How To Get in Trouble While Learning Nonviolent Communication
My favorite collection of pitfalls and traps from my journey as a practitioner, student, and teacher of NVC.
NVC teaches me how to transform conflicts into moments of deep connection and empathy. It shows me the way to my aliveness. In the process of learning it, NVC also got me into trouble and dead ends. I misunderstood the ideas behind it, was unaware of its limitations, and mistook it for being a method, rather than a way of being. Here are the traps I’ve encountered:
Ignoring The Cultural Context and Power Dynamics
Talking openly about feelings and needs and showing my vulnerability can open the door to an authentic connection. Things get complex, or even harmful when you consider that talking about feelings might be seen as taboo in some circles. For example, it’s common in the NVC community to openly talk about shame. The s-word has in collectivistic cultures a very different meaning than it does in individualistic ones. In other words, NVC, as it’s practiced in western countries, might be completely unsuitable in other places in the world.
And then there’s the complexity of power dynamics. An authentic and vulnerable dialogue is more likely to happen between peers than in cross-privilege relationships. For example, is a request still a request when the person making it has the power to force us to do what they want? It’s dangerous and harmful to ignore such power dynamics when practicing NVC.
This has many facets and there’s so much more for me to learn about it. The last NVC Rising offered multiple sessions related to power, which really inspired me. I also enjoyed these 2 articles, if you want to go deeper:
- Roxy Manning: Cross Privilege Dialogues: Avoiding the Trap of Centering Yourself When You Have More Privilege
- Robert Maoz Kržišnik: The murky waters of asymmetric relationships
Insensitivity To Personal Boundaries
Even regardless of the cultural context and power dynamics, there is the danger that our honest attempt to meet needs on both sides ends up being harmful. Talking about feelings and needs can be an effective way to increase the “metness” of needs. But sometimes it isn’t. For example, if the other person isn’t open to doing so. In her article Nonviolent Communication can be emotionally violent, Ruti Regan writes:
Part of what it would take for NVC to stop being an abusive culture is to recognize that NVC-style dialogue and emotional intimacy require consent every single time people interact that way. Like sexual intercourse, this kind of emotional intercourse requires consent, every single time. Having a close relationship is not consent to NVC. Having a conflict is not consent. Anger is not consent. Having found NVC helpful in the past is not consent, either. Consent means that both parties agree to have this kind of interaction in this specific instance.
NVC is practiced in many ways and in different levels of emotional intensity. There is no one “NVC-style dialogue”. Still, since coming to terms with the quoted text, I’m becoming even more attentive to boundaries. Many times they are communicated subtly and non-verbally, so it’s worth being mindful.
Focusing Too Much on Words
It’s common knowledge that the words we say are only a fraction of what we communicate. Now, I’m not saying that our words don’t matter in NVC. But I do think that’s not what NVC is about. NVC teaches us to listen to the needs behind the words spoken. The needs matter more than the words.
I recall several situations in which I was trapped in right/wrong-thinking while speaking “NVC language”. It didn’t support the connection.
I find Miki Kashtan’s article “Basic Pitfalls of using NVC” helpful, when it comes to going beyond the words with NVC.
Hating the Jackal
In NVC there’s the idea of listening with “giraffe” ears. It means we’re listening to the beautiful needs behind what’s said to us, regardless of how judgmental the message is. Still, it’s tempting to develop resentment towards judgmental “jackal” language. I caught myself many times judging people for talking judgementally. And I see it as a common trap for NVC newbies, to imply that “one shouldn’t judge” (which is a judgment) and that “jackal language is bad” (yet another judgment). Basically, I find the differentiation between giraffe and jackal tricky, because it can easily be interpreted as a duality of good vs. bad.
Food for thought:
Newt Bailey: Has NVC given you any new enemies.
Misusing Empathy
NVC has taught me to listen in a way that is beyond wrong and right. When I listen, I’m attentive to what is most “alive” in a person at this very moment. This helps me to connect with people on the level of the things that matter the most to both of us.
Like any other skill, NVC-empathy can be used for things other than what it’s been created for. I call this an empathic-bypass because it bypasses the dialogues NVC is aiming for. Here are some examples:
- Giving others empathy for the sake of being liked, without really caring about the other person’s needs
- Giving others empathy in order to quiet them and avoid conflicts
- Giving others empathy while ignoring one’s own needs (i.e. for sleep or for relaxation)
- Giving empathy because one “should”
Adopting an Identity
NVC helps me see people, including myself, as dynamic, rather than static. With this consciousness, I avoid telling people what they are (i.e. “you are a liar”) and focus on what they did (i.e. “you told me something you knew was not true”).
In the process of learning NVC, I caught myself creating a positive image of myself, of me being an “empathic nonviolent communicator”. And while I have compassion for myself for doing so, I see it as a distraction from actually being in an NVC state of being, connected to my aliveness at this moment.
Confirmation Bias
With all the gifts NVC has to offer, it’s tempting to avoid looking for its shadow.
In the end, NVC is a strategy that helps us meet needs. Like any strategy, it has limitations. As someone dedicated to practicing NVC, I want to become aware of these limitations and actively look for critique. It helps me make the best out of my NVC practice.
“Critiques of NVC are powerful inroads to exploring impacts of NVC practices that might not be fully explored or acknowledged or that might not understand systemic issues. There is feedback about systems in everything and criticism is a direct route to beginning an understanding of that.” — Ceridwen Buckmaster
Looking for critique, I find the following view on the NVC needs-words inspiring:
- Kaisa Käärmemaa: Patriarchal and anti-patriarchal needs?
Final Thoughts
When I confront NVC with a complex reality, many questions arise and sometimes there are no easy answers.
Some of the pitfalls I described arise from mistaking NVC for a communication method. Practicing NVC as a needs-oriented state of being, which always takes place at this very moment, and goes beyond the notion of right/wrong protects me from falling into some of these traps.
If you enjoyed these thoughts on NVC, it’s possible that you’d enjoy my text This one idea changed my understanding of NVC.
