Please note the mention of Bush near the end of the article.

Pathways to Peace

A Language of Love
Nonviolent Communication offers path to heart connection.
by Aria Seligmann

Dammit! You left dirty dishes in the sink again!
So wash them.
You wash them!
I'm doing something else right now.
I'm not your maid! (Storms out).

Scene sound familiar? Admit it; you know it does. Let's reframe the preceding argument, using Nonviolent Communication (NVC). Here's how you might think it would sound:

"I'm noticing the dishes in the sink and feeling overwhelmed and need a minute to just talk. Could you take a minute to talk to me about how we can do this dishes thing in a way that will work for all of us?"

You're closer, but that may be a trap to use to get someone else to do what you want them to do. Imagine adding to the sentence, "If these dishes don't somehow end up getting done, you're not getting your allowance," or there may be some other sort of punishment, such as a guilt trip, or rejection.

Nonviolent Communication, a process developed and refined over a period of 35 years by Dr. Marshall B. Rosenberg, provides a path to the deeper connection. Is our anger really about the dishes or do we want understanding about how our needs for cooperation, teamwork and support are not getting met? The outcome may not be getting the dishes done at that moment, but the need for understanding, for shared responsibility in the house, may become clear. The tension will dissolve, and the conflict will end.

Ending conflict is the life work of Rosenberg, who grew up in a turbulent Detroit neighborhood. The quest for understanding violence led to Rosenberg's studying and earning his doctorate in psychology. But traditional psychology did not satisfy his desire to understand how to resolve conflicts among people, whom he believed to be inherently nonviolent.

Rosenberg founded the Center for Nonviolent Communication in 1984, and has since traveled the world, holding NVC workshops and training others to do so. He is the author of Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life and Life-Enriching Education. He has worked with individuals, couples, corporations and nations. Recently, he was in Israel and Palestine listening to the concerns of people there. He has also had significant influence in the field of restorative justice, bringing together perpetrators and their victims to help them achieve mutual understanding.

Rosenberg will be traveling through Oregon in early May, holding a series of workshops throughout the state. He'll hold two workshops in Eugene on May 7. Those workshops offer an opportunity for peace activists and others to get training in conflict resolution and to apply NVC on a personal level, as well.

NVC centers around observations, feelings, needs and requests. For example: "I'm observing there are dirty dishes in the sink. I have already washed all of mine. I would like to make dinner, and I'm unable to do so without a clean sink. I'm feeling frustrated and irritated, because I have a need for order, respect and support. Would you be willing to help with the dishes?"

By identifying our needs, which include basic needs such as food, shelter and water, interdependency needs such as understanding, trust, respect and support, or broader needs such as celebration, we can understand where anger, or any emotion, ultimately comes from. "All violence," says Rosenberg, "is the tragic expression of unmet needs."

In order to check in with what emotions we or others are feeling and why, NVC requires us to slow down, in our speech as well as reactive tendencies, and consciously become aware of what we are experiencing.

The techniques are not only suitable to interpersonal relationships, but apply to healing oneself, to working with contentious groups, such as gangs and police or labor and management, and ultimately can be used to resolve conflicts among nations.

One of the basic concepts of NVC is adopting a "power with" rather than "power over" structure. Rosenberg points to the domination structure humankind has been living under for the past 8,000 years. From the parent/child relationship to political forces, that structure defeats every human's basic need for autonomy. But how are we to undo what's been ingrained in us for so long?

Rosenberg, speaking from his home in Wasserfallenhof, Switzerland, says his approach is "radical." Beginning on the home front, he says, "get rid of the word 'child.' When I sometimes work with groups of parents I put half in one room and half in the other. Then we break down into smaller groups. We have a written role play of how they would communicate with someone who's borrowed something and hasn't returned it. One group is talking to a neighbor; the other to a child. The neighbor always gets more love and respect than the child."

Rosenberg says it's that very domination system that makes it "really hard to see a child as a neighbor."

That myopia can cut us off from connecting at a deeper level. Rosenberg recounts the time he came home from work, exhausted from having tried to mediate between street gangs and police in East St. Louis, Ill.

"It was very hard. I walked in the back door and my kids were fighting. I said in NVC, 'I need peace. Will you be willing to postpone this war?' My eldest son said, 'Do you want to talk about it?' I thought how cute. In doing so, I dehumanized him. I was doing the same thing the street gang and police were doing: not seeing human beings in each other. Here this human offers listening to me in distress. I have him labeled my child."

He accepted his son's offer of support, and says he "listened beautifully while I got out of my pain."

Using the word "child" is fine for shorthand, he says, but "don't see the person as a child, or especially, as my child. Extend the same respect to children as to a 40 year old."

The same "power with" model can be applied to the workplace, between management and labor. "In Switzerland, I coach people in the corporate area," says Rosenberg. "We're trained to tell managers to give praise and compliments every day, and research says productivity goes up. But it's only for a short time, until people sense the motivation behind it. That destroys trust in real gratitude."

People want ownership over their jobs, and the power with model usually results in greater satisfaction as each individual achieves greater autonomy.

Balancing that quest for autonomy with one's dependency needs is a dance. Rosenberg says, "We are interdependent; our well-being is one and the same. I can't benefit at your expense and you can't benefit at my expense." When people try to take advantage of others, or try to dominate them, violence occurs. From a child not wanting to go to bed to a nation striving for statehood, the needs are the same.

"A couple of days ago I was in Palestine," says Rosenberg. "The concerns of people there are all about autonomy. They don't want others telling them what to do. Every day, everywhere, there are fights going on regarding this. 'Please get ready for bed.' 'I don't want to.' It's about autonomy — we can tell from the child's tone of voice."

How we react to someone else's need for autonomy, which may come out as anger, is a matter of conscious choosing. By having empathy with the other and asking what they are feeling, we can help the anger dissolve. We can apply the same empathy to ourselves, in questioning what unmet need our feelings are resulting from. To do that, says Rosenberg, slow down and take your time.

He says, "My son was 12 and had done something I didn't like and I was telling myself to take my time so I could respond to him in a way that I liked. Meanwhile, his friends were waiting. He said, 'Daddy, it's taking you such a long time to talk.' I told him, 'Here's what I can say quickly: 'Do it my way or I'll kick your ass.' He waited."

Local NVC trainer and co-founder of the Oregon Network for Compassionate Communication (founded in September 2001 and sponsor of Rosenberg's visit), Michael Dreiling, a UO sociology professor, says NVC works by releasing people from criticism, blame and judgment, allowing them to connect with their own needs and those of others.

"Thoughts such as, 'Things would be better,' or 'I would be happier if you would have taken the trash out, or Bush would get out of office,' can deny our own responsibility and state of being," he says. "Instead, we can create alternative possibilities for meeting our own and others' needs. Criticism and blame can dehumanize the people we're connecting with, by holding them responsible for our anxiety, fear, hurt, pain, sadness, or anger, turning them into an object that is to be controlled or manipulated so we can be relieved of our pain."

NVC teaches that when we turn another human being into an object, "We've removed ourselves from the place of heart connection and having compassion for that human being and understanding why they might be doing what they're doing," says Dreiling. That objectification can also separate us from truly understanding our own needs and what Rosenberg says is "alive in us at that moment."

That consciousness is what gets us out of the reactive trap and allows for deeper connection and understanding to occur at a heart level. NVC also gets us out of the co-dependent trap. By checking in with our own feelings and needs first, we don't give ourselves away in the process of trying to understand the other. In fact, the final part of NVC, the request, allows us to say "No" — nonviolently. "No, I can't do the dishes right now, because I have a need for safety, and with you standing there raging at me, I don't feel safe. So I'm going to walk away and take 10 minutes and then I'll come back and we can talk about this."

In hearing that "no," says Dreiling, we can also hear a "yes."

For example, "Yes, I'm choosing to meet my own needs for safety, and yes, I am willing to resolve this matter, after my need for safety has been met."

Notice the non-dish-doer did not escalate the matter by yelling back, by calling names, "Quit yelling at me, you jerk," or increase the violence against himself by feeling guilty or allowing himself to be manipulated.

"The 'I'm feeling hurt and you're the cause' mentality, or 'You're feeling hurt and I'm bad because I'm the cause' mentality is so prevalent in our culture it is difficult to undo," says Dreiling. And it creates a cycle of violence, from domestic violence to community disputes to international warfare, that NVC can get us out of.

In fact, NVC reminds us that we have a deep need to nurture each other, to give, to care for others — what Rosenberg calls serving life.

"There's nothing more enjoyable or natural for we human beings than contributing to life and in seeing our power used for life," says Rosenberg. "It's not based on an abstract belief, but on the innate goodness of people. I've asked children or adults what you did that made somebody's life more wonderful. Now how did it feel when you realized you have that impact? I've asked in Africa, Asia, and the U.S.: Does anyone know anything that feels better?"

When we get beyond the image of the other as enemy, be it a family member, co-worker, neighbor or nation, and check in with what the other is needing, says Rosenberg, "Conflicts are resolved."