basics of non-violent communication

[myself]

Hi everyone.

I've had some extremely uncomfortable interactions with people recently.

It has been difficult, but I am doing my best to see this as a gift, an important learning opportunity.

Finding these lectures today has been particularly helpful to me, so I figured it was worth sharing here.

'This is the video The Basics of Non Violent Communication with Marshall Rosenberg (founder of Nonviolent Communication). Nonviolent Communication is not about speaking in a certain way but about speaking from at certain point of view.'

 

[hush]

Hi everyone.

I've had some extremely uncomfortable interactions with people recently.

It has been difficult, but I am doing my best to see this as a gift, an important learning opportunity.

Finding these lectures today has been particularly helpful to me, so I figured it was worth sharing here.

'This is the video The Basics of Non Violent Communication with Marshall Rosenberg (founder of Nonviolent Communication). Nonviolent Communication is not about speaking in a certain way but about speaking from at certain point of view.'

I am sorry that you had those experiences.

As an aside, I hope you've been well - I've missed you and your mangos, your fermented concoctions, your crazy bike rides. You always gave off a calm feeling, with your happy, infectious smile, so I imagine this has been particularly difficult for you.

Thank you for sharing this with us, miss you, B.

 

[myself]

I am sorry that you had those experiences.

As an aside, I hope you've been well - I've missed you and your mangos, your fermented concoctions, your crazy bike rides. You always gave off a calm feeling, with your happy, infectious smile, so I imagine this has been particularly difficult for you.

Thank you for sharing this with us, miss you, B.

Thanks, Hush.
Its so nice to hear from you. Would love to hang out with you again soon.

I just finished this particular presentation, wanted to share it in its entirety, for anyone interested.

 

[aeon]

I’m a fan of NVC and the work of the good Dr. Marshall Rosenberg.

It changed my life, surely, and for the better. Recommended unconditionally.

 

[uuu]

After seeing @aeon recommend the MBR book several times over the past week (and apparently he has been quite consistent in his recommendations!), I started reading it the other day. I was surprised to see many passages that I have already seen screencapped and reposted on social media—the format of the book is very easy to digest.

In retrospect, the techniques he teaches are very similar to what I was taught in college when I participated in a group therapy program that had a profound influence on me. The basic insight, which is not difficult to understand but very difficult to make habitual, is that instead of making accusations of people and speculating about their inner world, you make specific, objective observations and try to identify your needs and where they are or aren't being met.

Big rec.

 

[uuu]

Read the whole book, and I've been trying to put it into practice as much as I can. Actually, I used it to follow up with some close friends about a situation last week where I made some glib, offensive remarks, and it was an opportunity for me to open up about my need for acceptance and how I try to meet it through power games rather than simply asking for what I want.

A new situation has come up where I also want to use NVC, but I am struggling because the person I'm trying to communicate with has a very passive, "brick wall" sort of personality. In the book, most of the examples are about dealing with people who are very confrontational/aggressive, so if someone says, "You suck donkey balls at tennis," you can respond to this by saying "Are you feeling upset because you need a more challenging tennis partner" or whatever.

But in my case, I am trying to express to my father that the way he is planning our schedule for an upcoming family gathering is going to be overwhelming and leave people (including me) feeling exhausted and annoyed without providing genuine opportunity for connection. The problem is that when I have tried to point this out to him in similar situations in the past, he either just goes, "Hey, it'll be fine, just stop thinking about it so negatively," or pressures me to provide a very specific statement of how things will go wrong, so that he can ding me on the specifics ("That won't happen as long as you ___") without addressing the larger point.

What's the NVC way of dealing with this kind of situation, where someone doesn't give you any emotional footholds at all to grab onto and react to?

 

[Wyote]

"brick wall" sort of personality.

NVC is a great default mode, but nothing is 100% effective.
Without knowing anything about your relationship with your father, I can assume that the power structure there defaults more to you simply being wrong.
It's more practical to find somebody at his level and have them use NVC for a similar conveyance of pain/not getting needs met.
Or maybe you just need to be more specific and clear about the after effects of not having your needs met.
That could be interpreted as a threat in some sense, so you'd have to remain factual and unemotional about the consequences.

Really though, sometimes people are just brick walls and the only thing you can do is remove yourself from going that direction.

 

[Matty]

I watched the full length video and I was thinking some people's needs are more intense than others, and how that can seem like greediness to people with milder needs.

When there's a pushy kitten and a passive kitten, the pushy one eats more food, when the passive one just gets leftovers. While minimum dietary requirements are tangible, emotional needs are less tangible, so perhaps people with intense needs might be getting less satisfaction than people with mild needs, even though the latter might seem to miss out more often.