A language of Life

Well-intentioned conversations can easily go wrong because communication with others is always a challenge. Author Marshall Rosenberg designed a way to help human beings communicate compassionately even under demanding circumstances. Nonviolent communication (NVC) is a giving and receiving of messages. NVC requires us to develop a certain literacy of expressions. It requires us to be open, honest and overcome deeply-ingrained learning that emphasizes fear, judgment, shame and obligation.

Five years ago someone recommended the book, Nonviolent Communication to me when I was struggling to overcome my own challenges with communication with others. NVC is a life-changing way of interacting. It teaches us to choose our responses to situations based on meeting needs instead of expressing habitual responses leading to alienating others. We learn to stop defending ourself from judgments, replacing demands with requests and acknowledge our needs.

I am still on my journey with communication, but over the years I have been able to learn the art of listening, requesting, understanding others needs and continuously empathizing rather than using my default mode of communication. The first few months were the hardest. I remember feeling very uncomfortable using the steps in most situations. It was the hardest thing I ever did. It almost felt unnatural. Every time I would try to give up I would see the positive effect of my communication in that interaction that I would feel encouraged to use it more. Five years later, it is still very easy for me relapse into my default. And that is why I deeply appreciated the session we did on NVC last week in our fundamentals course.

The session had three exercises. In the first we were paired up and asked to engage in a role play, where we pretended to be roommates. The scene was, one roommate had come back home from a long day at work to a cluttered house. The second roommate could react to her roommates complaint about the clutter in either of the following ways:

• Roommate feels she is in a relative position of authority, where she articulates her desires as demands.
• Roommate feels she is in a relative position of inferiority, where she reacts based on fear, guilt, and shame.
• Roommate shares what she observes.

All three ways had very different outcomes. The bigger objective of this activity was for us to realise that when we respond on the basis of our observation as opposed to a response based on evaluation, it helps us to remain in the present moment, focusing on what concrete, specific things, events, and actions are stimulating us to feel and need. When we notice what we are seeing and hearing and separating them from our own limited interpretations, opinions, and evaluations can help us to understand each situation more deeply.

In the second exercise we learnt to identify and express our feelings. In the same pairs, one person had to make statements about the other and the other person had to respond using the sentence starter “I feel…”. The objective of this exercise was for us to start connecting with our feelings and expressing them to others. We were given a feelings chart for us to express how we are feeling in a particular moment. NVC believes that “expressing our vulnerability can help resolve conflicts, for if we are in touch with our feelings and are able to express them to others, we can begin to get to the root of conflict.”

In the last exercise we were asked to put what we had learned into practice. We were asked to pair up with a person who reminds us of a person we have had a disagreement with, use the steps recommended by NVC and imagine having a difficult conversation with them. The framework we were asked to use was:

• State the feeling
• State what you observe or need from them
• Share a request

Everyone had a very different experience with this framework. Some found it easier to use than others. Some of my classmates, a lot like me when i was first introduced to this framework, felt uncomfortable. And as our instructors told us, that this is a journey, to truly understand the value of NVC we need to practice it over years, and I agree. Personally I believe NVC is a powerful tool that can enrich our lives. It teaches us not distance ourselves from other people by projecting our own stories onto a situation. So I highly recommend watching this video of Marshall Rosenberg walking people through the NVC framework.