If you circled this number, we’re in agreement that a feeling was verbally expressed.
If you circled this number, we’re in agreement that a feeling was verbally expressed.
If you circled this number, we are not in agreement. To me, this sentence expresses what the speaker thinks the other person is doing. This is generally the case when the words I feel are followed by the word like. An expression of feeling in this case might be: “I feel sad and concerned when I see the work you’ve been turning in.”
If you circled this number, we’re in agreement that a feeling was verbally expressed.
If you circled this number, we’re not in agreement. I don’t consider “disrespected” to be a feeling. To me, it expresses what the speaker thinks the other person is doing. An expression of feeling in this case might be: “I feel disappointed … ” or “I feel upset … ”
If you circled this number, we’re in agreement that a feeling was verbally expressed.
The Risks of Not Expressing Our Feelings
Negative effects can result when we fail to express our feelings. One time I was asked to teach a course in Nonviolent Communication to a group of students in the inner city in St. Louis. When I walked into the room the first day, the students who had been enjoying a lively conversation with one another became silent. When I said, “Good morning,” no one responded. I felt very uncomfortable but was afraid to say so. Instead of expressing my feelings, I continued in my most professional and probably pompous manner saying, “We will be studying a process of communication that I hope you will find helpful in your relationships at home and with your friends.” I continued to present information about Nonviolent Communication but no one seemed to be listening. One girl brought out a nail file and started to file her nails. The students near the window looked out to see what was going on in the street below. I felt even more uncomfortable but blundered on.
Finally one of the students with more courage than I was demonstrating, said, “You hate being with black people, don’t you?” I immediately realized how covering up my discomfort was contributing to the student’s interpretation of what was going on in me.
I replied: “I’m feeling nervous, but not because you’re black. My feelings have to do with my not knowing anyone and thinking I was not being accepted when I came in the room.”
This expression of my vulnerability had a pronounced effect on the students. They started to ask questions about me, and gradually began telling me some things about themselves and expressing an interest in learning about Nonviolent Communication.
Connecting Our Feelings to our Needs
Nonviolent Communication heightens our awareness that what others say and do may be the stimulus for our feelings, but are never the cause. Our feelings result from whether our needs are being met or not. So Sharon did not make the teacher feel scared when she hit Lionel in the head with a block; the teacher’s fear was caused by his need for the physical safety and well-being of the children in the classroom. If his need at the moment had been for sleep, because he had been up half the night before with a sick child, he might have felt overwhelmed instead of fearful, and simply checked out Lionel’s scalp for an open wound and then all but ignored Sharon, because he didn’t have the energy to deal with her.
Interpretations, criticisms, diagnoses, and judgments of others are actually alienated expressions of our unmet needs. For example, if a student says to a teacher: “That’s not fair! You never pick me!,” the student may be expressing her unmet need for equality. Or if a teacher says to a student: “You’ve been late to class every day this week. You don’t care if you learn anything or not, do you?,” the teacher may be expressing his unmet need for appreciation for the work that has gone into class preparation and planning.
Expressing our needs in this indirect fashion can be very self-defeating. The more directly we can connect our feelings to our needs, the easier it is for others to respond compassionately. On the other hand, when our needs are expressed through interpretations and judgments, people are likely to hear criticism. And, as I said before, when people hear anything that sounds like criticism, their energy is more invested in defensiveness and counter criticism than in responding compassionately.
However, most of us have not been taught to think in terms of our needs. Rather we have been educated to think in terms of what is wrong with others when our needs are not being fulfilled. Thus we may interpret our students as “lazy” for not completing work on time or “irresponsible” for leaving their homework at home. Over and over again, it has been my experience that from the moment people begin talking about what they are needing rather than what’s wrong with the other person, the possibility of finding ways to meet everyone’s needs is greatly increased.
The following are some of the basic needs we all share:
I consider the above list a work in progress and always welcome changes and additions to it. A teacher friend of mine made up her own list of needs, which she found to be helpful in working with young people:
What Do You Need?
autonomy, to make choices; accomplishment; affection; appreciation; beauty; chances to help others; creative expression; dignity; exercise; food, water, air, warmth; fun and play; harmony; honesty, truthfulness; learning new skills; love and belonging; order; peace; reassurance; respect; rest; safety, security; space; support; touch; trust; understanding
Have fun making your own list. Just be sure you include only universal human needs.
Exercise 3
Acknowledging Needs
To practice identifying needs, please circle the number in front of any statement whereby the speaker is acknowledging responsibility for his or her feelings by showing how their feelings are connected to their needs.
“I feel relieved that you returned when you did because I was concerned for your safety.”
“I feel upset hearing you call her a name because I need respect for everyone.”
“I’m excited about your report.”
“I’m hurt when you say, ‘I don’t care.’”
“When you come late to class, I feel frustrated.”
“It makes me mad when you scribble on your paper.”
“I’m disappointed because I wanted to get my point across clearly, and I see that I didn’t.”
“You make me so happy when you help each other.”
“I’m puzzled when you do things like that.”
“I’m grateful that you spoke up because I value honesty.”
Here are my responses for Exercise 3:
If you circled this number, we’re in agreement that the speaker is acknowledging responsibility for his or her feelings.
If you circled this number, we’re in agreement that the speaker is acknowledging responsibility for his or her feelings.
If you circled this number, we’re not in agreement. To express the needs or thoughts underlying his or her feelings, the speaker might have said, “I’m excited about your report because I’ve been wanting to learn more about dolphins.”
If you circled this number, we’re not in agreement. To me, the statement implies that the other person’s behavior is solely responsible for the speaker’s feelings. It doesn’t reveal the speaker’s needs or thoughts that are contributing to his or her feelings. To do so, the speaker might have said, “When you say ‘I don’t care,’ I feel hurt, because my need for consideration is not met.”
If you circled this number, we’re not in agreement. To express the needs and thoughts underlying his or her feelings, the speaker might have said, “When you come late to class I feel frustrated because I have a need to use our time in a way that contributes to everyone’s learning.”
If you circled this number, we’re not in agreement. To express the needs and thoughts underlying his or her feelings, the speaker might have said, “When you scribble on your paper, I feel angry because I have a need to conserve our resources”
7. If you circled this number, we’re in agreem
ent that the speaker is acknowledging responsibility for his or her feelings.
If you circled this number, we’re not in agreement. To express the needs and thoughts underlying his or her feelings, the speaker might have said, “I’m happy when I see you helping each other because I value cooperation and shared learning.”
If you circled this number, we’re not in agreement. To express the needs and thoughts underlying his or her feelings, the speaker might have said, “I’m puzzled when you do things like that. I’d like to understand what need you’re trying to meet.”
If you circled this number, we’re in agreement that the speaker is acknowledging responsibility for his or her feelings.
Requesting That Which Would Make Life More Wonderful
So suppose a student comes to your English class for the fifth time this week without having done his homework assignment, and since you have decided to use Nonviolent Communication with your students, you bite back the impulse to call him lazy and irresponsible. Instead you tell him what you are observing without mixing in any evaluation, (“When you answer my question by saying you didn’t read the assignment”), tell him how you feel about this (“I feel puzzled”), and connect that feeling to your need (“because I need to contribute to my students’ learning, and I can’t see how you can learn about American literature without reading some of it”). So far so good.
The final step is to clearly convey to your student what he could do to meet your needs. This can sometimes be the most difficult step. You have already asked him five times to read specific pages in Huckleberry Finn and he hasn’t done it, so there’s no point in asking him again. What can you suggest of him that can make a connection with him, and eventually result in both of your needs being met?
To find the answer to that question, let’s start by considering what requests sound like using Nonviolent Communication. First of all, Nonviolent Communication involves expressing what we are requesting rather than what we are not requesting. Confusion often results when we are told what not to do. My favorite example is the preschooler who was told to stop pinching her classmates when she felt annoyed with them. So the next time a child took a toy she wanted, she bit him.
In addition to making our requests in terms of what we do want, we make our requests in terms of concrete actions, avoiding vague, abstract language. When we express requests in clear action language we increase the likelihood that others will be more willing to respond to them.
The confusion that can be caused by vague or ambiguous language when making requests was amusingly demonstrated by a cartoon showing a man who has fallen into a lake and can’t swim. He shouts to his dog on shore, “Lassie, get help!” In the next picture, you see the dog on a psychiatrist’s couch.
One time I was invited to work with some high school students who had several grievances with their school principal whom they interpreted as a racist. A minister, who was working closely with this group of students, was aware that they were planning some violent retaliation against the principal. Very concerned about this, he asked the students to first meet with me. Out of respect for the minister, they agreed.
At our meeting, the students began by expressing that they believed they were being unfairly discriminated against. After hearing several comments, I suggested that they clarify what they would like to request from the principal.
One of the students responded disgustedly: “What good would that do? We already went to the principal and told him what we wanted and he said, ‘Get out of here! I don’t need you people telling me what to do.’”
I asked the students what they had requested at that meeting. They told me how they had first told the principal that they did not want him telling them how to wear their hair. I shared with the students that I thought they might have received a more cooperative response if they had expressed what they did want, rather than what they did not want.
They next related to me that they had told the principal that they wanted to be treated more fairly. Again, I shared with the students that I believed they were more likely to have received a cooperative response if they had described the specific actions that they were requesting, rather than to use a vague term such as “fair treatment.”
We worked together to find ways they could express their requests in positive action language. At the end of our meeting, the students had clarified thirty-eight actions that they wanted to happen at their school.
The day following our meeting, the students went in, once again, and expressed their requests to the principal—only this time, they expressed their requests using the clear action language we had practiced. Later that night, they called, elated, and told me that the principal had agreed to all thirty-eight of their requests. Three days later, a representative from the school district called me to inquire about my coming to the district to teach their administrators what I had taught the students.
The Difference Between Requests and Demands
A third aspect of making requests in Nonviolent Communication involves knowing the difference between requests and demands. When others hear our requests as demands, they believe that if they do not say “yes,” they will be blamed or punished. Once they hear a request as a demand, they see only the options of submission or rebellion. Either way, they experience us as coercive, and they are not likely to respond compassionately to what we have requested.
For example, if a teacher says to a student, “Would you be willing to move your seat to the back of the room so that I can put my fossil table here?” that could be either a request or a demand, as I’m defining those terms. The difference between a request and a demand is not determined by how politely we speak. The difference is seen by how the person making the request treats others when they do not comply with the request.
So if the student responds to the teacher’s request by saying, “I’d rather stay where I am,” and the teacher then says, “That’s not very considerate of you!” then I would call it a demand. The teacher has moralistically judged the student’s preference rather than wanting to understand the student’s motivation.
Here is a similar scenario:
Teacher: Would you be willing to move your seat to the back of the room so that I can put my fossil table here?
Student: I’d rather keep my seat where it is.
Teacher: You hurt my feelings when you refuse to do what I ask you to. You know how much my fossil collection means to me.
In this scenario, we see that when the student says “no,” the teacher implies that the student has hurt her feelings. When we blame others for our feelings, we are often hoping that they will feel guilty when they don’t do as we have asked. The more we take a “no” as rejection or as the cause of our unhappiness, the more our requests are likely to be heard in the future as demands.
Exercise 4
Expressing Requests
To see whether we’re in agreement about the clear expression of requests, circle the number in front of any of the following statements in which the speaker is clearly requesting that a specific action be taken.
“I want you to be respectful.”
“I’d like you to pay attention when I’m talking.”
“I’d like you to tell me what your understanding is of my objectives for this project.”
“I would like you to be on time in the future.”
“I’d like you to tell me if you’d be willing to schedule a time to talk about what happened with you and Toby today.”
“I’d like you to try harder.”
“I’d like you to put away all the materials you’ve been working with in the next five minutes.”
“I’d like you to use your words to tell her what’s going on.”
“I’d like you to raise your hand at any point that you don’t understand my directions. Is anyone unwilling to do this?”
“I’d like us to play fair.”
Here are my responses for Exercise 4:
If you circled this number, we’re not in
agreement. To me, the words be respectful do not clearly express a specific action that is being requested. The speaker might have said, “I’d like you to answer my question or tell me what need of yours prevents you from doing so.”
If you circled this number, we’re not in agreement. To me, the words pay attention do not clearly express a specific action that is being requested. The speaker might have said, “After I finish what I’m about to say, I’d like you to tell me back what you heard me say”
If you circled this number, we’re in agreement that the statement clearly expresses what the speaker is requesting.
If you circled this number, we’re not in agreement. To me, the words be on time do not clearly express a specific action being requested. The speaker might have said, “I would like you to tell me if you would be willing from now on to have your jackets and backpacks put away and be sitting at your desks by the time the bell rings?”
If you circled this number, we’re in agreement that the statement clearly expresses what the speaker is requesting.
If you circled this number, we’re not in agreement. To me, the words try harder do not clearly express a specific action being requested. The speaker might have said, “I’d like you to tell me what I could do to support you focusing on this work until it is completed.”
7. If you circled this number, we’re in agreement that the statement clearly expresses what the speaker is requesting.
If you circled this number, we’re not in agreement. The words use your words do not clearly express a specific action being requested. The speaker might have said, “I’d like you to tell her what she did that you didn’t like, how you feel, and what need of yours was not met.”
If you circled this number, we’re in agreement that the statement clearly expresses what the speaker is requesting.
Life-Enriching Education Page 4
