I think, perhaps, that America could benefit from some training in nonviolent communication (NVC). Certainly the Catholic blogosphere could.
Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
The lies start early, and what’s worse – we tell them to ourselves. Words hurt. Words kill.
“The tongue is a small member and yet has great pretensions. Consider how small a fire can set a huge forest ablaze. The tongue is also a fire. It exists among our members as a world of malice, defiling the whole body and setting the entire course of our lives on fire, itself set on fire by Gehenna. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. This need not be so, my brothers.”
– James 3
The basics of nonviolent communication (NVC), as postulated by Dr. Rosenberg, are:
- Observation
- Feelings
- Needs
- Requests
Observation
“You!” Leonard shouted at me, pointing his quivering finger. “You never do anything! No chores, no nothing!”
I will admit that I sometimes fail to fulfill my duties within our community. But Leonard’s accusations are a perfect example of violent communication. By saying that I did nothing, he wasn’t attempting to communicate an observation. He was trying to get me to do something – more chores.
In NVC, observation simply means communicating what we have experienced without judgment. “You never do chores,” becomes “Yesterday I woke up and saw the the floor was dirty.” “You are a liberal,” becomes “I heard you say over lunch that you are going to vote for Hillary Clinton.” “You’re lazy,” becomes “When I left in the morning for work I saw you sitting on the couch eating Coco Puffs, and when I came back from work I saw you sitting on the couch eating what appeared to be the remnants of a pint of rocky road ice cream.”
Observing honestly takes great work. We can’t resort to labels when observing. Summarizing doesn’t work either. It takes very specific and very unbiased reporting of what we experienced. It is not a judgment. It is an observation.
“Muslims (have a) predilection for violence.”
– Ann Coulter
An objective observer might say, “Every day I turn on the television set and I see a news report of a suicide bomber in Iraq.” But Ann Coulter isn’t attempting to communicate observations, she’s not communicating her experiences. She’s communicating her judgment – namely that Muslims have a predilection for violence.
NVC maintains that we must base our communication off of objective experience before getting to our judgments. To place our judgments first is to enter into perilous territory, for our judgments are often erroneous. And yet, even if our judgments are correct, we cannot claim that our judgments are objective observations. Judgments must never be cloaked under the guise of objective experience. “You never do anything!” becomes the basis of conflict rather than reconciliation. “I woke up yesterday and saw that the floor was dirty,” serves truth before judgment, and leads to a truly nonviolent resolution of a conflict before it even begins.
Feelings
“I’m offended that you would say that.”
According to Rosenberg, most of us lack a language of feelings. We use words like ‘bad’, ‘good’, ‘happy’, ‘sad’, and so forth, but we don’t really go much deeper than that. And lacking such a vocabulary, we are often unable to articulate what we feel. Here are some words that we might know the definition to, but might not use regularly in reference to our feelings.
Amazed, Joyous, Comfortable, Moved, Confident, Optimistic, Eager, Proud, Energetic, Relieved, Fulfilled, Stimulated, Glad, Surprised, Hopeful, Thankful, Inspired, Touched, Intrigued, Trustful, Angry, Hopeless, Annoyed, Impatient, Confused, Irritated, Concerned, Lonely, Disappointed, Nervous, Discouraged, Overwhelmed, Distressed, Puzzled, Embarrassed, Reluctant, Frustrated, Sad, Helpless, Uncomfortable
You’ll notice that a few words are missing – insulted, offended, rejected, hated. When looked at closely, we notice that some ‘feelings’ aren’t primarily about our emotion. They don’t say as much about our internal feelings as they do about our external judgments. ‘Insulted’ doesn’t really say much about our feelings. It says a lot about how we view someone else’s words or actions. Same with ‘offended’ or ‘rejected’ or any of the other accusations we pass off as emotions.
Sharing our internal feelings is often hard. It makes us vulnerable. It also focuses on ourselves rather than someone else. And in a situation of conflict, the last place we want to turn a microscope is our own heart. But that is exactly the source of all conflict. Once we look inside and see our emotions – emotions disconnected from judgments – then we can really begin to make progress. Only once we specifically identify what we are feeling can we move on to the next stage.
In other words, when we read blogs, we often feel a whole assortment of feelings rush through us. Unless we sit down and probe those feelings, we are simply going to react. NVC is designed to get us to slow down for a second, to see what is happening inside us, and then to react with reason.
Needs
“I need you to SHUTUP!”
Rosenberg claims that our feelings come from needs that are either fulfilled or unfulfilled, that basically what we feel is related to our desires. He asks us to connect our feelings with our personal desires. Here’s an example:
I get home from a long day at work. The house is a mess, and everyone is sitting around watching TV. They’ve been watching TV all day. I’m angry. Why am I angry? Because they won’t clean the house!
Not exactly. What is my personal desire? Not my desire for someone else, by a personal desire directed inward? A desire related to what I need?
I need a clean house. I desire a clean house. I need to live in a place that is beautiful. I desire to have free time when I get home. I need relaxation. I desire tranquility and calm.
When we honestly evaluate our emotions, we will often get to desires and personal needs. We will see that a lot of our emotion is caused by not getting things we need. All too often, we try to justify our emotions by putting them on someone else. You did this, you did that. He didn’t do this, she didn’t do that. But NVC, again, asks us to look inside. What is it about my heart that is provoking my feelings? God knows that external events have an effect on me. But why do they have an effect? What is it about me that is causing my feelings?
When we own our feelings, and communicate our needs, we begin to see things in a way we never have before. We begin to feel empowered. We begin to see that the source of conflict often begins in our own needful and broken heart.
Requests
This is the hard part. We’ve identified our observations, “I saw that the floor was dirty.” We’ve identified our feelings, “I feel frustrated and angry.” We’ve identified our needs, “I feel frustrated because I need a clean home when I come home from work.” Now we get to the simple part – “Could you please clean the floor with me?”
If it was only that easy. NVC only really begins to produce fruit when the requests are denied, when the feelings grow stronger, when the conflict gets intense. It is a mindset rather than a method – a mindset of focusing upon our own heart, upon precise objectivity, upon the refusal to judge another person. It is about judging emotions and thoughts and events, not persons.
In the end, we have to ask ourselves – what are words for? Are they for communicating? Or are they for hurting? Are words meant to coerce, or are words meant to share who we are?
I think the answer is clear enough.
“But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”
– Matthew 12:36
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