Three weeks ago I was on the Festival of Nonviolent Communication in Bialobrzegy near Warsaw, Poland.
There I got to know Ike Lasater, a renowned teacher of Nonviolent Communication. Ike has been doing a lot of Reconciliation and Mediation work. Once he even worked with Romeo and Juliette and their families… look at this video and enjoy to see him work!


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The Stanford prison experiment

How can the world become more peaceful, more worth living, more loveable?
In the next days and weeks I would like to publish a few stories and films on how society as well as the individual can be healed from the impacts of violence. My concern is reconciliation of the inner self as well as of people who are in conflict. And I admit that the healing of the so called “perpetrator” seems as important to me as that of the so called “victim”. I am concerned about respectful communication, about mediation and therapy, but also about a wider, social dimension: How can we achieve to develop a society focused on deescalation instead of answering violence by violence?

I would like to start with a short documentation of the Stanford prisoner experiment. In this experiment of 1971 arbitrarily chosen test persons were divided into roleplay attendants and prisoners of a roleplay jail. The experiment which was scheduled for some weeks had to be ended after 6 days because the attendants were increasing in cruelty so quickly and more and more prisoners were traumatised.

This film gives a remarkable documentation of the experiment as a look back from our time.


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The Eye of the Lion

“When you meet a lion”, so Mr. Mniyka from Kenya told me, “you must look him unwaveringly in the eyes. A single short glance to the side, a mere tenth of a second, and the lion attacks. He leaps faster than you can move or speak or even think. That is why, when you come across a lion, look him fixedly in the eyes. Look at him, simply look at him, unwaveringly – so long….until he goes.

All by Itself

A man stood at the glass door of a department store early in the morning, with the intention of entering. The door wouldn’t even open an inch. He tried to push against it, but nothing happened. He could have knocked or called. He could have tried to open the door by force. The man did none of these. He looked at the sign with the opening times, looked at his watch, and then went for a walk for about ten minutes. Then he came back and stepped in front of the door. The door now opened all by itself, automatically and as if from the hand of a ghost.

Spinning

Do you know the Grimm’s tale of Rumpelstilzkin? Here’s an article that Kathy published today in her food blog… And maybe you will find another thing… or person… in it that seems familiar to you… have fun reading it!

And… thanks, Kathy!

The Loud Boy

“My parents never listen to me. They don’t even notice me”, the boy sighed. “He’s forever talking. He speaks long and often. He interrupts others and doesn’t want to be interrupted”, his parents reported. “The louder I got, the less they listened”, said the boy later. “And the less they listened, the louder I got.” Then he learned to speak in a low voice, and his parents listened.

Different Ways to deal with Dogs (or Life)

Today is a snowy day. Just some minutes ago I have been shovelling snow in front of the house and in the driveway. Ma neighbour who is American did the same. His two large dogs came out and greeted me happily. They seemed enthusiastic about the weather. They greeted a mother with her child just as happily. The girl got afraid and drew near to her mother.The dogs’ owner shouted to his dogs and they instantly ran back to him. He gave them a sign to go into the house which they immediately did.

“Why do these dogs run around here? What’s this all about?” shouted the mother. “They’re already going into the house. They’re nice dogs” I said. “Anyway. They shouldn’t run free! Whose dogs are they?”

I imagine that the woman tried to care well for her daughter who was afraid and that she had the very best intentions for her child. Yet, it is possible that the girl was not afraid because of the dogs. It seems to me that she was afraid because of her mother.