Non violent communication

“All violence is the result of people tricking themselves into believing that their pain derives from other people and that consequently those people deserve to be punished” Marshall B. Rosenberg

Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is a process of communication created by psychologist Marshall Rosenberg. It is sometimes referred to as “compassionate communication.” Nonviolent communication is communication that maximizes liberty, enhances understanding of the relationship between feelings and needs, promotes equality, and creates compassion. NVC is a compilation of ideas about compassionate human behaviour, presented in order to fit with modern times. NVC can be used in every environment, from school to interpersonal relationships.

Violent communication is communication that limits liberty, denies recognition of needs, diminishes the worth of a person, and/or blocks compassionate. Violent communication is often the result of using manipulative or coercive language that induces fear, guilt, shame, praise, blame, duty, obligation, punishment, and/or reward. Through the practice of NVC, we can learn to clarify what we are observing, what emotions we are feeling, what values we want to live by, and what we want to ask of others and ourselves. We will no longer need to use the language of blame, judgment or domination. We can experience the deep pleasure of contributing to each other’s’ wellbeing.

Although NVC and Rosenberg have been criticized to be overly idealistic about how such communication and connection strategies can solve more systematic, structural problems, his work achieved resounding success and his books sold millions of copies. Nonviolent communication is based on the historical principles of nonviolence, which are:

Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people. It is active nonviolent resistance to evil.
Nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding. The result of nonviolence is redemption and reconciliation.
Nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice, not people. Nonviolence recognizes that evildoers are also victims.
Nonviolence holds that suffering can educate and transform. Nonviolence willingly accepts the consequences to its acts.
Nonviolence chooses love instead of hate. Nonviolence resists violence to the spirit as well as the body. Nonviolence love is active, not passive. Nonviolence love does not sink to the level of the hater. Love restores community and resists injustice. Nonviolence recognizes the fact that all life is interrelated.
Nonviolence believes that the universe is on the side of justice. The nonviolent resister has deep faith that justice will eventually win.

Nonviolent Communication is the integration of four things:

Consciousness: a set of principles that support living a life of compassion, collaboration, courage, and authenticity.
Language: understanding how words contribute to connection or distance.
Communication: knowing how to ask for what you want, how to hear others even in disagreement, and how to move forward towards solutions that work for all.
Means of influence: sharing “power with others” rather than using “power over others”.

According to Rosenberg, there are four steps to practice nonviolent Communication:

Observations: answering the questions “What happened? What did someone specifically do or say?”
Feelings: answering the questions “What do we feel? What is the other person feeling?”
Needs: answering the questions “Which needs (ours or someone else’s) are met or not met? What is important? What do I value?”
Requests: answering the questions “Is there anything we would like to ask someone now? Maybe we want to ask yourself?”

Let us illustrate it with an example from Rosenberg’s foundational book, “Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life”. Rosenberg outlines a scenario of a mother who was frustrated with her son for leaving socks lying around. The mother, instead of admonishing her son in a judgmental way, was able to use all four basic NVC components of observation, feelings, needs, and requests in two sentences. Her statements: “[Observations] Felix, when I see two balls of soiled socks under the coffee table and another three next to the TV, [Feelings] I feel irritated because [Needs] I am needing more order in the rooms that we share in common. [Request] Would you be willing to put your socks in your room or in the washing machine?”

In a professional context, misunderstanding and miscommunication can lead to conflict. Often, the conflict is expressed as a difference of opinion. NVC can be a helpful, peace-making way to work through that difference and get along with other colleagues. Remaining in a professional environment, work e-mails can often be a source of miscommunication and frustration. There are some strategies outlined by Mair Alight, a nonviolent communication specialist to develop email empathy. These strategies include delaying our reply in order to reflect in an emphatic way, writing the response in a non-email format and reflecting on the physical and mental triggers we feel that are related to our feelings and needs. Once we have fully expressed our feelings, we can examine what needs and values have been activated. If we are not feeling ready to reply, we may want to ask someone for support and help us work toward greater self-empathy.

In general, a good starting point to practice nonviolent communication could be making objective observations instead of judgments. Of course, doing it about people you disagree with, is difficult, but it will help improve the way we interact with people. In addition, thinking about our feeling is important. We can start by reflecting on past disagreements and arguments and try to identify the feeling we had during it. Expressing our emotion and reflecting about them is a good practice to start nonviolent communication.

Giudi Aligi

References:

What Is Violent Communication?

https://www.heartland.edu/documents/idc/What%20is%20violent%20comm%20and%20nvc%20(Winters).pdf

The Center for Nonviolent Communication

https://www.cnvc.org/learn-nvc/what-is-nvc

Six principles of Nonviolence, The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change

https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/sites/mlk/files/lesson-activities/six_principles_of_nonviolence.pdf

Puddle Dancer Press, Nonviolent Communication

https://www.nonviolentcommunication.com/

Positive Psychology, Your Complete Nonviolent Communication Guide, Joshua Schultz (2020)

https://positivepsychology.com/non-violent-communication/