Nonviolence and me

I recently committed to the practice of nonviolent communication.

For those who don’t know, the mini-cliffs-notes-version of the process of non-violent communication is: observe a situation in a non-judgmental way, express feelings in response to the situation, articulate needs, and then make a request to fulfill the needs. (You can practice this with regards to your own feelings, or by listening empathically to the feelings of others.)

Sounds simple, right? I admit when I first started the book my eyes were rolling out of their sockets.* Really? Remembering to listen to the other person?  “I feel” statements? This sounds like Psychobabble 101. Yawn.

I mean, I like to consider myself pretty sensitive and insightful, and my heart is in the right place most of the time, so I thought this would be a breeze.

That is, until I actually tried to put it into practice.

Formulas are nice and all, and very handy in book-learnin’. But it’s quite another thing when  your beloved is standing in the kitchen frustrated because you’re not listening to what he’s saying about sorting the recycling, and all you want to do is KEEP REPEATING YOURSELF since obviously he’s JUST NOT GETTING IT.

Once I saw how often I fall short of compassionate communication, my commitment to NVC has caused me to slow down a bit, to be more deliberate in my interaction with others. And I’m learning so much in this slow-motion phase.

Recently, I found myself stuck over what to say to someone who was hurting. It was not a little distressing to realize how many times I go to start a sentence with Oh you must feel so… or Well, when I… Then a super-insightful friend-in-the-computer reminded me that at the core of nonviolent communication is non-violence with ourselves. (Confession: that’s Chapter 9 so maybe I hadn’t gotten that far yet!)

So I asked myself, what is it that I need right now?

It turned out that the subject matter I wanted to talk to my friend about happened to be an emotional landmine for me. And because I  practiced non-violent communication on myself, I was able to effect a very immediate, very powerful healing.

This would not have happened if I hadn’t been in slow-down mode. I might have breezed through my interaction with my friend without much thought, completely covering up what had been triggered for me. Or even worse, I may have tried to ignore my friend and stuff this all back inside from whence it came.

Either way, layers and layers of gunk would be built up surrounding the original pain. And as challenging as it has been to practice NVC, that alternative sounds just so tiring.

(* PSA: Save your eyes about half the workout by ignoring the egregiously cheesy poetry.)

If you enjoyed reading this, you might want to:
 Subscribe to the Soul Sleuthing RSS feed  or