Speech Sustainability
“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
Through this quote, the essence of individual action for a culture of peace has been stressed by Mahatma Gandhi, and it further underlines the importance of human efforts for social transformation and reconciliation. This leads us to the core question of the tools we as individuals can use in our endeavour for peace. Healthy communication is a critical tool that will help us make deeper connections and aid in healing. Society must learn to use nonviolent communication. The challenge today is to ensure a credible communication ecosystem, promotes empathy and self-restraining. In this context, the significance of nonviolent communication as an integral part of our communication ecosystem comes to the fore. For Gandhi, the goal of communication was to enhance personhood. Gandhi’s insistence on nonviolence recognised the importance of others and valued humanity. Openness was manifested in Gandhi’s rhetoric and is a characteristic of his nonviolent communication theory. For Gandhi, openness included communication practices such as free speech and press, public discussion, and direct negotiation.
Many of us have been brought up in environments where competition, judgement, demands and criticism are the communicative norm; at best these habitual ways of thinking and speaking hinder communication and create misunderstanding and frustration in others and ourselves. The level of tolerance in our society is declining. We are getting less interested in engaging in dialogues, especially with those who may have differing views. For peaceful coexistence, the dialogue is critical at all levels. Gandhi believed there is no suffering that cannot be solved if people come together in one place for candid discussions, and we must change people’s hearts and minds. The only way to advance the movement for human revolution is sincere dialogue. The power of dialogue is naturally engendered when one reveres the worth inherent in the other person. Hence promoting meaningful dialogues, the need of the hour for social harmony and cohesion. Having elaborated the key elements of nonviolent communication, it can be stressed that it is central to dialogues' success. Moreover, today we are all entangled in daily routines in this fast-paced world. There is a great likelihood of us losing our temper or getting stressed due to the unhealthy communication we may use. Use of nonviolent communication will help fulfil the trust deficit and avoid the illusion of separation and ill-feelings. A nonviolent communication literate community can self-introspect whether the message they want to share has elements of violence and whether such a message will hurt others. Nonviolent Communication is also an antidote to all acts of revenge and aggression as all these arise from a breakdown in communication or our reliance on violence in communication. Thus, we are likely to handle the emotionally charged situation with greater maturity and dexterity. An important outcome of practising nonviolent communication is the promotion of prosocial behaviour. As nonviolent communication essentially helps develop connections and emotional bridge building, using it as part of our daily habits will enable us to reach out to communities. In fact, as promoting volunteerism and service to others has always been the desired goal of our society, a nonviolent communicator will be better equipped to execute such noble tasks. Connecting with people and taking part in pro-social activities are also important to stress busters. Thus, nonviolent communication contributes to stress reduction and encourages the habit of positive appreciation, therefore uplifting our quality of life and aiding our well-being. Nonviolent Communication helps us connect and ourselves in a way that allows our natural compassion to flourish by focusing our consciousness on four areas: what we are observing, feeling, requiring, and what we hope to enrich our lives with. Nonviolent communication fosters deep listening, respect and engenders a mutual desire to give from the heart.
Learning new communication skills is exciting, and energies the learner like one finds oneself while learning a new language. Though we are remarkably enthusiastic that we can acquire conversing in a new language, it needs a lot of perseverance and practice. The more we practice, the faster we learn the new language. This is also true of acquiring nonviolent communication skills; the more we practice and make it part of our lives, the greater will be the difference we will be making in our connections with others and ourselves. In fact, it is not enough to understand what nonviolent communication is and why it is needed to be practised. To ensure a harmonious co-existence, the key challenge for all of us is on how to practically use the strategies of nonviolent communication in our relationships, trying situations or disputes. An individual imbibing nonviolence pillar — Respect, Understanding, Acceptance, Appreciation and Compassion, can practise this art in his/her lives without difficulty. Respect and understanding for others, irrespective of the differences, is the only way the world can go forward. Putting up walls and divisions always backfires in the end, leading to anger and rebellion. In contrast, when we respect and understand each other, we naturally evolve to that third pillar, acceptance. The ability to accept other views allows us to grow stronger and wiser. The other two pillars of nonviolence- appreciation and compassion- help bring personal happiness, fulfilment and greater harmony in the world. We must remember that by imbibing these five pillars, we will be able to inculcate optimism. The negativity that surrounds us will diminish, and we will evolve as a better society. Negative and violent relationships cannot help build a homogeneous society; it is only positivity and nonviolence action that can promote social cohesion. Apart from following the five pillars of nonviolence, we must avoid moralistic judgements with others. This implies that we ought to stop the practice of unnecessary comparisons of our lives with others’. It breeds dissatisfaction. Instead of evaluating the negatives in a person, ourselves or even in a situation, we should practice seeing the positive. We should think of a situation if our friend would have come up with similar negative thoughts and how we had reacted and motivated him/her. Similarly, try to bring positivity in your self-talk. An important element of nonviolent communication that helps us counter negative thoughts is the practice of expressing gratitude. The more we practice gratitude, the more positive energy we would generate. Anger is a negative emotion which affects all of us. The challenge before all of us is how to handle anger effectively. On the issue of controlling one’s anger, Gandhi said, “It is not that I am incapable of anger, but I succeed almost on all occasions to keep my feelings under control.” While as Gandhi says, channelising our anger wisely could be used for humanity's good, more than often, we tend to harm ourselves or others by getting angry. It could be both physically and emotionally. When we are angry, we might become aggressive and rigid. We also may lose our sense of judgement and ability to solve problems. Practising nonviolent communication will help us be patient and handle our anger constructively. Also, when we can channelise our anger constructively, we will be avoiding stressful situations. When we are angry, one of the best ways to deal with it would be to understand what that need of ours that is not met and was the trigger for our anger. Most importantly, when we practice traits like self-empathy, self-compassion, kindness and gratitude, we can manage our anger constructively. Gandhi gave an innovative lesson to control our anger — writing an anger journal daily. In the anger journal, we can write on who made us angry and the main reasons for us to get angry when we were angry and angry. This will help us locate the possible solutions to get over with our anger.
