NVC - Needing Without Planning

All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts. Acts of the Apostles 2:44-46

Feelings versus needs
Needs are the main motivation for both human and animal behaviours.  If feeling is the smoke then need is the fire; where there is smoke, there is fire and vice versa.

Or another way of looking at it, a feeling is like a thermometer which measures the temperature of the body and detects whether or not there is a fever. If I feel my body temperature rise, it means that something is wrong inside of my body, it might be an infection that needs to be taken care of.

Pain or pleasure is only a symptom, a reaction of the body; what has brought it on must be found within the body itself. For example, I feel hungry I need food, I feel cold I need shelter, etc. Likewise, sadness or gladness, fear or courage are reactions of the spirit; what has caused them must be inquired within our soul. I feel loneliness I need company, I feel uneasiness I need reassurance etc.

Feelings are almost always caused by needs (or values) that are perceived as been fulfilled or unfulfilled. They are usually “provoked” by the internal and external perceptions of events. However, feelings of anger, guilt and shame are the exceptions since they are caused by internal evaluations and interpretations of external happenings. For example, anger results when I perceive that something or someone is wrong.

Taking responsibility for our feelings
After identifying our feelings by separating them from our thoughts, the next step is to assume responsibility for them. We can do this a priori when we are convinced that others cannot make us feel this or that way; they can trigger a feeling but they cannot produce it; feelings are ours, truly ours and we are left with no other alternative than to take ownership of them. What others do can stimulate our feelings or emotions, but they are not the cause of these feelings or emotions.

To assume our feelings a priori is not enough, this will not fully convince us; this can only be done when we assume them a posteriori as well, that is, when we discover the personal needs that are producing them; it is only in this way that we avoid the temptation of blaming others for our feelings.

Unfortunately, we tend to follow a wrong process, instead of doing an introspective exercise and investigate where the smoke comes from to discover the fire at its source, and instead of inquiring what need is producing this feeling, we do the opposite. We often do an extrospection exercise, looking outside of ourselves and blaming others for our feelings, searching for a scapegoat.

Denial of responsibility by the use of impersonal pronouns
Out of fear or courtesy, oftentimes we shake off the responsibility for our feelings by accusing no one directly. For example: “It really infuriates me when spelling mistakes appear in our public brochures.” However, when we discover the unfulfilled need to which our feeling is pointing at, then we can transform that previous sentence into the following one: “I feel infuriated when spelling mistakes like that appear in our public brochures, because I want our company to project a professional image.”

Denial of responsibility by mentioning only the actions of others
Another way of shaking off responsibility for our feelings is mentioning the actions of others in the hope that they will take the blame and do what we want them to do. Here is an example of that: “Mommy is disappointed when you don’t finish your food.” This is an affective blackmail that may force the other to act out of guilt.

Taking responsibility for our feelings in this case would be to mention the need that caused the feeling thus freeing the other person of guilt: “Mommy feels disappointed when you don’t finish your food, because I want you to grow up strong and healthy.”

Denying our responsibility by blaming others
When I'm logged out of my needs, I tend to blame other people for my feelings by using expressions like: "I feel… because YOU ..." Example: "I feel angry because you didn’t show up for our scheduled appointment.”

On the contrary, when we connect with our needs, we realize that it is these unmet needs that are the real cause of our feelings: "I feel ... because I…" Example: “I felt angry when you did not show up for our scheduled appointment because I had something very important to share with you.”

When we express our feelings by taking responsibility for our experience, this helps others to hear what’s important to us, with less likelihood of them hearing a criticism or a blame. This increases the likelihood that they will respond in a positive way that will meet both of our needs.

Four options when receiving negative messages
We experience positive feelings when our needs are attended to and are met, and negative feelings when these same needs are not attended to and are not met.

“You never want to spend time with me… why are you being so selfish?”
When someone, whether verbally or nonverbally, expresses a negative message, we have four options as how to receive this message:

By blaming ourselves – We accept the other person’s assessment as truthful and final, and we let it affect our self-esteem; the feeling of guilt, shame or depression can undermine the way we conceptualize ourselves. Whatever we do for the other person, in an attempt to compensate for our selfishness, will not help either us or the other person because it is done out of guilt.

By blaming others – When we blame others for our feelings, we tend to trigger feelings of guilt in others. They may even make an effort to meet these needs of ours, but they do so not voluntarily but prompted by a feeling of guilt, so that at the end both, the one whose needs are in question and the one trying to fulfill these needs, are going to pay a high price for this “violent” compromise.

By sensing our own feelings and needs – “When I hear you say that I am selfish, I feel hurt because I need some recognition for what I have done for you.” When we turn inward and focus our attention on our own feelings and needs, we become aware that our ongoing pain stems from our need for recognition of our efforts and not from the criticism that was made.

By sensing others’ feelings and needs – A fourth option is to peer closely with empathy at the feelings and needs behind the negative criticism directed at us. Here we are called to read between the lines, to turn our attention not so much on what the person is saying but rather on what he wants to say.

We are called to psychoanalyze what others are saying; Nonviolent Communication provides us with an X-ray vision to see into a criticism, or even an insult, as a tragic expression of unmet feelings and needs of the person who made it.

In this specific case, by listening to the negative criticism empathetically and without taking it personally, we can ask, “Do you feel hurt because you have not been given proper attention or you are needing more consideration of your tastes or preferences?”

Things are very different when we accept full responsibility for our own feelings and we express the need that brought them on instead of blaming others for what goes on in our own soul, as in the case of the following example:

“You disappointed me for not showing up last night” – In this case we are reporting a fact, expressing our feeling, and blaming and making the other responsible for it. Oftentimes our aim is to make the other person feel guilty so that he will reward us in order to redeem himself from his guilt. If he doesn't, our resentment grows and can result in an open conflict. On the other hand, if he complies with our desire we will both pay for it sooner or later, because whatever he did, it was done out of the negative energy of guilt and not the positive energy of giving from the heart, and feeling good for contributing to the goodness of the other.

“I felt disappointed when I didn’t see you last night as I was in need to share with you something very important to me.” – On the contrary, when I honestly express my feelings along with the underlying needs without blaming the other, I am more likely to encounter acceptance and empathy from the other person, being more likely that he will attend to the request that might follow.

One must understand that the feeling of disappointment does not come from the fact that the other person did not show up, but from the fact that one of our needs was not met. With the NVC eyes and ears I don't see nor hear a “NO” to the fulfillment of my need, but a “YES” to the fulfillment of his/her needs (which are also mine because I love the other person the very same way I love myself) that made it impossible for him to come last night.

Make yourself responsible and take ownership of any feeling that arises in you. If it arises in you then it is yours; feelings are not aerial, they do not travel through air; they are terrestrial, they come from inside of you, so look within for their cause and origin. When you do and find a need that is not being met, come to terms with the fact that it was also an unmet need that made the other say what he said or do what he did.

In NVC we must never forget and bear always in our minds that our and others’ analyses, evaluations, criticisms, and perceived negative behaviours are simply tragic, alienated and alienating expressions of unmet and unconscious needs. If we all take the time to discover the needs underlying our feelings, we need not express our feelings so tragically or violently as we frequently do.

What are needs?
Our needs are expressions of our deepest shared humanity. All human beings share key needs for survival: hydration, nourishment, rest, shelter, and connection to name a few. We also share many other needs, though we may experience them to varying degrees and varying intensities at different moments.

In the context of NVC, needs refer to what is most alive in us, that is, our core values and deepest human longings. Understanding, naming, and connecting with our needs help us improve our relationship with ourselves, as well as foster a better understanding with others, so we are all more likely to take actions that will meet everyone’s needs.

Feelings and needs are a language of life. However, we have been educated in domination cultures for 10,000 years in such a way that we are not connected to our needs because people do not make good slaves to authority if they are alive and fully aware of their feelings and needs. We have a cultural training that makes it shameful to have needs.

The domination system wants us to deny our needs by telling us that needs are burdensome because needs make us dependent on others. Why does the domination system induce us into making this association? Because in so doing it tells another group of people to sacrifice their needs. So, in order to have my needs satisfied somebody else has to sacrifice theirs.

In my own life, I can accept that my mother gave up her own needs in order to satisfy mine about 10% of time; but I believe that in the other 90% that whatever she did for me was done out of love, pure unconditional love. This makes it hard for me to trust people, because I never know for sure that I am given out of love or out of other reasons that make me debtor of the one who gives me.

The doctrine and the ideology of the domination system are based on a world that is scarce in which we live codependent of each other. The reality, as NVC tells us, is precisely the opposite; we are interdependent and we live in a world that is rich with enough resources to meet the needs of everyone without the need of sacrifice.

Those who acknowledge and satisfy their needs are labelled as self-centered. The domination system in an evil way tries to make us forget about ourselves, our feelings and needs, so that we will be altruistic robots at its service. For instance, women are educated to forget about their personal needs once they are married and have children, and to sacrifice their personal lives for the benefit of their families. Brave men have no needs and are willing to sacrifice their lives for their country, their king, their flag…

Despite all these attempts to hide or deny needs, they do exist and they refer to the resources necessary to sustain and enrich life. Once again we state that human nature is immutable; it does not change over time or space. Therefore like feelings, human needs are universal, they transcend cultural customs, latitudes and longitudes as well as historical conditioning over time.

Needs are often expressed in terms of ethical or moral values, there is in fact a true equivalence between these two concepts. A need exists in reference to a value, just as a moral value exists in reference to a need.

In NVC, the needs or values are highlighted as being the most important component for a compassionate connection with the other. The quality of the connection, intended in Nonviolent Communication, is unlikely to occur as long as we do not connect at this level with ourselves and with others.

Nine basic needs
What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? Mark 8: 36-37

The health of the so-called "healthy economies" is inversely proportional to the disease of the workers who sustain them. What good is there for people to have a healthy economy at the expense of their own physical, psychological, moral and spiritual health? What is more important, the economy or the people?

Manfred Max-Neef, the father of ‘Barefoot Economics’, developed an economic system based on the satisfaction of nine basic human needs. According to him, economic success is not based on how much money you make but on how these basic human needs are met for everyone involved. Fundamentally what matters in an economy is not the wealth produced, but the quality of life that is provided for the people covered by that economy.

1. Sustenance – air, water, food, exercise, rest, sexual expression
2. Safety – shelter, protection, security
3. Love – to love and to be loved, trust, respect, integrity, honesty
4. Empathy – solidarity, understand and be understood from one’s point of view
5. Amusement – recreation, play, practice hobbies
6. Community - interdependency, belonging, affiliation
7. Creativity – Creating new things, innovating
8. Autonomy – freedom, independence, self determination, self-esteem
9. Meaning & purpose - Need to contribute to life, it is important to live our lives fully

Evaluations – Feelings – Needs
Sometimes we describe our feelings with nouns or even verbs, let us see how they can be described:

Evaluations	Feelings	Needs
I feel abandoned	hurt, sad, lonely	connection, company, help, belonging
I feel attacked	fear, challenged, hostile	consideration, safety
I feel humiliated	angry, hurt, disillusioned	respect, appreciation
I feel betrayed	angry, disillusioned	trust, honour, honesty, commitment
Accused	confused, afraid, hostile	justice, accountability
Harassed	fear, pressured, cornered	autonomy, safety, consideration
Deceived	resentful, angry, hurt	honesty, justice, trust, faith
Criticized	wounded, anxious, frustrated, humiliated	comprehension, recognition, respect
Ignored	lonely, hurt, sad, embarrassed, anxious	respect, consideration, recognition, inclusion, belonging
Insulted	irritated, embarrassed	respect, consideration, recognition
Intimidated	fearful, anxious	safety, equality, validation
Isolated	lonely, fear	belonging, communion, inclusion, contribution
Judged	resentful, fear, hurt	justice, equality, consideration
Manipulated	irritated, powerless, frustrated	trust, equality, authenticity
Misunderstood	worried, frustrated	to be heard, clarity, understanding
Provoked	angry, hostile, resentful	respect, consideration

 
Needs and values
Nonviolent Communication, as illustrated in the figure accompanying this article, separates needs into groups: survival, protection, sense, autonomy, inter-dependency, honesty, empathy, well-being, regeneration, and transcendence.

Maslow places these same needs in a hierarchical pyramid with the perspective of what is most important and most urgent at the base of the pyramid, with an understanding that human beings do not have, for example, a need for personal fulfillment until they have satisfied the basic needs.

The fulfillment of a lower need leads them to feel the next higher needs, and so on, moving upward in the pyramid; and vice versa, the non-satisfaction of the need immediately below leads to not feeling the urge for the need immediately above.

So at the base of the pyramid are the physiological needs, followed in an upward movement by the needs for safety, social needs, status needs, self-actualization, and spiritual or transcendence needs.

For NVC, needs and values are synonymous; however, when referring to the body, that is, those at the lower levels in the Maslow pyramid, it is more common to designate them as needs; on the other hand, when referring more to the spirit, those at the higher levels in the Maslow pyramid, it is more common to designate them as values.

It is also important to mention that NVC practices or takes for granted the practice of the second commandment of love, that is, to “love your neighbour as yourself”. In fact, the needs of others are seen and taken as my own needs and vice versa: I need you to eat well, to be loved, respected… In NVC, we do not want God for ourselves and the devil for others, because we know that if the other loses we also lose.

It is in our own interest that we should not be self-centered; selfishness brings advantage to no one, not even to the self-centered. Nobody has ever been or will ever be truly happy at the expense of somebody else. As the theologian Paul Tillich has said, “Cruelty towards others, is always cruelty towards ourselves.”

Rosenberg goes so far as to say that, “Our survival as a species depends on our ability to recognize that our well-being and the well-being of others are in fact one and the same.”

Needs – strategies – preferences – desires
Needs are the principal qualities and values that we all share as human beings, they are what drive our actions and behaviours. From the point of view of NVC, all human behaviours arise from attempts to fulfill human needs. All that human beings ever did or do is to fulfill their needs.

Needs are the end or the objective to attain, strategies are the means to reach that end, preferences are the ways to meet a need and desires are these very ways projected into the future. Needs are universal, while strategies are not, they vary from person to person, from generation to generation, from culture to culture; in fact, needs make no reference to a specific person doing a specific task; this would be a strategy not a need.

A strategy or preference is a specific method to satisfy a need. For example, when we say “I need your love”, we are confusing need with strategy. In this case, the need is to love and to be loved, the other person is only a strategy to satisfy that need. It is necessary to take into account that there are a thousand and one strategies for the fulfillment of this need.

To confuse needs with strategies, in the case of love, can even be dangerous. “I need your love” may well lead to passionate crimes or even suicides. No one is indispensable, the need for love can very well be met by an untold number of people. We confuse real life needs with strategies, preferences and desires. Needs are universal, strategies, preferences and desires are personal or individual, cultural and may even vary from one generation to the next.

The key to identifying, expressing, and connecting with needs is to focus on words that describe shared human experiences rather than words that describe the particular strategies to meet those needs. Whenever we include a person, a location, an action, a time, or an object in our expression of what we want, we are describing a strategy rather than a need. For example: “I want you to come to my birthday party” may be a particular strategy to meet a need for love and connection. In this case, we have a person, an action, an implied time and location in the original statement.

The grammar of love in NVC
-  Do you love me?
- Before I answer I need to know, are you using the word “love” as a feeling?
- Of course
- In NVC it is a need not a feeling; but since we are now clear about it can you ask me again?
- Do you love me?
- When?
- When?
- Well yes since feelings change so often from one minute to the next I need to know which moment you are referring to
- Hummm… What about right now?
- NO, but ask me later maybe I’ll have a different answer…
(by Marshall Rosenberg)

Over the centuries, LOVE has been featured at the same time as a need, a feeling and an action; that's why the word "love" can be used simultaneously as a noun, an adjective and a verb. In NVC however, the same reality cannot be a need, a feeling and an action at the same time. Feelings warn us about needs that are met if they are positive or unmet if they are negative; similarly, actions are required or motivated by needs.

In NVC, love is not an action because other than it being a verb, love is a noun and a need that motivates all sorts of actions that lead the individual to meet the need to love and be loved. As St. Thomas Aquinas says, love is wanting the good of the other. In this sense, love translates itself into the good deeds that we do unto others and others do unto us.

Love is not a feeling either, because grammatically it can be an adjective that qualifies a noun, but in reality love is a whole lot deeper than that. As Rosenberg says, feelings are very volatile and ephemeral; with the exception of grief, we cannot feel a feeling for more than 40 seconds. Of course, love does involve feelings because these tell us whether the need to love and be loved is being or not being met. For example, the feeling of empathy tells me that my need for love is being satisfied; on the contrary, the feeling of jealousy tells me that my need to be loved is not being satisfied.

In conclusion, the need of love does raise feelings, but not a particular one as it raises all types of feelings; it also does lead the person to act, but not to perform a single, specific action; the acts of love are many and varied.

Being the highest non-physical human need, for NCV love is a noun, a need, and like all other needs it seeks to be fulfilled. The need for food, for example, is felt both in our psyche and in our body; once we feel hunger it prompts us to do something to meet it.  The same happens with the need to love and be loved; it is felt in our psyche and prompts us to act accordingly in order to meet it.  For a child, the priority is seeking to be loved, although he is already able to love; for an adult, the priority is seeking someone to love, although he needs to be loved as well.

Love is a universal need and as such it makes no reference to a particular person doing a specific task. Every human need has a thousand and one ways or strategies to fulfill it. In the case of the need to love and be loved, in theory the world has 7 billion people who can meet this need in us. However, this seems to contradict the way romantic love is conceptualized, and in NVC we do not confuse strategies or preferences with needs.

So, the various ways to satisfy the need to love and be loved, as well as the people we choose to meet this need, pertain to the scope of the strategies or preferences, therefore in principle they have nothing to do with the need itself.

Expressions such as "I'm madly in love with you", "I need your love", and "without you I can't live" seem to confuse need with preference. Even when these expressions are genuine, and even when with the passing of time love can be confused with the loved one and become a single reality, even there and for the sake of clarity, love is still the need, the beloved the preference; that is to say, from the 7 billion of potential lovers and recipients of my love, I choose you, I prefer you.

Needs recognition exercises
“You annoy me when you forget the company documents in the conference room” – This statement seems to assume that the other person’s behaviour is responsible for the feelings of the speaker. It does not reveal either the thoughts or the needs that are under the feeling of irritation. To do so, he would have said, “I get annoyed when you leave company documents in the conference room because I need that our documents to be kept safely”.

“I am disappointed because you said that you would do it but you did not” – There is an implicit accusation here; to express feelings and needs, the speaker should have said, “When you said that you would do it and then did not, I was disappointed because I need to be able to trust your words.”

“I feel intimidated when you raise your voice” – The speaker to be faithful to his feelings and needs should have said, “When you raise your voice, I am afraid that someone will get hurt and I need to know that everyone here is safe.”

“I am happy that you received that award” – To express the feelings and needs behind this statement, I would have said, “When you received that award, I was happy because I was waiting for you to be recognized for all the work you did in the project.”

“I am grateful that you gave me a ride yesterday because I needed to get home before my children” – This statement is a perfect affirmation of feelings and needs.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

NVC - Feeling Without Eluding

What are feelings or emotions?
Feelings or emotions are signals that we receive from our body or our spirit alerting us to the current state of our needs, whether met or unmet.

As they derive from both the body and the spirit, they can register smiles, looks, facial expressions, headaches, stomach aches, and emotions such as anger, fear, frustration, guilt, deceit…

In the whole creation, there is only one human nature and it does not change, not over time, from generation to generation, and not over space, from culture to culture or civilization to civilization. Feelings or emotions as well as the needs behind them are universal, everyone has the same emotions or feelings because these are related to the human nature that is unchangeable.

The key to identifying and expressing feelings is to focus on the words that describe our inner experience rather than the words that describe our interpretations of our and other people’s actions. For example: “I feel lonely” describes an inner experience, while “I feel like you don’t love me” describes an interpretation of how the other person may be acting.

Feelings and thoughts
Thoughts are cognitive or intellectual processes aimed at finding the truth; they start off from one or more premises and follow a logical deductive pathway advancing dialectically until they reach a conclusion that oftentimes is a decision. Thoughts can be abstract but most of the time they are about qualifying, quantifying and verifying realities.

As for the nature of thoughts, they may include beliefs, ideals, opinions, projects etc. What is the most personal and non-transferable in human beings are our feelings, however; thoughts can be copied but feelings cannot, they are somehow protected by copyright.

Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point – As Pascal found out, feelings are more difficult to define because they do not arise from the head, but from the depths of our being; they are not caused or provoked by us, and that means they are not subject to our will. There is nothing I can do to feel a certain feeling; they arise to our consciousness automatically, unwillingly and unannounced. They are unpredictable and because of this, they have not been the topic of study in any human science, not even in psychology.

In a way, we are not responsible for our feelings since we have no power over them. We cannot produce them, nor avoid them or erase them; however, they are ours as they come from within us and are not provoked by others or by any external circumstances.

Once they arise in our conscious we have no alternative other than to take responsibility for them. They are valuable alerts or messengers of our state of being -- physical, spiritual and moral. To ignore them is to divorce us from ourselves, not knowing whether we are coming or going, it is being lost. Our feelings are like a finger pointing to a need that is either met or unmet.

Spiritually, feelings are somewhat like life itself. Just as we don’t have power over life since we don’t own it, the same holds true with our feelings. We cannot command them as we cannot stop nor start any particular feeling and like in life, all we can do is to administer them. In so doing we can choose to ignore, repress, hide or express them; for this we need to have some emotional literacy in order to identify our feelings and be able to name them. Some are able to do this easily but many, many people because of our cultural education and formation are emotionally illiterate.

Cerebral people, for instance, tend to see the world in black and white, they do not like inaccuracy. They understand that people are very uncertain and inconsistent, so they tend to focus on more tangible things that are easier to conceptualize, all the while seeking truth, quantifying and qualifying it, and applying general rules. Brain people are seen by the feeling people as cold, heartless, nitpicking and calculating robots.

The emotional or sentimental people are more concerned with social relationships and considerations; they listen to their hearts and take into account other people’s feelings. For the sentimental ones, material things are worth only as much as they can be at the service of human existence, that’s what is most important to them. At work, they are sociable and helpful, and they make decisions based more on human values than on general rules. For the cerebral people, the sentimental ones cannot be trusted because they see feelings as volatile.

Within the human person, however, thoughts and feelings are bound to mutually understand each other; because they are so interconnected, an emotional confusion is also a mental confusion. People who are sensitive to emotions tend to see and experience the world through their emotions. Others do feel, of course, but they are unable to name or identify either the emotions, or their reasons or causes. On the other hand, since emotion is their main gateway of experiencing life events, they may come to label their thoughts as emotions.

For example, when someone says “I feel stupid”, both thoughts and feelings are inadequately expressed. Understanding this expression as a thought would be “I am stupid”; as a feeling it would be connected to a sense of shame, sadness or hurt. When a person feels emotions but is unable to label them, he would have more difficulty in dealing with them. Labels or tags are critical in managing emotions.

Emotional literacy – The affective is effective
Our culture does not train us to identify feelings and often we do not know how we feel or have no words to express what we feel.

We are therefore emotionally illiterate. To be emotionally literate means to know how to distinguish between thoughts and feelings, as well as be able to name our feelings and those of others, and to evaluate their intensity, their causes and what to do with them, and to assume responsibility for how much our feelings can affect others. It is also to be able to deal with our emotions and those of others, with the intention of improving the quality of lives of both. Emotional literacy consists of making our emotions act in our favour and not against us. Improving human relationships is to create affective ties between people, to facilitate group work, and to enable cooperation between individuals thus developing a sense of community.

We all have something to learn from our emotions. Some grow up with a high level of emotional literacy, others are emotionally illiterate. Feelings exist as an essential part of human nature; when we are disconnected from them, we lose a fundamental aspect of our human potential. It is in recognizing and managing our feelings, and in responding adequately to the emotions of others, that we increase our personal power both in private and professional life.

To be emotionally literate means to be capable of identifying emotions that I and others feel, in addition to gaging their intensity, and knowing their cause and what to do with them. To be emotionally literate means to know how to deal with our emotions because we understand them. It also means to develop empathy and learn to take responsibility for how our emotions affect others.

Newspapers are full of stories of how successful and bright people end up making serious emotional mistakes that ultimately ruin their lives. Emotions such as anger, fear, shame, lust, make smart people behave stupidly.

The true fortress
Never open up to anyone / However great your ache might be / Because whoever opens his heart to others / of himself becomes a traitor

Everyone in general, but most especially us men, grew up shunning and ignoring our emotions or feelings, with the belief that it is shameful, weak and frightening to voice them out. What we do to ourselves we also do to others, so that we equally despise and ignore the emotions and feelings of others when they dare to express them.

Our culture tends to reserve the experience of feelings within the bosom of the family; outside of it, in the professional life, at work and in the public social relationships, they should not be expressed because these need to be functional, neutral, innocuous, and impersonal. In the realm of public life, our culture does not advise us to be personally involved, we are supposed to hide our feelings behind masks that make us look like robots and our relationships a farce.

Since feelings reveal more about us than thoughts, our tendency is to hide them because it would make us look weak to show our vulnerable side and leave us as an easy prey in the hands of others. We are only open with friends and even with them we are quick to pull back if they turn out to be false, “Free me God from my friends, as from my enemies I free myself”.

When you see the shadow of a giant, look at the position of the sun to see if it is not the shadow of a dwarf. Friedrich Novalis

We are more inclined to apply the logic that works among animals; it is said that a dog can sniff out our fear and when this happens it attacks us more readily. We hide our weakness by projecting an identity that is not ours. A game that may not turn out well because if the other person becomes aware of it he will want to pull the rug from under our feet and then we will have to assume our true identity with shame and disgrace.

Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:10

For Rosenberg, however, to reveal our feelings, far from being counterproductive, is a great asset and he quotes several examples to substantiate what Saint Paul had already realized two thousand years earlier. When we take on our weaknesses with courage, we are then strong because we are in the truth as there is no other more vulnerable position than getting ourselves entangled in a lie and projecting it onto others.

Rosenberg refers to a visit he made to a high school to speak about nonviolent communication. Upon entering the classroom, the students who until then were chatting happily with each other suddenly became quiet. Rosenberg greeted them with a good morning but no one responded, the silence was deadly. He felt very uncomfortable but proceeded in his most professional manner to teach the lesson as if nothing had happened. The students did not seemed at all interested in what he was saying and each did his own thing; Rosenberg felt increasingly more uncomfortable but he continued to ignore it.

Finally, a student confronted him by saying, “You just hate being with black people, don’t you?” Surprised, Rosenberg realized immediately that he had contributed to this misperception by pretending to hide his discomfort from not feeling the connection that he wanted with the class. His mistake was to pretend that he was hiding well his feeling of discomfort when his body language was revealing otherwise. The mistake of the students was to interpret his body language as a sign of racism.

Acknowledging his feelings, he responded honestly by saying, “I am feeling nervous but not because you are black. My feelings have to do with my not knowing anyone here and wanting to be accepted when I came into the room.” This expression of his vulnerability was the magic wand that turned a disinterested class into one filled with participation and interest.

There was a time when it was said that men do not cry, not even in psychology were emotions studied because it was understood and accepted that it was impossible to approach them scientifically. After we saw tears in the eyes of some public figures, especially politicians and after Daniel Goleman published his book, Emotional Intelligence, which became a bestseller, feelings are now more valued and are no longer so quickly associated with weakness as with humanity. To be human is to be capable of compassion and mercy before one’s own suffering and the suffering of others.

Psychopaths can easily operate without the constraints that restrain other mortals. They can lie, steal, extort, maim and kill without any feelings of guilt. When they gain power over other people, they can become extremely dangerous. Let us recall the Roman emperor, Gaius Caesar, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. History is full of examples that are found from all walks of life: individual, family, politics, business, in the streets etc.

List of feelings when our needs are not met
Angry – annoyed – concerned – confused – disappointed – discouraged – distressed – embarrassed – frustrated – helpless – unhappy –impatient – lonely – nervous – overwhelmed – puzzled – reluctant – sad – uncomfortable

List of feelings when our needs are met
Amazed – comfortable – confident – eager – energetic – fulfilled – inspired – glad – joyous – inspired – optimistic – proud – relieved – stimulated – surprised – thankful – touched – trustful

Identifying feelings
Expressions of feelings that contain a self-evaluation
“I feel that I wasn’t treated fairly” – Rosenberg warns that we often confuse thoughts with feelings; therefore when the expression “I feel…” is followed by any word other than an adjective, we are not expressing feelings but rather thoughts or opinions. “I feel like I am talking to a wall” is a thought disguised as a feeling. On the other hand, to express a feeling we do not even need to say “I feel…”, we can express the feeling directly. For example, instead of saying “I feel angry”, I can simply say “I am angry”.

“I feel that I’m a failure as a guitar player” – In this expression I am not expressing a feeling but a self-criticism deprecating my ability as a guitar player. The actual feeling would be, “I feel frustrated (impatient, disappointed) with myself with respect to my performance in my last show”.

Expressions of feelings that contain an evaluation of others
“I feel that I’m not important to my boss” – This is a description of how I think my boss is evaluating me, rather than a genuine expression of feeling, which could be, “I feel sad or discouraged”. When we express feelings, others are not part of the equation because as we have said earlier, feelings contain what are the most private and personal to us. Others may trigger feelings in us, but their cause always comes from within me, not from others.

“I feel misunderstood” – This is another assessment of the other person’s capacity for understanding; the feeling would be “I feel anxious” or “I feel sad” or some other emotion.

“I feel ignored” – Once again this is a negative interpretation of the actions of others. The same situation or event could have two opposing readings; if we like the person who is ignoring us we would feel hurt because we want to be involved, but if we do not like the person who is ignoring us we would then feel relieved.

In order to avoid confusion, we avoid the expression “I feel...” so that we do not fall into the temptation to express a thought or an evaluation instead of a feeling; therefore we should use our emotional vocabulary and express directly the adjective that best qualifies our state of mind: I am confused, I am worried…

How to relate observations to feelings
After having expressed to our partner what we have objectively observed, we are personally involved in this observation by not mirroring a criticism or an evaluation, but rather expressing a feeling that the observation roused in us, naming the emotion or feeling that we feel without any moral judgment, thus allowing us to connect with the person in question in a spirit of mutual respect and cooperation.

We must carry out this step with the goal of identifying accurately the sensation or emotion that we, or the other person, are experiencing at that precise moment; not in order to embarrass the other for his feeling nor to try to stop him from feeling what he feels. Since feelings are hard to put into words we should do this by tentatively checking and making sure with our partner, to see whether we are right or wrong in our expression. Let us look at some examples:

• Only one hour left before the show begins, I see that you have increased your pace (observation), are you nervous? (inquire about the other’s feeling)
• I see that your dog is running around barking without a leash (observation). I’m afraid of dogs (feeling).
• I saw that your name was not mentioned in the acknowledgment (observation). Are you upset that they don’t seem to appreciate and value your contribution as you deserve? (inquire about other’s feeling).

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

NVC - Observing Without Judging

Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Luke 6:37

Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Mathew 18: 3

The symbol of justice, as well as its meaning, is universally known – the blindfolded lady, denoting neutrality and impartiality, holding a balance in her left hand, to evaluate and weigh equitably the imputable acts, and a sword in her right, signifying the power to execute a sentence.

However, if we look at this figure through the innocent eyes of a child who is not weighed down by its symbolic and cultural burden, she could very well represent the way we behave. We evaluate and sentence others, guided by prejudice because we are blind to the observable reality.

Observations are what we see or hear that we identify as the stimulus to our reactions. Our aim is to describe what we are reacting to concretely, specifically and neutrally, much like how a video camera might capture the moment. This helps to create a shared reality with the other person. Observation gives context to our expression of feelings and needs, and may not even be needed if both people are clear about the context.

The key to making an observation is to separate our judgments, evaluations or interpretations from our description of what happened. For example, if we say: “You’re rude,” the other person may disagree, while if we say, “When I saw you walk in, I didn’t hear you say hello to me”, the other person is more likely to recognize the moment that is described.

When we are able to describe what we see or hear, that is, in an observation language without mixing in evaluations, we increase the likelihood that the person listening to us will hear this first step without immediately jumping to a response and be more willing to hear our feelings and needs.

The nonviolent language helps us to distinguish an observation from an evaluation and to purify our observation of any moralistic judgment, and of all negative or positive evaluations. The structure of the Nonviolent Communication rests upon making observations devoid of prejudices, evaluations, and moralistic appreciations and in giving an equally unbiased feedback to the person whose behaviour we observe.

For the feedback of a good observation to be genuine, it must act like a mirror and reflect what is really happening without interpreting, analyzing, subtracting or adding. When furtively or in a sneaky way, we let our observations contain an appreciation, analysis, interpretation or criticism, the other person becomes immediately defensive and the communication is poisoned and doomed to failure.

Our being too quick to judge makes us miss much of the observable data. It may help us to heed what Jesus says about being like children; in other words, we should regain some of the qualities we have lost when we grew up such as seeing events through the pure eyes of a child, his non-subjective and nonjudgmental view of things, untarnished by cultural backgrounds or prejudices.

Unlike children, adults frequently fill themselves with prejudices and opinions about everything and everyone. They seem to use blinders which horses use to reduce their field of vision so to look only forward. Adults tend to develop cataracts in their eyes and collect wax in their ears, so they see and hear only what they want and how they want; therefore, observation, interpretation and evaluation are all one and the same.

Observation according to NVC
For Rosenberg, an observation is a description of what is happening at the precise moment when we observe and report our observation. It is a report made by our five external senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell together with our thoughts and interior sense devoid of evaluations and prejudices.

A nonviolent observation consists, therefore, of reporting of facts as they are perceived by our sensory experience, in the context of a specific time and place, free of any kind of analysis and evaluation. 

It is difficult to observe without evaluating especially when we don’t like what we observe as when what we observe unleashes our anger or our appreciation. We tend to become personally involved in what we observe, and often rush into reckless judgments from which we later regret, but unfortunately, we regret too late, when we have already reached the point of no return; as the saying goes, “A word out of the mouth is like a stone out of the hand”.

Because of our violent formatting, it is inevitable that interpretations and evaluations come into our consciousness about everything we observe. When they do, to avoid conflicts, NVC requires that we keep them to ourselves, as if they were a bad thought; if we choose to voice them out loud, then we must make ourselves responsible for them.

The highest form of human intelligence is the ability to observe without judging... 

Jiddu Krishnamurti

To observe without judging is ‘to give the benefit of the doubt’, that is, to doubt our evaluations, our inquisitive thoughts, and their natural conclusions so that we keep our minds resting in the pure natural and naturalistic observation. To judge and to evaluate is to box, to snap a photo, to frame, to archive. As Heraclitus the Greek philosopher would say, ‘reality is not static but dynamic’.

Our minds tend to function within the mechanistic philosophy of Newtonian physics, in which nature operates with the precision of a Swiss clock. Our mental laziness prefers a world where everything works mathematically and inexorably according to the laws of nature, where the exceptions are the embarrassments to the rule, and therefore to be disdained. We prefer a world of normality, of constants without variables, perfectly predictable and controllable.

This may have been Newton’s world, but it is not our world which is best represented and explained by the magical quantum physics, the Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty and chance. The variables can now be as many as the laws leading us to confusion and bewilderment, but this is our world.

To live in harmony with this dynamic and ever-changing new world, we must change our worldview and our language. They cannot be static nor absolute, but rather dynamic and quite relative.

Nonviolent Communication removes or shifts the focus from who we are as the result of our past such as our identity, our personality, surname etc. to who we are right now; it is what Rosenberg calls what is alive in us now, that is, how we are feeling and what we are needing, or what's going on in us. The static language is set to the past, while NVC being dynamic is set to the present.

Learning to translate judgments and interpretations into the observation language moves us away from right/wrong thinking and helps us take responsibility for our actions by directing our attention to our needs as the source of our feelings rather than on the other person. In this way, observations – paving the way towards greater connection with ourselves and with others – emerge as a crucial building block towards a profound consciousness shift.

The classic example of Rosenberg
Rosenberg recounts how one day he was called to a school where the teachers were united in their constant conflict with the principal. In a meeting with the teachers, he asked them, “What is the principal doing that conflicts with your needs?” Rosenberg asked for concrete observations of the principal’s behavior, but all he got were evaluations: “He has a big mouth!” said the first teacher. “He talks too much!” said another. When they were told that these were all evaluations not observations, a third teacher tried to answer Rosenberg’s question by saying, “He thinks only he has anything worth saying.” Then another trying to be helpful added, “In meetings he always wants to be the center of attention.”

After many failed attempts, Rosenberg worked with the teachers to come up with a list of identifying concrete behaviours free of evaluation on the part of the principal that annoyed them. A meeting with the principal was then called in which Rosenberg was asked to be present. Not long after the meeting started, Rosenberg saw right away for himself what the principal did that irritated the teachers so much. No matter what subject was discussed in the meeting, the principal took the opportunity to give a long rambling account of his childhood or war experience, which took them off topic, with the result that the meetings ran much longer than expected.

This is only one example of our inability to recount what we observe without contaminating it with our evaluation. Sometimes, like in the case of these teachers, evaluation so pervades our minds that we even forget the original behaviour that started the whole discussion.

Evaluating without taking responsibility
Following Rosenberg’s book, let us see some examples where observation has an implicit evaluation to show how difficult it is to separate the two in everyday life.

You are too generous – This is an observation with an evaluation attached; the speaker of this statement claims to know the benchmark of what is less, more or even too generous; as such he makes a categorical claim, allegedly objective, without being responsible or implicated in it.

When I see you give away all your chocolates without leaving any for yourself, I think you are being too generous – This would be the way to formulate the previous statement as pure observation. We make reference to a fact without falling into the temptation to interpret it. But if we want to interpret it then we make ourselves responsible for that interpretation, that is, “I think…” or “to me that is being too generous” thus leaving reality open to other interpretations.

Use and abuse of verbs that evaluate
John is always late – This observation contains a generalization, even if we have already caught John at being late before, it does not mean that he is always late; it is the same situation of the one who had killed a dog and afterwards they all call him a dog-killer. In addition to labeling people, generalizations are always unfair, even if there is a recurring behaviour.

The most harmful of all verbs in the nonviolent language is the verb to be, because it baptizes people, tying them to a label that prevents them from growing and progressing. The abuse of this verb in the education of children leads them to be what others want them to be. The verb to be ties people to static identities; every time we label someone we put that person inside a straitjacket, giving him a life sentence that is difficult for him to escape.

We are all beings under construction, in continuous growth, in a continuous state of becoming, progressing, and evolution. The verb to be does not define us because we are not stones, not static beings but living beings. The verb to be only serves to define dead things and when it defines living things it kills them.

John only studied for the physics exam the night before – The antidote to generalization which leads to labeling is to refer to a specific situation. In this way we observe or echo something that has happened, thus being faithful to reality, and letting John himself draw whatever conclusion he may want to draw from his own behaviour in relation to this specific incident or its recurrence.

Monica is ugly – This denotes that we have in us the gauge for beauty and that in Monica’s case we are the spokesperson for 7 billion people.

Monica’s looks don’t appeal to me – In this way I make myself responsible for my viewpoint that is mine alone, therefore it does not extend to anyone else. As the Romans used to say, “de gustibus non est disputandum”, that is, “in matters of taste, there can be no disputes” because “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”.

Prophets of doom
Her work will not be accepted – We often reveal in our statements the claim of being prophets, and almost always prophets of doom. With some malice and pleasure in the misdeeds of others, we make negative predictions about their thoughts, ideas, feelings, intentions, desires and actions. It is true that this is not an observation, but an “a priori” evaluation whose purpose may be to humiliate the person in question, or to make him retract his attempts, or even to influence him negatively to make him fail.

I don’t think that her work will be accepted – This would be the same evaluation but made in a NVC way; whoever evaluates must take responsibility for his own evaluation thus removing any outside weight and importance of what is said.

If you don’t eat balanced meals, you will lose your health – Here is an observation that not even a medical doctor should make because it confuses prediction with certainty. Medicine is not an exact science like mathematics; there are many factors that affect health or sickness; even though this observation may contain some truth, it is not the whole truth.

If your meals are not balanced, I fear that your health may be affected – This statement is more in accordance with the truth because diet is only one of the many factors affecting both the state of health and the state of illness.

Generalizations
New immigrants are sloppy – This is an example of a generalization; it is perhaps the most common defect in our day to day speech. Words like always, never etc. are almost always followed by a generalization. A generalization is the universalization of our own experience. If we are sufficiently humble we will admit that our experience is very limited in time and space, so it cannot and should not be universalized.

It is the basis of racism, sexism and stereotyping to universalize and generalize our experiences and making comments such as: men are… women are… blacks are… gypsies are… the British are… the French are…

The family of new immigrants living in number 24 does not take care of their lawn – The antidote for generalization is to be specific in time and place thus limiting our statement or observation to a concrete time, place and behaviour as “against facts there is no argument”.

Oscar is a poor soccer player – A generalization most often heard in soccer circles and in heated discussions among fans. It denotes frustration, but it has nothing to do with the truth.

Oscar has not scored a goal in his last 5 games – Translated into a statement accepted by the canons of nonviolent language we make reference to facts and abstain from hasty conclusions. The same player when upon scoring a decisive goal in a championship game would be immediately appreciated in a very different way.

Examples of observations with or without evaluations
•    John was angry with me yesterday for no reason. (Evaluation)
•    Yesterday night Nancy chewed her nails while watching television. (Observation)
•    Sam did not ask for my opinion during the meeting. (Observation)
•    My father is a good man. (Evaluation)
•    Claire works too much. (Evaluation)
•    Henry is aggressive. (Evaluation)
•    Carlos was first every day of this week. (Observation)
•    My son often doesn’t brush his teeth. (Evaluation)
•    Luke told me that I don’t look good in yellow. (Observation)
•    My aunt complains when I talk with her. (Evaluation)

The pure in heart  shall see God
And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into the hell of fire. Matthew 18:9

The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! Matthew 6:22-23

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Matthew 5:8

As Jesus suggests, if our eyes are sick then greater will be our occasions of falling into sin. We often do not see things objectively but only what we want to see. Or, we do not see without interpreting because our eyes are not windows to the world and lamps to illuminate things as they are. Therefore we need to purify our hearts and minds for only then will we see God, and reality as it is, and in this way contribute to the harmony in human relationships and peace in the world.

Evaluation and value judgements in NVC
How is it possible to communicate without evaluating our and the other person’s behaviour? Is there really no evaluation whatsoever in NVC? Indeed there is. In NVC we abstain from the moralistic judgements that are made in a static language and are part of the game of who is right and who is wrong, who is good and who is bad. We refrain from all evaluations that criticize the behavior of other people, labeling them as good or bad, honest or dishonest, egocentric or altruistic etc.

The evaluation of what is observable in NVC is centered in the present, in the here and now. It makes reference only to concrete acts and not to some vague and generalised attitudes; it is dynamic because it relates to what is alive in us at that very moment, or what is going on with us in regards to our feelings and needs at that moment. This being said, in NVC, our observable behaviour, what we concretely do or say and what others do or say, is evaluated in terms of meeting or not meeting our needs, making us feel or not feel good at that given moment.

Violent communication is based on static and moralistic evaluations that when they are voiced out, they put people on the defensive because they classify and divided people into two categories: the good guys who deserve to be praised and rewarded, and the bad guys who deserve to be reprimanded and punished. In NVC, the assessment or evaluation, is based on what is happening at the present and how much it will or will not meet the needs and values of all involved in the interaction.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

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