In our development toward a state of emotional liberation, most of us experience three stages in the way we relate to others.
Stage 1: In this stage, which I refer to as emotional slavery, we believe ourselves responsible for the feelings of others. We think we must constantly strive to keep everyone happy. If they don’t appear happy, we feel responsible and compelled to do something about it. This can easily lead us to see the very people who are closest to us as burdens.
Taking responsibility for the feelings of others can be very detrimental to intimate relationships. I routinely hear variations on the following theme: “I’m really scared to be in a relationship. Every time I see my partner in pain or needing something, I feel overwhelmed. I feel like I’m in prison, that I’m being smothered—and I just have to get out of the relationship as fast as possible.” This response is common among those who experience love as denial of one’s own needs in order to attend to the needs of the beloved. In the early days of a relationship, partners typically relate joyfully and compassionately to each other out of a sense of freedom. The relationship is exhilarating, spontaneous, wonderful. Eventually, however, as the relationship becomes “serious,” partners may begin to assume responsibility for each other’s feelings.
If I were a partner who is conscious of doing this, I might acknowledge the situation by explaining, “I can’t bear it when I lose myself in relationships. When I see my partner’s pain, I lose me, and then I just have to break free.” However, if I have not reached this level of awareness, I am likely to blame my partner for the deterioration of the relationship. Thus I might say, “My partner is so needy and dependent it’s really stressing out our relationship.”
In such a case, my partner would do well to reject the notion that there is anything wrong with her needs. It would only make a bad situation worse to accept that blame. Instead, she could offer an empathic response to the pain of my emotional slavery: “So you find yourself in panic. It’s very hard for you to hold on to the deep caring and love we’ve had without turning it into a responsibility, duty, obligation…. You sense your freedom closing down because you think you constantly have to take care of me.” If, however, instead of an empathic response, she says, “Are you feeling tense because I have been making too many demands on you?” then both of us are likely to stay enmeshed in emotional slavery, making it that much more difficult for the relationship to survive.
Stage 2: In this stage, we become aware of the high costs of assuming responsibility for others’ feelings and trying to accommodate them at our own expense. When we notice how much of our lives we’ve missed and how little we have responded to the call of our own soul, we may get angry. I refer jokingly to this stage as the obnoxious stage because we tend toward obnoxious comments like, “That’s your problem! I’m not responsible for your feelings!” when presented with another person’s pain. We are clear what we are not responsible for, but have yet to learn how to be responsible to others in a way that is not emotionally enslaving.
As we emerge from the stage of emotional slavery, we may continue to carry remnants of fear and guilt around having our own needs. Thus it is not surprising that we end up expressing our needs in ways that sound rigid and unyielding to the ears of others. For example, during a break in one of my workshops, a young woman expressed appreciation for the insights she’d gained into her own state of emotional enslavement. When the workshop resumed, I suggested an activity to the group. The same young woman then declared assertively, “I’d rather do something else.” I sensed she was exercising her newfound right to express her needs—even if they ran counter to those of others.
To encourage her to sort out what she wanted, I asked, “Do you want to do something else even if it conflicts with my needs?” She thought for a moment, and then stammered, “Yes…. er … I mean, no.” Her confusion reflects how, in the obnoxious stage, we have yet to grasp that emotional liberation entails more than simply asserting our own needs.
I recall an incident during my daughter Marla’s passage toward emotional liberation. She had always been the “perfect little girl” who denied her own needs to comply with the wishes of others. When I became aware of how frequently she suppressed her own desires in order to please others, I talked to her about how I’d enjoy hearing her express her needs more often. When we first broached the subject, Marla cried. “But, Daddy, I don’t want to disappoint anybody!” she protested helplessly. I tried to show Marla how her honesty would be a gift more precious to others than accommodating them to prevent their upset. I also clarified ways she could empathize with people when they were upset without taking responsibility for their feelings.
A short time later, I saw evidence that my daughter was beginning to express her needs more openly. A call came from her school principal, apparently disturbed by a communication he’d had with Marla, who had arrived at school wearing overalls. “Marla,” he’d said, “young women do not dress this way.” To which Marla had responded, “Bug off!”
Hearing this was cause for celebration: Marla had graduated from emotional slavery to obnoxiousness! She was learning to express her needs and risk dealing with the displeasure of others. Surely she had yet to assert her needs comfortably and in a way that respected the needs of others, but I trusted this would occur in time.
Stage 3: At the third stage, emotional liberation, we respond to the needs of others out of compassion, never out of fear, guilt, or shame. Our actions are therefore fulfilling to us, as well as to those who receive our efforts. We accept full responsibility for our own intentions and actions, but not for the feelings of others. At this stage, we are aware that we can never meet our own needs at the expense of others. Emotional liberation involves stating clearly what we need in a way that communicates we are equally concerned that the needs of others be fulfilled. NVC is designed to support us in relating at this level.