Natural

• Our consciousness is based on human needs that are in harmony with our heart.

Habitual

• How we have been conditioned to think/perceive through our justice and school systems, family, religion, etc. that is based on moralistic judgments. Habitual ways of thinking and perceiving the world are the water in which we swim – they are so familiar and pervasive that it takes conscious effort to live a different way.

The Dalai Lama once spoke on why he believes that compassion is our natural state of being. Looking at this from a purely physical standpoint, the Dalai Lama noted that we can see when a person is in a compassionate state because life is enriched. The immune system is fortified, stress hormones are lowered, and the heart rate is improved. In comparison, judgments and actions that disconnect one from compassion have the opposite effect; the constriction and stress created from such disconnection can literally kill the body.

The practice of NVC helps remove obstacles so that our natural desire to give and receive compassionately can be revealed. Pema Chödrön writes about how we cement over our basic goodness with self-denigration, judgments, comparisons, etc. But when we start to do things like practice the five precepts of Buddhism, translate judgments into feelings and needs, and take responsibility for ourselves, we begin to put a crack in that cement. And whenever there is a crack in the cement, a plant (life) inevitably begins to burst forth. I experience what is natural as a voice within myself that I trust will never leave me - no matter how disconnected and despairing I may be, I have a yearning for connection to my heart that is always calling to me.

In my understanding, the difference between what is natural and what is habitual is the difference between living in freedom and living in slavery. When I live through the filter of the beliefs that have been passed on to me such as what it means to “be a real man”, a Catholic, a father, a spouse, a citizen of the United States, etc. I no longer have a direct experience of life. Instead of living, I feel a deadening; a disconnection from myself that comes from placing my attention on abstract notions of what it means to be a good man, a good husband, etc.

Marshall Rosenberg has often said that people who are connected to their needs don’t make good slaves. When I connect to the universal needs behind my thoughts and actions, I experience openness both physically and mentally that I would describe as the feeling of freedom. I am free to choose when I am connected to my needs because my actions arise as an expression of my authentic self vs. reacting out of habitual thoughts and beliefs. When I am connected to needs, my actions are in the service of enriching life instead of reinforcing ideas and structures that keep me stuck looking outside of myself and wallowing in judgments and disconnection.

Marshall Rosenberg on the difference between natural vs. habitual from his book Raising Children Compassionately

For many parents, the way I’m talking about communicating is so different that they say, “Well, it just doesn’t seem natural to communicate that way.” At just the right time, I read something that Gandhi had written in which he said, “Don’t mix up that which is habitual with that which is natural.” Gandhi said that very often we’ve been trained to communicate and act in ways that are quite unnatural, but they are habitual in the sense that we have been trained for various reasons to do it that way in our culture. And that certainly rang true to me in the way that I was trained to communicate with children. The way I was trained to communicate by judging rightness and wrongness, goodness and badness, and the use of punishment was widely used and very easily became habitual for me as a parent. But I wouldn’t say that because something is habitual that it is natural.

I learned that it is much more natural for people to connect in a loving, respectful way, and to do things out of joy for each other, rather than using punishment and reward or blame and guilt as means of coercion. But such a transformation does require a good deal of consciousness and effort.

I can recall one time when I was transforming myself from a habitually judgmental way of communicating with my children to the way that I am now advocating. On the day I’m thinking of, my oldest son and I were having a conflict, and it was taking me quite awhile to communicate it in the way that I was choosing to, rather than the way that had become habitual. Almost everything that came into my mind originally was some coercive statement in the form of a judgment of him for saying what he did. So I had to stop and take a deep breath, and think of how to get more in touch with my needs, and how to get more in touch with his needs. And this was taking me awhile. And he was getting frustrated because he had a friend waiting for him outside, and he said, “Daddy, it’s taking you so long to talk.” And I said, “Let me tell you what I can say quickly: Do it my way or I’ll kick your butt”. He said, “Take your time, Dad. Take your time”.

So yes, I would rather take my time and come from an energy that I choose in communicating with my children, rather than habitually responding in a way that I have been trained to do, when it’s not really in harmony with my own values.

But I am already caught – caught in wanting them to feel sorry for my pain or to be impressed with my life. Either way, I have turned them into objects of my game rather than subjects of my heart. When I need people to see me as special, I focus primarily on my need and cannot hear the depth and breadth of who they are in that moment. In my rush to be special, I do not honor the common humanity that binds me to others.”

Wayne Muller from Legacy of the Heart – the Spiritual Advantages of a Painful Childhood

For me, this passage gets to the root of our suffering. Martin Luther King Jr. referred to this process of turning others and ourselves into objects as the sin of separation. “To sin means to miss the mark, as an archer who misses the target, so to sin means to miss the point of human existence. It means to live unskillfully, blindly, and thus to suffer and to cause suffering.” (Eckhart Tolle from A New Earth p. 9) Anything that leads us to disconnect from our common humanity paves the way for violence and suffering.

In my experience, disconnection from others is preceded by disconnection from myself. Knowing this has given me great resolve in my intention to connect with others because I am aware that my connection to my own humanity is at stake. In order to see another person in a static way (e.g. as an inconsiderate, disrespectful, and selfish person) I must first judge myself in relation to the other person (as a considerate, respectful, and caring person or as a fellow inconsiderate wretch).  Living in this illusion that we are anything leads to confusion and suffering because it gets us to focus our attention on moralistic judgments instead of the life within others and ourselves that makes connection (and healing) possible. “Positive” judgments have the same effect in terms of disconnection as “negative” judgments. As Marshall Rosenberg says in his book Being Me, Loving You:

“An NVC-er never thinks of himself as a “worthwhile person.” If you do, you will spend a good amount of time questioning whether you are a “worthless person.” Nvc-ers don’t spend time thinking about what kind of person they are; they think moment by moment. Not: “What am I?” but “What is the life that is going on in me at this moment?”

I know that I am treating myself or others as an object and am thinking in life-alienating ways when:

• I find myself wanting to protect or enhance my image. I often experience this as a fear to express my authenticity.
• I begin to see the person in front of me as better than or less than me.  In both cases I have a false sense of myself as superior or inferior.
• I want to be right.
• I make demands of others or myself. I treat others as a means to my ends when I make demands. I can also treat myself as a means to an end by prioritizing a particular strategy that I have in mind over connection to my needs.
• I am thinking that someone deserves something.

I had a wonderful exploration into my feelings of jealousy some weeks ago that illustrates the subtle ways in which we can turn others into objects of our game instead of subjects of our heart. I found myself jealous of how much two friends of mine love to spend time with each other. When I talked to my friends about my jealousy, what I came to first was how much I would like to experience that type of connection and aliveness for myself as well, especially with them. I wanted to be part of what seemed to be so much fun and rich with affection and growth.

Then, I came to something deeper. I thought, “If they can get so many of their needs met by following their hearts then they don’t need me. I am not special to them.” My jealousy made me conscious of a strategy I have in which I attempt to meet my need for meaning by being important/special to others. At first, I became somewhat anxious and disconcerted about this idea that people and the Earth would actually get along quite well without me. Soon, however, I began to sense the freedom in the knowledge that I am not “needed” in the way I have held this for so long (as dependency, or a futile attempt to get self-value from others). Part of my excitement was seeing clearly how my strategy to be important and special in the eyes of others is an obstacle to the authentic relationships I want because I subtly convert others into means for my ends (objects in my game) instead of honoring the common humanity that binds me to them. Another part of my excitement is the possibility that I don’t have to work so hard to be special and important because that misses the point of human existence.

The point of existence for me is to enrich life. I find a lot of beauty and wonder in the fact that I can’t control or possess NVC consciousness in order to enrich life. Accessing NVC consciousness is a function of our intention to connect to our common humanity and attention in the present moment to what we are observing, feeling, needing, and requesting. When this intention and attention are not there neither is the consciousness. It is a moment-to-moment choice that we all make to be present to and trust the life that is flowing through others and ourselves.  The means are the ends - “The path to heaven is heaven itself.”  (Kahlil Gibran)

Power defined from an NVC perspective: the capacity to mobilize resources to meet needs. In this definition it is clear that we all have a need for power. It also shows how important it is to make requests because requests are a way to mobilize our power to meet needs.

It is common for people to have a negative connotation with the word power. I believe that this is because they have had plenty of experiences of power being used in a way that increases disconnection and pain i.e. using power over other people. Given the above definition, power is the means to live your values and manifest them in the world - power is about how you mobilize resources to meet your needs and the needs of others.  Said another way, when you are connected to your need for ______what requests will you make of yourself and others to meet that need?

Power defined from a Domination System perspective -Power over - Once I mobilize resources to meet needs, I can do it in a way that does not consider if your needs are getting met or not. Perhaps I am not taking action to prevent you from getting your needs met, but I am not actively seeking for you to get your needs met.  Power over is usually exemplified by demands.

Power over is not a position that you have but a choice that you make in how you use your power. For example, parents have power that their children don’t have in the sense that they have access to certain resources that their children do not have. You can use these resources over your children or you can use these resources with your children. Power over isn’t something that you have.

Power with – To meet as many needs as possible, my own, as well as yours as well as other life forms, increasing my capacity in a way that increases everybody’s capacity to meet needs– exemplified by requests.

Power With

• The needs of all people involved matter. It is inclusive; there is a spirit of partnership. In valuing everyone’s needs, I am much more likely to meet needs for consideration, respect, belonging, and care.
• I include others in the decision.
• Power with is based on connection and mutually valuing one’s own and another’s needs. The quality of my connection is where I have my power.

Power Over

• There is a spirit of my own needs matter over other’s needs. It is much more exclusive and hierarchical.
• I decide alone what is best and right.
• Power over people originates in right/wrong, good/bad thinking e.g. “I know what is right and best, so in order to save time, just do what I say.” When I have a single-mindedness of purpose (as opposed to valuing my needs as much as the other person’s needs) I lose power with the other person.

Words found on the CNVC needs list can be used in both a power over or power with consciousness. For example, the word “respect” can be said with a power over consciousness when it is used more as a strategy than a need as in “I want respect” when the meaning in one’s mind and heart is “I want YOU to give me respect because you are so disrespectful.” In a power with consciousness, this word is used in the spirit of wanting respect not just for myself, but for EVERYONE involved in the situation.

Power over consciousness is often manifested in trying to manage the behavior of others to fit a set of expectations that I make. Phrases such as you have to, just do it because I said so, you must, and people should are often backed up with punishments and rewards.

Ruth Bebermeyer

Vulnerability

• My attention is on my needs.
• There is a readiness to feel.
• I need strength to be vulnerable. I am sticking my neck out because I am sharing myself vulnerably and people may not respond in a connected or compassionate way. It takes courage to go against the habitual way that our culture has taught us to think and talk.
• Strength lies in being connected to what is alive in others and oneself. Sharing needs that are universal to all humans facilitates connection.

Weakness

• My attention is on moralistic judgments e.g. “She is an expert and I am not.”
• “I don’t want to say what’s going on for me because everyone will probably judge me as a _____.”  “I shouldn’t be so sensitive.”
• I have a resistance to feel.  For example, “I think that going into my feelings would weaken me in the eyes of others (and myself) and make me “unsafe”.
• When I act aggressively, what I would really like to do is to share my vulnerability.
• To have needs is to be dependent and hence weak. The definition of strength equals how much power one has over people i.e. how well one can manipulate others to do what s/he wants.

I woke up this morning with a strange sense of security that comes from the clarity of knowing that I don’t have any security in the way I have held this for most of my life. For most of my life I have lived with the latent and ever present fear of “losing love” as if it were some coin or an iPod. I would think, “I just want someone who I can trust will love and care for me for the rest of my life.” In such a world, I have to be ever vigilant of losing favor with others, which would be the equivalent of losing love.

I recall learning from Susan Skye that “emotional safety” does not exist outside of myself. Another person can’t give me emotional safety; it exists as a life serving connection with myself. Increasingly, I am learning that true “safety” lies in vulnerability.

Before, I thought of needs in terms of what I need from others (things that could be given and taken away depending on other’s favorable or unfavorable opinions about me or simply by whim). Now, I understand needs as something that I value and can offer to the world, because I can always choose to embody how these needs live in me and express them vulnerably. I see the integration of NVC into my life as a continuous movement towards trusting in my inner life and how the expression of this inner life leads to healing and connection.

Before my focus was on keeping others from abandoning me – a desperate attempt to somehow control the love I received from others. Now my focus is on taking care to not abandon myself by remembering that nobody can take from me what is really mine. Instead of wanting someone to always be there for me to meet my needs, I can offer who I am by living what I value. Trust, love, understanding… they are always a choice away.

Empathy

• Focus of attention is on the other person. The other person leads and I follow. Empathy is about not knowing and not doing; this openness allows me to be fully present to the other’s experience.
• Feeling and being with the other person. Connecting with what is alive in the other person i.e. their feelings and needs. There is a compassionate flow of energy from myself to another person.
• Presence: Like surfing, we can’t try to change the wave. Presence is a way of being rather than something one does. Hence, empathy is not about the words we use (feelings and needs); it is about bringing oneself fully into the present moment with the other.
• Not trying to fix anything nor taking responsibility for the other person’s feelings. Connecting with another as they are, without bringing any judgment; therefore, without agreement or disagreement.

Sympathy and other forms of response (fixing, reassuring, storytelling, etc.)

• Focus of attention is on me i.e. how the other person’s experience resonates with my experience. “I know what you are going through…” I may attempt to lead the person to understand something that I think will help h/her.
• Suffering with the other person. I may “lose myself” in the other person’s experience.
• Talking about the issue, having an intellectual understanding, planning what I will say next, trying to fix the problem or the other person, etc.
• In order to alleviate my own discomfort with pain, sadness, and other feelings that I may interpret as “negative”, I may agree with them, attempt to get the other person to “get over it”, or somehow distract them from what is going on for them in the present moment.

I remember once working through some intense feelings of sadness in a group situation when I felt a hand on my shoulder from somebody sitting nearby. I remember feeling comforted as I received what I understood as the other person’s care and presence for me. Although the person’s gesture met a lot of my needs, it was not what I consider to be empathy because it took me away from my present feelings and needs. This was an important learning for me on my path to understand the difference between empathy sympathy. I learned that:

•    The way that I view pain affects how I respond to it. If I view some feelings as “negative” then I will probably seek to avoid feeling them when connecting to others and myself. If I view feelings as a portal to the present moment and to what I value in life, then I am more apt to approach them with curiosity and openness.

•    The idea that I need to help someone by bolstering them up with a pep talk, comforting them, distracting them from their “negative” thoughts and feelings, giving them advice etc. belies a belief that the other person can’t meet their own needs i.e. they are deficient and need help from outside themselves. One of the things that I love about NVC is that it helps me connect to my power. I know from experience that if I take the time to connect to myself, I can find all the answers within myself. Likewise, if I can foster that quality of connection with another person, they will also be able to figure out what is best for them. As Carl Rogers once said, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

Some notes on empathy:

“Giving empathy” as a misnomer. Holding empathy in this way actually separates me from the other person. I choose to be present with another person because the process itself is the gift. I empathize because I enjoy swimming in the water of aliveness that comes from connection.

Empathy is not only about pain. It is about ‘being with’ whatever is (pain, joy, etc).

Whatever words you use are not as important as where you are connecting your attention (on feelings and needs). Words are not empathy; the connection is empathy.

Things not to reflect when giving empathy:

•    Any connection of forces outside oneself to feelings. For example,  “My husband really hurt me when he left me.”  vs. “When my husband left me I felt hurt because I have a need for …” Connect the feeling immediately to a need.
•    Never hear what a person thinks. Only express thoughts when you have made clear your need for saying the thought. The thought is then connected to the need.

o    Compare: “…so you feel that you were mistreated” to “So are you feeling frightened and hurt and need to take care of your family and yourself?”

When to paraphrase back what we have heard when empathizing with another person:

1.    When we want to confirm that we are hearing the other person as s/he would like to be heard. If we haven’t heard clearly, then the other person has the chance to clarify.
2.    To provide the space for the person to deepen their self-connection.
3.    Often the other person feels vulnerable and would like reassurance that s/he is being heard the way s/he would like to be heard. This sometimes comes about with the comment, “I know you must think this is really dumb…” or “you must think I am crazy, selfish, a loser etc.”
4.    Otherwise remain silent and just BE with the other person.

In order to “enjoy another person’s pain” i.e. to be fully present with the person no matter what the situation, I am aware of the following:

1.    I am not responsible for the other person’s pain (pain is caused by unmet needs)
2.    I don’t have to “fix it”

It is liberating when we stop taking responsibility for other people’s feelings because then we can truly be with them instead of dividing our attention between what they are needing and our feelings of guilt for causing their feelings or thinking of the other person’s needs as a burden that we have to or should alleviate.

“When you empathize there is nothing to forgive. Forgiveness is empathy.”

Marshall Rosenberg

Non-empathic responses:
Advising
One-upping
Commiserating
Consoling
Correcting
Educating
Explaining
Evaluating
Fixing
Interrogating
Shutting down
Sympathizing
Story telling

• Attention is on needs. When I am aware of both my needs and the needs of the other person I have a wider perspective than I would if I were just aware of my own needs or the needs of the other. From this wider perspective, I may find myself shifting from what I had originally wanted to something else because with the new information I see the situation differently and my needs may change as well. We both still get our needs met although the needs may be different from the ones that we began with.
• To find a solution that satisfies everyone. Both our needs can get met.

Compromise

• Attention is on strategies. Everybody gives up something in order to reach an agreement. Agreements are made without mutually valuing each other’s needs.
• To find a solution that everyone can live with. Part of your needs and part of my needs can get met.

Rita Herzog shared with me an image that I find brings a lot of clarity to this key differentiation, especially as a way to share it with others. As a giraffe, I am firmly grounded in my needs, which is represented by me standing firmly with two feet planted on the floor. When I am grounded in this way I can reach my neck out over to another person to hear h/her needs while still being grounded in my own. After understanding what is alive for the other person I have a wider perspective and different needs may come up for me, such as a willingness to contribute to the other person in some way. My feet lift off the floor and I move to a new position on the floor. I am still grounded in my own needs but those needs have shifted as well as the strategies to meet them.

When I first moved into the house where my wife and her child were living after we got married, one of the first conflicts I had with my 4-year-old stepdaughter was around saying “good morning”. I would come down in the morning and be greeted with a turned head and silence. This was a difficult way for both of us to begin the day and I made it worse by saying “good morning” and expecting something back. Behind my “good morning” lurked a host of shoulds. “She should at least say something to me in the morning – how rude.” “Her mother should have taught her some really basic things about respect. What a spoiled brat.” “I should teach her manners.”  “I should be able to not get so worked up about this.” etc.

“Good morning” turned into a mutual mortification ritual at our house. In my baby giraffe days, armed with my newfound NVC judo skills, I would descend upon on my unsuspecting daughter. The word respect came out of my mouth as if I were some stressed out freshman prosecutor. I was attached to my strategy of getting my daughter to say those words as if our entire relationship hung in the balance of this representation of respect for me.

Luckily, I had an empathy buddy who helped me understand more fully my daughter’s needs as well as my own. By eventually putting myself in my daughter’s shoes, I began to connect with what it must be like to have such a change in her world and how much she would probably love to have some empathy for her discomfort and need for order (I remember her telling me which spoons in the house were okay for me to use and which ones were not, which I wasn’t able to hear as well as I would have liked.)

From this wider perspective, I found myself shifting to a need that both of us shared – to build a supportive and loving relationship with each other. The painful part about being greeted with a turned head and silence to me in this context now had nothing to do with respect (especially as how I understood what respect meant back then). The pain was now about (and maybe always was) wanting understanding for my intention behind saying good morning. I had a short and sweet conversation with my daughter at bedtime to let her know that I didn’t care if she ever said good morning to me. What was important for me was for her to know what I meant when I said it from now on – that I loved her and was wishing her well. She seemed to understand. The real shift had already taken place regardless of her understanding me or not. I was connected to my intention to love her and now the words good morning were a way to express that instead of my fear of not getting my need for respect met. What was amazing to me was how something that I had held onto so tightly was so easy to let go of when I was connected to more of the needs at play in the situation.

By giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, because everybody can serve.
You don’t have to have a college degree to serve.
You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve.
You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve…
You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.
And you can be that servant.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Life Connected

• My life energy or attention is on observations, feelings, needs and requests.
• My focus of attention is aimed towards connection and meeting needs. I do things that enhance my connection and compassion for other people e.g. valuing everyone’s needs as much as my own, honestly expressing myself and empathically receiving the other person.
• When I am connected to life there is a sense of play and openness.

Life Alienated

• My life energy or consciousness is on moralistic judgments and evaluations.
• My focus of attention is aimed towards objectifying others and myself, punishing, controlling, or rewarding. I do things that bring distance between myself and others e.g. labeling others as good or bad, making comparisons, not taking responsibility for my actions, etc.
• When I go into judgments then I am usually not having a lot of fun. Most likely my needs and the needs of others are not being met. It is draining.

I find that when I am not connected to my needs, the strategies I come up with are often the biggest obstacles to getting what I really want. For example, I may have a need for love and community, but the education I have received from my culture distorts these needs by presenting to me in myriad ways that love and community are inextricably bound to being a “beautiful and successful” person. This belief has led me to look outside myself to obtain this status by working long hours to earn more money (although this often stimulates stress and disconnection in my family), acting so that others perceive me in a positive light (at the expense of my authenticity and aliveness), and even doing NVC for life alienating reasons i.e. so that people will like me or to manipulate others into doing what I want.

When I am connected to life (my needs) however, I find myself striving less and making choices that are more in alignment with what I value. I am aware that I have a choice moment to moment about which game I want to play in life. I can have aliveness and life enriching connection right now by choosing to see the humanity in myself and others or I can work tirelessly as a nice dead person (disconnected from my needs / alienated from myself) for a day that never comes when I am a “better” person who meets the expectations of others and myself in order to “deserve” the love I want.

The part of this game that I am particularly excited about playing these days is how to love and value the part of me who still chooses to be a nice dead person just as much as the part of me that chooses connection. That is my understanding of the practice of compassion – to see that all of our actions, however despicable we may initially judge them to be, are attempts to meet needs that we all have in common. To the extent that I can feel this (as opposed to knowing it intellectually) is the extent to which I live my need for compassion and am connected to life.

I’ll end with a quote from Alice Miller’s book The Drama of the Gifted Child, which I think sums up well the essence of the difference between life connected vs. life alienated consciousness:

“One is free from depression when self-esteem is based on the authenticity of one’s own feelings and not on the possession of certain qualities.”

• My action is controlled from the inside.
• My attention is on my feelings and needs.
• Only when I am conscious of my needs am I truly free to choose. The key to this differentiation is that whatever I choose, I am very clear that I am acting to meet my own needs. Choice comes from fully owned autonomy.
• The core idea is: What is the consciousness from which I am choosing? Intrinsic vs. extrinsic. If I act from a consciousness of choosing based on the life in me, (intrinsic) based on meeting a need, then it is a true choice.

Submission or Rebellion

• My action is controlled from the outside.
• My attention is on the other person.
• Rebellion and submission are attempts to fight for autonomy or give it up. In either case autonomy is not fully owned.
• If I am rejecting something; if I am afraid of some consequence regardless if it is in relationship to myself or other people then I am not at choice. If I am afraid of some punishment or motivated by some reward I am submitting to something external. Turn it inward = submission. Turn it outward = rebellion.
• If we perceive that we don’t have choice we often rebel.

“As long as you don’t want to hear my pain then you are not free.”
Marshall Rosenberg

I don’t take the above quote to mean that I have to listen to everyone’s pain no matter what, but that if I am blocked from connecting with another person because I get caught up in the way they are talking or the strategies they are promoting then I am not free to make a true choice. Only when I am conscious of my needs am I truly free to choose. The key to submission and rebellion is that whatever I choose, I am very clear that I am acting to meet my own needs.

If we are subtly (or not so subtly) “fighting for our autonomy” or “giving it up” we are under the illusion that other people actually have the power to take something away from us that is impossible to take away - our power to choose. Our ability to choose where we are going to put our attention in every moment is a basic premise of NVC. “Once you know that no one can take from you what is really yours, then you stop trying to protect it.” The “need” for autonomy is somewhat of a misnomer because choice is something that is simply part of our being. Perhaps a clearer way to express this “need” for autonomy is that “I have a need to be more aware of my power of choice and my inherent autonomy.”

Audre Lorde

Self-Empathy

• Attention is on my feelings.
• I own the responsibility for my feelings. I have a willingness to explore and connect with the needs beneath the feelings.
• Awareness that feelings arise from met and unmet needs. Non-judgmental.

Wallowing

• I resist or ignore my feelings.
• Usually the attention is stuck on judgments of others and/or myself or a story that I have about what is happening.
• Thinking that something outside myself causes my pain.

The quote above gets to the heart of what this key differentiation is about for me - the consciousness that often leads to disconnection from others and ourselves also effectively keeps us wallowing in that disconnection. In other words, if our attempts to make things better for ourselves come from the same consciousness that created the “problem” in the first place, we unwittingly reinforce the very structures that keep us stuck. In order for true change to happen, changing our words and making a plan is not enough. True change requires a change in consciousness.

For example, if I am acting from a domination-system consciousness in which some people are better than others, I may become anxious and defensive because I want to protect my image of being a “good guy”. In essence, I am defensive-waiting-to-happen because of my consciousness. When I focus my attention on a static view of reality in which people are anything (disorganized, demanding, selfish, mean, good, better, etc.) I often do and say things that I regret because my energy is in the service of maintaining images (which support domination structures) instead of in the service of enriching life. Thus begins the vicious cycle of wallowing in disconnection: Out of disconnection I do something that I regret and out of disconnection I beat myself up for having done that. Out of disconnection, I try to be a “better” person. I “fail” (another domination concept) and then beat myself up for being a loser, a wretch, etc. Sound like fun?! A variation on this theme is to wallow in anger and contempt by blaming someone else and wanting them to change so that they can be a better person.

Self-empathy is a way out of wallowing. I love the following expression by an NVC trainer named Robert Gonzales on what I see as an essential aspect of empathy:

“We can only experience pain when it touches beauty.”

Understanding this has allowed me to have a different relationship to my feelings and needs that has helped me enjoy my pain and life in general much more. Instead of experiencing my pain through the lens of “something awful is happening”, a story that often leads to resistance or trying to fix something, I am now more apt to approach myself with curiosity and compassion. I know that if I give myself the time to connect, I will find something of great value i.e. what I value. There is a willingness to feel instead of resisting my experience. This is not to say that I won’t still be in pain, but it will be, as Marshall Rosenberg describes it, a sweet pain – a life enriching pain. When in touch with what I value as precious in life then I am in touch with the beauty of my dream of how I would like to live. From this connection to the beauty of my needs, I find that strategies naturally begin to occur to me for how to meet those needs.

Knowing that there is beauty beneath pain has also helped me empathize with others who are expressing intense emotions. When I can see that someone who is screaming and slamming doors is attempting to protect something that is essential to their well-being, my heart opens to them because it is probably something essential for my well-being also. When I give myself the time to connect to NVC consciousness, (1. We all have the same universal needs. 2. Everything we do is an attempt to meet a need. 3. All criticism, blame, attack, and violence is a tragic attempt to meet needs.) I see the intensity of their emotions as an expression of just how much they value something and the living hell that they are in when they imagine life without it.

Krishnamurti

Observation - An observation is what we experience directly with our senses. What we hear, smell, touch, see and taste. An observation contains “just the facts”; what a video recorder with sound could record without any words that imply wrongness or judgments. When we observe without evaluation, we open ourselves to the other person’s experience. It opens us to questioning/wondering about what is alive in the other person instead of assuming that we know. If an observation is mixed with an evaluation others are likely to disagree, get defensive, or close down. A clear observation establishes a common ground, helps us remain open to clarification and serves to keep the doors to communication and connection open.

Observation mixed with and evaluation - An observation mixed with evaluation is how we think about or how we evaluate what we experience with our senses. Any words we use that imply wrongness of others are tragic expressions of unmet needs. They’re tragic because they don’t lead people to enjoy contributing to our well being, we aren’t likely to get our needs met, and we are more prone to violence.

Examples:
Observation mixed with an evaluation: “You are always late!”
Observation: “When you arrive 30 minutes after the time that we agreed upon I feel…”

Observation mixed with an evaluation: “Sandra is such a nice person.”
Observation: When Sandra helps me clean up after a party and invites me for coffee afterwards I feel…”

If I don’t begin with an observation, I often end up in a discussion over what happened rather than in connection. Precision in making an observation serves as a reminder to me that my perceptions are often different than the perceptions of others. For example, the difference between, “When you said…” and “When I heard you say…” reminds me that sometimes I don’t hear things accurately so I want to check it out with the other person. Precise observations keep me from making assumptions that may lead to defensiveness and disconnection. For example, “I see that you left your scooter on the sidewalk” might be met with “No, that was Lucia who left it there!” “I see your scooter on the sidewalk” is something that we can both agree upon and leads to further connection. One common pitfall in stating an observation is to use the following words: never, always, excessively, too much, all the time, and a lot. These words beg debate instead of connection.