basics-nvc_youtube.tmp

i have a situation with my intimate partner that many times we get together
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we argue a lot and i have this need that you were saying earlier is inappropriate
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that i want her to be happy i didn't say it was inappropriate
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i said it was undoable ok, right
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that's what she keeps telling me if you're gonna tell me to be happy
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tell me the action to get there that i can do
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if you tell me an action that you predict that if i do that
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i'll be happy at the end it would be helpful
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tell me the action don't just tell me be happy
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don't tell me to have confidence in myself tell me what you would like me to do
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to feel that confidence the action will get me there
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but just telling me what to feel puts me into a paradoxical bind
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okay well one of the other things would be when we get together
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i don't necessarily want to be going somewhere with her if she's not
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in a good mood at that time if there's some kind of tenseness
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or something yes, then empathize with why i'm not in a
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good mood and i'll be in a one
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but telling me that i've got to be in a better mood
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for you to wanna go with me gets me in a worse mood
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okay um, i'm wondering if there's some times
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when it's... i'm feeling some anxiety about a trip i'm planning to visit my mother
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soon, and we have a dynamic where she really wants to help me
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figure out every detail of what i'm doing during my stay
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and i've like to be left alone so, let me show you what to do:
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and i'm afraid that if i talk to her like this, it's gonna make matters much worse
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okay, then we'll teach you how if it does we'll show you how to enjoy it
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if it gets worse but first let me show you
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the first thing for you to do if we wanna person to consider
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another behavior than the one they're doing start the communication by showing them that
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what they're doing is the most precious thing they could be doing
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this way: empathy start by empathizing what mother's intent
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in behaving as she does mother i'm guessing that when you jump in
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and want to show me all the things that could be done
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you really care a lot about enjoying myself on this trip
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and wanna be sure you support that oh yes yes
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yeah, so it's really very important to you that i have a good time and you wanna
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contribute to it yeah
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that's step one see what i mean
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that's what i mean by starting by showing you understanding
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now the more aware, concerned about that behavior the more important it is to start with this
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that's why when i work in prisons and this person has been sexually molesting
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people, or raping people if i would like this person to find another
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way of behaving the first thing i've gotta do is make sure
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they don't hate themselves for what they're doing
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the more they hate themself for what they're doing
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the more they'll continue doing it so i start by empathizing with what their
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needs are in doing it
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okay, so you've got that step the next step, what we started off the day
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with i tell honestly how i feel
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i'm feeling torn right now cause i'm grateful for your intent
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but i really have a need to kinda make my own choice this year
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cause i think it would be really hard for anybody else to really know
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what i need and i need a space to figure it for myself
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so, would you tell me what you heard me say, mother
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so i can see if i'm making myself clear? so now i know mother didn't hear me
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now i know mother didn't hear my needs she probably heard a rejection
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she probably heard that she's not valued so it is important that i not think that
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her reaction is because of what i said if i express my feelings and needs it would
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be impossible for a person to react this way
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if they heard it they would have gotten a gift
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they would have the eyes of a little child getting a gift from santa claus
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that doesn't look like what mother's looking right now
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so mom could you tell me what you just heard me say?
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you don't want me so, you heard a kind of as rejection, mother
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of course, how else could i have heard it? well, thank you for telling me you heard it
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as a rejection, mother notice i didn't say that isn't what i said
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see if you wanna make it
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if you want to have people understand you differently
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never tell them: you're misunderstanding me never say: that isn't what i said
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say, thank you for telling me that's what you heard
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i can see i didn't make myself clear i'd like to try again, mother
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cause i do value very much that you're offering to help
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but i have a need to kinda get my own needs clear and
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structure my own time can you tell me what you heard me say?
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so you think i don't have any intelligence about helping you?
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thank you for telling me that's what you're hearing, mother
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i'd like for you to hear it differently i'd like you to just hear my needs
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that i have a real need to kind of sort things out for myself and structure my
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own time could you tell me what you heard?
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so you have a need to kinda get clear for yourself
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what you want and to figure things out thank you, mother
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see how easy it is to get empathy from a jackal? just about three ear-pulls and i got it right?
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now there're some eight-pull jackals, too i know
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but i can tell from how sweet you are your mother is a three-pull jackal
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thank you yes?
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you mentioned earlier this morning that enjoying suffering
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could you elaborate on that? yes, oh yes
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that's very important thank you for being in debt to me about it
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okay, a friend of yours says this to you: i'm a nothing
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i'll never amount to anything look at... i'm an assistant clerk at 8's 45
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my brother's a head of his company my sister's a top attorney
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and i'm a nothing okay?
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now, to enjoy this person's suffering we have to release ourself from two kinds
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of responsibility first, that we didn't cause the pain
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that we wanna release ourself from that especially if the other person's trying to make us believe
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we did cause the pain if this person had started: and you're at
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fault for all of this, why i'm a nothing
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especially when a person says that we do not want to in any way think
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we caused this person's pain cause you can't cause another person's
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psychological pain well in this case the person wasn't saying
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that so that's pretty easy to
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liberate ourself from feeling responsible but the second one is the hard one
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to think we have to fix it to make the person feel better
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the more we think it's our job to make the person feel better
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the more we're gonna make it worse cause you can't fix people
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the good news is, you don't have to there is a very powerful healing energy
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always available if we don't block it
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and how do we block that energy? by trying to fix things ourself
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so how do we help that energy to do the job? by empathy
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empathy requires presence just to be present
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when we are just present when we are remembering the buddhist advice:
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don't do something, stand there when we do that, and that energy works through
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us there is a precious connection between that
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person and us and that precious connection is what i mean
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by enjoyment to enjoy that precious connection
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and whether this person's feeling joy or pain
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if we are present there with them that's what i mean
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but we block that beautiful energy whenever we step in and think we have to fix things
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so we say, oh, there there you'll feel better you'll get over
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we make it worse when we start to give advice
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we make it worse so what does that look like?
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so you're feeling really discouraged and really would like to have achieved more
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in your life at this moment than you've done yes, yes, had every opportunity, and look
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at me i've just never made use of anything
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yeah, so you're really discouraged and frustrated and would really have liked to make
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different use of some things than you have yeah
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see? i'm just present not trying to fix it
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and when that happens there's a very precious connection
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that's what i mean by enjoyment and that precious connection does the healing
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not your advice, not your whatever yes?
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can you clarify the distinction between empathizing and sort of encouraging and supporting the
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soap opera of you know, somebody who is
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somebody who is suffering and sometimes by being there it's sort of
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a subtle encouragement as opposed to
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the subtle encouragement that i think you're talking about comes about
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when this person is talking about what happened to them
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for the fiftieth time you heard the story so, if i'm really listening to them
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i don't hear what they talk about the past cause i know that the more they talk about
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the past the less healing will take place
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so i interrupt but i interrupt to bring the conversation
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to life they're talking about the past and
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i interrupt then and i say excuse me but sounds like right now you're still
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feeling hurt because your need for respect wasn't met in
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that see, cause just letting them talk about the
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past and asking them questions about what happened
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about the past is to just keep the soap opera going
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so i interrupt when they talk about the past cause we don't heal by talking about the past
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we heal by talking about what's alive in us right now
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stimulated by the past but it's what's here now
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and when i connect at that level they won't keep talking about it
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they'll heal last question and then i'm going to get into
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the subject that i'd like to cover before the end
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yes? you talk about having
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if someone else can not cause our emotional pain
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that's right and i think about
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the abuse that i grew up with and that i see in a lot of families
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and the suffering that i've experienced throughout my life
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through my recovery and all that yes and other people were a stimulus for
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your suffering and you were participant in how you dealt
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with it for example:
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if you follow me in my work you would see this
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very clearly in places like rwanda, burundi, sierra leone
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i'm working with people that have had their families killed
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some of those people have such rage that all they live for, moment by moment,
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is the possibility of vengeance others have no anger
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have never had anger same exact stimulus
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they have deep feelings but not rage
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so it is not the stimulus that determines how our emotional reaction is
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that part is up to us i work with some women
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unfortunately a lot who've been raped
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and some of them feel shame deep shame
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some feel rage some feel other things
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so the same stimulus depends on how people take it
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whether they feel shame, rage, or other things i'm working with a woman from rwanda
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she heard her three children being killed cause she got... to underneath the sink
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hid underneath the sink in time her children didn't make it
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to the hiding place in time they got killed she heard them
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she heard her husband being killed and her brother
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she had to stay underneath there eleven days to save her own life
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cause they stayed in their house after they killed the family
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this woman has deep feelings but never once has she had that kind of anger
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that makes her wanna get vengeance she's put all of her feelings
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and lots of them into protecting preventing this happening to anybody else
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so the way she looked at it leads her to want to prevent this happening
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to anybody else she came to my workshop
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because she wanted to know how to deal with the rage toward her
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from other people in her tribe who are furious with her
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that she won't join their efforts to kill the other people
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same stimulus quite different reactions
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okay, so i had this stimulus and somewhere i learned how to deal with it
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in a way that i had to deal with it and i'm learning to change that now
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the worst thing of course would be to now matter how you did choose to deal with
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it is to think there's something wrong with how
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you chose to deal with it
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that not wanting us to get into one way is right or wrong
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I'm just saying that no matter what happens to us
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the other person's responsible for what they did
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i'm not saying the other person doesn't have responsibility
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that's my question about accountability that person's responsible for what they did
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and why they did it we're responsible for how we deal with that
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okay? i'm just wondering how a child becomes responsible
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i mean still you know the first thing i do
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i wouldn't wanna teach the child the lesson i just taught you
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until i had given that child all the empathy that child needed
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and i guess it would be a lot so i can see myself dealing with a long time
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of hearing this child's enormous pain
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as a result of this but then, in the course of this
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i would be seeing this child having some pain created by how they looked
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at it so i would see that they're creating
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pain on top of the pain by how they looked at it
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so, after the child had all the empathy he or she needed
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then i would do what i could to get them to see it in a way that
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wouldn't create unnecessary pain for themself this is a debut jackal, yes
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okay, now what i'd like to do in that precious time
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that we have left to deal with a very important part of giraffe
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cause i wouldn't want you to get the idea that non-violent communication
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is solely interested in conflict resolution because it's equally interested
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in celebration how can we celebrate life
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in fact the part that i've left for ten minutes before the end
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is in some respects the most important part because it's where we get
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the fuel to stay giraffe in what's often a very jackalish world
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so it's gonna be pretty hard to make this radical transformation
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to back to our nature in many situations unless we're getting plenty
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of fuel now where does this fuel come from
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the fuel comes from celebration and what kind of celebration?
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comes from saying thank you in giraffe so let's see now in the last minutes
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how we celebrate by saying thank you in giraffe
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expressing gratitude in giraffe and first i'd like to remind you
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of how jackals say thank you: you did a good job on that paper
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you are a very kind person you're a good dancer
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can why that's jackal? moralistic judgments
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positive moralistic judgments are equally as violent in my estimation
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as negative ones mainly they reinforce the idea that
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the negative exist if i say you're a kind person
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i'm implying there's such a thing as an unkind person
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i'm also implying that i'm the judge that knows the difference
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so no more praise or compliments, okay? no more praise or compliments
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especially if you intend them as a reward that's the ultimate dehumanization
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to use thank you as a reward to say it for the purpose of
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trying to reinforce something to get the person to continue doing it
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it's like sending a... you know, what what gets on at dog obedience
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school? punishment and rewards
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giving a compliment or praise for the purpose of reinforcement is giving the dog a
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something to eat, to reinforce it for something people are not for that treatment
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and it destroys the beauty of thank you
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when people have to wonder - is this being said out of that energy?
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but it works! what does, jackal?
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studies in management indicate that if managers praise and compliment employees
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they lead production goes up studies in school show that if teachers
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praise and compliment students daily they work harder
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jackal, take another look at the research i think you'll see that that only works
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for a very short time until people see the manipulation
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and then it no longer works and it destroys the beauty of thank you
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because now you can not even trust gratitude
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without wondering whether it's being used as a reinforcement
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as a reward well, what about if i wanna build up the other
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person's self-esteem? what's wrong with that?
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so, you, jackal, you don't see the irony of that?
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what? if the other person can only like themself
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if you compliment them they have no self-esteem
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you just addicted them to your rewards that they only feel good when you say
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something about them they have no self-esteem
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okay how does a giraffe say thank you?
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or gratitude? first, there's three things that are involved
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in giraffe expression of gratitude that give
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us energy to keep being a giraffe
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the first thing in the giraffe expression of gratitude
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is we bring to this other person's attention concretely, what they have done
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that has made life more wonderful for us see, that's what we need to do, daily
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we need to bring our consciousness and attention to the power that each one of
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us has to make life more wonderful
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each of us is a power house we have words that have the power
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to contribute to making people's lives more wonderful
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we have touch, we can touch people in ways that can make life more wonderful
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we can provide services for other people we are powerhouses
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the more we remember this we'll not get caught up in any violent games
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why would we use our energy any way other than to make life wonderful
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when we remember that we have this power so that's one thing we gotta make clear
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in our expression of gratitude specifically what the person did
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not some vague generality for example, a woman in Geneva, Switzerland,
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came up to me at the end of a workshop here's what she said to me:
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you're brilliant i said, doesn't help
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she said: what do you mean? i said, you know ma'am, i have been called
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a lot of names in my life really, i have, some positive, and some far
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less than positive and i can never recall learning anything valuable
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by somebody telling me what i am i think there's zero information value in
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being told what you are
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and great danger - you might believe it and it's just as dangerous to believe that
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you're smart as that you're stupid
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both of them reduce you to a thing we're much more than either of those
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but i can see in your eyes that you want to express some gratitude
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yes - and i wanna receive it, but doesn't help me to be told what i am
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what do you need to hear? what did i do to make life more wonderful
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for you? well, you're so intelligent
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no, doesn't help doesn't help. what did i do?
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oh, i got you. she opens up her notebook she shows me two things that i had said she
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had written down she put a big star by them
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see, that helps me now, okay that helps me to know that somehow my saying
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those two things made this person's life more wonderful
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so that's the first thing we need to say in appreciation
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we need to bring to the person's attention concretely what they did
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that made life more wonderful second, at the moment we're giving the gratitude
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to say how we feel at that moment about the person having done that
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so i said to this woman: could you tell me how you feel now
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as a result of my having said those two things? she said: hopeful and relieved
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oh, hopeful and relieved that gives me much more than telling me what
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i am that i'm brilliant
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just to know that somehow my saying those two things
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now this person feels hopeful and relieved now when i hear the third thing i'll be able
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to really enjoy this gratitude i said: what need of yours was fulfilled by
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my saying what i did that leaves you feeling hopeful and relieved?
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and that's the third thing we need to see in a giraffe gratitude
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she said: i have an 18-year old son i'd never been able to connect with him
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it's been very painful that we never can connect and i have needed some direction
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to help me connect with him those two things you said
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met my need for some concrete direction so, had she expressed her gratitude in giraffe
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she would have said, marshall, when you said these two things, showed me
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what the two things were it leaves me feeling hopeful and relieved
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it meets a need of mine to connect with my son in a way that i want
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okay, that's how we say gratitude in giraffe those three things
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and it's also important how we receive gratitude let me show you how a jackal receives gratitude
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jackal, when you offered to give me the ride just now over to where i'm going afterwards
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i feel very grateful because i really have a need to spend
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more time with my family and if i took the bus
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i'd have an hour less time it's nothing
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if you wanna terrorize a jackal, express love or appreciation to him
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really, if you really wanna scared jackal i've never seen anything scare jackal-speaking
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people more than sincere gratitude or love
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why do you get so nervous, jackal, when you hear it?
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well, i don't know that i deserved it see. jackals have this dangerous concept in
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their head - "deserve". a very violent concept
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it implies that you have to deserve appreciation you have to... you do deserve punishment if
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you behave in a certain way see the concept of deserve is a key ingredient
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in a violent way of life if you believe in deserve you believe certain
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things are worth things and you set up a very destructive economic
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system you'll set up a destructive correctional system
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very dangerous concept well, it's not the only reason
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why else do you get so scared when you hear gratitude, jackal?
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what's wrong with being humble? so, you want to, have a need for humility
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yes well, you know, jackal, there's different
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kinds of humility i'm afraid that your kind is a jackal humility
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i think that your kind is the kind that golda meir
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the israeli prime minister was reacting to when she said to one of her politicians:
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don't be so humble, you're not that great but the main reason that i believe that gratitude
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is so scary for many of us to receive
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is beautifully and poetically written in the course of miracles
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where they say it's our light, not our darkness, that scares us the most
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see we have been educated in this jackal way to hate ourselves
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to think there's something wrong with us it's a big jump, to really see what i was
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saying that we have enormous power to make life wonderful
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and there's nothing we enjoy doing more than exercising that power
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that's unfortunately a pretty big jump for us to come to
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but we can come to it so that's how we say... gratitude
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observation, feeling and need same literacy
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make sure it's coming from the heart to celebrate and never to praise, compliment, reward
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so any last comments or questions before our time runs up?
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i'm grateful for all your time and attention today