In this session, I'll be discussing the dynamics of empathy as practiced within Nonviolent Communication.
NVC Training Course Session #4 Marshall Rosenberg CNVC.org
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- Introduction
- Components of Empathy
- How to Demonstrate understanding
- Challenging Responses to Empathize With
- Hearing 'No' Empathically
- Connecting with what's alive in someone
- Resources
In this session, I'll be discussing the dynamics of empathy as practiced within Nonviolent Communication.
As an image to help you understand what I mean by empathy, I'd like to refer to an image that was quoted in a book Here and Now. This person who wrote the book had heard me giving an explanation of empathy in a workshop and he incorporated it in his book.
The image goes this way. I relate empathy to surfboard riding. Imagine yourself getting up on a surfboard, this requires getting in touch with a certain energy. If you don't get on exactly, you can get knocked off. To me, empathy is somewhat like that.
As I have expressed in other sessions, the life energy that's coming through people at each moment, I have learned can best be described in words referring to what that person is feeling and needing. The empathic connection that I am interested in sustaining is one, in which, I can stay connected to the life energy coming through another person. And that's what makes it like surfboard riding.
It's a challenge because many people don't know how to directly express what's alive in them. they use a rather choppy language, they often tell you what's alive in them with reference to what's wrong with you.
When people need empathy the most, they're often expressing it in a pretty violent way. In that sense, it's very much like surfboard riding. How to get in touch with this energy and flow with it? The energy coming through people is, for me, a very beautiful divine energy. When I can really stay connected with it, I feel like I'm riding in a very precious flow of energy.
When we empathize, we focus on what's alive in people. I'm suggesting, that when we see what's alive in people, we see a beautiful energy.
There's a song written by Red Grammer that touches me very much about this. It really speaks powerfully to me about what happens when I do empathize. How no matter what the person is saying. It allows me to see the beauty in them.
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See me Beautiful,
look for the best in me.
That's what I really am,
and all I want to be
It may take some time,
it may be hard to find,
but see me beautiful.
See me beautiful, each and every day. Could you take a chance, could you find a way, to see me shining through every thing I do and see me beautiful.
4:10
Let me outline some of the components of empathy, things that we need to learn to do, to stay connected to people, so we can really connect with the flow of energy that's coming through them.
The most important part of empathy is the hardest.
It involves our presence, our full presence to what is alive in this person, at this moment.
Martin Buber the Israeli philosopher and psychotherapist says that presence is the most powerful gift one person can give to another. A powerful gift and a precious gift. When we give this gift to others, this gift of our presence, it is a major component of healing.
It is a major component of the connection that's necessary for people to enjoy contributing to each other's well being. But it's not an easy thing to do, to give this presence to others, because as Buber also says, it requires bringing nothing from the past into the present. It requires seeing the present moment as a newborn infant that's never been before, will never be again.
If we start to think about what the person is saying, we lose this presence. All of the theories that we might bring into the present moment, about this person, will get in the way of our staying empathically connected.
If you have studied psychology as I did for many years, at university, we're trained how to analyze people what leads them to behave as they do. That kind of intellectual training and analysis, of what goes on historically that creates present problems, that can get in the way of empathy.
One of the things that we need to stay clear about, is not to get mixed up intellectual understanding with empathy.
Intellectual understanding of the kind I'm saying that I received at university, for intellectually understanding what are the things historically that can contribute to people developing certain problems.
Even if this is an accurate assumption that these kinds of things are going on in the person, it means that I'm not connecting with this person as a unique person in this moment. I'm bringing in theories and ideas about them. I am mixing up intellectual understanding with empathy.
Another frequent misunderstanding of empathy is to confuse it with sympathy.
For example, if a person starts to talk about some pain they're having in their life. The other person might say, Oh, I'm so sad that you're going through this suffering. That sadness and caring on the part of this person could probably be well received, if the person in pain first received empathy.
When we are giving a sympathetic response, we're talking about ourselves. This takes the focus away from what is alive in the other person.
An image that I use, to help keep empathy and sympathy separate, is to think about a time when I've had a headache or a toothache, and I have gotten involved in a really good book. what happens? We don't feel the pain, we don't feel the pain because our full attention is in the book. that full attention is what I'm calling empathy.
And it's not to be confused then, with, after the empathy we're certainly many times going to have a very sympathetic response. I have found that people can enjoy that sympathetic response too, once they have had the empathic connection that they need. But to confuse these two things can be very painful.
A friend of mine helped me to see just how painful it can be when people mix up empathy and sympathy. She was dying of a very painful disease and whenever I would come to her community, she would be likely to call me and say "Marshall come on over and play with my pain."
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The first time I went over there after hearing her say "play with my pain", I asked her, What do you mean by play with your pain? And she said, Marshall, you know what's even worse than the pain itself, that I'm experiencing, is how other people can't deal with it. When they see me in pain, instead of being able to just be with me to hear what is going on in me, they feel like they have to fix it. Or they feel like if they give me sympathy, I'll feel better.
They don't realize that, all the things that they suggest that I do, they're trying to give me help, I know. But I've done those things and it's not going to help my problem. They don't know how to just be present and give me the understanding that would be so precious at that time. It's so hard to tell them Marshall, because I know they mean well.
How do you tell somebody that when you tell me "Oh, how sad you are", and you start to give me advice, I know you mean well, but it's not only not what I need, it actually stimulates more pain, it leaves me feeling more lonely with that pain.
We don't want to mix up empathy and sympathy.
Very often we think that we are showing understanding of people and we jump right in and start to give them advice.
Another thing that's not empathy, as I'll be defining it in this session, are the words 'I understand'.
I understand exactly how you feel. Too many people have had someone say, I understand, and what the person was understanding was not at all what was alive in the speaker. It was just what their intellectual understanding of the situation was.
In Nonviolent Communication as we'll see, we never say I understand.
let's get to that.
How do we demonstrate this special quality of understanding that I'm calling empathic connection?
I've already mentioned the main component, its presence. Just being fully present to what's alive in the person in front of us. Empathy takes place in the now. If the other person is telling me about some things that happened to their life in the past that caused great pain in them, I put my focus on what is alive in them now when they're telling me this.
If I get lost in the story of how this all began, I may intellectually understand what's going on in the person now. I have found that's far less powerful than if I commit with what is alive in the person now.
This presence in the now, as I have said in previous sessions, is on feelings and needs.
That's the best way that I've learned to connect with what's alive in a person at a given moment, to connect with what they're feeling and needing at this moment. Now that's often quite a challenge to be able to hear, because many people are not talking about what they're feeling and needing at this moment. They think they'll get the empathy they need by telling the story, they're using a lot of words that go into the past and tell the story, not realizing that story takes people out of the present, and often requires a lot of words that make it even harder to form empathic connection.
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We don't focus on what happened in the past, but what's alive in the person now, as a result of what happened in the past.
We may make reference to the past by saying something like: "When your father used to beat you. It was pretty scary." Now the focus goes into the present, "Am I hearing you express, that you're still feeling rage at your father for doing that?"
So they may have felt scared in the past, when their father did that, but at this moment as thier recalling it, they may be feeling rage.
That's where the empathic connection comes in, in the present feeling, not what happened in the past.
Empathy involves:
- presence
- focus on the now
- focus on feelings and needs.
That means not on thoughts. Most people are used to talking about their thoughts what they think about something.
In Nonviolent Communication, we find that we can form a much more precious connection with people by hearing what is alive in them when they tell us their thoughts.
This requires being aware that many of the thoughts that people make, especially those that judge others or themselves, are really tragic expressions of what they're feeling and needing at that moment.
For example, if Person A says to person B, "all you do is watch TV, you never spend any time with me, you're the most inconsiderate person I've ever met." This person is telling the other person they think that person is inconsiderate.
As I've suggested in previous sessions, all of these criticisms and judgments are tragic expressions of the needs of the speaker. When we are making empathic connections, if somebody tells us what they think about us, we don't hear that.
I really believe that if we learn how to hear the life behind these thoughts, will enjoy people more and live longer.
We go to the feelings and needs that are being distorted by the thoughts that criticize oneself or others. Now to do that is going to require some guessing some sensing of what the feelings and needs might be. Because the speaker is not directly saying, and this means that we're going to be wrong, some of the time.
We're going to sense that a person might be feeling angry and they might be feeling hurt. I was working with a couple, and they had been married 20 years. The wife was telling me about something that happened regularly in her life that he got angry about. And he immediately said, I don't get angry, I feel hurt. For 20 years, she had been guessing that he had been angry but that wasn't how he he said he felt, he felt hurt.
It's going to be difficult sometimes to really know what a person is feeling. And that's why in empathy, we need to check it out.
We need to put into words, what we sense the person might be feeling. and then we connect their feeling to what they might be needing.
This means that we don't get addicted to being right.
We want to connect, It's not a test that we have to get right.
No matter what thoughts or other forms of communication come at us.
When we empathize in a Nonviolent Communication way, we try to connect with what's alive in the person in terms of their feelings and needs. When we're not sure, we sometimes want to confirm whether or not we have connected empathically with the person by saying the word words out loud.
That might sound like "are you feeling" and we then add to that what we sense the person might be feeling. And then we connect their feelings to their needs. "Are you feeling as you do because your need for x isn't being met?"
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That's the rhythm of empathy, to try to connect with these feelings and needs, and putting into words what feelings and needs we're sensing are alive in the person.
We do this under two conditions:
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One when we're not sure we have understood and we want to put it into words to give the person a chance to correct us if we're not accurate.
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Another reason we might want to confirm it is not so much for ourself as for the other person.
If the other person is making themselves very vulnerable, we may feel that we have fully understood but not need to verify it or confirm it for ourself. Seeing how vulnerable they are, we might sense that they would feel less tense, less anxious, if they knew we were just with them, just connecting with what's alive.
Then when we do confirm, verbally what the other person is feeling and needing. We do it under two conditions.
The first, when we're not sure we have really connected to the person's feelings and needs, then we might put it into words, "are you feeling" and sense their feelings, "because you are needing". If we have guessed wrong, the person can correct this.
The second reason why we might want to put it into words is if we sense the other person would enjoy confirmation they have been fully understood. Though we might feel that we've understood, we sense their vulnerability, then reflect back what feelings and needs we heard in their message.
Of course, sometimes we're going to guess wrong.
We're going to guess they don't need it when they would appreciate it.
Sometimes we're going to give it when they don't want it.
A good example of what I mean was seen when I was working with some husbands and wives in a city in California. They were practicing empathy. And one of the husbands was practicing how to empathically connect with some pain his wife was experiencing. She was expressing some pain she had relative to aging, and how terrible she felt when she saw the wrinkles in her face when she looked in the mirror.
The husband sense that he really understood and I can see why he would feel understanding, because she made it very clear what she was feeling and needing, just how sad she was and how she needed empathy for the challenges of aging. From his nonverbal expression, I felt he was really with her, and she made herself clear. If I were in his position, I wouldn't have felt any need to confirm my understanding by putting it into words.
He just was silent, giving her space to say more if she wanted to. But she needed confirmation that he heard her and she says, "will you say something that tells me whether you're hearing me or not?"
Another couple went next, with the husband trying to empathize with the wife. This wife was expressing some pain, I thought in a very clear way, saying what she was feeling and needing in a trying situation in her life. It looked to me from the man's non-verbal behavior that he was really with her and understanding her.
If I were in his place, I wouldn't have felt the need to say anything. And he didn't for a while, but then he seemed to sense that she would like some empathy, and he started to put it into words. She said, Stop that. I don't need that kind of empathy. I need a response.
We're going to guess wrong.
In Nonviolent Communication, we never try to be perfect. We try to be progressively less stupid.
Now, I've said a couple of things that empathy isn't, as I define empathy.
- First, it's not sympathy. When we give sympathy, we're talking about ourselves.
When we're empathically connected with other people, we're focusing on what's alive in them.
- I've also said that empathy is not saying "I understand."
It's demonstrating understanding through our non-verbal communication or through verbally reflecting our understanding.
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If somebody says they're upset about something and say, "You had no right to do what I'm upset about," and what if we didn't do what they said?
It's very tempting to want to jump in and correct the person and give them the facts.
When people are upset, even if they're being upset is stimulated by a misinterpretation on their part, it really helps if we can empathically connect, before correction.
When I give some exercises on empathy in groups, I often ask the group to write down an empathic response to statements I make. One of the statements is to say something in a very emotional way, where the facts upon which I'm basing my emotion are just not accurate.
For example, I often do an exercise to get people to see how to empathically connect before they correct. That might look like this:
In the United States, I might ask the group to imagine that I'm an immigrant, recently coming into the United States. I say, now write down what you would say back to this immigrant if they said the following. "I'm really annoyed with you Americans for electing Tony Blair as your president. How could you do that?"
I asked The group to write down an empathic response to that statement. The majority of people want to correct it immediately. They want to say who is the president and point out that Tony Blair is not the president. Then they can see how trained they are to want to correct rather than connecting with what's alive in the person. Now, we may want to correct thing is that we think would help situations by correcting them.
People then can trust that what you are really valuing is what's alive in them.
When people trust that you value connecting with what's alive in them, before it's important to you to correct situations, that has a big impact on relationships. That empathic connection is valued more than correction. This doesn't mean that after the empathic connection, we might not want to get the correction.
Empathic connection before correction. Keeping intellectual understanding separate from empathic connection..
I find this particularly difficult with people who were trained as I was in psychotherapy of a psychoanalytic nature. I was trained to try to help people connect the present problems they're having with things that happened earlier in their life to get them insights into this. The people usually found this very interesting and helpful in a certain way. But it took me quite a few years to realized how much more powerful it was for me to empathically connect with them, rather than to intellectually analyze how their problems began.
I was working with 23 psychiatrist in one community, and I was giving them an exercise on empathic connection. I asked them to write down what they would say to people to empathically connect with them who expressed certain things.
One of the things that I've said, in the role of the patient that came to see them was, I'm feeling so depressed, I don't know that I want to keep alive. I think the world would be better off without me" and I asked each of them to write down what would be an empathic reaction to this persons statement.
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I would then ask them to hand in these responses they made. Then I said, I'm going to read each of these out loud and I'd like you to raise your hand if you were that person expressing this pain, that you would really feel an empathic connection, an understanding of what you were feeling and needing. Hands were raised to only three of the 23 statements that were handed in. It was a powerful learning experience for them, they could see that they hadn't been trained to empathically connect but to intellectually understand.
For example, the most frequent response they made was to ask questions to get further information, such as, when did this start? What makes you think that you have nothing to offer the world? they asked questions to elicit more intellectual understanding of the situation. But didn't empathically connect with what this person might be feeling and needing at the moment they express the pain.
One woman got very upset because when I read off the statement she made two people groaned in the group. She turned around and said, why would that bother you? Her statement to the other person was, "That's ridiculous. You have everything to offer."
She later told me that she was sad that she hadn't learned this earlier in her career, because for 27 years she had been making statements like that to people when they were in pain and thought they were worth nothing. She tried to reassure them that they worthwhile. This was the first time she said that people could give me honest feedback about that. I can see that a patient that's talking to me and feels bad and I say something that doesn't make them feel better. It would be very hard for them to let me know that.
Let's look at some of the most challenging responses that are hard to empathize with.
Of course, one of them is when people are diagnosing us, telling us what's wrong with us. When they start with "the problem with you is that you're too sensitive." Now, of course, if we are going to empathically connect, we don't hear what they think about us. We go to what they might be feeling and needing.
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I was once in a refugee camp in the Middle East. When my interpreter announced that I was from the United States, one of the people in the refugee camp jumped to his feet and said to me, "Murderer!"
30 minutes later, he invited me to a Ramadan dinner at his house. What could happen that would transform a situation where he screams at me that I'm a murderer, to inviting me to a special dinner at his house. The difference occurred because I perfectly connected to what was alive in him at the moment that he called me a murderer.
I said to him, Sir, are you feeling furious because your need for safety and support isn't being met by my government?
Now, I didn't know whether that was right or not, whether that's what was alive in him. But from the tone of voice, and from some other things that I knew were going on at that moment, I guessed that was what he might be feeling and needing.
The other things that helped me guess were the fact that, as I was walking into the refugee camp that day, we had to kick out of the way many empty tear gas grenades which had been fired into the camp the night before. Because there had been a riot in this refugee camp. Sadly, on the side of each of these empty tear gas grenades was written, "made in USA". Now here's a man hearing that I'm from the United States immediately calls me murder. My guess was that, are you angry because your need for support and safety isn't being met by my country?
I could have been wrong. But if I was wrong, it focuses on his feelings and needs and will help him to get clear about it. But even more than that, as I've said, it shows that I value what's alive in him.
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When people trust that you value what's alive in them what they're feeling and needing at a given moment, that takes more precedence for you. Then whether what they're saying is right or wrong. This has a big impact on the relationship. It makes compassionate connecting much easier when people really feel that what's alive in them is what matters to you.
Now, that often is not going to happen immediately that this shift occurs, and in his case, it didn't appear immediately. It happened that I guess right this first time he was angry, and he did have a need for a different kind of support from my country. He was a little shocked at first when I said that, but then that opened him up to say more.
This is what often happens when we empathically connect with a message that comes at us. It gets the person in touch with even more pain that they're experiencing. When we stay connected to that, they go even deeper.
What he said back to me was, that's right. We don't have housing. We don't have sewage. Why are you sending your weapons? Now notice by my focusing on his feelings and needs, he's coming now more from his feelings and needs than calling me a name. I continued to try to connect with what I heard him feeling and needing by saying, Sir, if I'm understanding you it's enormously painful when your basic needs for things such as sewage and housing aren't being met, and you see weapons being sent.
He said, you're darn right, do you know what it's like to live under these conditions? I stayed with his present feelings and needs by saying, Sir, if I'm hearing you correctly, it's very, very painful and you really need some understanding for what it's like to live under these conditions.
After this, he was able to hear me when I said to him, sir, I'm really fearful that because of this association you have with my country that I'll not get the opportunity I came here for it today. I had wanted to share some things valuable for me with you. I wonder if you'd be willing to hear now what I have to offer, and at that point he was.
Now as I just said, very often people need us to stay with them for a while, because if we stay with their present feelings and needs, that gets them in touch with other deeper feelings and needs that are also going on within them. And sometimes this can take quite a while before the person really feels fully understood.
A very important part of empathically connecting is to make sure we stay with the empathic connection, until the other person feels fully understood.
How will we know that?
One thing gives us a clue that, perhaps at this moment, this person has fully received all the understanding they need. As Carl Rogers, the psychologist has written, empathy feels real good.
When a person receives empathy from another, not only does the person who receives it feel good, but it's highly likely that anyone observing this feels good. There is something very special when somebody in pain receives an empathic connection from someone.
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This reduction in tension may be one sign that the person has had the understanding that they needed this moment.
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Another clue is that the person doesn't have a rush to continue speaking.
Maybe until this point, every time we reflected back what they might be feeling and needing. They said yes, and or no and corrected us. Now they're not responding with this speed. That's another sign that the person might be ready for us to tell how we feel in response to what they said.
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But there can be times when those two signs that is the person feeling relieved, there being less intensity and speed of responding. Sometimes a person can be silent because they're getting up the courage to go even deeper into something that's very hard to say.
I suggest that we be very slow when somebody is in pain to shift away from their pain to our response.
What I'm inclined to do, if I'm not sure is to just ask the person, is there more you would like me to hear? Before I react to what you say? I said that one of the challenging messages to hear in an empathic way is when somebody is telling us what's wrong with us.
Another message that I have found very important to hear empathically is the message No. I don't want to, or I'm not willing.
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In our Nonviolent Communication training, we show people how to hear the human behind the no. To be conscious that, if we hear a no, we're hearing very little about what's really alive in this person at this moment. We need to do the same thing with the no as we do if somebody is telling us what's wrong with us, to hear through the message to what is alive and the person when they say this.
More specifically, what are they feeling and needing?
We show people that no is a poor expression of what a person is needing. For example, many of the parents that I work with, this is one of the messages that they find hardest to deal with in their children.
They say, Marshall, what can I do? I tell my son, it's time for him to go to bed, and he says, No, I don't want to go.
I suggest to hear what is the person feeling and needing when they say that. We'll learn a lot about what's going on by doing that. Again, we'll show the person we are more interested in the connection with them than in their immediately responding to our request. That is a very powerful message when people trust that the connection is valued over their submission to whatever we are requesting.
A mother tried this out with her son after she asked me in a workshop Marshall, how do you do deal with a child who says no?
I tell him it's time to go to school. He says, No, I don't want to go to school. She says, He says that over and over. No, I don't want to go to school. How do you deal with that?
I worked with her on how to try to hear the feelings and the needs, behind the no.
The next morning, she came into the workshop beaming and thanked me for this. She said Marshall, it was so precious to see what was really alive in him behind the no. Until you showed me how to hear his feelings and needs behind the no, I would immediately start to give him reasons why he had to go to school. The more I do that, the more resistant he became. But as a result of our session yesterday, I tried to hear what he was feeling and needing
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I said to him, are you angry at my asking you to get ready for school, because you have a need for more time to play here now? She said, I thought that was really it, Marshall.
He said, No. It's all about the future, mom.
I really strained to hear what was he feeling and needing when he said it's all about the future. I started to get it. I said, you mean you're disappointed because you're not learning things that are really meeting your needs now.
Yeah, Mom, you know, they just say you have to learn this so that you'll get a good grade and then you'll be able to go into other classes and then eventually you'll get a better job.
She said, I could really see why it was so hard for him to want to go to school every day when it really wasn't meeting his need for something that was valid. When it was all about the future, how little energy he could have for wanting to go to school.
Then the telephone rang and I went to answer it. When I came back, he was ready for school.
When she told me this about this young man who, after the empathy all of a sudden was ready to go to school. I could think of several examples of that, where people brought their children to me because they weren't wanting to go to school.
When I empathized with what needs of theirs weren't being met by the school. The parents would then say to me later, what did you do to convince him that he needs to go to school, and I said I didn't try to do any convincing. I just tried to empathically connect with the needs that were keeping them from wanting to go to school, from enjoying the school.
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Just the empathy helps them. Even though they might not want to go, they understand some of the reasons why they would benefit by going. By getting the empathy, they could go to school, but with a different energy then when they didn't have the empathy.
You see if we're using Nonviolent Communication, and we learn how to empathically connect with what is going on in other people, at any given moment. The other person can't not communicate with us, because even silence is a very loud, powerful message. One example of this occurred when some parents heard me speak on the radio.
They called on the telephone and ask if I would be willing to see their 24 year old daughter. They told me she was in a mental hospital and she just sat very depressed all day long staring at the floor.
I told them, "yes, bring her in. I would be glad to talk with her."
And they said, "Dr. Rosenberg, she's in a mental hospital." Oh, yes. I said, I understood that. I would suggest taking her out, bring her to my office and let's just see how she responds. They said, "take her out of the hospital?"
I said, Yes, I have some reservations about people being in institutions that claim that people are mentally ill. I think that this gives them the impression that there's something wrong with them for having these feelings and I much prefer to deal with people who are suffering outside of that context.
The next day they took her out of the hospital and brought her into my office. I invited her to sit down and, and she did. She looked at the floor, she looked very tense, scared. The parents went out to wait in my waiting room. There I'm sitting with her and she's just looking at the floor saying nothing.
I introduced myself, I said, my name is Marshall. I'm glad that your parents wanted you and me to talk because they told me that they were very hopeful that you and me talking would be of help to you and I would hope that I can be of help.
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I'd like you to tell me how you feel about coming here today.
She just stared at the floor didn't say anything. That silence is a very loud message, if we can connect with what is this person feeling and needing that leads them to choose silence, I tried to connect with that.
I said, Are you feeling scared right now and have a need to protect yourself and you want to be sure it's safe to be with me before you say anything.
She just continued looking at the floor.
And I continue to try to connect with what was alive in her and I said, I'm sensing that even telling me you're scared is not easy for you. And you really want to be sure it's safe before you tell me anything, is this what's going on?
She didn't say anything. She continues to look at the floor, shaking a little. And for the next 40 minutes, I just stayed present to what I guess was going on in her since she didn't confirm it. I didn't know for sure. I just tried to stay present connected to what was alive in her.
Maybe twice more in that 40 minutes, I did reflect again, I'm sensing that you're really scared. It's not easy to talk till you're sure that it'll be safe. Is this what's going on?
But all I got was the nonverbal behavior. At the end of 40 minutes, I was pretty fatigued.
I said to her, I'm pretty tired right now. And I'd like some rest. I'd like you to come back tomorrow and I'd like to continue to communicate with you. Would you be willing to have me have your parents bring you back tomorrow?
And she just sat staring at the ground.
I said, if I don't hear anything from you, I'll assume it's okay. I asked her parents to bring her back the next day, and on day two, she again was silent for the whole period, for about 40 minutes. I just tried to stay connected to what I sense was alive in her reflecting it verbally a couple of times.
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Day three, the same thing.
Day four, the same thing.
Finally, on day five, a different message, still a nonverbal one, but instead of just sitting and staring at the floor, she turned her face away from me and put her fist up near my face and kind of shook her fist.
My guess from this that she was angry and wanted to be left alone, and I said that out loud. Are you feeling angry at being brought in here every day?
Are you just needing rest and to be by yourself?
She shook her head, no. I said, well, then I'm not sure what you're trying to communicate to me by shaking your fist in front of my face like this. Finally I figured it out, I could see a little piece of paper coming out of one part of her hand.
And I pried open her fingers on her fist, and there was a message inside that said, Please help me express what's going on inside. This started then her feeling safe enough to talk with me.
She subsequently made very clear why it took five sessions before she felt that she could be safe enough to talk with me. She made it very clear to me what empathic connection she felt for those five periods, even when she was silent, that I could just be with her, hearing her feelings and needs even though she was too frightened to say them out loud, and how much she felt it from my silence as well as the words she felt that I was with her.
She went on to tell me that when she first went to a doctor about how depressed she was feeling when she was in the university, she said the doctor just sat there making notes and didn't say anything that led her to feel that she really was understood.
She said, and he gave me some medicine that made me think that he thought there was something wrong with me for what I was saying, and subsequently, he put me on shock treatments.
That made me feel that there was really something bad about me for having the strong feelings that I did. She said, that's why it took me so long to feel safe with you, Marshall, that I needed to really feel safe that whatever was alive in me could be understood, and it didn't mean there was something wrong with me.
Another message that's hard to hear is, a message that starts with the words, "I think" followed by a lot of words.
When people just keep talking about what they think, or they tell us what is happened, but they don't really know how to say what is alive in them at this moment. And when people do that, it's hard to really feel alive in the conversation if we just hear their words.
In our training, we show people how to empathize with people who are using more words than we'd like to follow. It's probably not good for them to use these words, because they can sense that when they use so many words, people don't enjoy listening to them.
No matter how many words they use, the're very often not getting the understanding, the empathy, they would like.
In our training, we show people how to interrupt when we sense that the person needs empathy, but they don't know how to say they need empathy, and say, in a few words, what has happened that stimulates their present pain, and then tell us what their present pain is.
Many people don't realize that telling the story doesn't give you the empathic connection that we're needing, as much as, referring briefly to what happened and putting the focus of our attention on what's alive in us now.
When somebody we sense really needs empathic connection, we can see they're in pain, but don't know how to stay in the now, and just say what's alive now. They want us to hear they start telling us all kinds of things about what happened in the past and what they think about that.
When we're finding it hard to follow because of so many words they're using are not focused on what they're feeling and needing in the present. We suggest that this is a good time to interrupt, but not to take the flow away from the person, but to interrupt for the purpose of bringing them back to life, back to what is alive in them at the moment.
54:37
And we suggest doing this by saying, excuse me, excuse me. To interrupt them when you have heard more words than you want to hear, and when the words are not really connecting you clearly to what is alive in the person.
Always say, "Excuse me" and then what we say is to bring the conversation back to life, back to what is alive in this person at this moment, behind all the words.
For example, if somebody says to us, you know, I was in a department store yesterday, and the clerk was so rude. I mean, that clerk was so rude. And I thought, you know, that reminded me of my own father. You know, my father used to talk to me in the same way. I can recall a time when I was about six years, and then the person goes on to tell us this long story about what happened with their father.
Here's where I might interrupt, but I would interrupt to try to connect to what's alive and then now, behind all these words.
I might say excuse me, excuse me for interrupting but I really want to be sure I'm connecting to what you want me to hear by telling me this. Are you saying that you feel angry right now even when you think about how your father used to communicate with you, and you'd really like some understanding of how painful that was?
I said that once to a woman who was talking on and on about what happened to her and her father, it was stimulated by some way a clerk talked to her the day before?
And I guessed wrong. I guessed that she was angry about that.
She looked at that for a moment and said, "No, I'm not angry right now. I'm hurt. Why is that my needs never mattered to people? My father didn't care about my needs, only about my sister's. The clerk yesterday just didn't seem to care about me.
Even though I guessed wrong was alive in her it brought her back to the present. And she got clear that what she was really wanting to say was the hurt she's been feeling much of her life. Because she didn't feel like she mattered, or that she was valued by the people in her life.
I could have listened to that story for another hour, and not had that connection with it, and in fact, found it hard to be around her. When we are finding it hard to listen to so many words, very often the person who's using those words senses that their words are not connecting them and they get nervous, and they use all the more words.
I want to maintain that the interruption I'm suggesting is not one to take the conversation away from the person, but to bring the person back to life, to what's alive in them at this moment, behind all the words.
For many of the people who come to our Nonviolent Communication trainings, what I'm suggesting, focusing our attention on the present, on what's alive in the other person, what they're feeling and needing. They tell me it's a rhythm they're not used to.
They're so used to getting defensive when other people tell them what's wrong with them. They just fade out when people are using more words and they want to hear. They asked what could they do to speed up their ability to just connect to what's alive in people?
This exercise that I have given people over the years seems to help a lot.
It's an exercise I once did when I was first learning empathic connection, and wanting to improve my ability to hear what's alive in people, no matter how they communicate to me.
I made a list of messages that people might say to me that made me afraid to reveal myself. In other words, I said what messages have I been afraid to express in my life? Why am I afraid to express these things?
I realized how much I was telling myself that if I am honest about this, the other person might say to me, "the problem was you is that you're too sensitive" or something like that.
59:23
I could see that I was telling myself that my safety depended on how other people might respond to me.
I was keeping a lot of myself hidden, because I was telling myself that I had to be afraid of what people might say to me. But then I started to realize I don't have to worry about what people say to me. I only have to worry about how I respond to that.
I saw that if I can respond empathically to a message I can hear the truth, that person is really feeling a need, then I don't have to be afraid to reveal myself.
What I did was this exercise:
- I listed some of the things that I was most afraid of what people might say to me, if I was honest.
- Then I practiced empathizing with those messages.
Here's how I did that.
For each message on my list, I could see that I was afraid to reveal things about myself, for fear of getting that message back. For every one of them, I thought, "What might the stimulus be for the person to say that to me?" And then, this is what might I have said or done that might stimulate this message that I was so afraid of getting back.
For each item on the list then that I saw that I had been hiding parts of myself out of fear of somebody might saying this back to me. For every one of the messages, I practice sensing guessing what that person might be feeling and needing, if they said that to me.
If they said something to me, and I didn't like it, and they said back to me, the problem with you is that you're too sensitive. I've tried to guess what if they said that to me, what would they be feeling or needing at that time?
Then I wrote on this exercise sheet that I developed for myself. I imagine the person saying that to me, the problem is you're too sensitive. Maybe the stimulus was they said something to me and instead of giving them empathy I started to justify.
If they said the problem was, you're too sensitive, I guess maybe at that moment, that person was feeling frustrated because their need for understanding wasn't met by how I responded.
This was kind of fun for the first four or five messages just to see that these things that I had been so afraid other people might say, how different it was, if I could just learn to hear the feelings and needs behind any message.
To this day, this has been quite a relief for me to be conscious I don't have to worry about being honest with people and how they might respond. I only have to be prepared to empathically connect with whatever comes back. That means my power is in my hands. My security is in my hands. It's not in what other people think about me or say to me.
1:02:50 I was once asked to do some training in a convent where the sisters were engrossed in a pretty painful conflict about clothing.
The younger sisters were working in the inner city and found their habits were getting in the way of the connection that they had with the people they were working with. They wanted to wear regular clothing.
The older sisters felt this was not at all proper for religious sisters to wear clothing other than the habit. This conflict had been going on for 15 months.
When we worked on empathy, and I got both sides to see the humaneness of the other side when the younger religious sisters could see the feelings and needs that the older sisters were expressing, and when the older sisters could see the feelings and needs being expressed by the younger sisters, conflict which seemed unresolvable was resolved.
1:04:07
A woman that I was working with, named Ruth Bebermeyer. She was with me this day, and she was so touched by what can happen when empathic connection occurs. She saw that words can be a wall that blocks us from really connecting. Or the words can be a window that helps us to connect in a way in which everybody's needs can get met.
That night she wrote this song:
1:04:46
I feel so sentenced by your words.
I feel so judged and sent away
before I go I'd like to know
is that what you meant to say?
Before I rise to my defense, before I speak in hurt or fear, before I build that wall of words, tell me did I really hear?
Words are windows or they're walls They sentence us or set us free When I speak and when I hear Let the love light shine through me
There are things I need to say Things that mean so much to me If my words don't make me clear Will you help me to be free?
If I seem to put you down if you felt I didn't care try to listen through my words, to the feelings that we share
Words are windows or they're walls They sentence us or set us free when I speak and when I hear let the love light shine through me
Buy this course at Soundstrue.com!!!
- Here and Now
- Metaphors of Empathy - What is your metaphor of empathy? - cultureofempathy.com
- See me Beautiful by Red Grammer
- Martin Buber’s I and Thou
- Culture of Empathy Builder: Carl Rogers
- Words Are Windows (Or They’re Walls) a poem by Ruth Bebermeyer