The study of key differentiations helps me become more aware of when I am acting from a domination system consciousness (life-alienating consciousness) and when I am acting from an NVC (life-connected consciousness). Key differentiations also give me a conceptual clarity to understand NVC consciousness and skills so that I am better able to live and share NVC with others. I believe that the foundation of any spiritual discipline (which NVC is for me), is the basic ability to discern moment by moment whether I am acting from my spirit/heart/love or reacting from my cultural conditioning.

Some of the key differentiations deal with NVC consciousness. Without this consciousness we can end up doing NVC as a mechanical tool or technique rather than connecting from the heart moment to moment. NVC is not about using the right words but about embracing the connections. The other differentiations deal with NVC skills (the four step process). I hope that the key differentiations in this blog will help you gain more awareness of when your thoughts, words, and actions are likely to lead to disconnection and open up the possibility of responding in ways that are more likely meet everyone’s needs. The key differentiations in the blog are listed in the following format _____ vs. _______.

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“Honesty without love is brutality.”

Marianne Williamson

“NVC suggests that we let that person know what is alive in us in relationship to what they are doing. We want to be honest in NVC, but we want to be honest without using words that imply wrongness, criticism, insult, judgment, or psychological diagnosis.”

Marshall Rosenberg

Honesty that Connects Us to Others and Ourselves

• Honesty that is based on observations, feelings, needs, and requests.
• My intention is to share what is alive in me. Honesty from the heart.
• Honesty that connects is about my own experience.

Honesty that Disconnects Us from Others and Ourselves

• Honesty that disconnects is based on moralistic judgments and right/wrong, good/bad thinking. Honesty that disconnects is often about whether one agrees with or disagrees with something and may take the form of advising, disagreeing, lecturing, scolding, arguing, sympathizing, and diverting.
• My intention is to share my judgments about the other person. Honesty that implies wrongness.
• Honesty about what one thinks of another person or situation.

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“Freedom is the capacity to pause between stimulus and response.”

Rollo May

Stimulus

• The stimulus is about the facts that I can observe with my senses. It is objective.
• An accurate identification of the stimulus helps us get clear about our interpretations. Often our feelings have little to do with what has actually happened and a lot to do with what we are telling ourselves about what happened.
• Leads to empowerment

Cause

• The cause is about my perceptions It is more subjective. For example, I cause myself to be angry before I recognize my feelings because I begin thinking that I am being treated unfairly, etc. My thoughts are the cause.
• Our language can trick us into believing that the other person caused our anger e.g. “You made me feel…”
• Leads to disempowerment

To me, the freedom that Rollo May speaks of in the quote above is about pausing to connect with my intention. My freedom lies in the fundamental choice that is available to me every moment of the day about where I choose to focus my attention – on connection or being right / looking good / judging etc.

This differentiation has been incredibly powerful for me in terms of my ability to enjoy other people no matter what they are saying or feeling. For me, this differentiation is a prerequisite for our freedom for the following reasons:

When I know in my bones that WHEN I AM TRIGGERED IT IS NOT ABOUT THE OTHER PERSON, IT IS ABOUT MY NEEDS I am freer to truly be with others because my energy does not get tied up in defending myself, building up a case for why I am right, or resenting the other person.

If I believe that others cause my feelings I am prone to feel resentful, depressed, angry and/or scared e.g. “How could he say/do such a thing to me? What an inconsiderate wretch!” Notice how this belief that others cause my feelings leads me to direct my attention outside of myself to a place where I have no control – other people’s actions. If I believe that others cause me to feel a certain way then I may choose to “protect myself” from being hurt by not expressing what is alive in me and subsequently become “a nice dead person” in Marshall’s words. Another common strategy for protecting oneself is to criticize and denounce the other person.

If I believe that others cause my feelings I am also probably under the belief that I can cause others to feel certain ways as well. If I believe this, I am prone to feel guilty for “making” others feel a certain way. This belief often leads to anxiety and depression because I believe myself to be at the mercy of other people’s reactions and probably am not getting my needs for authenticity met. I think that I need to walk on eggshells or bend over backwards for certain people so that I don’t make them feel a certain way.

Words have different connotations to different people and stimulate different needs. Even if I speak perfect giraffe, the other person may be triggered in a way that is surprising to me. I remember an NVC trainer, Robert Gonzales, telling the story of when he visited a friend in the hospital who had third degree burns all over his body. Robert felt hot in the room so he cracked open a window and was shocked to hear his friend scream and writhe in pain. What was a refreshing cool breeze to one person was an excruciatingly painful experience to another. This is what can and does happen in our communication with each other.

“It is never what other people do that makes us angry. It’s how we think that makes us angry. What are you telling yourself that is making you angry? The other person is the stimulus but not the cause of our feelings.”

Marshall Rosenberg

“More than those who hate you, more than all your enemies,
an undisciplined mind does greater harm.
More than your mother or father, more than all your family,
a well disciplined mind does greater good.”

Buddha

This quote from the Buddha is my mantra. When I get triggered I do my best to remember that the most dangerous aspect of most situations is my own mind. It is not about what is happening out there but how I take it that will largely determine if I get my needs met or not. I want to discipline my mind to be able to differentiate when I am thinking and acting in a life alienating vs. a life enriching way. Learning these key differentiations and applying them to my life is one way to do this.

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“Perhaps love is the process of me leading you gently back to yourself.”

Antoine St. Exupery

Love as a Need

• Love as a need has no reference to a specific person taking a specific action.

Love as a Feeling

• Love as a feeling can become a strategy that limits who and what I connect with. If I hold love as a feeling I need to make reference to a specific time and place when I talk about love because feelings can change from moment to moment. For example, “I felt loving (warmth and tenderness) toward you at the party, but not afterwards when I was irritated and tense.

If I get attached to how love feels then I am apt to resist, ignore, or flee from feelings that are not “loving” instead of connecting with the life behind them (the needs). My thoughts might run something like this: “I am not feeling love in this moment. There must be something wrong with the other person, our relationship, or me. I want to do something to change or get away from this feeling so that I can get back to a loving feeling.”

When I hold love as a need then every feeling has the potential to meet my need for love because every feeling can lead me to what my heart desires i.e. to enrich life, love, connect with others, etc… For me, the very act of valuing all of my feelings and needs is one of the best ways that I meet my need for love. If I don’t first acknowledge the beauty of my own feelings and needs it is not likely that others will be able to do so.

Defining love as a need also empowers me to look at what I can do to meet my need for love no matter what I am feeling. Even when I don’t get my need for love met, if my focus is on the need then I am better able to learn how to get my need for love met in the future.

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“Praise and compliments are tragic expressions of met needs.”
Marshall Rosenberg

Appreciation is based on feelings and needs whereas approval is based on moralistic judgments.

Appreciation

• The intention is to express and share what is alive in me.
• Appreciation is that richness of knowing how we give to each other.

Approval, Compliments, or Praise

• The intention is to steer human behavior.
• Often approval, compliments, and praise are used to manipulate people’s behavior.
• Often praise is used to get more out of you. I want children to keep acting the way that I want them to.

Alfie Kohn wrote an article entitled Five Reasons to Stop Saying “Good Job!” which for me really hits the nail on the head about this differentiation. His basic question is “Who benefits from praise?” Praise usually has more to do with the adult’s convenience rather than the emotional needs of the child. Praise is about doing something to others so that they comply with our wishes vs. working with others to develop mutual understanding about everyone’s needs. Praise is likely to disempower others by training them to focus their attention on what somebody outside of themselves believes instead of what it means to them. Praise is the flip side of punishment; both have the same root which is one person sitting in judgment over another.

Another point that Alfie raises that I have learned through NVC is the theory of human nature that the use of praise and punishment presuppose. If humans are naturally selfish, mean, and fickle, then the corrective response to something that we do not enjoy is to use punishment and reward to control their behavior. If humans naturally enjoy giving and receiving compassionately to each other, then the corrective response is to educate by bringing awareness to what is alive in themselves and others.

Last year at the school where I teach, some of the teachers told the principal that they didn’t feel appreciated. In an effort to understand and support the teachers, our principal sent out a short questionnaire to us on the topic of appreciation. Here is how I responded to the question “How do you want to be appreciated?”

I have enjoyed thinking about this question of appreciation because it can be either a source of celebration and encouragement or an insidious shackle. I see appreciation as feedback that helps me connect to others and myself as opposed to kudos or recognition that my ego enjoys, but which often leave me feeling like a cake-sniffing ghost. For me, there is no such thing as “positive” and “negative” feedback. It is all information that lets me know if I am contributing to life or not so that I can learn how to serve life better the next time.

I am aware that there is nothing inherent in my actions that merit the appreciation of others. For example, the children might enjoy and be enriched by a presentation that I worked diligently to prepare, but my wife might not appreciate the time it took away from my family. Appreciation, like judgments, say more about the other person’s needs that are met or unmet than any character trait I may be exhibiting at a given moment.

I am trying to live from a connection to my heart, which is difficult because I have lived most of my life looking outside myself to feel secure and belong. In a nutshell, I want to take responsibility for getting my own need for appreciation met by asking for it when I want to confirm if something I have done has actually enriched someone’s life as I have intended. I am also open to receiving appreciation from others as long as it is in the spirit of celebration of needs getting met instead of as a social nicety, an attempt to mold my behavior, or telling me what I am.

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