Non-Violent Communication: Eisler and Rosenberg

The daughters of Sir Matthew Decker by Jan Van Meyer, 1718

It’s taken a solid week for my bruises to fade after falling face first on my Birkenstocks. I get these huge ideals in my head about how to communicate effectively, how to see things from the other person’s perspective, how to state my own opinion without diminishing anybody else’s right to have a differing point of view. I learn and I study and I read and I talk with people and I try to put my principles into action. But I fail. A lot.

That means that I’m consistently going back to the drawing board, so to speak, to figure out how to handle relationships in a way that meets both people’s needs. It’s a balance and it’s tricky. Especially when you’re still adjusting to the reality that some people do not have your best interests at heart; that they appear to be empathizing but are, in fact, manipulating your emotional connection to them. It’s hard to get used to the idea that some people are more focused on dominating and controlling a relationship than mutual respect and collaboration.

Trust is a painful loss when it was given without warrant.

I mean, pre-pathological awareness, I assumed everyone had similar needs as my own and when an argument ensued, it was a misunderstanding, a lack of communication. If I could leap out of my Birkenstocks and stand in their shoes, even for a few minutes, my empathy would allow me to see things from their point of view, even acknowledge their needs as similar to my own. By recognizing and validating their needs, they reciprocated by recognizing and validating mine and from there, we could find a ‘connection’. Like a partnership. A partnership between two people with the same goals and intentions: to love and be loved. This was my worldview prior to learning about people who used people’s trust as an opportunity, not a sacred responsibility.

Once you find out, much to your dismay, that some people manage relationships through power and control tactics, it’s hard to let your guards down. You start acting as if everyone is out to get ya, as though everyone is focused on getting his or her needs met, not yours. As if everyone is a narcissistic bully who will do whatever it takes to gain and maintain the upper hand. The shock of discovering there are people, who for all intents and purposes, appear to be fully functioning emotional beings yet aren’t, can increase our sensitivity. We’ll see invalidation when it isn’t there because this is how we defended ourselves against people with mal intent.

So from being a naïve person to a hypersensitive person, I struggle finding balance. 

Working though our defensive tactics towards people who are not trying to control or power over us, is the next challenge in a healing process. How do we discern whether someone is intentionally invalidating us so they can maintain the superior position, from those who struggle, as we all do, asserting themselves without using aggression or coercive tactics?

I made one big mistake last week when voicing my opinions. Even with sisters, our life experience is unique to ourselves. I don't see things the way she does, nor she I, because the accumulation of our experiences made us who we are today. We may have started out with the same assumptions about life and politics and religion, but the situations in our lives modified our perspectives, creating ‘differences of opinion’ about almost everything.

The mistake I made during a ‘heated’ conversation was not checking in with my feelings so I could validate them myself. Instead of saying to myself, “Hello, little fear-of-rejection, this is kinda scary, isn't it?,” I wanted my sister to reaffirm my connection to her by seeing things MY way. I leapt from ignoring my feelings to ignoring hers and from there, the whole thing spiraled out of control.

I felt terrible, just terrible about REACTING instead of acting with integrity---putting my values into practice. And one of my greatest values is respect for other people’s individuality and dignity. There’s nothing very dignified about calling your sister an idiot because she doesn't agree with your point of view.

Giving myself a time-out for bad behavior this past week allowed me to understand why my sis and I have differing perspectives on social responsibility. I’m a displaced homemaker, falling through the cracks in the sidewalk. She’s a happy homemaker who’s never been marginalized or separated from her identity as a upper-scale woman with four boys and a loving husband and father. How could she see things my way? I couldn't even see things my way until reality forced me to confront unquestioned assumptions and beliefs!

“What others do may be a stimulus of our feelings, but not the cause.”

I’ve been a huge fan of Marshall Rosenberg who created Non-Violent Communication and from whom, I have learned better ways to talk with people. Being naturally empathetic, it wasn't hard implementing his three-step process to peaceful communication. Leaping from my shoes to the other person’s shoes is easy after years of strenuous practice empathizing with someone who was an enigma to me. Those three steps to non-violent communication are:

1-getting in touch with our needs

2-guessing at the other person’s needs

3-finding strategies to meet both people’s needs

Letting empathy lead the way after a heart-breaking relationship, triggers fear and anxiety. Fear of being foolish again creeps into my Birkenstocks when I’m not even looking. Nobody likes being a fool, but being fooled twice? As President Bush succinctly quoted: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me---you can’t get fooled again.”

Risking being fooled the second time is nerve-wracking. Letting defenses mellow in a relationship enhanced by difference, is the next task to master in life post-narc. An effective way to start is checking in with feelings being triggered during a conversation. Some of those feelings are appropriate and some are residuals of the narcissistic relationship. One thing for sure though, if we don’t acknowledge our feelings, they’ll demand our attention and not in a pleasing manner. My fear of rejection was shouting loud enough to get everyone’s attention!

Healthy Progress?

There’s been a change in how I’ve reacted to my outburst last week. Maybe there’s some progress on self-blame and the endless ‘shoulda-woulda-couldas” occupying our minds with obsessive looping. If only I had, or I shoulda done, or I woulda done this had she done that, on and on and on the endless looping goes trying to change the ending rooted in the past. We waste so much time looping around an unsolvable problem, blaming ourselves for what we did or didn't do, that we never release ourselves from the obsession by accepting what actually happened. We might even blame ourselves or the other person, feeling like victims because SOMEBODY refused to hear our voice.

Yea, that someone was me. Well, how can someone else hear my voice when fear is shouting louder anyone else?

The sound of fear is deafening. I figured that out this week because my sister is as loyal and loving towards me as I am towards her. She doesn't want me to reject her for being a Republican anymore than I want her to reject me for being a…hummm…non-partisan fence sitter? When I do not recognize and validate my own feelings and needs, I cannot recognize and validate hers. Those feelings and needs are desperate to be heard and the only person who can do that is the ‘self’. We can silence our feelings so we act like really nice dead people, we can insist on domination and act like bullies, or we can be aware of our feelings and act with compassion for both people’s need to be connected, respected, and loved.

As Riane Eisler says (she’s another role model in my life): “Peace is putting love into action” by thinking outside the paradigm of domination systems towards partnership systems.

I started reading Eisler’s work way back in 1990. Even so, I still get caught up in viewing any confrontation as a win-lose polarity. Fearing my empathy will be used against me and that the other person is headset on proving me wrong and themselves as right. I still, despite my intellectual awareness of partnership versus domination systems, resort to old patterns of behavior. Either silencing myself so as to not cause trouble, or insisting on my rightness and their wrongness. It’s hard to break out of patterns that although dysfunctional, are set on default whenever we’re anxious or unaware of what we are feeling at the time.

Fear makes us do the dumbest things, so self-destructive and out of proportion to the actual threat at hand. It’s impossible to achieve communion if you believe the only options are to dominate others or be dominated by them. In review of my contrary behavior over Easter weekend, I found this very useful PDF about our needs and feelings and would like to share it with other people who might be facing similar struggles as myself: Feelings and Needs Chart. After a narcissistic relationship, you might not even know what your needs are. You might also have numbed your feelings to such a degree that you can’t even determine what you’re feeling! A chart like this can get you started saying “Hello” to your emotional self so YOU can validate your feelings without expecting other people to do that for you.

This link is for Marshal Rosenberg’s website called The Center for Non-Violent Communication. For relationships that are mutually respectful, we can never learn too much about communicating our thoughts and feelings in a manner that encourages trustworthy connections. Most people have similar needs for attachment that lead towards celebration of mutuality. Most people have similar needs for authenticity, self-awareness and self-respect.

Most people are not narcissists.

Our empathy will be reciprocated. Our need for attachment and connection will be honored. Our vulnerability will be nurtured and respected. Our attempt to see the other person’s point of view will not require a distortion of reality. Our willingness to hold ourselves accountable will not result in illegitimate blame.

Our love, imperfectly offered as it may be, will be received and returned and most of all, appreciated and valued. Our apologies will be accepted, our foibles forgiven as we forgive and accept others.

Most people are not narcissists.

I'll be adding that affirmation to my Crib Notes.

Hugs,

CZ

Resources

Crib Notes in my Birkenstocks on the Narcissistic Continuum

The Center for Non-Violent Communication

Needs and Wants on SuccessWaves.com