Read Nonviolent Communication - A Language of Life, Second Edition @Team LiB Online
Authors: by Marshall B. Rosenberg
Nonviolent Communication - A Language of Life, Second Edition @Team LiB (23 page)
Paradoxically, despite our unease in receiving appreciation, most of us yearn to be genuinely recognized and appreciated. During a surprise party for me, a 12-year-old friend of mine suggested a party game to help introduce the guests to each other. We were to write down a question, drop it in a box, and then take turns, each person drawing out a question and responding to it out loud.
Having recently consulted with various social service agencies and industrial organizations, I was feeling struck by how often people expressed a hunger for appreciation on the job. “No matter how hard you work,” they would sigh, “you never hear a good word from anyone. But make one mistake and there’s always someone jumping all over you.” So for the game, I wrote the question, “What appreciation might someone give you that would leave you jumping for joy?”
A woman drew that question out of the box, read it, and startedto cry. As director of a shelter for battered women, she would put considerable energy each month into creating a schedule to please as many people as possible. Yet each time the schedule was presented, at least a couple of individuals would complain. She couldn’t remember ever receiving appreciation for her efforts to design a fair schedule. All this had flashed through her mind as she read my question, and the hunger for appreciation brought tears to her eyes.
Upon hearing the woman’s story, another friend of mine said that he, too, would like to answer the question. Everyone else then requested a turn; as they responded to the question, several people wept.
While the craving for appreciation—as opposed to manipulative “strokes”—is particularly evident in the workplace, it affects family life as well. One evening when I pointed out his failure to perform a house chore, my son Brett retorted, “Dad, are you aware how often you bring up what’s gone wrong but almost never bring up what’s gone right?” His observation stayed with me. I realized how I was continually searching for improvements, while barely stopping to celebrate things that were going well. I had just completed a workshop with over a hundred participants, all of whom had evaluated it very highly, with the exception of one person. However, what lingered in my mind was that one person’s dissatisfaction.
We tend to notice what’s wrong rather than what’s right.
That evening I wrote a song that began,
“If I’m ninety eight percent perfect
in anything I do,
it’s the two percent I’ve messed up
I’ll remember when I’m through.”
It occurred to me that I had a choice to adopt instead the outlook of a teacher I knew. One of her students, having neglected to study for an exam, had resigned himself to turning in a blank piece of paper with his name at the top.. He was surprised when she later returned the test to him with a grade of 14%. “What did I get 14% for?” he asked incredulously. “Neatness,” she replied. Ever since my son Brett’s “wake-up call,” I’ve tried to be more aware of what others around me are doing that enriches my life and to hone my skills in expressing this appreciation.
I was deeply touched by a passage in John Powell’s book,
The Secret of Staying in Love
, in which he describes his sadness over having been unable, during his father’s lifetime, to express the appreciation he felt for him. How grievous it seemed to me to miss the chance of appreciating the people who have been the greatest positive influences in our lives!
Immediately an uncle of mine, Julius Fox, came to mind. When I was a boy, he came daily to offer nursing care to my grandmother, who was totally paralyzed. While he cared for my grandmother, he always had a warm and loving smile on his face. No matter how unpleasant the task may have appeared to my boyish eyes, he treated her as if she were doing him the greatest favor in the world by letting him care for her. This provided a wonderful model of masculine strength for me—one that I’ve often called upon in the years since.
I realized that I had never expressed my appreciation for my uncle, who himself was now ill and near death. I considered doing so, but sensed my own resistance: “I’m sure he already knows how much he means to me, I don’t need to express it out loud; besides, it might embarrass him if I put it into words.” As soon as these thoughts entered my head, I already knew they weren’t true. Too often I had assumed that others knew the intensity of my appreciation for them, only to discover otherwise. And even when people were embarrassed, they still wanted to hear appreciation verbalized.
Still hesitant, I told myself that words couldn’t do justice to the depths of what I wished to communicate. I quickly saw through that one, though: yes, words may be poor vehicles in conveying our heartfelt realities, but as I have learned, “Anything that is worth doing is worth doing poorly!”
As it happened, I soon found myself seated next to Uncle Julius at a family gathering and the words simply flowed out of me. He took them in joyfully, without embarrassment. Brimming over with feelings from the evening, I went home, composed a poem and sent it to him. I was later told that, each day until he died three weeks later, my uncle had asked that the poem be read to him.
Conventional compliments often take the form of judgments, however positive, and are sometimes offered to manipulate the behavior of others. NVC encourages the expression of appreciation solely for celebration. We state (1) the action that has contributed to our well-being, (2) the particular need of ours that has been fulfilled, and (3) the feeling of pleasure engendered as a result.
When we receive appreciation expressed in this way, we can do so without any feeling of superiority or false humility by celebrating along with the person who is offering the appreciation.
I once asked my uncle Julius how he had developed such a remarkable capacity to give compassionately. He seemed honored by my question, which he pondered before replying, “I’ve been blessed with good teachers.” When I asked who these were, he recalled, “Your grandmother was the best teacher I had. You lived with her when she was already ill, so you didn’t know what she was really like. For example, did your mother ever tell you about the time during the Depression when she brought a tailor and his wife and two children to live with her for three years, after he lost his house and business?” I remembered the story well. It had left a deep impression when my mother first told it to me because I could never figure out where Grandmother had found space for the tailor’s family when she was raising nine children of her own in a modest-sized house!
Uncle Julius recollected my grandmother’s compassion in a few more anecdotes, all of which I had heard as a child. Then he asked,
"Surely your mother told you about Jesus.”
“About who?”
“Jesus.”
“No, she never told me about Jesus.”
The story about Jesus was the final precious gift I received from my uncle before he died. It’s a true story of a time when a man came to my grandmother’s back door asking for some food. This wasn’t unusual. Although Grandmother was very poor, the entire neighborhood knew that she would feed anyone who showed up at her door. The man had a beard and wild scraggly black hair; his clothes were ragged and he wore a cross around his neck fashioned out of branches tied with rope. My grandmother invited him into her kitchen for some food, and while he was eating she asked his name.
“My name is Jesus,” he replied.
“Do you have a last name?” she inquired.
“I am Jesus the Lord.” (My grandmother’s English wasn’t too good. Another uncle, Isidor, later told me he had come into the kitchen while the man was still eating and Grandmother had introduced the stranger as “Mr. Thelord.”)
As he continued to eat, my grandmother asked where he lived.
“I don’t have a home.”
“Well, where are you going to stay tonight? It’s cold.”
“I don’t know.”
“Would you like to stay here?” she offered.
He stayed seven years.
When it came to communicating nonviolently, my grandmother-was a natural. She didn’t think of what this man “was.” If she did, she probably would have judged him as crazy and gotten rid of him. No, she thought in terms of what people feel and what they need. If they’re hungry, feed them. If they’re without a roof over their head, give them a place to sleep.
My grandmother loved to dance, and my mother remembers her saying often, “Never walk when you can dance.” And thus I end this book on a language of compassion with a song about my grandmother, who spoke and lived the language of Nonviolent Communication.
One day a man named Jesus
came around to my grandmother’s door.
He asked for a little food,
she gave him more.
He said he was Jesus the Lord;
she didn’t check him out with Rome.
He stayed for several years,
as did many without a home.
It was in her Jewish way,
she taught me what Jesus had to say.
In that precious way,
she taught me what Jesus had to say.
And that’s: “Feed the hungry, heal the sick,
then take a rest.
Never walk when you can dance;
make your home a cozy nest.”
It was in her Jewish way,
she taught me what Jesus had to say.
In her precious way,
she taught me what Jesus had to say.
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