NVC - The Four Riders of Nonviolent Communication

(…) I looked, and there was a white horse! Its rider had a bow; a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering and to conquer. (…) And out came another horse, bright red; its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people would slaughter one another. (…) I looked, and there was a black horse! (…) I looked and there was a pale green horse! Its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed with him… Revelation 6:1-8

Famine – pestilence – war – death are the four riders in the Book of Revelation, and each by its own right is both the cause and the consequence of itself and of each other. Famine causes pestilence, and pestilence famine, both also bring about war, which leads to death. The world is already familiar with these four riders and is always in danger of confronting them again, and in the process, runs the risk of self-destruction.

Marshall Rosenberg proposes a nonviolent or compassionate process as an alternative. An alternative to the matrix of violence upon which our way of living and thinking, and the relationships that we establish are all based on.

Famine, pestilence, war and death are the four riders of violence that lead to apocalypse. Observation, feelings, needs and requests are the four alternative riders that will make violence obsolete and steer the world into a future of harmony and peace among all human beings.

Observations
It is about describing reality as objectively as possible as my five senses capture it: what I see, what I hear, what I smell and taste, and what I touch without judging, criticizing, evaluating or interpreting. For example, instead of telling someone “You are rude”, which would place us on a collision course with that person and make any further meaningful communication difficult, we can say, “When you arrived I did not hear you say ‘good morning’”. Similarly, if we had said, “When you arrived you did not say ‘good morning’”, it would have also created problem as we are making a judgment because the person may have said it but we did not hear it.

Because someone killed a dog our tendency is to call him a dog killer for the rest of his life; we judge a person on a single act. Criticism, evaluation, judgment and interpretation block communication because they are almost always unjust and the person feels constrained, put aside, and imprisoned by the label we pin on him, we do not let him be himself, nor let him progress. We cease to relate with the person he truly is and instead relate with the image that we made of him; an image that more or less can serve our petty objective, but not that of a genuine and healthy communication. This is the way to make an enemy not a friend.

Generally it is very difficult for most of us to make an objective observation, plain with no frills, because for the most part we project into our observation our own interest, envy, hatred or on the contrary, our praise of the action that we observe. This is how the world has functioned, therefore to speak in another way is very truly a Copernican revolution.

Observation devoid of criticism, evaluation, judgment, and interpretation is dynamic because it remains open-ended. By mixing our observation with an evaluation or interpretation, the observed, that is, the person in action loses his/her dynamism and become closed, unmoving, and static like what is observed in a photograph. This is why NVC avoids the verb to Be and uses action verbs instead.

Feelings
After observing without analysing, and without declaring that so and so is right or wrong, good or bad, the next step is to connect with our feelings by fleeing from thoughts, because thoughts are almost always biased and addicted to evaluating and interpreting in order to criticize and judge at a later time. Feelings tell more about ourselves than our thoughts. If I cannot first connect with myself then I will hardly be able to connect with others.

Feelings represent our emotional experiences and physical sensations associated with our needs, whether met or unmet. As we will see later when speaking about needs, feelings are to needs what smoke is to fire. Any feeling or emotion felt speaks to us of a need that either has been fulfilled or remains unfulfilled.

Our objective in this step is to identify, name and connect with our feelings. Thoughts, therefore, must be self-reflective, diverted from the other and placed at the service of our feelings by helping us interpret and identify them.

After interpreting what is in our hearts, we can, and should, express our feelings by avoiding the trap and self-deception of making others responsible for them. The expression “I feel alone” is a genuine expression of an inner sense of loneliness. But if I say “I feel you don’t love me”, this on the other hand is an illegitimate attempt to describe and interpret someone else’s feelings, together with an implicit accusation.

We should express our feelings by taking full responsibility for our own experience; this helps others to hear what is important to us, without feeling criticized or accused, and in this way, increase the likelihood that their response will be empathic and thus satisfying everyone’s need.

Needs
The third element of the Nonviolent Communication is the necessity to be intrinsically connected to the previous element. When a feeling comes to our consciousness, we must know that it is only the messenger, sent by our human nature to alert us of a need that is or is not being met. For this reason, what must be done immediately is to find out what that need is and assume responsibility for it.

Once again when we become aware of our feelings, our tendency is not to assume responsibility for them, accusing others for making us feel this or that way. The actions of others may have triggered our feelings, but we make a serious error, deviating from Nonviolent Communication, if we think that others have caused those feelings. The only cause of our feelings is the fulfillment of our needs or lack of it.

When we succeed in connecting with our perfectly identified needs, we have taken an important step in the Nonviolent Communication process which is the avoidance of assigning blame to others or to ourselves. The genuine expression of our needs creates a very likely opportunity for the other person to feel empathy and contribute to meeting our needs.

Needs are universal; all human beings have the same needs because they come from something that is transversal to all human beings, in all times and places. This is why our human nature remains unchanged throughout the ages and across the different cultures of the peoples who live in this planet.

In the context of the Nonviolent Communication, as Rosenberg likes to say, our needs are a reflection of what is most alive in us, that is, what is the most central and important to us, our deepest desires.

Understanding, identifying and connecting with our needs help us to improve our relationship with ourselves and foster a greater perception of others, and in this way, increase exponentially the likelihood that necessary actions are taken so that the needs of all are met.

Nonviolent Communication always leads to a win-win situation, in other words, to a final result that is beneficial to all parties involved; everyone wins, and no one loses.

Requests
We human beings are not like islands; we have an individual dimension by which we are unique, unrepeatable and indivisible, free and independent, but we also have a social dimension by which we are always part of a family, a group, an institution, a country. Because this is our nature, the fulfillment of many, if not all, of our individual needs involve, in some way, others in the process.

After attention has been given to the awareness and consciousness of our needs, the next step is to think of a strategy, a plan of action that in our opinion will lead to the fulfillment of these needs, and as there are people who may be involved, we need to make sure that they are willing to participate in the strategy that we have outlined to meet our needs. Since all human beings live on an equal plane with one another, before getting to the formulation of a request we must also be certain of whether or not empathy exists in the other person. The affective is effective while the non-affective is ineffective.

What we make are petitions or requests and not demands, orders or requisitions. Between these two lies a very fine dividing line. A lot depends on the words we choose when formulating the petition and also the tone of voice used as appropriate words can be expressed in an inadequate tone of voice, which in the other person’s ears may sound like a demand or order. Many times, however, we only know if we gave an order or made a request by the other person’s response.

We should be prepared to hear a ‘no’ to our request. A ‘no’ to an order has punitive consequences; a ‘no’ to a request should not intimidate, unbalance or discourage us, but rather be the reason to have a deeper dialogue with the other person. We should be able to recognize that a ‘no’ is an expression of a need that hampers the other person from saying ‘yes’.

In order to increase the likelihood that our request is met favourably by the other, it must be clear, concrete and non-generic with regards to the time and action to be taken, that is, it needs to be realistic and achievable. For example, “I wish you were always on time” is not feasible and may sound like a demand; on the other hand, “Would you be willing to spend 15 minutes with me to talk about what might help you to get to our meetings by 9:00 o’clock?” is achievable.

If someone accepts our request out of fear, guilt, shame, obligation, or a desire for reward, then the quality of the relationship and trust between them is compromised. Sooner or later both will pay for this violent acceptance, because it fundamentally creates a creditor and a debtor relationship. In the nonviolent language no one humbles himself and no one exalts himself; no one loses and no one wins; no one asks for favors and no one does any favors.

The process of the Nonviolent Communication
Speaking – Nonviolent Communication works at the level of the mouth, in what we say and how we say it. In this case we must honestly express our observations with accuracy, then our feelings and our needs, and based on these three, our request. The Nonviolent Communication helps me discover and interpret what is alive in me, what is happening with me, in order to better communicate with myself, in natural giving, compassion and empathy.

Hearing – Nonviolent Communication is not only done by what I express from my mouth or body language, but also by the way I listen to the observations expressed, I deduce their feelings and needs as well as their requests. Nonviolent Communication helps me to discover and interpret what is alive in the other, what is happening to him, in order to better communicate with him, in natural giving, compassion and empathy.

Therefore the four elements of Nonviolent Communication are used both in our own expressions as well as in how we listen with empathy the expressions of others. To express honestly the observations, feelings, needs and requests, and to hear empathetically the observations, feelings, needs and requests.

Observations – The concrete deeds or facts that we are observing and that may potentially affect or make reference to our well-being.
Feelings – How we are feeling about what we are observing; what feelings stir in us from what we are observing.
Needs – Discovering or becoming aware of the values, desires, needs, that are the true cause of our feelings, and not what we are observing nor who we are observing.
Requests – The concrete actions or deeds that we ask the other, or others, to meet our needs and enrich the lives of both.

Articulation of the four components
NVC is a building with two types of foundation and four pillars. The two types of base are compassion or empathy, and gratuity or giving from the heart, which can be well summed up in the commandment of love of neighbour as oneself. In this sense, we could say that NVC is a general theory of this commandment or a way to apply it in our day to day.

Another metaphor of how NVC works is the internal combustion engine. The explosive fuel that this type of engine uses to run is Gratuity, or giving from the heart. Observation – Feeling – Need – Request are the pistons, or the moving parts; for these to move smoothly and effortlessly, it is necessary that they are well lubricated, and the oil that makes it possible is Empathy or compassion.

We can furthermore use the analogy of the internal combustion engine to clarify how the four components of NVC work in stages. Whether the fuel is gasoline, diesel, or natural gas, the internal combustion engine is also called four-stroke cycle engine, and in this way, we can compare the four processes in each cycle to the four stages or components of NVC. In the engine, each cycle has four processes: Intake – Compression – Combustion – Exhaust. A cycle begins with the piston inside of the cylinder descending to let in a mixture of fuel and air, the piston then moves up and compresses the mixture making it more combustible.  The mixture ignites and explodes, driving the piston downwards and when the piston hits the bottom of its stroke, exhaust valves open letting out the exhaust gases and then the cycle begins again.

In this sense, the intake of the combustible mixture corresponds to observation in NVC where we collect and take in information from our surrounding that will provoke us to react; the compression of the mixture corresponds to the feelings that are roused by the observation, triggering us to search for the needs that are the true cause of these feelings; the explosion of the fuel mixture is comparable to the release of the compressed feelings as they find their corresponding needs.

The explosion is what generate the energy required to move the internal combustion engine; in the engine of the NVC, the needs or values are the fundamental motivation of both human and animal behaviour. When the feeling meets and ignites the need, it gives rise to the combustion or ignition that will keep the four components of NVC working in stages; the letting out of the exhaust gases in the engine corresponds in NVC to the letting out of a request.

The human body is composed of the head, the torso and the limbs; putting the limbs aside, that is, the arms and hands to act, and the legs and feet to move, we are left with the essence of the human being, the head and the torso. In the head, one places the functions of observing and inquiring or requesting; in the upper part of the torso the function of feeling, and the lower part the function of needs.

For Rosenberg what truly defines us are not our thoughts (beliefs, ideas, projects and opinions), but our feelings and needs as they constitute to what he calls “what is alive in us”, an expression he uses all the time.

Observation, the first component of NVC, only makes me aware at an intellectual level what is going on within myself or the other; it is only after I connect empathetically with myself and the other that I am in a condition to make a request. The head is to observe and make requests, not to analyze, judge or define, neither oneself nor others. For NVC, the Human Being is summed up to feelings and needs, the feelings are only the detector or thermometer of the needs, indicating whether those needs are met or unmet. This is the formula: “When I hear you say…” / “When I see you…” (Observation about an action or statement) “I feel…” (Shares a feeling) “Because I need…” (Reveals a need) “Would you consider…” (makes a request). Let’s see how the four components are articulated in the following dialogue:

After dinner a wife says to her husband:
-Darling, I have been feeling lonely and miserable all day; the only thing that cheered me up was the thought of those evenings we spent cuddling on the couch watching movies. I really would like to spend tonight like that. Would you do that for me?
-I would like that, I also remember those times with longing, but tonight is the final between Benfica and Porto, and I have already promised my friends that I would watch the game with them; would you mind if we leave the movie for tomorrow night instead?

If the wife acts out of line with NVC then she will say that her husband does not love her, that he gives more importance to a game than to her etc.… However, if she acts in line with NVC philosophy then she does not hear a ‘no’ to her needs but a ‘yes’ to the needs of her husband with whom she empathises, because she loves him the way she loves herself, and meeting his needs is as important as meeting her own needs which in this case are just being postponed for one day. Should the husband give in to his wife’s needs by repressing his own and conceding out of guilt or obligation then the two, not just one, would end up paying a high price.

Here again enters the philosophy of love of neighbour as oneself; within this philosophy, the needs of others are as much mine as mine own needs, because to love, as Saint Thomas Aquinas says, is to want the good of the other. Similarly, one cannot be happy alone or at the expense of others, but only with others; in NVC there are no winners or losers, either all win or all lose.

Conclusion
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. (Revelation 21:1)

These are the four riders of the new international order, of a new heaven and a new earth; the real Promise Land, the Kingdom of Justice and Peace where violence as a means of establishing peace has become obsolete because the needs of all are met. In the book of Revelation, the ‘sea’ is the symbolism for evil and therefore in this future land of plenty, evil will be no more. And as the instruments of war are changed into instruments of peace (Isaiah 2:4) and the wolf and the lamb shall feed together, there will be no more evil or destruction (Isaiah 65:25).

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

NVC - Giving from the Heart, the Fuel of Nonviolent Communication

Happy Easter!

Compassion is the founding and inspiring concept of the Nonviolent Communication. When Rosenberg realized that he was not having much success treating his patients in his private clinical psychology practice, he went on to study world religions on the quest to find the meaning of life. Rosenberg noted that the commonality that exist in many religions is that we are all called to live compassionately. We are to be as compassionate and merciful as God our Creator.

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

You received without payment; give without payment. Matthew 10:8

It is compassion that impels and propels us to give from the heart. Compassion is giving out of joy to enrich life and giving freely without expecting or wanting anything in return; when we give compassionately the receiver does not feel indebted to us.

If empathy is the lubricant, the engine oil or the environment that facilitates the constant movement of the four pistons in the engine of the Nonviolent Communication, giving from the heart or natural giving is the fuel that makes combustion and explosion possible inside the cylinders to propel the pistons to move.

Rosenberg may have gotten his concept of “giving from the heart” from his own life experience. He tells the story that one day he was in a railway station waiting for a train when he spotted a black worker preparing to eat an orange after finishing his packed lunch. The worker stopped when he saw a little boy sitting on his mother’s lap staring at him. He got up, cleaned the orange, kissed it, and then went over to give it to the little boy. Thrilled by the gesture, Rosenberg had the opportunity to ask the worker why he kissed the orange before giving it to the little boy and he was told that one should never give anything that is not from the heart.

“Gratuitas” is the Latin word that in the romance languages evolved to “gratuitá” in Italian, “gratuidade” in Portuguese, “gratuidad” in Spanish and “gratuité” in French, which describes the type of giving devoid of all obligation, done freely and graciously from the heart borne out of our need to give. This type of giving is like wanting to love and to be loved unconditionally with no strings attached, without reservation or ulterior motives. Without the left hand knowing what the right hand is doing as the Gospel suggests. (Matthew 6:1-4)

The English translation of “gratuitas” is gratuity which in modern English has evolved to mean token or donation, or gratuitousness which now can mean futility or without justification. Probably hard pressed to find an English word with the same depth of meaning as the Latin word “gratuitas”, Rosenberg formulated the expression “giving from the heart” or natural giving.

To love and to be loved is the first and foremost of all human needs once the physical needs are met; without the fulfillment of this need, there is no meaningful human life, although we experience it differently at different stages of life. When we are children the urge falls on wanting to be loved whereas when we are adults the primary need is to love, to give freely and unconditionally from the heart without any sort of compulsion or obligation.

If an adult feels more need to be loved than to love, as we see in the soap operas, then he or she is not really an adult but still has the emotional immaturity of a child or a teenager.

Furthermore, this concept of giving from the heart does not apply only to giving but also to receiving. Frequently when we receive, we feel obliged to pay back in one way or another. The spirit of giving from the heart does not live in the one who gives with ulterior motives, or in order to receive something in exchange, or to gain popularity, that is, neither in the one who receives and feels indebted nor in the one who gives and expects something in return.

To give is to receive, to receive is to give
There is more happiness in giving than there is in receiving.” Acts 20:35

Declaring that there is more happiness in giving than there is in receiving is a discovery or a conclusion one makes at the end of a psychological, affective and spiritual maturing process. This is what an adult would say at the end of this maturing process. Naturally, a child finds more happiness in receiving than it finds in giving.

So, we become psychologically, affectively and spiritually adults when we find more joy in giving than we find in receiving. But since indigence is always part of human condition, as long as we are humans, we also need to receive and should still find happiness in receiving or else we would be too proud and self sufficient which is something nobody under the Sun can claim. This being so, perfect maturity comes when we can exclaim that we find the same happiness in giving as we do in receiving, because giving and receiving has become for us, one and the same thing.

In the chapter “Giving from the Heart” of Rosenberg's book, he quotes the lyrics of a song that tells all there is to know about gratuity. According to the song, giving and receiving mean the same thing in as much as in giving we receive and in receiving we give.

I never feel more given to
than when you take from me —
when you understand the joy, I feel
giving to you.

And you know my giving isn’t done
to put you in my debt,
but because I want to live the love
I feel for you.
To receive with grace
may be the greatest giving.
There’s no way I can separate
the two.

When you give to me,
I give you my receiving.
When you take from me, I feel so
given to.

The same idea has been long said by Saint Francis of Assisi centuries before in his famous prayer of peace:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Gratuity in romance languages
In the neo-Latin languages we respond in gratitude with ‘grazie’ in Italian, ‘gracias’ in Spanish, and ‘obrigado’ in Portuguese, which probably came from the English ‘I am much obliged’ and which detracts from the spirit of giving from the heart. In Portugal, we all say ‘obrigado’ when we are grateful to someone; only the poor, who cannot return the favor, say ‘Que Deus te pague’ or ‘May God pay you’. They do not feel obliged because it is assumed that those who gave to them know that the poor cannot pay them back. It is for this reason the advice that Jesus gives us in the Gospel makes sense, of inviting to our banquets those who cannot repay us. (Luke 14:12-14)

Whoever loves another conditionally deceives himself when believing that he loves the other person, but in fact, deep down, he really loves only himself and not the other. He mirrors and projects himself on the other because he wants to see what he cannot see in himself. His love is only a manipulation of the other person. Giving from the heart is to love and be loved without conditions, letting the other be who he is without trying to change him. When the other realizes this unconditional love he puts aside anxiety, freeing himself of the necessity to perform well or be successful to please the other.

Unconditional love is uncommon even between parents and children. In fact, there are many parents who condition the love for their children to school or professional achievements. These kids grow up confusing love with success and end up paying a high price later in life for this error. The one who loves unconditionally is always successful in life whereas the one who seeks success at any cost often does it at the expense of love; he may become successful in his profession, but is defeated in life. Because living is loving…

When someone declares that he loves us, by words or deeds, we are taken aback and find it difficult to accept this love without fear of feeling entrapped or contracting a debt with high interest that is difficult to repay, it is like being at the mercy of a capricious bank manager who can at any time demand the full payment of the debt.

As ‘scalded cats fear even cold water’, the negative past experiences, especially those that occurred in childhood, put us so much on the defensive that many times we end up blocking even those who present us with their unconditional love. We feel so powerless from our past negative experiences that we now feel unworthy of true love, so we block all love that come our way. We erect a wall of resistance and reproach because we interpret this love as a seduction and exploitation. How many times a love free of conditions finds our heart defensively frozen.

Selfishness is not convenient even to the selfish person
A water mill will only work if there is water running through it. If the first of several water mills along a stream retained the water just for itself, this would do it no good as its own wheel wouldn’t be able to move either. There is no advantage in being the first in line upstream nor any disadvantage in being the last in line downstream, as both the first and the last only move if the water is continuously flowing. Either all mills work or none works at all.

The same is true in the context of Nonviolent Communication as no one can be truly happy at the expense of the unhappiness of others, either all win or all lose. If my so-called happiness makes other people miserable, then it can never be a true happiness for sooner or later the evil that I cause to others feedbacks onto me. Therefore NVC is a win-win situation in as much as all win when one wins and all lose when one loses. Selfishness never pays off, it is not even convenient to the one who is selfish.

That is why in Nonviolent Communication the needs of others are taken as my needs also. In this sense, the NVC is just a practical application of the commandment of the love of neighbor as oneself; as well as the golden rule of all the world religions which says, "don’t do unto others what you don't want others to do unto you". Christianity is the only religion that states a positive version of this rule: In everything do to others as you would have them do to you. (Matthew 7:12) 

Compassion leads to giving from the heart
When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.’ So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, ‘He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.’ Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.’ Luke 19:5-8

Accusing and labeling people only lead them to shut themselves defensively in their fortress, confirming, reinforcing and making them stronger in their attitudes. Violence cannot win against violence; the only peace that is attained by violence is the deadly peace of the cemetery. Violence is not the solution to any problem and creates many others; it is, therefore, completely counterproductive. Hatred can only be overcome with love; pretending to overcome hatred with hate is like putting out fire with gasoline.

“Be the change you want to see in the world”, says Gandhi. Just as violence breeds violence, compassion breeds compassion and bring about natural giving. In the context of retributive justice, Zacchaeus did not deserve Jesus’ compassion; in fact, he did not even merit the gift of his visit, but rather punishment for his past double-dealing. Just as ‘you cannot catch flies with vinegar’, punishments, labels, criticisms and insults would not make Zacchaeus change his life and perspective.

It was the undeserved and unconditional compassion shown by Jesus that moved Zacchaeus to become compassionate towards those he had mistreated in the past, and voluntarily, without being asked, to offer to make restitution to those he had cheated.

One day a mother came to plead with Napoleon for her son’s life. The young man had committed a serious offence. The law was clear. Justice demanded his death. The emperor was determined to ensure that justice would be carried out. But the mother insisted, ‘Your Excellency, I have come to ask for mercy not for justice.’
- But he does not deserve mercy,’ Napoleon answered.
- Your Excellency,’ said the mother, ‘it would not be mercy if he de¬served it.’
- So be it,’ said Napoleon. ‘I will have mercy on him.’ And he set her son free.

When we are compassionate with those who are undeserving, we trigger compassion in them, which is well hidden, forgotten, and full of dust and cobwebs in the depth of their hearts. We know that whoever has been abused, physically or sexually, can easily become an abuser himself, spending the rest of his life taking revenge on innocent victims for the abuses that he himself had received in the early years of his own innocent life. Only compassion given from the heart can save that person from the vicious circle that is destroying his life and the lives of those with whom he relates.

What blocks compassion
Here are some statements that we frequently hear and which in our view serve to justify and rationalize the use of violence and continue the game of who is right and who is wrong:

It is a sign of weakness, people would take advantage of me if I were compassionate – The power of love is greater than the love for power. Nobody can take away our dignity if we do not give it to them; no one can make us do anything. They can subdue our body but not our soul, our integrity, our person. Because compassion disarms the powerful, the benefits of compassion are as much for the compassionate person as for the one receiving compassion.

There are people who just don’t deserve compassion – We are not to enter into the game of who deserves and who doesn’t deserve compassion; if it were deserved, it would no longer be compassion but justice. God makes rain fall equally on the righteous and the unrighteous; all human beings, for the simple fact of being human, are deserving of compassion. And probably the more wicked the more deserving, because only through compassion can his wickedness be converted.

To be compassionate to those who have done evil is to let them go unpunished – To be compassionate does not mean we accept bad behaviour, betrayal, rape, unjust systems, cruelty, offenses, or crimes. It means, however, that we accept that these things happen; that we can defend ourselves from them assertively, but not aggressively, condemning the offense not the offender. Violence does not justify the use of violence, because it does not solve problems but only make them greater as violence tend to escalate.

The language that alienates us from others
To give from the heart is to contribute freely and unconditionally to life, happiness and self- accomplishment of others and to let others contribute to our life, happiness and self- accomplishment without feeling indebted to them.

Everything we do in life that is not done purely out of compassionate giving but out of guilt, fear of punishment, to receive a reward, to please someone or driven by a sense of duty and obligation, will develop into the type of interaction or transaction where the giver and the receiver end up paying a high price that will ultimately destroy their relationship. Those who stay in this sick relationship, such as that which exists between a masochist and a sadist, would do so for as long as they remain sick, but no one lives happily in sickness.

Diagnostics, judgements, labels, analysis, criticisms, comparisons as well as thinking in terms of “this person is good so he deserves a reward or that other is bad and deserves a punishment” are all part of a violent language. Everything we do out of obedience or a sense of duty as well as the type of thinking in terms of denial of responsibility and choice, “it's not my fault”, “I had no chance, there was no plan B” are also violent language that alienates and degrades us.

Judgments and labels – Judgments and labels categorize the other person, often unfairly because we judge the other by a single action that we generalize afterwards. We do not allow the other person be who he is as we fix an identity on him. If there is anything that the nonviolent language rejects is the verb to BE. We are all a work in progress; any static classifying label of the other person is always biased.

Rewards and punishments – Be it kindness or meanness it stays with the one who practices it, in other words, it has its benefits or harms in itself as if it were the attachment of an email. In order to avoid doing something out of the fear of being caught, for instance, is not enough motivation to avoid doing evil because the day will come when I feel certain that no one is looking, I will then overcome that fear, and commit the offense. I must not do evil by the very fact that I am convinced that it is evil. Similarly, if I am doing this or that to receive a prize then I am also not doing it from the heart; it is like working for a salary, the day will come when there is no more reward, and I will stop doing it.

The punishment could be a simple rebuke made in public that would embarrass me, and the reward could be a simple compliment, but they are the same thing.

“You are so good!”
“Good job!”
“You’re such a nice person!”
Praises for those who receive them can transform a person into an addict who does what he does not from an innate desire, but rather to receive the compliments. It can be an occasion of false humility in denying the importance of what he did by saying “it was nothing” or making him think that he is better than everyone else. From the point of the one who makes them, compliments are many times a way of manipulating the other for the gain of some obscure interests of his. For example, a boss who tells the worker that without him the company would go bankrupt, then he follows his praise by asking the employee to work overtime.

Reward in the Gospel – For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? Matthew 5:46

“Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.” Matthew 6:1

But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Luke 6:35

Jesus exhorts his disciples to practice compassionate giving; to do things for the sake of doing them without expecting an immediate reward; but as goodness stays with the one who practices it, like wickedness, a certain ‘reward’ follows the good act and this is what we will receive in Heaven. It reveals psychological maturity in him who can resist immediate pleasure or gratification and is able to postpone one and the other; Jesus asks us to delay until heaven the prize or reward of what we do on earth. This is what is meant to “store up for yourselves treasures in heaven…” (Matthew 6:20)

Comparisons – To the Spaniards, comparisons are repulsive. When we compare ourselves with others or what is conventionally regarded as intelligent, beautiful, or gifted, we cease to be ourselves, and become envious and try to imitate others. We forget that since we are all unique, in being ourselves no one can beat us. Comparisons come by virtue of competition and competition is violent per se; when we accept others and ourselves as we are, there is no reason to compete because we can only be what we are and in being who we are no one can be better than us.

Denial of choice – All expressions that begin with “I had to…” are a denial of choice and the freedom of being children of God. In this way we present ourselves as slaves of duty. In nonviolent language, obligation does not exist; we only do what we like in order to live fully and abundantly. What we do out of obligation will not be done well and sooner or later, we will stop doing it. On the other hand, as the proverb says, “whoever runs for sheer desire, does not tire”.

Rosenberg, in his books and lectures, gives the example of a woman who needed to leave his workshops early because she had to go home to cook for her family which she hated to do until one day, using what she had learned in the NVC workshops, she announced to her family that she would no longer continue to cook for them. Days later Rosenberg met the sons of that same woman when they came to thank him personally for their mother’s decision to stop cooking, because not only was her cooking not great but they were all tired of hearing her constantly complaining because she did it out of duty.

Denial of responsibility – “They made me do it”, and the abusive use of obedience to deny responsibility; Rosenberg quotes here the officers of the Nazi concentration camps who sent thousands of people into the gas chambers without any feelings of guilt because they denied any personal responsibility in the atrocities. In the nonviolent language we are all responsible for our actions, whereby no one can force us to do what our conscience tells us is wrong.

Our moral conscience, well-formed and informed, is what makes us truly free so we only do what it tells us to do. We do not raise ourselves above anyone, neither do we submit to anyone; as persons, free, independent and autonomous, our actions spring from our moral conscience and are guided by it. This being so, we, and no one else, are solely responsible for them; our moral conscience answers to no one but only to God himself; in this consists “the freedom of the children of God”. (Romans 8: 21)

Compassionate giving in action in the way we give or receive appreciation or gratitude
Living the philosophy of “giving from the heart” or in gratuity means that we do nothing that is motivated by coercion, duty, obligation, for fear to be reprimanded or punished, or the craving to receive praises and rewards. In other words, everything we do is out of pure love, joy and pleasure that we feel when we contribute to our and others’ well-being.

Both "good" and "evil" remain with those who practice them; that is, the punishment for the evil practiced is inherent in the practicing of the evil, it does not come from outside, certainly not from God. As someone has said, God always forgives and forgets while humans sometimes do and sometimes don’t. Nature, on the other hand, whether physical nature or human nature never forgives and never forgets. So “He who sows winds reaps storms.” Similarly, the reward for practicing goodness is inherent in the act itself, it follows like the attachment of an email.

Similarly, in NVC we do nothing to be praised or rewarded, neither do we reward or praise others for doing what they do. We are not hungry for praises and do not hope to receive them as a feedback for whatever we do, and we also do not use them as a bait to trap others, making them addictive to our praises in order to manipulate and control them.

We move away from these mind games; so instead of asking or demanding apologies for mistakes made, we mourn, and instead of praising and being praised, we celebrate both our successes and achievements, and those of others.

Both in giving as in receiving from the heart, we are to follow the paradigm of the four components of the nonviolent language. In this way, we express and feel compassionately. To give and receive appreciation:

1. What did I do concretely that contributed to enrich the life of the other...What did the other do that specifically enriched my life.
2. How do I feel when I think about what I did to the other… How do I feel when I think of what the other did to me.
3. What needs or values were met by what I did for the other… What needs or values were met by what the other did for me.    

Example: when you offered to help me this morning, I felt grateful because I place great value to any help among the members of our team.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC