A year or so ago I did a google search with the world nonviolence (I'd started to think of the world as a violent place and doing a search meant I was looking for alternatives - and boy didn't I find them!) and stumbled upon the nonviolent communication "technique". It is an essentially simple approach to sharing our lives genuinely with others, namely:
- observing without mixing in evaluation
- expressing our feeling about what we observe
- exposing the underlying need that is or isn't being met
- making clear requests to others and ourself (and being open to negotiation with these feelings and needs at their core)
Deceptively simple, it is anyhow a far cry from our "normal" ways of exchanging information, and it requires a lot of courage to be willing to share openly what we are really experiencing. But the process offers a possibility for truly genuine communication, a blissful feeling of being heard, and the benefit of finding best possible solutions that meet the needs of everyone. (It is very rare to have a situation in which the underlying needs, when viewed openly, can't really be reconciled, but in those situations using nvc means that we actually mourn for the actual loss, the actual situation, instead of being angry or hurt over our interpretation.)
The basic guide of NVC is called "Nonviolent Communication, A Language of Life: Create your life, Your Relationships, and Your World in Harmony with Your Values". It and other books by the technique's inventor, Marshall Rosenberg, are valuable introductions. I think that NVC can really only be learned in action, by applying it to everyday life. I'm just starting, I'm starting to learn how to be with others after focusing on how to be with myself for a long time... (but it was necessary.)
Since I was a child I have been afraid of judgments and people who make them. In my childhood and youth I was powerless (paralyzing was the "safe"st alternative at my "home"), and watched countless times how my parents' assumptions and interpretations ruined life for me and themselves. When we accept making judgments and interpretations about situations without communicating openly about them - and going behind them to what needs of ours aren't being met - we often lose the best possible situations and choices in life. Finally I have some understanding about how we can build the kinds of connections I've been yearning my whole life, and can trust that others crave it, too.
I heard about NVC a while back, but only now it's become alive for me in a way that makes me really want to apply it to my life. Maybe I'm just now getting ready to learn how to be with others genuinely! Suddenly I see that the world I wanted and saw possible as a child really is possible, and actually rather easily attainable. I don't have to let go of those childhood dreams. At the same time there is an apprehension in me about all the work I need to do, about all the things I want to learn. I've learned somewhat to have empathy for myself but now I have to really use it, and to start existing with others through my real self, not the fake persona I polished well until my early 20s. Listening in NVC is still hard for me, as is noticing what I really feel and need in situations.
I've been practising with P somewhat. I notice that it still takes all my strength to thwart his definitions (e.g. "you're such an idealist") and not get lost in offering mine back. But I'll learn. The world has opened up and I'm much more secure now with telling what I need in situations. Something clicked with NVC a couple of weeks ago and it made my life better instantly, but the real rewards will come in time...
I obviously don't understand the process very well, because I get stuck on some things you point out.
VastaaPoista"observing without mixing in evaluation"
I don't see how this is possible, because in my understanding observation is always evaluation. Whether we make an observation in it self is an act of evaluation. Most of the information we get through our senses we evaluate worthless and filter out.
Now of course there are gradations. I understand that you object to observations such as " Tom was acting like an asshole" or "Tom was rude" and instead you wish that one would observe: "I saw that Tom was eating from other peoples plates, drinking from their glasses, using their towels and talking loudly and interrupting other people to make very personal remarks about their appearance"
and then after that telling how that made one feel: " I felt annoyed, because I wanted to eat that steak I prepared, and i felt angry because i would have wanted to drink that beer myself and when Tom made remarks about my appearance I felt unsecure and unloved."
But that takes a lot of words, and it would seem a lot more economical to just say to someone who shared the observations, that Tom acted really dickish, and they would know what you mean.
It is useful to analyse one's observations, and go to the root of what one means when one says something, but i just feel that communication might get a bit clumsy if you follow Rosenbergs program too devoutly.
"It is very rare to have a situation in which the underlying needs, when viewed openly, can't really be reconciled"
I don't believe this. To me it would seem that it is very usual that the interests and needs of people are in conflict. The conflict of course gets solved somehow, but you say that you do not believe in compromises. what else do you mean with reconciling those needs.
When we have conflicting needs (and it doesn't seem so rare to me, of course you dodge most of conflicting needs situation by calling needs strategies) NVC might help to get the root causes in the open. You might want to discuss something that's on your mind, and I might want to read blogs. Our immediate needs are in conflict. Of course one could argue, that we both in the end are trying to achieve maximum common happiness, and our needs are really the same, even though you want to discuss and I want to read. Then when we discuss you might come to the conclusion, that it is really more important for me to read than for you to discuss right there and then, and therefore you conclude that letting me read, and not fulfilling your need of discussion, is really the way to achieve your ultimate need of maximum mutual happiness. am i correct. or do you mean something else by reconciling needs. we can't have both. someone's got to give in.
I hope you can understand something that I'm trying to get at. Maybe I need to know what NVC means in practice.
Hei! Thanks for your comment :)
VastaaPoistaI think that Marshall Rosenberg puts the aim of NVC very nicely in his booklet We Can Work It Out, p. 1:
"When I am called for conflict resolution, I begin by guiding the participants to a caring and respectful quality of connection among themselves. Only after this connection is present do I engage them in a search for strategies to resolve the conflict. At that time we do not look for compromise; rather, we seek to resolve the conflict to everyone's complete satisfaction. To practice this process of conflict resolution, we must completely abandon the goal of getting people to do what we want. Instead, we focus on creating the conditions whereby everyone's needs will be met."
In your example about Tom, you're not willing to engage in dialogue with him, you just want to ridicule him to others. If you wanted to affect how Tom is behaving that would be a strategy doomed to fail; in that example you're not looking for a genuine connection but a few cheap laughs... Maybe you're frustrated and helpless with Tom behaving as he is, and are looking for a way out of your anxiety by laughing. But labeling people doesn't support a life good for everyone, where we can contribute to each others' wellbeing. Maybe Tom also wants to contribute to your wellbeing but you don't give him a chance because you'd rather label him.
In your example about reading blogs vs. discussing you're mixing strategies with expressing genuine needs. Needs are, by Rosenberg's definition, "resources life requires to sustain itself". Reading blogs and discussing are strategies to meet these needs, but in Rosenberg's view better strategies can be found out only after we face what it is we and the other is needing with empathy. The solutions you suggest have a ring of compromise to them, such as evaluating whose "needs" (strategies) "are more important in this case". This is not what I'm aiming at. Sometimes shouting in nvc is required, perhaps if the other person is really too tired to discuss and look for solutions in the nvc way they can tell so and clearly express when they would be available for such a discussion.
I'm only just reading the We Can Work It Out book again, I hope to gain many more insights and write more about it to the blog :) Have a good day! ;)