Chapter 4 of the third edition of Non-violent Communication: A Language of Life by the late Marshall Rosenberg, has to do with understanding feelings. In reading this portion, we realize just how vague feelings are in our language and culture. We are taught to be in our head, not in our heart. We are taught to think about situations and living beings, to evaluate them, to form an opinion about them. Seldom do we connect with our own feelings or the feelings of others unless we have had some formal training on the importance of listening to and feeling our feelings. Most of us don't have a language of feeling, instead we have a language of thinking.
Rosenberg seeks to change this paradigm completely with his teachings of NVC (non-violent communication). The second step in NVC is expressing our feelings. (The first step is observing without evaluating) It is important to be vulnerable and to let the other know just how we feel in response to a certain circumstance. This is something we are not used to doing. If we feel fearful about something, we are taught not to express that feeling for fear of appearing weak. We are taught to fear being vulnerable and to pretend to be strong and callous even if we don't feel that way inside.
However, being vulnerable is the only way we can be real. Only if we are real can we have heart-felt experiences with others that satisfy our need for connection. Otherwise, we have shallow encounters void of real feelings and emotional intimacy. Since we can live our entire lives behind a mask of thoughts, far away from our essential feelings, we might not at first understand the depth of importance of NVC. We may not see it as the gift to humankind that it is. It enables people to communicate with a language of feelings in order to cultivate compassion and deep understanding.
Without a language of feelings, we remain in a world that is hostile, aggressive and cold. The more we are in touch with how we feel, the more we care about others' feelings. The more we care about others, the more we change to become a more compassionate group of people. The more compassionate people there are in the world, the less violence we have. Eventually, people will be able to fully love one another, animals and plants and treat them all with tender respect. NVC is a path to get to this peace. It becomes a spiritual practice, in a way, because it leads to a world of Love and Compassion.
It is important not to confuse opinions, evaluations, and other thoughts for feelings. For example, one might say that they feel ignored. This is not a feeling. This is an interpretation of the actions of others. One might feel hurt when they thought they were being ignored because they wanted to be involved. In another example, someone said they feel unimportant to co-workers. The word "unimportant" describes how they think others are evaluating them. Actually, they might be feeling sad or discouraged.
On pages 44 - 45 of this third edition of the book, there are lists of words that convey how we are feeling when we are getting our needs met and how we are feeling when we are not. These lists might help us when we feel that we don't have an internal language of feelings. Most of us don't think about feelings and needs and we are not able to observe without evaluating or make requests without sounding demanding. NVC is clearly a new way to communicate with compassion that ushers in a new world of peace.
