youth voicing their anger and distress about what it being done to the world in the name of human progress? I am genuinely wondering how NVC can be a force for social change if we don’t raise challenging questions and recognize the lies and deceptions that are regularly sold to us and even by us. Wasn’t Marshall regularly exposing the workings of ‘jackal thinking' that we are constantly contending with in our modern world? I am despairing as I reflect on these questions and I’m wondering if I am alone or if anyone else sees the interconnectedness of these things?

Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe’s still picking’ cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows

—Leonard Cohen

I struggle to find alignment with NVC offerings that do not reference the needs of the physical planet, trees, lakes, or human beings or animals as their central message. We clearly have no problem focusing on human needs .. but what about the rest of the world? Do we not have an obligation to mobilize in that direction? Perhaps people are already doing this and it’s simply not clear from where I sit? Certainly I’ve come to realize during these past few months that I need to rewrite almost everything on my website. I make the urgency and poverties of our time distinctly clear when I work with people and deliver trainings, but I haven’t kept up to date online as I would like. Perhaps the same is true for others?

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for sticking with me. I am deeply questioning the merit of certification as well as the merit of people keeping an organization afloat that, through absolutely no fault of its own and despite noble efforts, may not actually be genuinely able to facilitate and sustain a cohesive delivery of Marshall’s work and vision or to reexamine and reframe its mission and to adapt NVC to what is actually unfolding in our world at this time and has been unfolding long before Covid. I strongly believe that Marshall would be more interested in a healthy functioning world than he would be in being rigid about what he said and wrote when the world looked a certain way. The issue of organizational sustenance, seemingly related to money, appears to be far deeper than money. 

If anything is stirred in you and/or if some of the things I’ve voiced have also crossed your mind, I would appreciate hearing from you. I would also be interested in knowing how you are reconciling any doubts or concerns you may have as a result of maintaining your certification. Either there are others considering these things which could, if enough people were considering them together, help to strengthen the organization so that Maria isn’t left trying to achieve the impossible on her own .. or it’s quite possible that there’s a fork in the road and that a break from the organization would conclude this marriage which would be fondly remembered. 

May you find yourself in good company during these strange days, and may your breath be strong and your love of life, ever deepening ..

Warmly,
Rachelle