Read Nonviolent Communication - A Language of Life, Second Edition @Team LiB Online
Authors: by Marshall B. Rosenberg
Nonviolent Communication - A Language of Life, Second Edition @Team LiB (22 page)
NVC enhances inner communication by helping us translate negative internal messages into feelings and needs. Our ability to distinguish our own feelings and needs and to empathize with them can free us from depression. We can then recognize the existence of choice in all our actions. By showing us how to focus on what we truly want rather than on what is wrong with others or ourselves, NVC gives us the tools and understanding to create a more peaceful state of mind. Professionals in counseling and psychotherapy may also use NVC to engender relationships with clients that are mutual and authentic.
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Dealing With Resentments And Self-Judgment
A student of Nonviolent Communication shares the following story.
I had just returned from my first residential training in NVC. A friend whom I hadn’t seen for two years was waiting for me at home. I first met Iris, who has been a school librarian for 25 years, during an intense 2-week heartwork and wilderness journey that had culminated in a 3-day solo fast in the Rockies. After she listened to my enthusiastic description of NVC, Iris revealed that she was still hurting from what one of the wilderness leaders in Colorado had said to her six years ago. I had a clear memory of that person: wild woman Leav, her palms gouged with rope cuts holding steady a belayed body dangling against the mountain face; she read animal droppings, howled in the dark, danced her joy, cried her truth and mooned our bus as we waved goodbye for the last time. What Iris had heard Leav say during one of the personal feedback sessions was this: “Iris, I can’t stand people like you, always and everywhere being so damn nice and sweet, constantly the meek little librarian that you are. Why don’t you just drop it and get on with it?”
For six years Iris had been listening to Leav’s voice in her head and for six years she’d been answering Leav in her head. We were both eager to explore how a consciousness of NVC would have affected this situation. I role-played Leav and repeated her statement to Iris.
Iris: (forgetting about NVC, hears criticism and put-down)
You have no right to say that to me. You don’t know who I am, or what kind of librarian I am! I take my profession seriously, and for your information, I consider myself to be an educator, just like any teacher . . .
I: (with NVC consciousness, listening empathically, as if I were Leav)
It sounds to me like you’re angry because you want me to know and recognize who you really are before criticizing you. Is that so?
Iris:
That’s right! You have simply no idea how much it took for me to even sign up for this trek. Look! Here I am: I finished, didn’t I? I took on all the challenges these fourteen days and overcame them all!
I as Leav:
Am I hearing that you feel hurt and would have liked some recognition and appreciation for all your courage and hard work?
A few more exchanges follow, whereupon Iris shows a shift; these shifts can often be observed bodily when a person feels “heard” to his or her satisfaction. For instance, a person may relax and take a deeper breath at this moment. This often indicates that the person has received adequate empathy and is now able to shift attention to something other than the pain they have been expressing. Sometimes they are ready to hear another person’s feelings and needs. Or sometimes another round of empathy is needed to attend to another area of pain in the person. In this situation with Iris, I could see that another piece needed attention before she would be able to hear Leav. This is because Iris had had 6 years of opportunity to put herself down for not having produced an honorable comeback on the spot. After the subtle shift, she immediately went on:
Iris:
Darn, I should have said all this stuff to her six years ago!
I: (as myself, an empathic friend)
You’re frustrated because you wish you could have articulated yourself better at the time?
Iris:
I feel like such an idiot! I knew I wasn’t a “meek little librarian,” but why didn’t I say that to her?
I:
So you wish you had been enough in touch with yourself to say that?
Iris:
Yes. And I’m also mad at myself! I wish I hadn’t let her push me around.
I:
You’d like to have been more assertive than you were?
Iris:
Exactly, I need to remember I have a right to stand up for who I am.
Iris is quiet for a few seconds. She expresses readiness to practice NVC and hear what Leav said to her in a different way.
I as Leav:
Iris, I can’t stand people like you, always so nice and sweet, being forever the meek little librarian. Why don’t you just drop it and get on with it?
Iris: (listening for Leav’s feelings, needs and requests)
Oh, Leav, it sounds to me like you’re really frustrated . . . frustrated because . . . because I . . .
(Here Iris catches herself at a common mistake. By using the word “I,” she attributes Leav’s feeling to Iris herself, rather than to some desire on Leav’s own part that generates the feeling, i.e. not “You’re frustrated because I am a certain way,” but “You’re frustrated because you wanted something different from me.”)
(She tries again)
Okay, Leav, it sounds like you’re reallyfrustrated because you are wanting . . . um . . . you’re wanting. . . .
As I tried in my role-play to earnestly identify with Leav, I felt a sudden flash of awareness of what I
(as Leav)
was yearning for: “Connection! . . . That’s what I am wanting! I want to feel connected. . . . with you, Iris! And I am so frustrated with all the sweetness and niceness that stand in the way that I just want to tear it all down so I can truly touch you!”
We both sat a bit stunned after this outburst, and then Iris said, “If I had known that’s what she had wanted, if she could have told me that it was genuine connection with me she was after. . . . Gosh, I mean, that feels almost loving.” While she never did find the real Leav to verify the insight, after this practice session in NVC, Iris achieved an internal resolution about this nagging conflict and found it easier to hear with a new awareness when people around her said things to her that she might previously have interpreted as “put-downs.”
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. . . the more you become a
connoisseur of gratitude, the less
you are a victim of resentment,
depression, and despair. Gratitude
will act as an elixir that will
gradually dissolve the hard shell
of your ego—your need to possess
and control—and transform you
into a generous being. The sense
of gratitude produces true spiritual
alchemy, makes us magnanimous—
large souled.
—Sam Keen
Expressing Appreciation In Nonviolent Communication
“You did a good job on that report.” “You are a very sensitive person.”
“It was kind of you to offer me a ride home last evening.”
Such statements are typically uttered as expressions of appreciation in life-alienating communication. Perhaps you are surprised that I regard praise and compliments to be life-alienating. Notice, however, that appreciation expressed in this form reveals little of what’s going on in the speaker and establishes the speaker as someone who sits in judgment. I define judgments—both positive and negative—as life-alienating communication.
Compliments are often judgments—however positive—of others.
In the corporate trainings we offer, I often encounter managers who defend the practice of praising and complimenting by claiming that “it works.” “Research shows,” they assert, “that if a manager compliments employees, they work harder. And the same goes for schools: if teachers praise students, they study harder.” Although I have reviewed this research, my belief is that recipients of such praise do work harder, but only initially. Once they sense the manipulation behind the appreciation, their productivity drops. What is most disturbing for me, however, is that the beauty of appreciation is spoiled when people begin to notice the lurking intent to get something out of them.
Furthermore, when we use positive feedback as a means to influence others, it may not be clear how they are receiving the message. There is a cartoon where one Native American remarks to another, “Watch me use modern psychology on my horse!” He then leads his friend near to where the horse can overhear their conversation and exclaims, “I have the fastest, most courageous horse in all the West!” The horse looks sad and says to itself, “How do you like that? He’s gone and bought himself another horse.”
Express appreciation as a way to celebrate, not to manipulate.
When we use NVC to express appreciation, it is purely to celebrate, not to get something in return. Our sole intention is to celebrate the way our lives have been enriched by others.
NVC clearly distinguishes three components in the expression of appreciation:
the actions that have contributed to our well-being;
the particular needs of ours that have been fulfilled; and
the pleasureful feelings engendered by the fulfillment of those needs.
The sequence of these ingredients may vary; sometimes all three can be conveyed by a smile or a simple “Thank you.” However, if we want to ensure that our appreciation has been fully received, it is valuable to develop the eloquence to express all three components verbally. The following dialogue illustrates how praise may be transformed into an appreciation that embraces all three components.
Saying “thank you” in NVC: “This is what you did; this is what I feel; this is the need of mine that was met.”
Participant (approaching me at end of a workshop)
: Marshall, you’re brilliant!
MBR:
I’m not able to get as much out of your appreciation as I would like.
Participant:
Why, what do you mean?
MBR:
In my lifetime I’ve been called a multitude of names, yet I can’t recall seriously learning anything by being told what I am. I’d like to learn from your appreciation and enjoy it, but I would need more information.
Participant:
Like what?
MBR:
First, I’d like to know what I said or did that made life more wonderful for you.
Participant:
Well, you’re so intelligent.
MBR:
I’m afraid you’ve just given me another judgment that still leaves me wondering what I did that made life more wonderful for you.
The participant thinks for a while, but then she points to notes she had taken during the workshop, “Look at these two places. It was these two things you said.”
MBR:
Ah, so it’s my saying those two things that you appreciate.
Participant:
Yes.
MBR:
Next, I’d like to know how you feel in conjunction to my having said those two things.
Participant:
Hopeful and relieved.
MBR:
And now I’d like to know what needs of yours were fulfilled by my saying those two things.
Participant:
I have this l8-year-old son whom I haven’t been able to communicate with. I’d been desperately searching for some direction that might help me to relate with him in a more loving manner, and those two things you said provide the direction I was looking for.
Hearing all three pieces of information—what I did, how she felt, and what needs of hers were fulfilled—I could then celebrate the appreciation with her. Had she initially expressed her appreciation in NVC, it might have sounded like this: “Marshall, when you said these two things [showing me her notes], I felt very hopeful and relieved, because I’ve been searching for a way to make a connection with my son, and these gave me the direction I was looking for.”
Many of us do not receive appreciation gracefully. We fret over whether we deserve it. We worry about what’s being expected of us—especially if we have teachers or managers who use appreciation as a means to spur productivity. Or we’re nervous about living up to the appreciation. Accustomed to a culture where buying, earning, and deserving are the standard modes of interchange, we are often uncomfortable with simple giving and receiving.
NVC encourages us to receive appreciation with the same quality-of empathy we express when listening to other messages. We hear what we have done that has contributed to others’ well-being; we hear their feelings and the needs that were fulfilled. We take into our hearts the joyous reality that we can each enhance the quality of others’ lives.
I was taught to receive appreciation with grace by my friend, Nafez Assailey. He was a member of a Palestinian team whom I had invited to Switzerland for training in NVC at a time when security precautions made training of mixed groups of Palestinians and Israelis impossible in either of their own countries. At the end of the workshop, Nafez came up to me. “This training will be very valuable for us in working for peace in our country,” he acknowledged. “I would like to thank you in a way that we Sufi Muslims do when we want to express special appreciation for something.” Locking his thumb onto mine, he looked me in the eye and said, “I kiss the God in you that allows you to give us what you did.” He then kissed my hand.
Nafez’s expression of gratitude showed me a different way to receive appreciation. Usually it is received from one of two polar positions. At one end is egotism: believing ourselves to be superior because we’ve been appreciated. At the other extreme is false humility, denying the importance of the appreciation by shrugging it off: “Oh, it was nothing.” Nafez showed me that I could receive appreciation joyfully, in the awareness that God has given everyone the power to enrich the lives of others. If I am aware that it is this power of God working through me that gives me the power to enrich life for others, then I may avoid both the ego trap and the false humility.
Receive appreciation without feelings of superiority or false humility.
Golda Meir, when she was the Israeli prime minister, once chidedone of her ministers: “Don’t be so humble, you’re not that great.” The following lines, attributed to contemporary writer Marianne Williamson, serve as another reminder for me to avoid the pitfall of false humility:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.