Nonviolent Communication ~ My Hope for the Future. Here's Why:

Nonviolent Communication remains the only body of work (at least that I’m aware of) which encourages (insists?) on tracking the needs of everyone as being equally important.  It requires us to drop out of finding fault, looking for blame, and assigning who’s right or wrong in any given situation.  No matter what.  This is the work.  The rest of it is the how-to.

In my opinion, this is the essential skill to embrace, no matter how egregious what we are seeing and experiencing is to us.  This one thing is what makes NVC different from other processes.  And, it is the only way we will resolve conflict --if it is indeed possible to resolve conflict.  So simple in its concept, yet not so easy to implement into our lives.  Most of us have been educated to assign blame and punish.  It is the law of the land and somehow seemingly so appealing to so many.  I’m guessing because it’s easier, it’s comfortable and most of us haven’t ever considered another way.

Most of us, at least in the US, are becoming uncomfortably aware of how our leadership will use its power in ways that inflict harm, even hurting or threatening people we know.  What people are seeing creates a narrative that is so painful to many of us who live here it’s almost impossible to bear.  It becomes easier to blame ‘the other(s)’. Certainly there is a limit to what is and isn’t evil?  Many of us are witnessing wildly painful scenarios play out on our news media and many of us in our personal lives.  Keeping this conversation to Nonviolent Communication (NVC) as the salve, and the possibility for something different, it will require strength in our commitment to something that has been appealing to us, except when it gets this hard.

Even those who are wanting to deeply steep in NVC, are finding it difficult to hold what they see happening in the world anything as other than just plain wrong, even evil. 

I understand wanting to go to this evaluation.  It relieves us from being responsible for our own experience.  Typically even in situations that are only mildly uncomfortable, feelings are a challenge to reveal to others.  For many, they are actually difficult to identify.  When we are asked to notice our feelings in more dire and significantly charged situations, we don’t have the practice necessary to remain connected to what feelings are showing up.  We move up into our thoughts --our evaluations of the situation and want to be right by making the others wrong.  We are stretched past our capacity to remember to track on needs. 

Are you, no matter what, willing and able to hold your own emotions as important and ‘valid’?  Even more, remembering that they will lead you to the needs that NVC asks you to track on always.  Possibly you are afraid of how strong your emotions are?  Is it okay to feel rage?  We live in a culture that doesn’t celebrate emotion very much, if at all.  We even categorize them as positive and negative rather than remember that they are simply our navigation systems letting us know if needs are met or not.  Not to mention the strong ones like anger and rage are simply ‘inappropriate’ some way.  We have Anger Management Classes after all--meaning it’s wrong to feel anger and rage.   We don’t have Labeling Others classes as it is our accepted strategy for conflict resolution.  In some of the circles I find myself in (including with therapists) labeling others and holding them responsible for all the bad things happening, is well accepted, even taught as a respected conflict resolution strategy.

I’m not willing to hate anyone.  I’m not willing to call them names.  Simply because I think it will not contribute to any possibility (if there is one) of resolving conflict.  I am willing to feel my feelings no matter how strong they are.  Possibly this is easier for me is because when I was growing up, for the very most part, strong feelings were accepted.

I am committed to tracking on needs.  I do allow myself some moralistic thoughts.  I’m not willing to believe my thoughts as the truth or share them out loud, except in the case of wanting empathy and trusting someone to help me get there sooner.  Getting out of my ‘jackal’ thoughts helps me end my own suffering. 

Another thing I have going for me is the deep awareness that tracking on needs brings the only chance that I will have to see the humanness of another --which is one of the ‘rules’ of Nonviolent Communication.  Again, once I am connected to my needs and the needs of those who are doing things that I am horrified by, I have the capacity to bring those needs into the conversation, even if only the conversation in my own mind.  Maybe, only maybe will it make a difference in the real world.  What actions I take are up to me.  My job is to generate more of the needs I long for --in any and all situations.

I see no other way. [Barring a deep spiritual awakening that I also see as possible.]