Non-violent Communication Distilled #2

This is the distillation of the second chapter from Marshall Rosenberg’s Non-violent Communication: A Language of Life, 3^rd Edition.  He explains that imbedded in people’s language are words that purposely induce certain behavior that influence our lives, how we think about others and ourselves and how much power we have over our own decisions and actions.  History and how people are/were governed has shaped the way we speak and, ultimately, has made us small, removing our sense of personal responsibility for how we live our lives. 

When we use phrases such as “have to” in our sentences about things we must do in our lives, it removes our choice of how we could create our lives if we had more freedom.  We say “there are things you have to do, even if you do not want to.” This implies that we have no choice and no responsibility to be who we really are.  Society controls people by such phrases.  We also learn to use language that shows comparison.  We compare people to other people and use blame and shame in order to evoke certain responses from people.  All of this falls under violent communication.  We pit people against other people to coerce them to do certain things or behave in certain ways. This instills guilt. 

Compassionate communication uses none of these ways to convey information.  It aims to create a sense of responsibility in the speaker so that he/she feels empowered about their choices and who they are.  Rosenberg shows us that speaking from our feelings and needs bypasses any tendency to overpower another using shame, blame, control, comparison, etc.  He calls debilitating language that cuts people and ourselves down, life-alienating communication. 

If you carefully listen to people’s language, you can hear moralistic judgments.  People are constantly judging themselves and others using words that blame, insult, put-down, label, criticize, compare and diagnose.  For example, if you listen to most people’s conversations, you can hear people say things like, “he’s lazy, they’re prejudiced, it’s inappropriate, they are liars and cheats, we are selfish, you are wrong.”

Someone I know believes they are being helpful by giving out information and often begins his sentences with, “Let me tell you where you are wrong…” It always feels alienating.  He does not know he pushes people away by the very words he chooses to use.  They are considered violent words.  They instill in the other person a sense of alienation as they push one away and label them with a judgment.  We often speak this way to ourselves, criticizing ourselves for what we should or should not have done.  We have learned to think and speak this way from other societal members.  This type of language perpetuates a style of living that is hierarchical.  It can be traced back to times in history where people were governed by strict government and were required to be subordinate in order to survive.  Families often use words to create subordination in order to control others.  They may use violent communication in order to chase a feeling of being powerful that they bargain for by using words to put others down. 

When we live in this kind of violent communication based world, we become deprived of knowing how we feel and what we need.   In short, we lose sight of who we are.  If we cannot compassionately express our feelings and needs and if our language does not support our inner exploration of those deeper parts of ourselves, then we live in a violent world.

Non-violent communication is a compassionate way of speaking based on communicating our feelings and needs.  It does not assert judgment or dominate another through words.  It does not alienate us from each other and ourselves.  For example, NVC teaches that instead of saying “violence is bad,” we can say instead, “I am fearful of the use of violence to resolve conflicts; I value the resolution of human conflicts through other means.”  Rosenberg believes that it is our natural state to be compassionate.  His teachings are his way to bring us back to this compassionate way of being.