Transcript: Hello everyone! Here I am again and this time I'm going to introduce you to another concept that was hugely important for my personal development - it is called Nonviolent Communication. Usually the ideas under that name are presented as a tool to resolve conflicts and while that's certainly the case and probably the reason why most people get interested in it first, I believe it is completely underselling how powerful this can actually be. In this presentation I want to show you my personal take on how the two main aspects a regular NVC practice can bring were transforming and liberating me: Emotional literacy and needs awareness. And because this is an ongoing exploration for me I encourage you to join the conversation. Let me know if I missed anything you found very important or if you found any errors in this presentation by typing it in the comments below or engaging with me in their personal conversation.
So when I was growing up (and I know that was unique in many ways but also very similar to millions of other people) I wasn't taught to honor my emotions, it was actually more the opposite. It was modeled by adults around me that emotions are to be suppressed as much as you can. And then sometimes they show up with surprising and confusing intensity, but nobody's really ever talking about it much, other than: You shouldn't be too loud, or you shouldn't cry, or crying is for babies or a whole bunch of other variations of the message: “Emotions are not welcome here.” So rather than trusting that my emotions and my intuition exist for a good reason, I learned to look outwards - to my parents and my teachers, to let me know what to focus on. They were correcting my behavior by telling me what I should or shouldn't do, how to be a good person and remain being loved, or whenever I did something “bad” they were punishing me or withdrawing their love. That's how it worked. Learning from this model how to look at the world and myself I became a person that was completely blind to my own emotional experience and confused by other people's emotions, passing judgments on individuals and groups, trying to evaluate other people’s and my own behavior by distinguishing between good and evil and then advocating for, or even personally enforcing punishments in order to correct bad behavior. I think it is fair to say that this way of thinking is now shared by many other people and this is why contemporary culture is manifesting itself like this: An elaborate system of rules that are trying to clearly distinguish between what's good and what's bad for society, and if individuals break these rules they are punished in order to correct their thinking and their behavior. How well do you think this system is working? And how well do you think it's working in your life and in your relationships? Do you think there could be another way, a different approach to that? What if you took your emotions seriously?
When I got my first list of emotions I started practicing going inwards and scanning my body for subtle sensations, and I discovered that I was blind to essential experiences of fully being alive, but also that a huge chunk of language and with it the ability to exchange important information with other people was unused or distorted. At first this was like learning the language of a previously hidden Amazonian tribe, by them pointing to plants and animals I've never seen before and saying a word. Over time I made the necessary connections between the words and the experiences and I also became more fluent in noticing patterns in my body. And with it I also became more aware of what other people might feel, increasing emotional availability and empathy. So if you happen to have a girlfriend that is asking you: “How do you feel?”, and you have no idea what she's talking about (like I was) or if you have a partner that is complaining that you're emotionally unavailable (like I was) then this is what you need to do (if you want to take responsibility): Take some time off during the day (if it's just five minutes at the beginning - it's just five minutes), find a comfortable spot sit or lie down, take the list of emotions that I also put in a description below (so he can print it out or you can put it on your phone) and you try and identify or differentiate sensations in your body that are matching the words on the list - just like the difference between hunger and a belly ache, only more subtle.
How does stress feel like? Or suspicion? Or anger, or longing, loneliness or disappointment? Or joy, inspiration and peace. How does it show up in your body? This practice will not only create literacy and awareness about your emotional landscape, but it will also facilitate an observational perspective – meaning: that you will notice “having” emotions rather than “being” them, or acting them out. You can imagine that it already makes a huge difference if somebody that you're close to is saying to you: “I feel angry right now.”, compared to screaming like mad and throwing stuff across the room.
For you rational beings out there: Let's define emotions - what are emotions even?
They are: A conscious mental reaction experienced as physiological and behavioral changes within the body.
What does it mean? For example: “I feel angry” is a conceptualized way of saying: I feel heat rising from my chest into my head, I feel an increased heart rate or faster breathing or even holding my breath. I feel clenching my fists and my jaw.” I feel sad” are words for the experiences of a tightening or a pain in my throat, watering eyes, pain in my chest or in my heart or in my face. Thoughts are always arising as a consequence of feeling emotions and they are trying to make sense of the situation, they try to explain it. Here are some words that don't fit the definition. They are not emotions, but rather part of the interpretive thoughts already: I feel oppressed. The word oppressed is a thought arising from the emotion trying to make sense of it, trying to find who's to blame, who's oppressing you. Who's making you feel, for example, stressed or sad.
Or “I feel abandoned”. Just like before this word is trying to point to the source of the emotional state, trying to create a story to explain why you feel something. There are many more words like this that are often used to communicate emotions, but are actually not matching the definition and are therefore confusing. In the same way that we have been told to ignore our own emotional experience we have learned to blame others for our own emotional reaction. Becoming aware of the difference between stimulus and cause and taking ownership of our own emotional reaction instead of blaming others for our discomfort and trying to change them in order to feel safe will offer a much more empowered state of being and responsibility and opportunity instead of victim-hood and violent demands.
You might also ask why are emotions even useful - they're hazy and they easily get out of control whereas dealing with any situation a rational manner is much more controlled and less volatile. Well here's the reason why it's rational to use and trust your emotions: The reason why we even have emotions is because they inform us about whether or not our needs are met or not. That's it! Seems kind of an important function, isn't it? Most obvious this is when it comes to survival needs. If you have ever in your life burnt parts of your skin on a hot stove on a fire you will probably not only remember that pain as a fact but you will probably have an emotional reaction, probably fear, whenever you're close to this possible source of pain ever again. If you don't believe me then just, you know, do this: Pause the video walk up to your stove turn it on, full power. And then close your eyes and hold your hand way above it and slowly move closer and closer to where you feel the heat radiating from. And how does that feel like? What do you feel and do you trust that emotion, to keep you safe and your needs met? Emotions have been helping our ancestors for hundreds and thousands of years to thrive successfully. Only those who had a healthy emotional reaction to their environment survived and procreated successfully. It is a highly fine-tuned system and it originates in the limbic area. But the greatest feature of emotions give it a kind of like a bad reputation now, and make it a little bit of a challenge to bring consciousness to it from our modern brain upgrade, the cortex - and that it's their speed. Emotions are super fast and they seem to hijack our entire being momentarily, compelling us to fight or flee or shutting us down into a depression and then a little bit later it seems like almost we are waking up from the experience like from a dream, realizing that we have maybe said or done things that we now regret and that we didn't even want to do or say. The speed of emotions is very important for survival you can imagine that the guy who was feeling the presence of the lion and immediately taking off probably survived longer and was able to create more children than the guy who was questioning his intuition and checking out if that's actually true. But at the same time, overcoming your fear has a lot of benefits iin being able to find out what's valuable outside the familiar - but it's a very exciting topic for another video. Emotional reactions that don't seem to make sense are often about interpersonal trauma from the past and that's why people often find them confusing or don't trust their validity. But especially if you find out that for example the intense anger that you feel towards your spouse is actually about childhood trauma it is extra important to honor that emotion, to name it and explore it in order to heal from it - meaning that you will be able to break the habit so it doesn't show up in your relationships again and again. If you want to learn more about how to heal trauma I recommend that you also watch my video about sub-personalities as well.
I propose that instead of dismissing emotional reactions we welcome them, we include them into our experience and into our vocabulary and we use our awareness to find out more about what kind of needs are fulfilled or unfulfilled, or what kind of needs were not fulfilled in the past. Now other than just survival needs there is a whole range of human needs that are important but often complex and there's a huge difference between basic survival needs (which our ancestors I think could fulfill quite competently) and fully being alive – self-actualization. And this is why when I move on to the next topic: Needs Awareness, even though there is a lot more to see about emotions of course.
For the same reason that emotions of children are often unacknowledged or not welcomed they get that their needs are not taken seriously. Of course most of times their basic needs are fulfilled in modern society, but interpersonal needs suffer a lot. I've put together a list of all the human needs that I was made aware of and that I noticed within myself, and also put it in a description below. The different categories points to different aspects of our lives and sometimes they kind of build on top of each other. So for example if your need for food or shelter isn't fulfilled then you probably won't worry as much about you need for consciousness or play. Because most of our basic needs in present times are fulfilled, there are more and more needs that are higher up in the hierarchy being noticed as unfulfilled and this can make us just as unhappy. Our bodies and our minds are built for and they're used to struggling with survival. Even if you go back into history just a few generations you know what I'm talking about. And because of this we have inherited the habit to focus on what's not working, still thinking that life is this constant battle for survival and you permanently need to fix stuff.
So part of the practice is not only to go through the list and check in what needs are not fulfilled in your life but also which ones are - sometimes even in abundance. So just by bringing awareness to that and shifting your focus, taking time to celebrate what's working for you can create feelings of gratitude, peace of mind and happiness and this will create additional energy and resourcefulness to then be able to focus on what's not working - and what you need to sort out still.
The most challenging practice but at the same time also the most liberating and life-changing for me was to look at any kind of behavior in myself or in others through the lens of you needs fulfillment. So that means: Whatever someone is doing or whatever you are wanting to do you can always ask yourself: What need is this person trying to fulfill? What am I trying to get here? Is this for love, or stability? Is it for community? To get freedom? Care? What is for? What need am I trying to fulfill in preferring one action over another, or one person over another? This practice can not only bring clarity to human interaction where it's often confusing or alienating but it can even completely take out any judgment from what you would otherwise habitually label as “bad behavior”, and you can translate all your judgments to a new language. replacing the old habits with a general sense of curiosity and openness - and you will start wonder: “What needs is this person trying to fulfill?”, even if they are obviously acting in very destructive ways. If you're concerned about too much tolerance because of this new way of thinking, I can assure you that understanding other people's behavior doesn't mean it you tolerate anything. Guess why! Because you at the same time learn to take care of your own needs so you will have better boundaries and more compassion for others at the same time! So let's create a definition of needs. The list is certainly helpful but I want to be able to clearly distinguish between needs and strategies, which is a common confusion.
A need is a physiological or psychological requirement for the well-being of an organism. And compared to that, the definition of a strategy: A strategy is a method or a plan in order to fulfill a need.
Very often people focus on or fight over strategies confusing them with the underlying needs. For example, somebody might say: “I need a new car.”, instead of “I need freedom and fun in my life.” or “I need to get back together with my boyfriend.” instead of “I need love in my life.” Maybe you can already see in these examples that communicating your needs to yourself and to others opens up the door to many more possible strategies rather than getting attached to one specific one and then suffering as a consequence in thinking your needs won't ever get met. For me, looking at the world through the lens of needs has opened up a new perspective a microscopic view and an understanding of the fundamental building blocks of life itself the table of needs can do for you what the table of elements has done for physics and technology. Your world is not going to be the same any more. Just like engineers now can build airplanes and spaceships, something our ancestors could not have even dreamed of, you will be able to build your life in ways that you cannot even imagine yet. As a fundamental practice I suggest this: In your day to day life you just take a moment once in a while to ask yourself: “How am I feeling, and what need am I trying to fulfill?” or “What need isn't fulfilled?” or with others: you look at them and you are like: “What might they be feeling right now and what need are you trying to get met?” or “What need is met for them?”.
You don't need anyone else to practice this new way of thinking at first - you can do it whenever and however you like to deepen the practice. Of course you can join a group or you can seek out what's called an “empathy buddy”. Doing this on a regular basis develops your capacity for true empathy and compassion. The topic of empathy itself and all of the needs are loaded with meaning and I want to dive deeper into an exploration of each one of them. I'm gonna talk about each emotion that we can feel and every need that we all have. I'm very motivated to do this and it's an exciting and meaningful endeavor to learn as much as I can, to share these ideas and to learn from others. It will take me some time to do it but you can help me speed up the process by spreading a word, and your participation on Patreon.
Also, if you're already familiar with NVC and you want to learn more about how to deal with confusing emotions or seemingly conflicting needs I highly recommend that you also watch my video about sub-personalities learning about those I found essential for competent self empathy. Wrapping up this video now I want to know about your perspective and what kind of feelings or needs would you like me to focus on first or next. And how was your journey into discovering feelings needs like? Let me know in the comments below, thank you so much for watching and have a great day.