In The Beginning

NVC, Nonviolent Communication -- it was a term that just kept popping up in my life.

First it was recommended as a possible reading selection for the Attachment Parenting bookclub that I facilitate. Then it was referred to by my ex-sister-in-law as something which had drastically altered the communication style of her brother in new and highly unexpected ways. Then it came up in a random Wikipedia search for some totally unrelated topic.

Okay, okay..... I got the point.

So I bought the book for myself as a Solstice gift and scheduled it as our January and February bookclub selection. I started reading over the holidays and couldn't put it down.

Oh my....

The first thing that struck me was that it was a communication method and style which absolutely *forced* the speaker to take responsibility for his or her feelings. There was none of "when you do this I feel this" dynamic that I've seen with so many other communication styles. Though that template has some use for superficial clarity in a situation and avoids "you" statements, it still puts the responsibility for the emotional states onto the other person. Intellectually I know that no one is ever totally responsible for or in control of the emotions of another, so that never sat comfortably with me.

In NVC the template is "I feel this because I need this." My feelings are all about ME -- not how I feel because of what you did, not how I feel in relation to you, not how I feel because of X, Y and Z external forces. My feelings are MINE -- I've known for some time that was true, no matter how much I would occasionally like it to be otherwise.

And there's another interesting question... why would I want someone else to be responsible for my feelings? What an unsafe and unpredictable world if how I feel is controlled by someone else.... though of course then I also don't have to take responsibility for "fixing things" either.

To me, that is at the heart of what I have gotten and continue to get as I study NVC -- we have much more control over our lives and happiness than we have been conditioned to believe. In fact, I've seen several cases now where the language I use (and therefore the beliefs I internalize) run totally counter to the values I actually have.

Which I suppose is why the subtitle of the book is "Create Your Life, Your Relationships, and Your World in Harmony with Your Values."

Which leads to another thing I think we are conditioned not to realize -- the only true freedom comes out of responsibility, meaning that until we take responsibility for the freedoms we truly have, we will never feel, or believe ourselves to be, free.

For instance, if I "feel rejected when you don't return my phone calls," then my uncomfortable, sad feelings are totally based upon the whims of someone else. Even saying "I feel rejected" creates a value judgment on the other person, i.e. that it was their intention to reject me. And, technically, "rejected" isn't even a feeling.... sad, hurt, disappointed.... those are feelings. "Rejected" is more of a verb that implies uncontrollable victimization and doesn't actually express a feeling anyway.

I have studied many different communication styles for a variety of reasons and tried many of them out with varying degrees of success. While many of them dealt with the idea of stating one's own feelings or using "I" statements instead of "you" statements, they still carried within them many loopholes for misapplication.

Another common misuse of the idea of feelings in communication is some equivalent of "I feel that you're completely wrong," or "I feel that you're an asshole." Again, though it is preferable for the sake of clarity to talk about how I feel rather than what I perceive you to be doing, these sorts of interactions don't really lead to smoother, calmer or safer interactions between people. These statements don't express a feeling anyway, but rather are thoughts and opinions.

Not so with NVC -- there is no wiggle room to avoid one's own responsibility for one's own feelings. Though it is sometimes very difficult (it certainly isn't what we're culturally used to) and very uncomfortable (it's hard to notice how often I used to ((and sometimes still want to)) blame others for my feelings) it is extremely efficacious and transformative to use.

And I'm only talking about one small part of one small part of it -- this is just the idea which initially drew me to NVC, i.e. that I could learn to express the reality of my feelings clearly to myself and to others. After all the years I spent learning to communicate, learning to identify and express my feelings, meditating and being aware of my internal states, it was (and is) still difficult for me to do.

It really is like learning another language, or learning a different syntax for the same language. Some parts are easy for me, and other parts are not. Regardless of level of perceived difficulty, everything I've learned or discovered in my journey with NVC has been transformative, freeing and wholly positive. Thus far, it is the most enlightening, pragmatic and practical method of communication to which I have ever been exposed -- it has implications for high-order transformation for the individual, family, community and the world. And though NVC isn't easy to implement, the method itself is simple.

Simple but not easy. That pretty much sums up NVC.