Requesting that Which Enriches Life – NVC Week 6
Six chapters in – hooray!
If you’re following along or just joining us, we’re working through Marshall Rosenberg’s book, Nonviolent Communication, and Lucy Leu’s companion Workbook . We’re doing this as part of our homeschool curriculum and we welcome your thoughts and companionship on our journey.
We’ve been taking it slow; well technically, I’ve just been lax about posting out updates. We’re doing week 7 and have been for a couple of weeks – I’m just now getting around to posting about week 6. In any case, I haven’t forgotten about this project and am quite pleased with myself for following through with it (even if it is taking longer than originally planned).
In any case, week 6 is all about asking for what you need. In NVC, that means identifying what it is that you feel first and then being able to ask for it. As we’re going along, I am noticing a tendency among certain members fo our family to sound rather condescending when making requests. It’s very hard to have a sarcastic personality *and* sound sincere a lot of the time. This has always been a problem between Loverly Husband and myself; compliments that are utterly sincere sometimes have to have a ‘note of sincerity’ attached to them in order to be taken seriously. Adding NVC to this mix has been… interesting.
I’m also a pretty demanding person in general – as a friend, as a wife, as a mother – I expect certain things from my friends and family and I expect that those expectations will be met. I’m working on it and again, trying to work on not being a demanding shrew AND factoring in NVC without feeling like I am lowering my standards is difficult.
I will say that being in the same place with my kids as far as being new to and learning this method of communication; being able to say to them, “I am trying to use NVC and am having a hard time with expressing myself’ is a tremendous help. It’s almost like being able to call a time-out in the middle of a conversation. It helps them realize that I’m not perfect, that I am struggling just as much as they sometimes are. Saying something like that automatically puts us on the same, inexperienced team and reminds us all, in that moment, that we’re working towards the same goal. If we take nothing else away from this experiment, that one thing is worth its weight in gold.
That said, this week’s lesson and focus on asking for what you need has been interesting and somewhat easier than the previous couple of weeks. Asking for something first requires that you know what it is that you need to begin with. These concepts are building on one another and being more familiar with one concept makes the next one easier. Being able to identify what you’re feeling (week 4) and then taking responsibility for them (week 5) and now asking for something to meet the need all works hand-in-hand.
If you’re following along, some of the discussion questions from Chapter 6 are:
What constitutes ‘request’ in NVC? How can we test whether it is a request or a demand?
How do expressing requests via vague/abstract language vs. expressing feelings gain different results?
Why do we sometimes hear a demand when someone makes a request?
What is reflecting? How does reflecting help?
Practice:
How can we strengthen our consciousness of what we want back when we talk to others?
If you’re reading along with us, I’d love to hear from you!
Have a great weekend!
Warmly,
~h
(Disclaimer: This is not a certified or ‘official’ NVC anything. This is my personal journey through Marshall Rosenberg’s book, Nonviolent Communication, and Lucy Leu’s NVC Companion Workbook. I am NOT an expert, nor am I particularly skilled in this process. Please use/follow/apply with those things in mind. When in doubt, please disregard my commentary and refer to the book or workbook. I make no money off of this exercise, nor is any copyright infringement meant by posting a sampling of the questions from the workbook. For best results, I strongly recommend that you purchase the book and workbook for yourself and go through them in their entirety at your leisure.)
Observing Without Evaluating – NVC Week 3
So, if you’re just tuning in, my kids and I are working through Marshall Rosenberg’s book, Nonviolent Communication, and Lucy Leu’s companion Workbook . We’re doing this as part of our homeschool curriculum and we welcome your thoughts and companionship on our journey.
We’re taking it week by week, and doing one chapter/workbook assignment per week. This is actually week 4 of our journey, because chapter three has been particularly challenging, so I decided to work through this chapter for another week. After nearly 2 weeks on it, I think I have a better understanding of the concepts and how to put them into practice.
If you’re not familiar with the book, chapter three deals with separating ’observation’ from ‘evaluation. There are a couple of poems in this chapter that have helped me, and especially the kids grasp the difference between the two. Working with kids, obviously, the text of this book is going to fly right over their heads (evaluation). I’ve had to read and then figure out how to ‘translate’ what I am reading into kid-speak. That’s been challenging, but good in a way because in order to explain it to them, I have to understand it. We’ve worked over the last couple of weeks to put this into practice, but also to have practice sessions where we’re role-playing and trying to illustrate and identify the difference between the two ideas (observation).
One of the parts in this chapter that I appreciated was in the NVC in Action dialogue on pages 32 & 33. Rosenberg says,
“… what keeps me in the struggle are the close connections to other people that happen when I do stay in touch with the process.”
It’s comforting to know that even the man with the vision struggles and sometimes even ‘loses touch’ with the ideals he promotes; I think that we all do that at times and it’s hard to admit. Gold star for honesty. I did the exercises on page 34 and was in agreement with the author 80% of the time. As I said, this chapter has been challenging for me for some reason, but I think I am seeing enough progress for myself to move on.
In the workbook, the exercises for Chapter Three begin on page 73. Some of the questions include:
Explain the difference between ‘static language’ and ‘process language’.
MBR prefers to avoid even positive or neutral labels of people (for example, ‘a responsible child’, ‘a cook’, ‘a pretty blonde’). Why?
What is the first component of NVC?
Practice exercises include:
Write down 3 observations about yourself. Write down 3 evaluations about yourself.
Next time you’re waiting in line or among people in a crowd, take five minutes to look at the people around you. What thoughts do you discover on your mind? Are they observations or evaluations? What’s the proportion of observations to evaluations?
I thought that these were interesting assignments. It really brought to the fore how much of my inner dialogue is judgemental – both positively and negatively. The quote on our chalkboard in the school room right now is from Gautama Buddha, “Mind is everything. We become what we think.” I am thinking that I need to work on my mind.
Overall, I am glad that we spent another week on this chapter. It was worth it to spend the extra time on it. We are, as always, a work in progress, but I think that we’re moving forward and that makes me happy.
Hope you have a great weekend!
Warmly,
~h
(Disclaimer: This is not a certified or ‘official’ NVC anything. This is my personal journey through Marshall Rosenberg’s book, Nonviolent Communication, and Lucy Leu’s NVC Companion Workbook. I am NOT an expert, nor am I particularly skilled in this process. Please use/follow/apply with those things in mind. When in doubt, please disregard my commentary and refer to the book or workbook. I make no money off of this exercise, nor is any copyright infringement meant by posting a sampling of the questions from the workbook. For best results, I strongly recommend that you purchase the book and workbook for yourself and go through them in their entirety at your leisure.)
Communication that Blocks Compassion – NVC Week 2
If you’re following along or just joining us, we’re working through Marshall Rosenberg’s book, Nonviolent Communication, and Lucy Leu’s companion Workbook . We’re doing this as part of our homeschool curriculum and we welcome your thoughts and companionship on our journey.
Chapter two deals with what’s termed ‘life-alienating’ communication’ – those types of communication which alienate us from our own feelings and needs, and from others. There are four types that are identified: diagnosis/judgement and comparisons, denial of responsibility, demands, and ‘deserve’-oriented language (entitlement).
One of the things I took from this chapter is the admonition to take responsibility for the things that I do. I don’t tend to think of myself as one who shirks responsibility; if pressed, I’d probably gripe about being ‘too responsible’.
I was raised with the idea that your responsibilities are of paramount importance, and if they’re only met halfway, then they may as well not be met at all. My father in particular is very demanding and has little tolerance for ‘half-assing’ anything. I can’t tell you how often I heard that as a young adult and it’s something I don’t tolerate well from my own kids, either.
I see the problem with that, of course – one of my main complaints as a child was that what I DID do was never seen or recognized or acknowledged, only what remained un-done. That’s not true in every instance, and that’s not to say that praise earned wasn’t given wholeheartedly, but we had a lot of responsibilities as children – much more than my own do now, and much less supervision since my mom worked – and it was overwhelming at times.
But this chapter isn’t really about taking responsibility in those terms. It’s more about taking responsibility for your own actions as a result of and connecting them to your own needs or denial of your feelings or needs. One of the examples mentioned is of a mom talking about cooking; how she hates it, but it must be done and it’s her job to do it and so she does; not realizing the effect that fulfilling a job out of responsibility and with resentment is having a negative effect on her family. Better, perhaps, that she not do it at all if it’s going to be done ‘like that’. How directly in conflict with how I was raised!
I said that I was going to take this book a chapter a week, and I am going to continue trying to do that… but just from really putting into conscious practice the first two chapters, I can see that I am going to need to go through this book again to really flesh it out in my own life. Still, it’s got me thinking, so I’m counting that as progress.
If you’re working on your own, here are some of the questions from Chapter Two in the workbook:
Describe the meaning of ‘life alienating communication’.
Why is the word ‘tragic’ used to describe this way of expression?
What happens when people (children) do what we want them to do out of fear, guilt or shame and how does that affect them in the future?
What is the difference between VALUE judgements and MORALISTIC judgments?
Quote:
The horrors which we have seen, and the still greater horrors we shall presently see, are not signs that rebels, insubordinate, untamable men are increasing in number throughout the world, but rather that there is a constant increase in the number of obedient, docile men.” ~ George Beranos
Agree or Disagree?
The workbook goes into the different areas of our lives, the social communities that we operate in, and asks us to identify life-alienating language in them, and how we can re-phase them with giraffe-speak. It’s difficult, I won’t lie. Extremely so – and it feels ‘wrong’ to me. Again, I recognize that this is a process and that my feelings are a product of how I was raised (which is precisely why I am going through this book with my kids), but that doesn’t change the feeling that, especially in parenting matters, by not demanding appropriate behavior or that a task be completed within this time-frame or in this manner – by giving the kids an option… basically to choose not to comply – I don’t see how that will work. And then again, there’s a little niggling voice that pipes up and reminds me how much better they behave when I set reminders instead of demands, and help with chores instead of harangue. I know it works in my heart. It’s getting my head on board that is the challenge.
Warmly,
~h
(Disclaimer: This is not a certified or ‘official’ NVC anything. This is my personal journey through Marshall Rosenberg’s book, Nonviolent Communication, and Lucy Leu’s NVC Companion Workbook. I am NOT an expert, nor am I particularly skilled in this process. Please use/follow/apply with those things in mind. When in doubt, please disregard my commentary and refer to the book or workbook. I make no money off of this exercise, nor is any copyright infringement meant by posting a sampling of the questions from the workbook. For best results, I strongly recommend that you purchase the book and workbook for yourself and go through them in their entirety at your leisure.)
Giving From the Heart – NVC Week 1
So, like I mentioned before, we’re adding NVC to our list of ‘required’ subjects. This is a 13-week course, and ideally, I’ll be posting once a week with an update. For the previous NVC post, check here. (Yikes – talk about putting it off – the first post was back in November of last year. {hangs head in guilt and shame})
Moving on, here are my thoughts on Chapter One. Let’s start with a few questions from this week’s chapter:
What is the purpose of NVC (as it applies to me)?
What is meant by ‘NVC is more than a process or a language’?
What are some areas or ways that MVC can be used in (my) life and community?
What draws me to NVC? What is it that I deeply wish for my life and my world?
I’ll get to the questions in a sec, but first I wanted to talk about the ‘connecting to how I feel in this moment’ exercises. Over the last few months, I’ve really been trying to take better care of myself mentally and emotionally. Every day, I take a few minutes to meditate and stretch and just ‘be’. I think that this type of centering time has helped me be more calm and bale to respond more effectively to the kids. I also am enjoying the time to myself – even if it’s only a few minutes.
I will say that working on the suggested childhood back-tracking and being honest and connected to how I feel about things is difficult and sometimes painful. This is not an experience or lesson that I particularly enjoyed… and then saying that makes it sound like I had a harsh or bad childhood. Not so, but I guess the exercise is designed to look at the roots of whatever communication malfunctions one has now by focusing on the negatives from the past. Without justifying, I can honestly say that there are definitely patters that were laid that need to change. I’ve always known that I wanted to do things differently than my parents did, and that caused some disharmony in my family when the kids were younger. Now that they’re older, we still do things very differently, but I can see where improvements need to be made – I find myself in the uncomfortable position of knowing what I don’t want to do, but lacking the know-how to achieve what I do want.
My main interest and goal in learning and applying NVC is multi-purpose: both to improve my own connection and motivation for how and why I communicate, and to set a good example/improve the communication and compassion with my husband and my kids. I also feel that my kids are approaching the age where they need to be learning how and why the ‘right course’ of action is so, and to choose it willingly because it is right. Parents can only enforce the rules for so long; at some point the kids have to start making those kinds of decisions for themselves. I really want to focus on that part of it – getting them in touch with obligation, responsibility and actions. I do think that people, children in particular, are born with the desire to help. So learning how to approach requests with the aim of helping someone appeals to me.
I see a lot of areas for improvement; I feel like I am not communicating effectively or compassionately sometimes, and it bothers me. I also see how my family communicates (or doesn’t, as the case may be) and that is not a cycle I wish to perpetuate with my own kids (any longer). I think that learning new techniques now will be beneficial – and easier for my children to learn and implement now, while the foundations of communication are still being forged, than to have to attempt changing them as adults as I am trying to do.
I’m not an expert, and I may not fully understand right now, but I think that NVC as a process is about connecting with your own motivations and needs and learning how to effectively communicate them with requests for actions that allow them to be met. I use sarcasm as a defense and an attack. I also use it in good clean fun, but I hide behind it as well. I’m teaching my kids through example, intentionally or not, and though I enjoy a dry wit and cutting remark just as much as the next guy, I don’t want that to be their primary form of communication.
At the same time, I don’t want to be or feel or seem all loopy and open and hippie-dippy the way that I perceive many NVC-type people to be. I am fully aware that this is a perception, not necessarily reality – I remember pre-children, how naive and ill-informed I was about so many things – and how my perceptions were colored before I had kids of my own; I can imagine that this is a similar situation and perception. It will be interesting to come back in a few months and read this and see if my perception has changed. I did want to document it though, as an experiment of sorts.
There are a lot of examples in the book of what a person says – the words that they use. I’ve made a list of some of the ones I like or
think I might use to help myself remember them. I wasn’t raised with this type of language (refered to as ‘giraffe’) so using it does not come naturally to me. It’s effort. My instinctual response – and usually the wrong response – is much more emotionally seated and dramatic. Keeping calm is helpful, remembering in the heat of the moment to remain calm is virtually impossible somewhat difficult.
I re-created this poster in MSWord and printed out a page to hang at my desk and at both of the kids’ desks. Little reminders do help! It might seem silly to have behavior reminders (for Mom) up throughout the house, but I need them just as much as the kids do, and I’ll take all the help I can get!
Resources for new-to-NVC:
- NVC Academy - not a free site, but they do have some free tools and ideas of what to do or make if you prefer to make your own.
- NVC Key Ingredients - if you’re interested in NVC and don’t have the book, this is a basic outline of the process. Helpful for a reference if you print it out.
Jackals and Giraffes – Introduction to NVC
As a parent, one of my ideals dictates that I try to ‘do better when I know better’. One of the areas that I struggle so much with is communication. I am finding myself having less patience and less compassion for my kids when it comes to what I expect of them, particularly regarding finishing schoolwork. Some days I find myself drifting farther away from the kind of parent I strive to be, and so I am actively taking steps to move back in the direction that I want to flow.
I picked up Marshall B. Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication and the companion workbook by Lucy Leu several years ago. I’ve read through them but not really worked the workbook in the way it recommends. This is my goal for the next few months. It’s a 13 week program, and while I may not complete it in 13 weeks, I am going to work through reading and completing the workbook exercises. I’ve asked a few friends to try it with me in a practice group, but no one’s taken me up on it yet. If you’re interested in working it too, then please join in – post your blog in the comments and what tag you’ll post your NVC group posts under and we’ll make a blog ring.
I am starting by registering with NVC Academy. It’s free and though there are classes that you can pay for, there are also several free downloadable audio courses and also some other free materials, including the Feelings and Needs Reference Guide (4 pages) and the NVC Circle of Life (the mandala at the top of the page is the CoL). I sometimes find myself disconnected from how I feel about something, and I would like to change that. I think having a list to help me identify what I feel will help. The Circle of Life wheel details the four principles of NVC and how they relate to either ‘giraffe’ language or ‘jackal’ language. The giraffe and jackal are symbols of NVC, and though I probably won’t be using them overmuch, the symbols are somewhat accurate, I think. Giraffes are gentle and jackals really aren’t and so ‘serve as a guide inviting a return’ to giraffe.
The workbook suggests clarifying what it is you hope to gain from a study of NVC. It’s a big time commitment and mental effort to go through the course, so being clear about how much of both you’re willing to invest is a good starting point.
What I hope to gain:
- a better understanding of my own feelings and motivations
- to communicate my feelings and needs more effectively
- to listen and understand my family’s feelings and needs more effectively
- to help my children communicate more effectively
I will try to keep my practice noted here and in my journal under the “NVC’ category.
So… this is going to be the beginning. I am going to read Chapter 1 and start on the Workbook’s Lesson 1 and will record thoughts and feeling throughout the week, then post a review of CH.1 next week.
Ruth Bebermeyer’s poem, Words are Windows (or They’re Walls), is in Chapter One, and a lovely way to begin:
I feel so sentenced by your words,
I feel so judged and sent away,
Before I go I’ve got to know
Is that what you mean to say?Before I rise to my defense,
Before I speak in hurt or fear,
Before I build that wall of words,
Tell me, did I really hear?Words are windows, or they’re walls,
They sentence us, or set us free.
When I speak and when I hear,
Let the love light shine through me.There are things I need to say,
Things that mean so much to me,
If my words don’t make me clear,
Will you help me to be free?If I seemed to put you down,
If you felt I didn’t care,
Try to listen through my words
To the feelings that we share.
Warmly,
~h
Love Notes
Michelle at Lagniappe Academy shared a project that she and her DD are doing, which is a revamp of a post from The Homeschool Post that I think is amazing and wanted to both share and comment on (I know, you’re so surprised at that, right? {wink})
When I was little, my mom used to put notes and cards and little prizes in our lunch boxes. Infrequently enough that we weren’t checking the box every day, but frequently enough that after some time they were expected. We would know they were going to be in there, yet it was always a surprise to see it. She still does that; in fact, last week she sent me a card (through the mail, even though we live next door to each other) that was funny and cute and specifically to say, “I think you’re a great mom”. She sent one to my sister and sister-in-law, too. It’s a wonderful thing, to be told out of the blue that someone you love thinks highly of you.
When my kids were in school, how could I not carry on with this tradition? It was challenging, because they were pre-readers, but we managed. Lots of pictographs (eye, heart, U) and little trinkets that even sometimes ended up coming home. Now that we’re homeschooling, it’s a bit more challenging to get this kind of unexpected delight in. Enter the Love Notes journal idea.
I love the idea of this kind of journal being a communication tool, rather than focusing on the academics of it. It’s really difficult to get my kids to focus on the now sometimes. We’ll be having a discussion about an event or a reaction and they’ll come out of left field with something completely different; Monty Python could not have been more surprising. I think that this will help them see that they do, indeed, have my complete attention, and whatever it is that they want to say can be clearly ‘heard’.
I can also see the benefit academically that this type of writing can net. Since LittleBoyBlue and PeaGreen both have typical ‘boy’ handwriting, I think they could both use some non-’school’ opportunities to practice, and this seems like a lovely way to accomplish that.
I read on se7en+1′s blog a description of one of her kids – the one who likes to hurry up and get to the next thing. Both of my kids are like that, and so art projects and writing assignments are usually done to the minimum standard, and with as much haste as can be managed, just to get ‘done’. Though that’s not true in all cases, it seems like anything that requires academic creativity is rushed through. Maybe this will help them with that, and let me express how awesome I think that they both are; plus, this will be neat to go back through in a few years. My best friend in middle and high school and I got tired of exchanging lengthy notes between classes, so we started keeping notebooks that we’d pass back and forth. We don’t have any of them anymore, and I so wish we did. Oh, the teenage angst, lol.
It’s finding little things like this Love Notes idea that make me really appreciate the technological age we live in. I think that one of the most awesome things about the homeschooling community is their willingness to share – and there are some clever mamas (and daddies, too) out there. Many of the ideas that we now consider a necessary part of our homeschooling day have come from an idea I found on a blog or homeschooling community forum, or from talking to a homeschooling friend. Homeschooling parents (especially blogging ones) are always commenting on lessons they’ve learned, ideas they’re going to try, resources they’ve found to be helpful – it’s such a wonderful and open community, and I am so glad to be part of it.
So to ALL of you out there who regularly let me peek into your homeschooling life, THANK YOU!!
Warmly,
~h
