When Compassionate Communication ISN’T Compassionate

LaShelle Lowe Charde

Most things that you want to learn fully require transformation on multiple levels.  Knowledge and understanding the concepts is not enough for true mastery.  The same is true of Compassionate Communication (NVC).  It can easily be misused by those with only a superficial understanding.   Over the years I have read or heard people talk about how NVC is actually violent, manipulative, or otherwise flawed.  Unfortunately what's usually happening there, is someone has simply learned enough to do what they have always done, but just with a new vocabulary.  This is painful and confusing for everyone involved.  You hear someone trying something new, but it isn't creating connection.

The purpose of NVC is to create a quality of connection which naturally inspires compassion.  Everything about NVC exists only for this purpose.  The hard work of NVC practice is noticing connection at ever more subtle levels.  This means noticing what supports connection, what gets in the way, and what is exactly enough connection for a given relationship or context.  This practice requires self-awareness and other awareness - mindfulness.

Unfortunately in a moment of pain, your reactive habit shows up quickly and wants you to attack, defend, or do whatever you have typically done to protect yourself.  So you grab the vocabulary or structure of NVC, but not the awareness or valuing of connection.  Here's a few ways that might look:

• Sharing a list of four or more unmet needs with someone while looking at them with dagger eyes and refusing to make a request.
• Sharing an experience using the NVC structure while demanding a certain response back from the other person.
• Sharing a list of four or more feelings and refusing to hear the other person's feelings.
• Negotiating needs and requests with reference to a relationship scorecard (tit for tat instead what truly meets needs).
• Offering empathy guesses, but refusing to share from an equally vulnerable place.
• Sharing using the NVC vocabulary and structure, but not valuing how your sharing lands for the other person, or sharing whether there is connection or not and whether the other person has agreed to the conversation or not.
• Slipping interpretations into your speech without owning them as such.
• Listening resentfully while attempting to offer empathy guesses.

In situations like those listed above, the most unfortunate thing that happens, is the person receiving reacts back.  This counter reaction often involves correction, "You're not doing NVC right!"  Sometimes the person comes away with a generalized judgment about how awful NVC is or how awful "NVC'ers" are.  The only thing that NVC is really interested in is whether or not the experience supported a quality of connection that naturally inspires compassion.

Rather than offering correction or judgment, the hope is that you could say, "Wait, I am not connecting right now and I want to connect.  Can we….?"  Requests that support connection include:

• Can we pause here so I can see if I am hearing you right? (say back what you've heard).
• Can we just stick to this one event, even though there are other similar instances?
• Would you be willing to tell me what you're wanting out of this conversation?
• Can we pause, take a deep breath, and ask ourselves if we really want to connect right now?
• I didn't connect to what you were saying.  Would you be willing to say that again another way?
• I notice I have the impulse to defend and justify.  Can we come back to this after lunch when I have calmed down?
• It sounds to me like you are wanting to prove how wrong and terrible I was and hearing you that way I am shutting down.  Can you express a guess at any good intentions you think I might have had?

The common element of all these requests is that they prioritize connection.  This means making connection more important than being heard first, problem solving, clarifying the details of the situation, figuring out who's right, who's to blame, or why they behaved in a certain way.  While you want your airplane pilot to be focused more on the details of the situation than connection, most of the time prioritizing a particular quality of connection will contribute deeply to a compassionate, authentic, and fulfilling life.

Practice

For the coming week, once a day reflect on one interaction that was satisfying, that had just enough connection.  Notice what you both did that supported that connection.

Making someone jealous

LaShelle Lowe Charde

Jealousy in an intimate relationship is a painful thing to feel.  It arises from a sense of threat and insecurity.  But from the perspective of your partner, jealousy may be interpreted as a sign that you are invested in the relationship, that you care. Because of this your partner may feel a sense of reassurance by seeing you get jealous. They may even attempt to trigger jealousy to meet a need for reassurance.  You might call this a tragic strategy for reassurance because the need for reassurance is met at the cost of your need for security.

The most helpful thing is asking for and offering this reassurance directly. This is hard because it requires vulnerability and you have likely experienced some shame around vulnerability.  Beyond that you have also likely encountered some pressure to be tough, calm, and confident. The difficulty of asking for reassurance becomes compounded when your partner attempts to give you reassurance in a way that doesn't really meet the need. When this happens and you go to ask for reassurance your partner is likely to react with exasperation and impatience thinking they have already offered it and what more could they possibly do.

The reality is that as human beings we are hardwired to create a secure bond with each other and to maintain that bond through verbal and non-verbal forms of reassurance. It's up to you to let your partner know exactly what that looks like for you; how you most easily have a sense of security and bonding. When your partner shares this with you as well, they will no longer need to engage tragic strategies like "making you jealous" in order to have a sense of reassurance.

The important thing is to make space for differences. What offers you the most reassurance may be very different from what offers your partner the most reassurance.  Take a look at this list of common forms of reassurance and notice what resonates the most for you and make a guess at what resonates the most for your partner.

• Eye contact
• Smiling
• Physical affection
• Verbal expressions of love and appreciation
• Sharing intimately about your experience
• Collaboration on a shared project or vision
• Public signs of partnership
• Sex
• Gifts
• Showing up 4 significant events in each other's lives
• Expressing delight and celebration about the unique qualities of your partner
• Anticipating and considering your partner's needs when they are not present to speak for them
• Offering and receiving empathy

With consistency around reassurance, care, and consideration both of you may feel more secure over time.   As this security grows, behaviors and words that promote a secure bond become more, not less frequent. With a greater sense of security comes a greater ease in giving and receiving love and care.

Practice

Take a moment to reflect on how your partner might most easily receive reassurance and offer that today.

 

Slippery Conversations

LaShelle Charde

Have you ever been doing your best to be heard, repeating and clarifying and still the conversation slips away from you and you don't feel heard?

Often what is missing is simple turn taking.  Let's take an example with Jonah and Alexis.  Alexis expresses clearly her observation, feeling, need, and then asks Jonah to say back what he heard.  Jonah really wants to meet Alexis' need to be heard, but is feeling vulnerable and needing understanding so he mixes what he heard with what he wants to say.

For example, Alexis offers this neutral observation along with her feelings and needs: "When you left around 7 that evening and didn't return until after 1am, I felt . . . ."  Instead of giving back the neutral observation, Jonah says, "When I left that evening to comfort my friend  whose mother had died".  He begins to tell his story here without first hearing his partner.  He goes on and little bits of his story appear in the midst of otherwise clear reflection of what Alexis said.  She feels confused with this.  She wants to honor that he did get much of what she said and at the same time has a sense that he didn't.  Mixing his story with her experience doesn't make space for her experience to stand alone and be valid.

There are several ways to avoid this trap.

1.  Ask to be heard and then reassure your partner that you want to hear their experience too.

2.  Start with the clarity that you want your experience to be heard rather than argue a memory of what really happened.

3.  Own the fact that all experience is subjective by using phrases like:  "As I remember it",  "It seemed to me",  "My perception was".  "I told myself the story that", "My interpretation was" , etc.

4.  Set up regular and intentional conversations in which you take turns giving and receiving empathy.

5.  Use a talking stick to remind each other who the speaker is.  The person without the talking stick can offer empathy and ask clarifying questions, but doesn't express any of their experience until holding the stick.

This week practice reflecting back someone's experience to them and notice if you start to tell your own story before checking to see if they feel heard.