An island in a stormy sea
Psychologist Marshall Rosenberg believed nonviolent communication always comes from a place of compassion, and our first task as communicators is to stay within that compassionate space.
Life-alienating communication, in contrast, takes us away from compassion. For Rosenberg, life-alienating communication always objectifies ourselves or others.
We label and condemn each other or ourselves, compare ourselves to impossible standards that reinforce our envy and resentment, deny responsibility for the hurt we cause, or demand or threaten people to force them to meet our needs.
And sometimes we do all this at once.
Life-alienating communication is a temptation for everyone, and it’s all the more difficult to avoid in a contemporary society defined by competition, aggression, inequality, and shame.
Nonviolent communication, Rosenberg believed, is a conscious practice that helps us come home to ourselves. It follows four steps that are easy to say but extremely difficult to do:
Observation: Observing, without judgment, what is going on inside and outside of us
Feeling: Articulating the feelings that arise from those observations
Need: Taking responsibility for the needs giving rise to those feelings
Request: Inviting others to take a specific, concrete action based on what we’re feeling and needing
Rosenberg’s model might unfold like this:
“I noticed you talked over me a few times during our last meeting. I’m feeling disappointed and a little frustrated about it because it was my presentation, and I need space to talk and contribute when we’re together. Can we take a minute to talk about how we can share the space more equally?”
What thoughts, feelings, or sensations arise when you hear that example?
To be sure, getting to a place where you can do this in the moment, especially when we're tired, hurt, or angry, takes practice and patience.
Still, there’s something gentle and empowering about being able to describe one’s feelings and needs, and it invites others to do the same. In the process, you and your conversation partners can become an island of intentional peacemaking in a stormy sea.
