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Started reading
June 5, 2025
Rather than put your “but” in the face of an angry person, empathize.
When I concentrated on listening for his feelings and needs, I stopped seeing him as a monster.
After he’d received the empathy he needed, he got off me,
When we listen for feelings and needs, we no longer see people as monsters.
It may be difficult to empathize with those who are closest to us.
may be difficult to empathize with those who are closest to us.
When we shine the light of consciousness on the feelings and needs behind someone else’s “no,” however, we become cognizant of what they are wanting that prevents them from responding as we would like.
Empathizing with someone’s “no” protects us from taking it personally.
I then conferred with her on ways to give feedback that would leave her feeling safe.
I’d suggest the best time to interrupt is when we’ve heard one word more than we want to hear.
Our intention in interrupting is not to claim the floor for ourselves, but to help the speaker connect to the life energy behind the words being spoken.
To bring a conversation back to life: interrupt with empathy.
Another way to bring a conversation to life is to openly express our desire to be more connected, and to request information that would help us establish that connection.
What bores the listener bores the speaker too.
All of us want our words to enrich others, not to burden them.
Speakers prefer that listeners interrupt rather than pretend to listen.
One of the hardest messages for many of us to empathize with is silence. This is especially true when we’ve expressed ourselves vulnerably and need to know how others are reacting to our words.
At such times, it’s easy to project our worst fears onto the lack of response and forget to connect with the feelings and needs being expressed through the silence.
“I’m sensing from your response to my crying that you’re feeling disgusted, and you’d prefer to have someone more in control of his feelings consulting with your staff.”
Empathize with silence by listening for the feelings and needs behind it.
I’ve learned in the past year about how wonderful it can be to share myself with other people. I think it was mostly just one part that I learned, about the thrill of my talking to other people and having them actually listen—even really understand at times.
What is essential is our ability to be present
Empathy lies in our ability to be present.
Our ability to offer empathy can allow us to stay vulnerable, defuse potential violence, hear the word no without taking it as a rejection, revive a lifeless conversation, and even hear the feelings and needs expressed through silence. Time and again, people transcend the paralyzing effects of psychological pain when they have sufficient contact with someone who can hear them empathically.
Connecting Compassionately With Ourselves
When we are internally violent toward ourselves, it is difficult to be genuinely compassionate toward others.
NVC’s most important use may be in developing self-compassion.
I am gravely concerned that many of us have lost awareness of “the special thing” we are; we have forgotten the “subtle, sneaky, important reason”
When critical self-concepts prevent us from seeing the beauty in ourselves, we lose connection with the divine energy that is our source. Conditioned to view ourselves as objects-objects full of shortcomings—is it any wonder that many of us end up relating violently to ourselves?
We use NVC to evaluate ourselves in ways that engender growth rather than self-hatred.
If the way we evaluate ourselves leads us to feel shame, and we consequently change our behavior, we are allowing our growing and learning to be guided by self-hatred.
It is the word should, as in “I should have known better” or “I shouldn’t have done that.” Most of the time when we use this word with ourselves, we resist learning,
We have this reaction to tyranny even when it’s internal tyranny in the form of a should.
Avoid shoulding yourself!
because human beings were not meant to be slaves.
We were not meant to succumb to the dictates of should and have to,
When we communicate with ourselves on a regular basis through inner judgment, blame, and demand, it’s not surprising that our self-concept gives in to feeling more like a chair than a human being.
Our challenge then, when we are doing something that is not enriching life, is to evaluate ourselves moment by moment in a way that inspires change both (1) in the direction of where we would like to go, and (2) out of respect and compassion for ourselves, rather than out of self-hatred, guilt or shame.
Self-judgments, like all judgments, are tragic expressions of unmet needs.
“What unmet need of mine is being expressed through this moralistic judgment?”
The impact of these feelings on our spirit and bodies is substantially different from the disconnection that is brought on by guilt, shame, and depression.
It is an experience of regret, but regret that helps us learn from what we have done without blaming or hating ourselves.
When our consciousness is focused on what we need, we are naturally stimulated toward creative possibilities for how to get that need met.
NVC mourning: connecting with the feelings and unmet needs stimulated by past actions we now regret.
“When I behaved in the way which I now regret, what need of mine was I trying to meet?”
I believe that human beings are always acting in the service of needs and values.
Self-forgiveness occurs the moment this empathic connection is made. Then we are able to recognize how our choice was an attempt to serve life, even as the mourning process teaches us how it fell short of fulfilling our needs.
The process of mourning and self-forgiveness frees us in the direction of learning and growing.
NVC self-forgiveness: connecting with the need we were trying to meet when we took the action that we now regret.
We are compassionate with ourselves when we are able to embrace all parts of ourselves and recognize the needs and values expressed by each part.
