In the NVC class I attended yesterday, Steve explored the Screaming in Giraffe technique.

NVC stands for Non-Violent Communication: a very helpful framework for resolving conflicts. The Giraffe in NVC refers to a manner of speech that is deeply empathetic, aware and prioritizes connection—Giraffes have big hearts and long ears.

I had just asked Steve what one should do if you’re attempting to empathize via reflections to connect with how another is feeling. And you find that the different empathetic reflection attempts you make are swatted down by them.

“Looks like you are feeling upset, are you?”
“No! I’m fine.”
“Hmm, I see.. it appears to me like something is bothering you. Can you share what that might be?”
“You! You are the one bothering me!”

I’m sure most of you know someone who is like this. They tend to toggle between denial and attacks, when presented with empathy. Where they’re at in their own journey presently, even the thought that they might experience distressing feelings is very challenging to hold.

They don’t have permission for themselves to experience those feelings. So when another person reflects distress to them, their nervous system goes into defensive alert mode.

In response to my inquiry, Steve demonstrated this Screaming in Giraffe NVC technique where you match the energy of the underlying distress by screaming, but then you use Giraffe language. High-quality NVC language which emphasizes ownership and empathy, delivered in loud screams. Loud screams are typically associated in culture with violent words. But you don’t actually use any violent words.

“I FEEL SO FRUSTRATED VIGHNESH! I AM REALLY DESIRING CONNECTION WITH YOU AND TRYING TO GET TO KNOW YOU AND WHAT YOU’RE FEELING AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO DO”

The hallmark of non-violent language is that it is very truthful. Read the above statement again and notice that there are no judgments and blaming of the other person. Everything that has been expressed is very much revealing the subjective experience of the speaker.

As Steve demonstrated that, I noticed that it really soothed an old, old part of me. I call this part the Shadowy Aggressor or the Poker.

This part had a proclivity to poke others to see if they had the capacity to be angry. This particular part was split from my psyche during moments of horrible abuse from loved ones. Abuse that revealed deeply repressed anger within people I loved. It was quite the sudden switch in who they were. If you’ve experienced horrific childhood sexual abuse, you can probably resonate. Perhaps even with horrific physical abuse. You thought you loved someone who was a caretaker and then suddenly they just disappeared and the demons took over their agency to unleash hell upon you.

So now you walk around, gingerly testing the capacity of others to say No to demons. To check if they are connected with their capacity for rage. To protect yourself from a future switcheroo.

It’s not a healthy way to exist in the world because as that old saying goes: What you fear, you attract.

And once you realize that what you are desiring is connection to both your own purposeful Fire and to be connected with others who have access to their own purposeful Fire, it’s easy to soothe the Shadowy Poker. Fire is quite evident in the physicality of a human you encounter. It shows up in the healthy radiance of their skin, the light in their eyes and the strength and suppleness of their musculature. You don’t need to poke and test it. When the Fire is but a spark, it needs poking. When the Fire is burning bright, it’s visible for miles. If your Fire is but a spark, the poking you need to do is within, not towards those who mirror the sparkiness of your own Fire.

It’s taken a lot of relational work to soothe that testy, shadowy aggressor within me and yet experiencing Steve demonstrate the Screaming in Giraffe technique felt oddly soothing.

The soothing of something very familiar from my past of having lived with a lot of repressed anger.

The Screaming in Giraffe really demonstrates capacity to meet in a certain energy while maintaining connection to the heart and actually not using language that is of the lower vibration that that energy is typically associated with. Language of violence. It’s a warrior unsheathing his sword, not to kill but to de-escalate.

Capacity to be animalistic coupled with greatly developed restraint, feels very soothing. To me, at least.

Trauma lives in human bodies and creates this collapse between this energy of aggression, which is really Fire, and the most common expression of that energy in the form of Violence.

Fire need not be Violent.

This collapse persists culturally, both in how people express Fire when they feel it within them and respond to fieriness when they see it.

There is an incorrect merging of these two categories, in the traumatized Intellect.

A blazing Fire can warm cold hearts. It can be very creative and healing. It doesn’t need to be Violent at all.

Many folks come to conscious communities to heal. And so, this collapsed relationship between Fire and Violence, and an accompanying aversion to Fire itself, can be very commonplace. No wonder there are so many folks selling coaching packages helping people find purpose! Fire brings purpose! If most were connected to their purpose, there wouldn’t be an aversion to Fire, and there wouldn’t be so much marketing emphasizing life purpose.

When I used to encounter a very heart-centered human in such spaces, who only spoke language of love, it used to stimulate a wondering in me, back when I was merged with my Shadowy Aggressor: Is this person capable of violence? Do they even know that they are capable of violence?

Because all of us have great capacity for violence. This capacity is an essential part of our animal nature. Violence through our tongue, through our nails, through our teeth. We have tremendous capacity for violence, and many of us live just completely disconnected from it.

It’s scary to be amongst those who are fully unaware of their capacity for violence, because they are quite susceptible then to a sudden collapse of incredible violence. Snide mocking remarks that slip out as the face quickly turns into a scowl. “Humorous” jabs. Or worse.

When they do that, their psyche can fight really hard to hide the violence of their action away from their awareness, because it doesn’t fit their conscious sense of self, which includes the idea: I can’t be violent.

It’s a plainly untrue idea because through our animal nature, we have tremendous capacity for violence, and when we live disconnected from that, it increases the likelihood of that hidden capacity for violence unleashing when shit hits the fan.

On the flip side of it, you have these characters that are very pugilant. They carry a proclivity to diminutive aggression.

Aggression that is very tiny. Like a chihuahua, or even a pitbull. They carry an unabashed proclivity towards exercising their diminutive aggression. The whole world is a battleground for the warrior within them that yearns for one purposeful war.

Pugilists hinge their unabashed proclivity towards exercising their anger upon the philosophical idea of Righteous Rage. Justified Anger.

I used to be quite drawn to that notion when I was deeply caught up in vengeance fantasies towards my perpetrator. I was quite drawn then to the image of Goddess Kali with the varied human skulls hanging around her neck.

Now, I find these phrases utterly paradoxical.

They are incorrectly overlapping categories that represent, to me, a lower intellectual capacity.

Righteous rage and justified anger don’t exist. They cannot exist. The faculty that determines righteousness and justice is heavily handicapped when Anger rises to the surface. That’s why we have the phrase: blinded by rage.

When the face feels hot!
Nostrils flare up!
Eyes fill with blood!
Head feels engulfed in fire!
Oh Lord! It feels so alive!
So powerful!

Especially when you’ve lived devoid of liveliness for so long. Chronically depressed.

That when Satan commands the Minions of Depression to stop sucking life blood from you, like mosquitoes and instead sends in the Archdemon of Anger to possess you. To rush through you, spitting fire everywhere scattering the Minion demons who were feasting upon you. Oh it can feel so good! Truly enlivening!

In that moment, you are presented with a choice:

You can allow the Fire to be inhaled up fully, surprising the Dragon with your human capacity to take what was animalistic. What was your nature. And exhale it out into the wingspan of your outstretched arms, bringing the cleansing of Hellfire into any physical disease, chronic conditions. Thereby, feeling an utter sense of gratitude for the external trigger that provoked this “rageful” moment. Because now you have seen the true nature of what presents itself as Rage. Now, it is accurately categorized in your elevated Intellect as elemental Fire. The Dragon lifted up to be an Angel.

And all of this can happen in an instant. In a moment, once you learn how to channel Fire via Breath up your spine and out into the far reaches of your body. Quite imperceptible to the untrained eye of the human in front of you. And how could you not then feel gratitude for the human who just helped you locate a channel for Fire in your body that you did not know of, yet.

Or:

You could collapse into anger against the external trigger. This human you are interacting with. Surrendering your agency to the Archdemon of Anger. Spitting, cussing, hissing, gut punching, poking the eyes, saying mean things to the person in front of you. Sometimes even worse. Some of the most horrible sexual abuse happens when the perpetrator forgets that they are forged in the image of God. Forgets that they have the human capacity to elevate animalistic urges. Even demonic urges. And releases their the agency of their body to the Archdemon of Anger.

As you collapse into rage, your body trembles: afraid of the diseaseful consequences that it is going to suffer on account of your choice to rage. It further rigidizes. Your psyche panics holding on, for life, onto any reason that would justify the choice to be rageful to the person in front of you. As your face floods with rage and your eyes get bloodshot, your Intellect drops. Your perception develops flaws. So it is quite easy to find such a reason. For a moment, as you forget that you were forged in Fire in the image of God, you also forget that the person in front of you was also forged in the image of God. Through your fallen Intellect, you have now managed to justify your anger. You have managed to construct logic to convince yourself of the righteousness of your rage.

Extremely flawed in the underlying logic of justification. Oh, so flawed in the underlying logic of justification! So so flawed and yet accepted as permissible reasoning by your temporarily weakened Intellect, that is caught up in the flames of the Archdemon of Anger. Not realizing that you could just inhale the flames up with Breath, the gift from God. Up your spine, up your neck. Have the fire dissipate from the front of your face, from your eyes, and then exhale it out into your arms and feel so, so good in your body!

The Archdemons have a dragonic nature. They have scaly, rough bodies. They are spitting and hissing. They are heavy. It is very effortful for them to fly. They can fly—that’s the power they present—but it is very effortful and really exacts a huge toll on your body.

The Archangels have a similar but different nature. They are upright. Their wings are very strong. They are light—both in terms of how light it feels to be in the energy of an Archangel and that they’re Light, itself. Not Dark, but Light.

So, when you inhale the Rage up and exhale it out into Fire, you win the battle against the Archdemon of Anger and regain the fullness of your agency over your Intellect and over your Life force from the oppressing Minions of Depression.

As you turn into a mesmerizing Fire Dancer. Fire, absolutely pure cleansing Fire, breaking down the rigidity of incorrect intellectual categorizations that you may be carrying, creating these supple channels in your fascia for the Waters of Life to flow through and renew you.

But you may not know that you have this very human capacity yet. In which case, you’d find this abstraction of Righteous Rage helpful to be at peace with the hurt you have caused to others when you have willfully surrendered your agency to the Archdemon of Anger.