Today we have a story from our trainer Marije Roos, about discovering the depth of something she thought she had understood for years: “The jackal is a lie.”
“I have heard this sentence from Yoram for twelve years. I have said it to others, taught it in trainings, and thought I understood what it meant. And yet, only last year did I start to discover the depth of it.
The jackal is a lie
I have heard this sentence from Yoram since twelve years. I have said it to others, taught it in trainings, and thought I understood what it meant. And yet, only last year, I started to enter the depth of it.
When people hear about Nonviolent Communication, they often think of a communication tool: how to speak more vulnerably and honestly, how to listen to what people are really saying, how to navigate conflict. And yes, it is all of those things. Yet the biggest eye-opener for me has been the profound, almost Matrix-like realization that the very way I learned to think inside my head is creating 99% of my suffering.
And that this way of thinking can actually be quite easily identified and transformed. (The transformation itself can take years and years, as the habit is so extremely deeply rooted—not only in me, but also in the people around me and in the language I hear all day long).
And I realized that where this way of thinking creates the most suffering for me is in how I talk to myself inside my own head, all day long.
Those thoughts are no joke. I have become aware that they are not only happening in my head, but that they also shape the reality I experience, the choices I make, and the possibilities I can see.
What do we mean by “jackal”?
In NVC, we use the image of a jackal to describe the belief that I know what is good and bad, right and wrong. I know how people should be, how I should be, and how life should be.
For example, if I tell my partner, “You are never present with us. You are always busy with your phone, even when we have dinner together,” then in that moment I know what is wrong with him and I truly believe I know what he should do. And it is very unlikely he will respond the way I would like: “You’re right Marije, thank you for letting me see that. I’ll put my phone away and be more present with you and the kids.” More likely, he will defend himself, explain, attack back, or withdraw. And that is so tragic, because underneath my judgment is something I actually care deeply about: I want closeness with him and within the whole family. Yet, in that very moment, my jackal thoughts and words create separation—between him and me, and within our family.
And then I realize: this is exactly how I also speak to myself.
The conversation in my own head
Like this morning. I planned to sit down and write this newsletter at 9:00. Instead of simply starting, my mind immediately began evaluating me. “Wow, Marije, you are going to take forever before you start writing. You had too little sleep, you are always easily distracted. You probably won’t finish before you have to pick up the kids. And last time it wasn’t very good anyway. Maybe you aren’t much of a writer.” It happens incredibly quickly. I barely notice it.
But when I believe those thoughts, something changes. I become tense. I doubt myself. I lose curiosity and inspiration. I am much more likely to start behaving as if my predictions are true.
All I want is to be close to myself when I write. How incredibly tragic— my thoughts create the exact opposite of what I wish for: they create distance from myself and from my creativity, just as they do with my partner.
And underneath it there is another, much older story: I am a shy girl. I am not someone who puts herself forward. I am not naturally confident. I am not like those people who can just stand up and speak.
My Jackal’s Core believes. Not only telling me what is right and wrong, but telling me who I was, who I am, and who I will become.
When the past becomes the future
Last week my daughter was angry when I picked her up from school- it was the first day of the school year. I immediately thought, “there we go again. School really makes her angry. Now she is going to be like this every day.…”
The ‘lie’ is not that she was angry. She was. The lie is that my mind takes that one moment and turns it into the truth about who she is (“She’ll be angry the whole year”) I put her in a box. I am no longer meeting my daughter as she is today, with the curiosity: “what is making her angry at this moment?”. I am meeting my idea of how she will be.
And I do the same to myself. I believe I am ‘a shy girl’ and that ‘I am not good at speaking up’. My mind is constantly taking information from the past and using it to predict the future, and when it does so, it often uses jackal language. The deepest tragedy of this is that I start behaving like the version of myself that my jackal has created: I believe I am shy, and I start holding back.
Seeing through the veil
The more I notice this, the more I see how fast and subtle it can be. There are certain words that have become little signals for me: always, again, not enough, should, never, I am.…
When I hear them in my head, I try to pause. Not because I need to make the thought disappear or replace it with a more positive one, but because I want to become curious about what lies underneath it. I ask myself: “What do I need?”
When I tell myself “my partner is never present”, underneath it I discover how much I care about our connection, how much I love his attention.
When I tell myself “I am not a good writer”, underneath it I discover how much I want to express something, to create, to contribute, and to inspire.
When I tell myself “my daughter is always irritated”, underneath it I discover how much I worry about her and how much I care about her well-being. And when I connect with that, I immediately want to meet her, to be open, to be curious, to understand what is happening for her.
The jackal story drags me into exactly that which I don’t want. The question: “What do I need?” actually and concretely brings me closer to creating the experience I want.
What I am discovering
I am beginning to see that the jackal doesn’t only tell me who is right and who is wrong. It tells me who I am. It tells me who you are. It tells me what will happen next. And the more I believe it, the smaller the chances are of creating the experience I long for.
I have spent a lot of my life believing that I am a shy girl.
Sometimes I am quiet. Sometimes I am afraid to speak. Sometimes I need time before I know what I want to say.
But “I am a shy girl” is a ‘lie’. At a deeper level, there is no such thing as ‘a shy girl’. There is a girl who received some reactions in the past that were painful for her and is afraid that it will happen again when she expresses herself.
But I am not shy—I LOVE sharing and I love receiving attention!
I can feel afraid, and still: feel moved toward sharing and toward what matters to me.
This is what I am beginning to understand when I hear the words “the jackal is a lie.” I simply and authentically don’t believe the stories in my head. And I can still decide,exactly and with ease, who and how I want to be.
With a wish to speak a language of life—with each other and with ourselves, in our own heads,
Marije