Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

My son used this title for a class he took his senior year in high school.

Gratitude. That's what I feel after finishing Rosenberg's book. And I know I will read it again, perhaps many times, because the ideas, so plainly presented, are foreign to my experience and way of thinking. I found myself in tears after reading the chapter "Expressing Anger Fully". The information resonated deep in my heart as true but also highlighted the experience of my upbringing in a home where anger and the unmet needs from which it sprang, as well as it's expression, were stifled. I also appreciated the message in the chapter entitled "Connecting Compassionately with Ourselves".

Rosenberg writes clearly and brings examples of dialog to the text. The prose show more isn't lilting literature, but the content is so stunning, so life-changing that serviceable writing is all that is needed. show less

There's no "there" there.

I'm sensing that you're frustrated.

Well, yeah! I mean, Nonviolent Communication is a great title. I think about the kind of inspirational shit your neighbour has on a magnet on their fridge, that could maybe benefit from being expanded into a whole program. Like, my friend talks about trying to only say things that are "necessary, true, and kind." I have some questions about exactly what that means in practice, but it sounds great as a principle from which to pursue nonviolence. And, like, yesterday I casually referred to a person of my acquaintance as a Nazi, and it's maybe a little bit brutalizing to your interlocutor to do that, right? Like, reserve that term for actual members of the National Socialist show more party? This is where the idea of "violent communication" takes me, and I think it's worth talking about how to avoid that stuff.

So if I hear you, you feel like Dr. Rosenberg's book doesn't help you avoid that kind of thing.

Thing is, like with so many of these self-help things, he doesn't give people credit for being able to keep two ideas in their head at one time. All the world's problems are due to people not feeling like they're heard. If we hear them, there's no limit to what we can accomplish. It's like that old joke: step 1--"implement the NVC process"; step 2--?????; step 3: profit! We all know listening is important--and while of course there is no the difficulty, at least one of the major difficulties, which isn't even touched, is the difference between listening, understanding, and agreeing, which makes it all the more unfortunate and egregious that Rosenberg leans so heavily on his work with Israeli and Palestinian negotiators for examples. Haven't really fixed that problem, have you, Marshall?

So you're feeling like you don't know how to engage with the process in a useful way.

The process doesn't know how to engage with me. And if it can't handle me, I'd love to see it handle scumbag investment bankers or Tamil refugees or, fuck, Joseph Kony.

It seems like you're feeling discouraged. How about a poem?

And this is the other thing. You can't take a platitude, pop it into rhyme, and present it as poetry. I recognize that I'm the one who's risking coming across as the anger bear here, but this process just seems so dishonest. Suffering people often need to hear that someone understands how they're feeling--yes. And we're all suffering--yes. This is the truth at the core of the book. But Rosenberg seems to want us to posit a world where nobody is going to engage insincerely in a way that can't be brought down by some good ol' NVC TLC, where our only disputes come from an inability to remember our common humanity, and crucially too, where if you guess wrong about what someone is feeling--and this is a process where for it to mean anything you sometimes have to guess in detail--it doesn't stymie the process. Everyone likes to be understood, but the more you leap out into someone else's headspace, the more you run the risk of getting it wrong.

It seems like you're worried about being misunderstood when you try to use the process, and feeling like you don't know how to communicate with people in a reliable way.

Well, we all face death alone, but no, I do okay at bridging the gap--as okay as the next guy. I just think that it's an art not a science let alone a management process, and I am highly suspicious of the fact that so many of your clients are Fortune 500 companies and MBA programs and shit, and nothing I've seen convinces me that this is anything more than understanding as manipulation. Empathy emerges between two people through a sort of alchemy, and both need to be open, and defusing someone's anger by parroting them back at themselves is doing them a sort of violence, even, and you're just teaching people to fake it. You're creating Mitt Romneys.

And I dunno, I think we do a decent job at hearing each other, mostly, I just think that's not the main issue, and if you presented this as a first step to dialogue in the spirit of "nothing ever changes unless you get the shitheads on board," I might be inclined to listen, but instead you treat the story like it's done when understanding is reached, sometimes explicitly dismissing the problems that remain and stem from systematic inequalities, like the woman who still couldn't go back to school or change her life but it didn't matter because she understood better why she blamed herself. But no! We don't blame ourselves because we haven't thought it out! We blame ourselves despite knowing better, because of human maladaptive things. Quit fucking us around, Marshall Rosenberg. The only people who need to be told what's in your book would never read it.

I'm sensing that you're frustrated.

Yup. show less

After borrowing this book from the public library I really want to purchase it myself. I felt Marshall B. Rosenberg did a fine job communicating his ideals. This should not have surprised me as Rosenberg has made almost all of his money communicating with others on how to communicate. At first I thought NVC was a really cheesy idea because "no one talks like that" and I still think it can be ridiculous if taken to the extreme. I certainly see how, when used correctly NVC can better ones life and interactions with others. However, I'm finding that when the opportunity arises I am often having difficulty remembering the stops that Marshall B. Rosenberg taught. Partially it could be the difference of Rosenberg being strait and to the show more point, unlike the 19th century libertarian philosophers I have been reading lately. He is not repeating himself again and again. So this certainly has advantages and disadvantages. I also found myself while reading of it, allowing my mind to wonder into how others can use it, like my parents, instead of focusing on how I can better my life by using NVC. So its on my wishlist for myself so that I can quickly and easily reference and may decide to get for others too. show less

Best for:
People looking for a better, more empathetic, more effective way to communicate.

In a nutshell:
Rosenberg offers guidance for ways to be more effective in communicating and finding common ground.

Worth quoting:
“Most of the time when we use [the word should] with ourselves, we resist learning, because should implies that there is no choice.”

“…emotional liberation entails more than simply asserting our own needs.”

Why I chose it:
My partner read it and wanted me to take a look a well.

Review:
With this book, Rosenberg provides what I find to be a helpful communications structure for more empathetic and constructive engagement. I think it is at times way too stiff, and a bit naive, but I also can see a lot of value in it.

The show more main component of NVC (nonviolent communication) is a four-part process of communicating:
1 - Observe (but do not judge)
2 - Associate feelings with the observation (and actual feelings, not ‘I feel that you are being a jerk’)
3 - Identify what needs we have that are associated with those feelings
4 - Request what we want from the other person.

The book spends a chapter on each of those components, then looks at how to receive that type of communication, how to communicate that way with ourselves, and also how to provide more effective affirmations. I took quite a few notes, and I can definitely see how this all could work in real life.

Rosenberg shares many sample conversations and examples of its success in seemingly fraught situations (including discussions between Israelis and Palestinians), but some of the language feels like something out of a text book, not like how people really talk. Especially his approach of asking people to repeatedly reflect back what they have heard. I know that’s an ‘active listening’ approach as well, but I could see attempts to guess at what is beneath the language getting a bit annoying.

I do have some issues with the approach. For example, the discussion around anger. He sees anger as useful, but only insofar as identifying what needs of ours are not being met. Which is fine, but he doesn’t go further into what to do if we identify the need, the need is reasonable, and the person who can meet that need refuses. Think racism, misogyny, transphobia, etc. I get that there might be a point where communication just isn’t going to meet the need, but Rosenberg doesn’t seem to acknowledge that possibility.

He also sees no value in applying moralistic judgments (which he separates from value judgments, which for him are fine), and asks us to reframe such judgments into the person not acting in harmony with our needs. Again, I kind of get it - if the goal is to get the needs met, why not try what might work - but also, I do have moralistic judgments about some folks and their actions, and I think that’s reasonable because there are some actions that society should not accept or accommodate.

And as empathy is such a big part of this, he’s essentially asking the oppressed to empathize with their oppressors to the end of getting needs met, and I’m not sure that’s reasonable to ask of oppressed people. He is clear that ‘the process is designed for those of us who would like others to change and respond, but only if they choose to do so willingly and compassionately.’ Which, for some actions, I’d argue that change needs to happen regardless of whether the actor is doing it willingly.

That’s a lot of caveats, I realize, but I do overall like this approach and am looking at incorporating it into the ways I communicate with others (including my partner).

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Keep show less

You know, this is full of ideas that have already seeped into national consciousness written in a far-out peacenik style... but there really is something "there" there. It's that rule about expressing yourself using "I" phrases, not "you" phrases, extended to talking specifically about observations, feelings and needs, and extended again to listening to others in a way that lets them express themselves fully, and extended again to avoiding generic judgments even in praise. Really good stuff aligned with my beliefs in privileging verbs over nouns, for all it sometimes reads as hokey (or -- ahem -- when I read references to things like God or screaming "nonviolently", I felt dismissive, because I need some intellectual heft to really show more respect a book).

My biggest and favorite insight from this book was that many of the things we naively label "feelings" are not actually feelings. For instance, "I feel unloved," "I feel ignored," or "I feel supported" -- these are all judgments about the other person's actions (sometimes even attacks) cloaked as feelings. True feelings don't imply the other person is the cause -- they are more like "I feel depressed," "I feel lonely", or "I feel content." (I suspect that any of these could be taken as judgments too, honestly, but they are much less likely to be taken that way, because grammatically they aren't derived from objects of verbs.)

A Maya Angelou quote that's been everywhere the past few months speaks to me and this book: "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." This is a book about making people feel. Make of it what you will. show less

Ostensibly, this is a book about how to communicate effectively when resolving conflicts between people. Actually, it's about so much more than that. It's about how to use empathy to understand yourself and others. Once you have that empathy, a lot of conflicts will resolve themselves. Just reading the book gave me a lot of insight into some of my own emotions and inner conflicts, and I know it will be useful in handling some conflicts in my own life. The tools and methods in the book require a lot of practice/experience to use effectively - I will probably revisit this book often. Fortunately, it is well-organized and all the major points are in big print and summarized at the end of chapters, so the book is easy to skim for a refresher.

What happens to disconnect us from our compassionate nature, leading us to behave violently and exploitatively?

How does the way we think and communicate influence our ability to be compassionate with others in the midst of conflict and with ourselves when confronting the dark places within?

How can we relate to one another in a way that makes it safe for us to give our difficult truths, respecting and appreciating the conflict that arises between us as an invitation from spirit to evolve a higher order of creativity?

How can we relate to one another in a way that invites and encourages a felt communion to arise between us? How can we communicate in a way that helps us to trust that the truth of our specific condition, when contributed show more courageously to the corporate whole, can so inform our evolution as to manifest the divine among us?

For me, Marshall B. Rosenberg has gone a long way towards answering these questions, in his 45 years of work developing and teaching Nonviolent Communication (NVC). In his book, Nonviolent Communication, A Language of Life, he comprehensively lays out the insights, principles and methodology that make this possible, sharing some of his experiences along the way.

NVC, also known as Compassionate Communication, guides us in reframing how we hear others, how we express ourselves, and how we connect with ourselves. Instead of habitual, automatic reactions, our listening and speaking becomes firmly based in an awareness of what we are perceiving, feeling, needing and wanting. Marshall describes how focusing the light of consciousness in these 4 areas helps us to transform our criticism and judgment into appreciation and compassion. He then goes on to distinguish the kinds of thinking and communication that alienates us from our natural compassion and each other: moralistic judgment, comparison, denial of responsibility, and demands. Then he offers many distinctions that help us discern what are and are not observations, feelings, needs, and requests. During this exposition, he reveals one of the core insights behind NVC: that everything we think, say or do, no matter how tragic, is an attempt to meet needs we have.

Recent research in interpersonal neurobiology has revealed that the capacity for empathy is built-in to our biology – but that only certain kinds of experience (nurturing, secure attachment, accurate mirroring and love) allow us to develop the neural networks to emotionally regulate and fully access our innate potential for compassion.

Marshall describes how effective communication begins with compassion towards ourselves, in the way we talk to and connect with ourselves – and how we can heal the conditioned and subtle self-hatred that pervades our culture and has us denying our needs and our power to serve life.

In reading this book you will discover a way of being present and authentic while nurturing a deeply connecting mutual regard that leads to harmony and fulfillment.

When this work is taken on sincerely and diligently, it can help us remember the “subtle, sneaky, important reason” we were born a human being – the unique gift to life that each of us is. When critical self-concepts prevent us from knowing the beauty in ourselves, it can help us re-connect with the divine energy that is our source. show less