Marshall Rosenberg: What I Want In My Life Is Compassion, a Flow Between Myself and Others Based on a Mutual Giving From the Heart

My husband and I attended a beautiful meditation and dharma talk today at PIMC (Portland Insight Meditation Community - http://www.portlandinsight.org/), which is also where Ron and I were married. The name of Marshall Rosenberg came up during the teaching and then again when we joined with others afterwards for conversation, coffee and tea, and other goodies. All of this inspires me to share the beauty and wisdom of this wonderful teacher. May we all grow in consciousness, courage, kindness, compassion, understanding, nonviolent communication, wisdom and love. ―Molly

"This world is what we have made of it. If it is ruthless today it is because we have made it ruthless by our attitudes. If we change ourselves we can change the world, and changing ourselves begins with changing our language and methods of communication. I highly recommend reading this book and applying the Nonviolent Communication process it teaches. It is a significant first step toward changing our communication and creating a compassionate world." ― Arun Gandhi

Excerpts from Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

by Marshall B. Rosenberg

What I want in my life is compassion, a flow between myself and others based on a mutual giving from the heart.

I'm interested in learning that's motivated by reverence for life, that's motivated by a desire to learn skills, to learn new things that help us to better contribute to our own well-being and the well-being of others. And what fills me with great sadness is any learning that I see motivated by coercion.

My ultimate goal is to spend as many of my moments in life as I can in that world that the poet Rumi talks about, 'a place beyond rightness and wrongness.

All violence is the result of people tricking themselves into believing that their pain derives from other people and that consequently those people deserve to be punished.

Most of us grew up speaking a language that encourages us to label, compare, demand, and pronounce judgments rather than to be aware of what we are feeling and needing.

There is considerably less violence in cultures where people think in terms of human needs than in cultures where people label one another as “good” or “bad” and believe that the “bad” ones deserve to be punished. 

We are dangerous when we are not conscious of our responsibility for how we behave, think, and feel.

Anger is a signal that you're distracted by judgmental or punitive thinking, and that some precious need of yours is being ignored.

This difficulty in identifying and expressing feelings is common, and in my experience, especially so among lawyers, engineers, police officers, corporate managers, and career military personnel—people whose professional codes discourage them from manifesting emotions.

As we’ve seen, all criticism, attack, insults, and judgments vanish when we focus attention on hearing the feelings and needs behind a message. The more we practice in this way, the more we realize a simple truth: behind all those messages we’ve allowed ourselves to be intimidated by are just individuals with unmet needs appealing to us to contribute to their well-being. When we receive messages with this awareness, we never feel dehumanized by what others have to say to us. We only feel dehumanized when we get trapped in the derogatory images of other people or thoughts of wrongness about ourselves. As author and mythologist Joseph Campbell suggested, "'What will they think of me?' must be put aside for bliss." We begin to feel this bliss when messages previously experienced as critical or blaming begin to be seen for the gifts they are: opportunities to give to people who are in pain.

At the core of all anger is a need that is not being fulfilled.  

We deny responsibility for our actions when we attribute their cause to factors outside ourselves.

Peace cannot be built on the foundations of fear.

Two Questions That Reveal the Limitations of Punishment. Two questions help us see why we are unlikely to get what we want by using punishment to change people’s behavior. The first question is: What do I want this person to do that’s different from what he or she is currently doing? If we ask only this first question, punishment may seem effective, because the threat or exercise of punitive force may well influence someone’s behavior. However, with the second question, it becomes evident that punishment isn’t likely to work: What do I want this person’s reasons to be for doing what I’m asking?

My theory is that we get depressed because we’re not getting what we want, and we’re not getting what we want because we have never been taught to get what we want. Instead, we’ve been taught to be good little boys and girls and good mothers and fathers. If we’re going to be one of those good things, better get used to being depressed. Depression is the reward we get for being “good.” But, if you want to feel better, I’d like you to clarify what you would like people to do to make life more wonderful for you.

We all pay dearly when people respond to our values and needs not out of a desire to give from the heart, but out of fear, guilt, or shame. Sooner or later, we will experience the consequences of diminished goodwill on the part of those who comply with our values out of a sense of either external or internal coercion. They, too, pay emotionally, for they are likely to feel resentment and decreased self-esteem when they respond to us out of fear, guilt, or shame. Furthermore, each time others associate us in their minds with any of those feelings, the likelihood of their responding compassionately to our needs and values in the future decreases.

NVC [ Nonviolent Communication] heightens our awareness that what others say and do may be the stimulus, but never the cause, of our feelings. We see that our feelings result from how we choose to receive what others say and do, as well as from our particular needs and expectations in that moment. With this third component, we are led to accept responsibility for what we do to generate our own feelings. 

Every criticism, judgment, diagnosis, and expression of anger is the tragic expression of an unmet need. 

The objective of Nonviolent Communication is not to change people and their behavior in order to get our way: it is to establish relationships based on honesty and empathy, which will eventually fulfill everyone's needs. 

Life-alienating communication both stems from and supports hierarchical or domination societies, where large populations are controlled by a small number of individuals to those individuals, own benefit. It would be in the interest of kings, czars, nobles, and so forth that the masses be educated in a way that renders them slave-like in mentality. The language of wrongness, should, and have to is perfectly suited for this purpose: the more people are trained to think in terms of moralistic judgments that imply wrongness and badness, the more they are being trained to look outside themselves—to outside authorities—for the definition of what constitutes right, wrong, good, and bad. When we are in contact with our feelings and needs, we humans no longer make good slaves and underlings.

Let’s shine the light of consciousness on places where we can hope to find what we are seeking. 

Your presence is the most precious gift you can give to another human being. 

The Sufi poet Rumi once wrote, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.