Reply #6: This is directly from the NVC booklet

[BanzaiBonnie]

that I just finished reading. It is sooooooo very appropriate to this topic. We need to have enough life energy to do what needs to be done. So one must first take care of oneself, then one can go out and give, in celebration of life, from one's abundance.


This is from "The Heart of Social Change - How You Can Make a Difference in Your World." transcript of a workshop given by Marshall B. Rosenberg

Conclusion

So, we've been presenting the fourth dimension of social change,
what I call self-development, and we might start there-as the
Buddha and others have suggested. The gist of it is that, before we
tackle the gangs and the basic story, we have to make sure that we
have liberated ourselves from what we have been educated in and
make sure that we're coming from a spirituality of our own
choosing. I would agree with that as a very important step, to
liberate ourselves, and to do that I would make sure that I get
into transformative spirituality, not translative spirituality. I've
seen some who hear the Buddha's words and interpret them in a
way that leads to translative spirituality, where you're just nice,
calm, neat, meditating people even though the world continues as
it is, and you hope that your good energy will spread. I think that
kind of spirituality perpetuates the problem. So, I do think we need
to start with our own self, our own spirituality, but I hope we
know the difference between translative spirituality and
transformative spirituality. This is basically what Nonviolent
Communication is about. If you want to serve life you want to
create life-enriching systems. So we need to really be conscious
moment by moment. We need to be as smart as bees and dogs-
connected to life.

Given the enormity of the social change that confronts us-
change that we would all like to see - the thing that I predict
will give us the most hope and strength to make change happen
is if we make sure that we learn how to celebrate. Let's build
celebration into our lives and come from that. That's first.
Otherwise we're going to get overwhelmed by the immensity.
Out of a spirit of celebration I think we'll have the energy to do
whatever it takes to bring about social change.