They are being very poignant day between those who know and practice Nonviolent Communication. Marshall B. Rosenberg, creator of Nonviolent Communication, He has died last 7 February 2015 at the age of 80 years (We celebrated his birthday a few months ago in this post), and those who knew him and those who have learned general model are doing something that taught us: celebrate the events that have covered our needs and allow us to pass the duel of events that have left our unmet needs.

I had the pleasure of formarme with him during the nine days of the International Intensive Training (International Intensive Training, IIT) Switzerland in July and August 2008. Of that training is the photo that I have with Marshall and his wife Valentina, with the added symbolism of the presence of two boys and a girl unrecognizable in the background, that connects with the Marshall gave me encouragement in my work with children, and adolescents (read more details in the original entry).

During these days, in which I read the various messages and commemorations that have occurred in the community of Nonviolent Communication, I also took the opportunity to reread the notes I lived those days with him (and in the company of other trainers and other participants). And later it will touch reread all his works, as a way to refresh and honor their work.

Marshall Rosenberg worked to create a more humane world, discovering aspects of life and growth even in the most incomprehensible acts. Your basic sentence is “Violence is a tragic expression of unmet needs”, and the method, Nonviolent Communication, a path to listen and reformulate expressions to find solutions in which all parties are winners.

For me it is especially enriching Marshall's emphasis on social change, he did not want to serve Nonviolent Communication for people he would tarry with her quiet life. The work begins within each person, but you can not stay there, it must reach different structures (economic, social, policies, Education…) and that transform humanizándolas. As he told us in Switzerland: “Our action is similar to that of someone who sees a baby fall down a waterfall and saves, and watching another and saves, and watching another and saves… At some point it will be convenient that person arises who is throwing babies and climb the waterfall to avoid”.

Apart from his writings (more than a dozen books, among them Nonviolent Communication. A language life) and videos and recordings of their workshops and their songs, Marshall leaves constituted the Center for Nonviolent Communication (Center for NonViolent Communication), with a history of decades of work, and that it has been operating without recent years. It also leaves hundreds of certified trainers that their model is still transmitted with fidelity and tens of thousands of practitioners who try to put some light in our daily conflicts. It is something to celebrate.

At the same time, his passing leaves a void. Knowing that he has died at his home accompanied by his wife Valentina and their children is a minor consolation. We know that and we will see not representing new conflict situations, you will not hear any new songs, not write new books. And that alone is host to compassionate the pain and sorrow that appear.

Only by integrating the full experience we can move on fully, integrating the received Marshall and looking, moment by moment, how to update an enriching way for everyone.

In celebration and mourning,

Xavier