Nonviolent Communication - A Language of Life, Second Edition @Team LiB (12 page)

In NVC, no matter what words people use to express themselves, we listen for their observations, feelings, and needs, and what they are requesting to enrich life. Imagine having loaned your car to a new neighbor who had approached you with a personal emergency. When your family finds out, they react with intensity, “You are a fool for having trusted a total stranger!” The dialog on the next page shows how to tune in to the feelings and needs of the family members in contrast to either (1) blaming yourself by taking the message personally, or (2) blaming and judging them.

No matter what others say, we only hear what they are (a) observing, (b) feeling, (c) needing, and (d) requesting.

In this situation, it’s obvious what the family is observing and reacting to: the lending of the car to a relative stranger. In other situations, it may not be so clear. If a colleague tells us, “You’re not a good team player,” we may not know what he or she is observing, although we can usually guess at the behavior that might have triggered such a statement.

The following exchange from a workshop demonstrates the difficulty of focusing on other people’s feelings and needs when we are accustomed to assuming responsibility for their feelings and to taking messages personally. The woman in this dialogue wanted to learn to hear the feelings and needs behind certain of her husband’s statements. I suggested that she guess at his feelings and needs and then check it out with him.

Husband’s statement:
“What good does talking to you do? You never listen.”

Woman:
“Are you feeling unhappy with me?”

MBR:
“When you say ‘with me,’ you imply that his feelings are the result of what you did. I would prefer for you to say, ‘Are you unhappy because you were needing . . . ?’ and not ‘Are you unhappy with me?’ It would put your attention on what’s going on within him and decrease the likelihood of your taking the message personally.”

Woman:
“But what would I say? ‘Are you unhappy because you . . . ?’ Because you what?”

MBR:
“Get your clue from the content of your husband’s message, ‘What good does talking to you do? You never listen.’ What is he needing that he’s not getting when he says that?”

Woman: (trying to empathize with the needs being expressed through her husband’s message)
“Are you feeling unhappy because you feel like I don’t understand you?”

MBR:
“Notice that you are focusing on what he’s thinking and not what he’s needing. I think you’ll find people to be less threatening if you hear what they’re needing rather than what they’re thinking about you. Instead of hearing that he’s unhappy because he thinks you don’t listen, focus on what he’s needing by saying, ‘Are you unhappy because you are needing . . . ’”

Listen to what people are needing rather than what they are thinking about us.

Woman
:
(trying again)
“Are you feeling unhappy because you are needing to be heard?”

MBR:
“That’s what I had in mind. Does it make a difference for you to hear him this way?”

Woman:
“Definitely—a big difference. I see what’s going on for him without hearing that I had done anything wrong.”

After we focus our attention and hear what others are observing, feeling, and needing and what they are requesting to enrich their lives, we may wish to reflect back by paraphrasing what we have understood. In our previous discussion on requests (
Chapter 6
), we discussed how to ask for a reflection; now we will look at how to offer it to others.

If we have accurately received the other party’s message, our paraphrasing will confirm this for them. If, on the other hand, our paraphrase is incorrect, the speaker has an opportunity to correct us. Another advantage of our choosing to reflect a message back to the other party is that it offers them time to reflect on what they’ve said and an opportunity to delve deeper into themselves.

NVC suggests that our paraphrasing take the form of questions that reveal our understanding while eliciting any necessary corrections from the speaker. Questions may focus on:

A) what others are observing: “Are you reacting to how many evenings I was gone last week?”

B) how others are feeling and the needs generating their feelings: “Are you feeling hurt because you would have liked more appreciation of your efforts than you received?”

C) what others are requesting: “Are you wanting me to tell you my reasons for saying what I did?”

These questions require us to sense what’s going on within other people, while inviting their corrections should we have sensed incorrectly. Notice the difference between these questions and the ones below:

a) “What did I do that you are referring to?”

b) “How are you feeling?” “Why are you feeling that way?”

c) “What are you wanting me to do about it?”

This second set of questions asks for information without first sensing the speaker’s reality. Though they may appear to be the most direct way to connect with what’s going on within the other person, I’ve found that questions like these are not the safest route to obtain the information we seek. Many such questions may give speakers the impression that we’re a schoolteacher examining them or a psychotherapist working on a case. If we do decide to ask for information in this way, however, I’ve found that people feel safer if we first reveal the feelings and needs within ourselves that are generating the question. Thus, instead of asking someone “What did I do?” we might say, “I’m frustrated because I’d like to be clearer about what you are referring to. Would you be willing to tell me what I’ve done that leads you to see me in this way?” While this step may not be necessary—or even helpful—in situations where our feelings and needs are clearly conveyed by the context or tone of voice, I would recommend it particularly during moments when the questions we ask are accompanied by strong emotions.

When asking for information, first express our own feelings and needs.

How do we determine if an occasion calls for us to reflect people’s messages back to them? Certainly if we are unsure that we have accurately understood the message, we might use paraphrasing to elicit a correction to our guess. But even if we are confident that we’ve understood them, we may sense the other party wanting confirmation that their message has been accurately received. They may even express this desire overtly by asking, “Is that clear?” or “Do you understand what I mean?” At such moments, hearing a clear paraphrase will often be more reassuring to the speaker than hearing simply, “Yes, I understand.”

For example, shortly after participating in an NVC training, a woman volunteer at a hospital was requested by some nurses to talk to an elderly patient: “We’ve told this woman she isn’t that sick and that she’d get better if she took her medicine, but all she does is sit in her room all day long repeating, ‘I want to die. I want to die.’” The volunteer approached the elderly woman, and as the nurses had predicted, found her sitting alone, whispering over and over, “I want to die.”

“So you would like to die,” the volunteer empathized. Surprised, the woman broke off her chant and appeared relieved. She began to talk about how no one understood how terrible she was feeling. The volunteer continued to reflect back the woman’s feelings; before long, such warmth had entered their dialogue that they were sitting arms locked around each other. Later that day, the nurses questioned the volunteer about her magic formula: the elderly woman had started to eat and take her medicine, and was apparently in better spirits. Although the nurses had tried to help her with advice and reassurance, it wasn’t until her interaction with the volunteer that this woman received what she was truly needing: connection with another human being who could hear her profound despair.

There are no infallible guidelines regarding when to paraphrase, but as a rule of thumb, it is safe to assume that speakers expressing intensely emotional messages would appreciate our reflecting these back to them. When we ourselves are talking, we can make it easier for the listener if we clearly signify when we want or don't want our words to be reflected back to us.

Reflect back messages that are emotionally charged.

There are occasions when we may choose not to verbally reflect someone’s statements out of respect for certain cultural norms. For example, a Chinese man once attended a workshop to learn how to hear the feelings and needs behind his father’s remarks. Because he could not bear the criticism and attack he continually heard in his father’s words, this man dreaded visiting his father and avoided him for months at a time. He came to me ten years later and reported that his ability to hear feelings and needs had radically transformed his relationship with his father to the point where they now enjoy a close and loving connection. Although he listens for his father’s feelings and needs, however, he does not paraphrase what he hears. “I never say it out loud.” he explained, “In our culture, to direct-talk to a person about their feelings is something they’re not used to. But thanks to the fact that I no longer hear what he says as an attack, but as his own feelings and needs, our relationship has become enormously wonderful.”

Paraphrase only when it contributes to greater compassion and understanding.

“So you’re never going to talk directly to him about feelings, but it helps to be able to hear them?” I asked.

“No, now I think I’m probably ready,” he answered. “Now that we have such a solid relationship, if I were to say to him, ‘Dad, I’d like to be able to talk directly to you about what we are feeling,’ I think he just might be ready to do it.”

When we paraphrase, the tone of voice we use is highly important. When they hear themselves reflected back, people are likely to be sensitive to the slightest hint of criticism or sarcasm. They are likewise negatively affected by a declarative tone that implies that we are telling them what is going on inside of them. If we are consciously listening for other people’s feelings and needs, however, our tone communicates that we’re asking whether we have understood—not claiming that we have understood.

We also need to be prepared for the possibility that the intention behind our paraphrasing will be misinterpreted. “Don’t pull any of that psychology crap on me!” we may be told. Should this occur, we continue our effort to sense the speaker’s feelings and needs; perhaps we see in this case that the speaker doesn’t trust our motives and needs more understanding of our intentions before he can appreciate hearing our paraphrases. As we’ve seen, all criticism, attack, insults, and judgments vanish when we focus attention on hearing the feelings and needs behind a message. The more we practice in this way, the more we realize a simple truth: behind all those messages we’ve allowed ourselves to be intimidated by are just individuals with unmet needs appealing to us to contribute to their well-being. When we receive messages with this awareness, we never feel dehumanized by what others have to say to us. We only feel dehumanized when we get trapped in derogatory images of other people or thoughts of wrongness about ourselves. As author and mythologist Joseph Campbell suggested, “‘What will they think of me?’ must be put aside for bliss.” We begin to feel this bliss when messages previously experienced as critical or blaming begin to be seen for the gifts they are: opportunities to give to people who are in pain.

Behind intimidating messages are simply people appealing to us to meet their needs.

If it happens regularly that people distrust our motives and sincerity when we paraphrase their words, we may need to examine our own intentions more closely. Perhaps we are paraphrasing and engaging the components of NVC in a mechanistic way without maintaining clear consciousness of purpose. We might ask ourselves, for example, whether we are more intent on applying the process “correctly” than on connecting with the human being in front of us. Or perhaps, even though we are using the form of NVC, our only interest is in changing the other person’s behavior.

A difficult message becomes an opportunity to enrich someone’s life.

Some people resist paraphrasing as a waste of time. One city administrator explained during a practice session, “I’m paid to give facts and solutions, not to sit around doing psychotherapy with everyone who comes into my office.” This same administrator, however, was being confronted by angry citizens who would come to him with their passionate concerns and leave dissatisfied for not having been heard. Some of these citizens later confided to me, “When you go to his office, he gives you a bunch of facts, but you never know whether he’s heard you first. When that happens, you start to distrust his facts.” Paraphrasing tends to save, rather than waste, time. Studies in labor-management negotiations demonstrate that the time required to reach conflict resolution is cut in half when each negotiator agrees, before responding, to accurately repeat what the previous speaker had said.

Paraphrasing saves time.

I recall a man who was initially skeptical about the value of paraphrasing. He and his wife were attending an NVC workshop during a time when their marriage was beset by serious problems. During the workshop, his wife said to him, “You never listen to me.”

“I do too,” he replied.

“No, you don’t,” she countered.

I addressed the husband:
“I’m afraid you just proved her point. You didn’t respond in a way that lets her know that you were listening to her.”

He was puzzled by the point I was making, so I asked for permission to play his role—which he gladly gave since he wasn’t having too much success with it. His wife and I then had the following exchange:

Wife:
“You never listen to me.”

MBR in role of husband:
“It sounds like you’re terribly frustrated-because you would like to feel more connection when we speak.”

The wife was moved to tears when she finally received this confirmation that she had been understood. I turned to the husband and explained, “I believe this is what she is telling you she needs—a reflection of her feelings and needs as a confirmation that she’d been heard.” The husband seemed dumfounded. “Is that all she wanted?” he asked, incredulous that such a simple act could have had such a strong impact on his wife.

A short time later, he enjoyed the satisfaction firsthand when his wife reflected back to him a statement that he had made with great emotional intensity. Savoring her paraphrase, he looked at me and declared, “It’s valid.” It is a poignant experience to receive concrete evidence that someone is empathically connected to us.