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Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life
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Chapters 10-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary: “Expressing Anger Fully”
Hurting, blaming, or even killing people is an expression of anger, however it is a superficial expression of anger. To express anger more completely, we can engage in NVC, which is commonly misunderstood as entailing quashing or ignoring anger.
Distinguishing Stimulus From Cause
We must separate our anger from the other person. Others’ actions are only a stimulus, rather than a cause, of our anger. We often linguistically combine stimulus and cause, which creates guilt in others, such as “you make me angry,” rather than, “when you do x, I feel angry, because I have a belief that…” Framed this way, while the person’s action is a stimulus for our anger, it is only in conjunction with our own beliefs that we are angry.
We cause our own anger by believing that another person is wrong and deserves punishment. We should instead connect to which of our needs is being affected by another’s behavior, and then focus our attention on their own needs and feelings in the situations. If we are fully present with both our own needs and the needs of others, we do not feel anger.
All Anger Has a Life-Serving Core
All anger is life-alienating and reflects a need that is not being served. Anger should be conceived of as an alarm, which wakes our attention up to a way our needs are not being served. Anger takes our energy toward punishing others, rather than toward fully realizing our needs. We can work toward eliminating the unproductive feeling of anger by changing the phrasing, “I am angry because they …,” to “I am angry because I am needing …” (144).
When Rosenberg was hit in the face on two consecutive days, he felt anger when he thought of the child as a brat, and he felt no anger when he felt compassion and pity for the child. Rosenberg thus observes that this example shows that actions provoke anger only when we hold certain beliefs about those actions.
Stimulus Versus Cause: Practical Implications
Rosenberg discusses a time when he worked with a young prisoner who had internalized the idea that their pain came from others. This led them toward murder. Working with the inmate, Rosenberg helped them to focus on their own needs and focus on the feelings caused by their needs being met or not met, rather than making judgments and analyses about the actions of others.
Citing another example, Rosenberg didn’t call his son a liar when the son stole money from his sister and then denied doing so; instead, he tried to empathetically understand his child’s fear of being punished and judged.
If people hear (or intuit) blame and judgment being leveled at them, they are unlikely to feel motivated to meet our needs in the present or in the future.
Four Steps to Expressing Anger
When we are feeling angry, we should breathe and reflect on the thoughts that are making us angry. Then we should connect with our needs and express these needs as well as the feelings associated with them.
Offering Empathy First
The more we empathize with the person who has made us angry, the more likely it is that our needs will be heard with grace.
When a cab driver made an antisemitic remark in front of Rosenberg, he took time to feel his anger and then to empathize with the man before asking the man if he was feeling frustrated—this question sought to elicit the source of the man’s comment. Rosenberg heard that the man’s antisemitism was connected to his need to protect himself financially. Next Rosenberg expressed the pain the man’s initial comments had caused him, but he did so while assuring the man that he was not blaming or recriminating him, as people do not hear our pain if they’re being blamed. He asked the cab driver to reflect back his comments. As a result, the two men were able to have a more effective, compassionate conversation.
Taking Our Time
These conversations may take longer than traditional conversations, Rosenberg notes. Furthermore, it might take us time to learn how to communicate in this manner. A good starting point is translating every judgment of another person into an unmet need of our own.
Summary
Blame or violence are unfulfilling, superficial expressions of anger. To fully experience anger, we need to divorce the person who allegedly caused the anger from our experience of that anger. Instead, we should connect to our own unmet needs and express ourselves (internally or externally) through this framework.
Chapter 11 Summary: “The Protective Use of Force”
When the Use of Force Is Unavoidable
Force, says Rosenberg, is sometimes necessary to protect ourselves if NVC cannot be engaged in.
The Thinking Behind the Use of Force
Forcefully grabbing a child if they are about to run onto the road is acceptable and appropriate for ensuring the child’s safety. On the other hand, punitive verbal or physical punishment is likely to generate hostility and should be avoided.
Types of Punitive Force
Fear of parental punishments, like spanking, obscures children’s awareness of their parents’ compassionate motivations for disciplining them. Rosenberg therefore advises against it.
The Costs of Punishment
Doing a thing merely to avoid punishment distracts us from the value of the action; it degrades our intrinsic motivation. This causes a focus on avoiding punishment, rather than a focus on our own values.
Two Questions That Reveal the Limitations of Punishment
Punishment seems like an effective way to get people to act as we need them to, however if we are concerned with their reasons for acting as they do, punishment should be avoided, as should rewards to incentivize behavior.
The Protective Use of Force in Schools
Rosenberg discusses an example where he consulted at a school that used NVC to connect with students who had been expelled from traditional classrooms. It was difficult for students still learning NVC to distinguish NVC from permissiveness, which led to immense behavioral disruption. The disruptiveness of students came into conflict with the learning of others. One student, Joe (whose surname was not specified) suggested to Rosenberg that they should use sticks to beat the children, believing, “that’s the only way students gonna stop playing the fool” (167). Joe’s answer illustrates the way that violent or punitive solutions can feel inevitable in extremely charged situations. Rosenberg expressed that he didn’t agree with this sort of solution, given his commitments to NVC. Will, another student involved in the conversation, eventually generated another idea: a “do-nothing room,” where students could go if they didn’t feel like learning, so as to not disrupt the learning of others (168). The set-up was a success.
Summary
Blame and punishment damage intrinsic motivation, as well as damaging relationships. The protective use of force should only be used in cases where there is a risk of injury or death.
Chapter 12 Summary: “Liberating Ourselves and Counseling Others”
Freeing Ourselves From Old Programming
Destructive cultural learning is deeply ingrained and can be hard to unlearn. Developing literacy around our own needs and wants is challenging, as is learning to separate observation from evaluation and unlearning judgmental, violent thoughts that generate anger.
Resolving Internal Conflicts
Rosenberg suggests that depression is a state of alienation from our own needs. Translating inner messaging into NVC can provide relief from the constant self-recrimination that characterizes many people’s inner thoughts. Rosenberg cites the example of a mother, who recriminates herself for not doing more outside of her parental commitments, saying “I should do something with my life. I’m wasting my education and talents” (173). Rosenberg invites her to reformulate this thought according to the principles of NVC, leading her to the following statement:
[W]hen I spend as much time at home with the children as I do without practicing my profession, I feel depressed and discouraged because I am needing the fulfillment I once had in my profession. Therefore, I now would like to find part-time work in my profession (173).
Rosenberg shows that, through NVC, she restructured this thought into an analysis of which of her needs were not being met, allowing her to address herself more gently and compassionately, as well as offering a way forward from her despondency.
Caring for Our Inner Environment
We can access a more peaceful state of mind when we are concerned with our needs, rather than with what is wrong with ourselves or others. Our focus should shift to what we want to do, rather than what went wrong. We can defuse our own stress by choosing to empathize with others.
Replacing Diagnosis With NVC
Philosopher Martin Buber proposes that the authenticity required for growth cannot be created in a therapist-patient relationship, as there is a power dynamic rooted in the fact that the practitioner is providing a paid service and is also professionally mandated to withhold their own thoughts and feelings. This helped to shape Rosenberg’s practice of bringing more of his authentic self into his psychotherapy practice; he reveals his own feelings and needs and paraphrases and reflects back the patients’ needs according to NVC. This approach has been very successful. Rosenberg identifies an overreliance on diagnosis in modern psychiatric medicine; he prefers to empathetically connect with patients to discover what is alive in them both and, based on that connection, to find ideas about what the patient is needing.
Summary
Negative internal messages can be translated into an expression of feelings and needs using NVC; this creates a more peaceful state of mind. Professional counselors can use NVC to engender authentic relationships.
Chapters 10-12 Analysis
Rosenberg continues to explore the theme Compassion as Natural, Conflict as Unnatural through his exploration of anger. Rosenberg proposes that anger is unnecessary if we become aware of our unmet needs and feelings. When we respond with anger or violence, whether physical or verbal, we are operating out of the misguided assumption that “other people cause our pain and therefore deserve punishment” (147). Through this framework, Rosenberg continues to stress that conflict, which stems from anger, is inherently unnatural, as well as unnecessary. He characterizes compassion as the more appropriate way to respond, and he suggests that we can access this more mature and natural response through reconnecting with our needs as well as empathizing with the individual(s) whose behavior is affecting us. Rosenberg therefore emphasizes in this section that anger, like conflict, is unnatural; indeed, this is because conflict stems from anger. With this model, Rosenberg stresses The Importance of Empathy in Order to Communicate Effectively. Resolution will come about when individuals’ needs and feelings can be expressed; this can only happen when accompanied by empathetic listening and reflecting, as “it will often be difficult for others to receive our feelings and needs in such situations, we would need first to empathize with them if we want them to hear us” (149). Rosenberg thus suggests that a person in tune with their natural human capacity for compassion will not feel anger—and will also avoid conflict—because they will hear their own needs and the needs of others with empathy.
Rosenberg demonstrates this practice with the cab driver, whose offensive, antisemitic remarks initially upset Rosenberg. In order to convey the pain that the cab driver’s remarks engendered in him, Rosenberg describes how it is first essential to “see the beauty in him [the cab driver] and for him to fully apprehend what I had experienced when he made his remark” (150). Through empathy, Rosenberg is able to hear that the man feels scared and wants to protect himself. This allows Rosenberg to experience a moment of connection with the cab driver in spite of his racist remark:
When I hear that he’s scared and wants to protect himself, I recognize how I also have a need to protect myself and I too know what it’s like to be scared. When my consciousness is focused on another human being’s feelings and needs, I see the universality of our experiences (151).
Once the man has expressed his fears, he is better able to hear Rosenberg’s expression of his feelings of frustration and sadness that the man’s comments initially provoked in him. Rosenberg proposes that this must be done without placing blame on the other person, as “people do not hear our pain when they believe they are at fault” (152). One implication of Rosenberg’s claims is that no matter what someone does or says, we can always empathize with them. Notably, in this example, Rosenberg does not empathize with the cab member in spite of his racist remark but rather in and through his capacity to connect with the cab driver and the feelings and needs underlying his racist comment.
In these chapters, Rosenberg also explores The Importance of Honest and Compassionate Introspection and Self-Expression through the lens of applying NVC toward ourselves. Our language is developed from a history of hierarchical societies; this “domination society”-oriented language predisposes us to structure our thoughts around blaming and shaming, including toward ourselves (171). However, as Rosenberg suggests in his exploration of punishment, punitive punishment through shame and humiliation is at odds with fostering genuine self-love and with interpreting mistakes through a framework of life-enhancing growth. In terms of our preoccupation with self-recrimination, Rosenberg suggests that “drawing this conditioning into the light of consciousness is a key step in breaking its hold on us” (172). Rosenberg thus argues that there are no behaviors that warrant blame or shame; instead, anything a person does can and should be understood through a lens of empathy and self-love.
Rosenberg also makes the case that depression is rooted in a breakdown of self-love and empathy for oneself and, therefore, can be remedied through the tools of NVC. Rosenberg demonstrates that hearing our feelings and needs can free us from depression through the case story of the mother, who, while she was caring for her children full-time, harshly recriminated herself. This example illustrates Rosenberg’s combined focus on the importance of empathy and compassionate introspection: “NVC helps us create a more peaceful state of mind by encouraging us to focus on what we are truly wanting rather than on what is wrong with others or ourselves” (173). Rosenberg claims, then, that depression is ultimately rooted in self-recrimination and a failure of self-love. As such, depression can be overcome with NVC, because NVC allows us to redirect our self-recrimination and cultivate self-love.
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