To arrive at understanding from being one’s true self is called nature.
To arrive at being one’s true self from understanding is called culture.

Confucius

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.

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