Summary

NVC in Action

Dealing With Resentment and Self-Judgment

A student of Nonviolent Communication shares the following story.

I had just returned from my first residential training in NVC. A friend whom I hadn’t seen for two years was waiting for me at home. I first met Iris, who had been a school librarian for twenty-five years, during an intense two-week heartwork and wilderness journey that culminated in a three-day solo fast in the Rockies. After she listened to my enthusiastic description of NVC, Iris revealed that she was still hurting from what one of the wilderness leaders in Colorado had said to her six years before. I had a clear memory of that person: wild-woman Leav, her palms, gouged with rope cuts, holding steady a belayed body dangling against the mountain face; she read animal droppings, howled in the dark, danced her joy, cried her truth, and mooned our bus as we waved good-bye for the last time. What Iris had heard Leav say during one of the personal feedback sessions was this:

“Iris, I can’t stand people like you, always and everywhere being so damn nice and sweet, constantly the meek little librarian that you are. Why don’t you just drop it and get on with it?”

For six years Iris had been listening to Leav’s voice in her head, and for six years she’d been answering Leav in her head. We were both eager to explore how a consciousness of NVC could have affected the situation. I role-played Leav and repeated her statement to Iris.

Iris:	(forgetting about NVC and hearing criticism and put-down) You have no right to say that to me. You don’t know who I am, or what kind of librarian I am! I take my profession seriously, and for your information, I consider myself to be an educator, just like any teacher …
Me:	(with NVC consciousness, listening empathically, as if I were Leav) It sounds to me like you’re angry because you want me to know and recognize who you really are before criticizing you. Is that so?
Iris:	That’s right! You have simply no idea how much it took for me to even sign up for this trek. Look! Here I am: I finished, didn’t I? I took on all the challenges these fourteen days and overcame them all!
Me:	Am I hearing that you feel hurt and would have liked some recognition and appreciation for all your courage and hard work?

A few more exchanges followed, whereupon Iris showed a shift; these shifts, when a person feels “heard” to his or her satisfaction, can often be observed bodily. For instance, a person may relax and take a deeper breath. This often indicates that the person has received adequate empathy and is now able to shift attention to something other than the pain they have been expressing. Sometimes they are ready to hear another person’s feelings and needs. Or sometimes another round of empathy is needed to attend to another area of pain. In this situation with Iris, I could see that another piece needed attention before she would be able to hear Leav. This is because Iris had had six years of opportunities to put herself down for not having produced an honorable comeback on the spot. After the subtle shift, she immediately went on:

Iris:	Darn, I should have said all this stuff to her six years ago!
Me:	(as myself, an empathic friend) You’re frustrated because you wish you could have articulated yourself better at the time?
Iris:	I feel like such an idiot! I knew I wasn’t a “meek little librarian,” but why didn’t I say that to her?
Me:	So you wish you had been enough in touch with yourself to say that?
Iris:	Yes. And I’m also mad at myself! I wish I hadn’t let her push me around.
Me:	You’d like to have been more assertive than you were?
Iris:	Exactly. I need to remember I have a right to stand up for who I am.

Iris was quiet for a few seconds. She expressed readiness to practice NVC and hear what Leav said to her in a different way.

Me:	(as Leav) Iris, I can’t stand people like you, always so nice and sweet, being forever the meek little librarian. Why don’t you just drop it and get on with it?
Iris:	(listening for Leav’s feelings, needs, and requests) Oh, Leav, it sounds to me like you’re really frustrated … frustrated because … because I …

Here Iris catches herself at a common mistake. By using the word I, she attributes Leav’s feeling to Iris herself, rather than to some desire on Leav’s own part that generates the feeling. That is, not “You’re frustrated because I am a certain way,” but “You’re frustrated because you wanted something different from me.”

Iris:

(trying again) Okay, Leav, it sounds like you’re really frustrated because you are wanting … um … you’re wanting …

As I tried in my role-play to earnestly identify with Leav, I felt a sudden flash of awareness of what I (as Leav) was yearning for:

Me:	(as Leav) Connection! … That’s what I am wanting! I want to feel connected … with you, Iris! And I am so frustrated with all the sweetness and niceness that stand in the way that I just want to tear it all down so I can truly touch you!

We both sat a bit stunned after this outburst, and then Iris said, “If I had known that’s what she had wanted, if she could have told me that it was genuine connection with me she was after … Gosh, I mean, that feels almost loving.” While she never did find the real Leav to verify the insight, after this practice session in NVC, Iris achieved an internal resolution about this nagging conflict and found it easier to hear with a new awareness when people around her said things to her that she might previously have interpreted as “put-downs.”