Listening for Feelings and Needs
In NVC, no matter what words people use to express themselves, we listen for their observations, feelings, needs, and requests. Imagine you’ve loaned your car to a new neighbor who had a personal emergency, and when your family finds out, they react with intensity: “You are a fool for having trusted a total stranger!” You can use the components of NVC to tune in to the feelings and needs of those family members in contrast to either (1) blaming yourself by taking the message personally, or (2) blaming and judging them.
In this situation, it’s obvious what the family is observing and reacting to: the lending of the car to a relative stranger. In other situations, it may not be so clear. If a colleague tells us, “You’re not a good team player,” we may not know what he or she is observing, although we can usually guess at the behavior that might have triggered such a statement.
The following exchange, from a workshop, demonstrates the difficulty of focusing on other people’s feelings and needs when we are accustomed to assuming responsibility for their feelings and taking messages personally. The woman in this dialogue wanted to learn to hear the feelings and needs behind certain of her husband’s statements. I suggested that she guess at his feelings and needs and then check it out with him.
| Husband’s statement: | What good does talking to you do? You never listen. |
| Woman: | Are you feeling unhappy with me? |
| MBR: | When you say “with me,” you imply that his feelings are the result of what you did. I would prefer for you to say, “Are you unhappy because you were needing … ?” and not “Are you unhappy with me?” It would put your attention on what’s going on within him and decrease the likelihood of your taking the message personally. |
| Woman: | But what would I say? “Are you unhappy because you … ? Because you what?” |
| MBR: | Get your clue from the content of your husband’s message, “What good does talking to you do? You never listen.” What is he needing that he’s not getting when he says that? |
| Woman: | (trying to empathize with the needs expressed through her husband’s message) Are you feeling unhappy because you feel like I don’t understand you? |
| MBR: | Notice that you are focusing on what he’s thinking, and not on what he’s needing. I think you’ll find people to be less threatening if you hear what they’re needing rather than what they’re thinking about you. Instead of hearing that he’s unhappy because he thinks you don’t listen, focus on what he’s needing by saying, “Are you unhappy because you are needing … ” |
| Woman: | (trying again) Are you feeling unhappy because you are needing to be heard? |
| MBR: | That’s what I had in mind. Does it make a difference for you to hear him this way? |
| Woman: | Definitely—a big difference. I see what’s going on for him without hearing that I had done anything wrong. |