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We can help others trust that we are requesting, not demanding, by indicating that we would only want the person to comply if he or she can do so willingly. Thus we might ask, “Would you be willing to set the table?” rather than “I would like you to set the table.” However, the most powerful way to communicate that we are making a genuine request is to empathize with people when they don’t respond to the request. We demonstrate that we are making a request rather than a demand by how we respond when others don’t comply. If we are prepared to show an empathic understanding of what prevents someone from doing as we asked, then by my definition, we have made a request, not a demand. Choosing to request rather than demand does not mean we give up when someone says “no” to our request. It does mean that we don’t engage in persuasion until we have empathized with what’s preventing the other person from saying “yes.”
In relating to others, empathy occurs only when we have successfully shed all preconceived ideas and judgments about them. The Austrian-born Israeli philosopher Martin Buber describes this quality of presence that life demands of us: “In spite of all similarities, every living situation has, like a newborn child, a new face, that has never been before and will never come again. It demands of you a reaction that cannot be prepared beforehand. It demands nothing of what is past. It demands presence, responsibility; it demands you.”
The presence that empathy requires is not easy to maintain. “The capacity to give one’s attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle,” asserts French writer Simone Weil. “Nearly all those who think they have the capacity do not possess it.” Instead of empathy, we tend instead to have a strong urge to give advice or reassurance and to explain our own position or feeling. Empathy, on the other hand, requires focusing full attention on the other person’s message. We give to others the time and space they need to express themselves fully and to feel understood. There is a Buddhist saying that aptly describes this ability: “Don’t just do something, stand there.
This second set of questions asks for information without first sensing the speaker’s reality. Though they may appear to be the most direct way to connect with what’s going on within the other person, I’ve found that questions like these are not the safest route to obtain the information we seek. Many such questions may give speakers the impression that we’re a schoolteacher examining them or a psychotherapist working on a case. If we do decide to ask for information in this way, however, I’ve found that people feel safer if we first reveal the feelings and needs within ourselves that are generating the question. Thus, instead of asking someone “What did I do?” we might say, “I’m frustrated because I’d like to be clearer about what you are referring to. Would you be willing to tell me what I’ve done that leads you to see me in this way?” While this step may not be necessary—or even helpful—in situations where our feelings and needs are clearly conveyed by the context or tone of voice, I would recommend it particularly during moments when the questions we ask are accompanied by strong emotions.
In our language there is a word with enormous power to create shame and guilt. This violent word, which we commonly use to evaluate ourselves, is so deeply ingrained in our consciousness that many of us would have trouble imagining how to live without it. It is the word “should,” as in “I should have known better” or “I shouldn’t have done that.” Most of the time when we use this word with ourselves, we resist learning because “should” implies that there is no choice. Human beings, when hearing any kind of demand, tend to resist because it threatens our autonomy—our strong need for choice. We have this reaction to tyranny even when it’s internal tyranny in the form of a “should.”
A similar expression of internal demand occurs in the following self-evaluation: “What I’m doing is just terrible. I really must do something about it!” Think for a moment of all the people you’ve heard say, “I really should give up smoking.” or “I really have to do something about exercising more.” They keep saying what they “must” do and they keep resisting doing it because human beings were not meant to be slaves. We were not meant to succumb to the dictates of “should” and “have to,” whether they come from outside or inside of ourselves. And if we do yield and submit to these demands, our actions arise from an energy that is devoid of life-giving joy.
Mourning in NVC is the process of fully connecting with the unmet needs and feelings that are generated when we have been less than perfect. It is an experience of regret, but regret that helps us learn from what we have done without blaming or hating ourselves. We see how our behavior ran counter to our own needs and values, and we open ourselves to feelings that arise out of that awareness. When our consciousness is focused on what we need, we are naturally stimulated towards the creative possibilities of how to get that need met. In contrast, the moralistic judgments we use when blaming ourselves tend to obscure such possibilities and to perpetuate a state of self-punishment.
An important aspect of self-compassion is to be able to empathically hold both parts of ourselves—the self that regrets a past action and the self that took the action in the first place. The process of mourning and self-forgiveness frees us in the direction of learning and growing. In connecting moment by moment to our needs, we increase our creative capacity to act in harmony with them.
For example, if someone arrives late for an appointment and we need reassurance that she cares about us, we may feel hurt. If, instead, our need is to spend time purposefully and constructively, we may feel frustrated. If, on the other hand, our need is for thirty minutes of quiet solitude, we may be grateful for her tardiness and feel pleased. Thus, it is not the behavior of the other person, but our own need that causes our feeling. When we are connected to our need, whether it is for reassurance, purposefulness, or solitude, we are in touch with our life energy. We may have strong feelings, but we are never angry. Anger is a result of life-alienating thinking that is disconnected from needs. It indicates that we have moved up to our head to analyze and judge somebody, rather than focus on which of our needs are not getting met.
In addition to the third option of focusing on our own needs and feelings, the choice is ours at any moment to shine the light of consciousness on the other person’s feelings and needs. When we choose this fourth option, we also never feel anger. We are not repressing the anger; we see how anger is simply absent in each moment that we are fully present with the other person’s feelings and needs.
Three hours later John approached me and said, “Marshall, I wish you had taught me two years ago what you taught me this morning. I wouldn’t have had to kill my best friend.”
All violence is the result of people tricking themselves, as did this young prisoner, into believing that their pain derives from other people and that consequently those people deserve to be punished.
Two questions help us see why we are unlikely to get what we want by using punishment to change people’s behavior. The first question is: What do I want this person to do that’s different from what he or she is currently doing? If we ask only this first question, punishment may seem effective because the threat or exercise of punitive force may well influence the person’s behavior. However, with the second question, it becomes evident that punishment isn’t likely to work: What do I want this person’s reasons to be for doing what I’m asking?
We seldom address the latter question, but when we do, we soon realize that punishment and reward interfere with people’s ability to do things motivated by the reasons we’d like them to have. I believe it is critical to be aware of the importance of people’s reasons for behaving as we request. For example, blaming or punishing would obviously not be effective strategies if we want children to clean their rooms out of either a desire for order or a desire to contribute to the parents’ enjoyment of order. Often children clean their rooms motivated by obedience to authority (“Because my Mom said so”), avoidance of punishment, or fear of upsetting or being rejected by parents. NVC, however, fosters a level of moral development based on autonomy and interdependence, whereby we acknowledge responsibility for our own actions and are aware that our own well-being and that of others are one and the same.
“You did a good job on that report.”
“You are a very sensitive person.”
“It was kind of you to offer me a ride home last evening.”
Such statements are typically uttered as expressions of appreciation in life-alienating communication. Perhaps you are surprised that I regard praise and compliments to be lifealienating. Notice, however, that appreciation expressed in this form reveals little of what’s going on in the speaker and establishes the speaker as someone who sits in judgment. I define judgments—both positive and negative—as life-alienating communication.