Expressing Your Needs without Clinging

Katy Butler tells us how the methods of “Nonviolent Communication” can support our practice of Right Speech.

According to former psychologist Marshall Rosenberg, needs are never in opposition—only our strategies for meeting them are.

It is a midsummer morning and I am meditating with my parents in their living room. At my back my father sits in an armchair, his right shoulder slumped from the stroke that threw him to his knees six months ago. My mother is upright in front of me on her seiza bench, her white hair falling over her shoulders.

I breathe in, making my whole body calm and at peace. The dial of the kitchen timer at my knee turns almost imperceptibly toward zero.

In front of us, sliding doors open onto a deck. Beyond the deck lie the white birches my parents planted thirty years ago and the sloping green Connecticut lawn. My parents are struggling to decide whether to stay here or move into assisted living, and most of my visit home has been spent on the phone with doctors, physical therapists, and lawyers expert in Medicaid and elder law.

Breathing in a long breath, I am aware that I am breathing in a long breath. Breathing out a long breath, I am aware that I am breathing out a long breath. Blessed silence. A fly rock-climbs up the screen door, halts, shifts a front leg, then a back one. My mother suddenly strips off a black flip-flop and lunges forward. Slap! Her flip-flop hits the screen door like a fly swatter. Bzzz bzzz. Slap.

What’s wrong with her? This is meditation!

Bzzz. Slap slap. Bzzz.

I’m annoyed, but try out “correct” phrases in my head: Val, I was hoping for some quiet time . . . Val, would you be willing to . . . ?

Bzzz. Slap slap.

Val.

A giggle rises as I put a hand on her shoulder and whisper something that isn’t exactly Right Speech. She smiles at me and sits down.

I am fifty-three. With both Buddhists and non-Buddhists—boyfriends, brothers, bosses, and carpenters, as well as my parents—I have been trying consciously to practice Right Speech for the past twenty years. Nevertheless, not long ago this family meditation session would have ended in a spat.

My Buddhist teachers have long impressed upon me the “what” and “why” of Right Speech.

“It’s all a matter of art and timing,” Thich Nhat Hanh once told me. His version of this precept includes an imperative: “Always speak in a way that inspires self-confidence, joy, and hope.” I sincerely wanted to be both truthful and kind, but until recently I didn’t have a clue how to go about it. I muddled along, tolerating bickering, misunderstanding, and withdrawal, surprised by how often I felt flashes of real anger—at shop clerks and telemarketers, as well as people I knew intimately and loved.

There is an old friend who still avoids me. There is an electrician who hasn’t spoken to me since I left him an angry voice mail about unfinished work. And there are two teenage stepsons I struggle to live with and get to know.

Shortly before Memorial Day two years ago, I grew thoroughly tired of regretting what I’d said, or hadn’t said, in situations of discomfort or conflict. Too many times I had noticed something rising—a knot in my heart, a throbbing in my throat, a turning in my belly—accompanied by unspoken words that were a recipe for further suffering. How rude. Doesn’t he like me? went the critical inner dialogue whenever my stepson Ryan walked out of the house without saying goodbye. He is always invading my space went my mind whenever my partner, Brian, tried to kiss me while I was doing yoga.

The litany continued as I moved through my hours and days: That was so sexist. He’s so mean. That was so dumb of me. She takes and never gives. Why does Ned [my other stepson] have to watch Jeopardy! when I want to cook dinner in peace? And then, inevitably, I would blurt out something that couldn’t be taken back.

On the other hand, being a Buddhist Goody Two Shoes—taking a deep breath, smiling, and trying to see the other person’s point of view—often left me feeling that I’d been taken advantage of. After more than two decades of meditation practice, I was tired of my inner struggle between trying to meet a Buddhist ideal and the forceful rising of my still-chaotic inner life.

That was how things stood on the sunny day two years ago when Kathryn, a non-Buddhist friend, came to my Memorial Day barbecue wearing a beautiful straw hat wreathed in flowers. Kathryn is active in the Natural Death movement, and all afternoon, I watched in awe as she fielded baiting questions from a handsome, slightly drunk guest. I can’t remember the words she used, but instead of taking offense, Kathryn responded to him respectfully, without sacrificing her truth or compromising her dignity. She reminded me of an Aikido master—in motion yet centered, calmly melding with her attacker and deflecting his thrusts without harming him.

When I later remarked on how skillfully she had handled him, Kathryn credited something called “Nonviolent Communication” and lent me a book by its creator, a former psychologist named Marshall Rosenberg.

At the simplest level, Nonviolent Communication follows a strict protocol: observing and describing an external situation without judgment, evaluation, or blame; articulating the feelings the situation triggers and connecting them to a basic, unmet need; then making a “clear, specific, do-able request” of the other party or parties in the situation. Crucial to the whole process is learning to listen empathically and to strategize ways to meet others’ needs as well as our own.

Marshall Rosenberg was a clinical psychologist in St. Louis before he abandoned his practice in the late 1970s to, as he puts it, “give psychology away” by teaching communication skills on a wider scale. Like his mentor, the humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers, Rosenberg emphasizes an empathic approach, maintaining that one of our deepest human needs is to contribute to others’ well-being, so long as our own needs are not compromised in the process.

Rosenberg’s fascination with peacemaking and effective communication has its roots in his childhood observation of miscommunication and pain. His parents’ marriage was unhappy, and the family moved frequently as his father searched for work during the Depression. In Detroit, their neighborhood was the center of violent race riots in the 1940s; at school, Rosenberg was called names and beaten up because he was a Jew. These experiences, he recalls, inspired him to explore “what happens to disconnect people from their inherently compassionate nature, and what allows some people to stay connected to it even in trying circumstances.”

Nonviolent Communication has led me to the via positiva—an understanding that expressing my needs, without making them into demands, can be as much a path to growth as letting them go. Needs aren’t the problem; it is rigidly clinging to a particular strategy to meet them that produces suffering.

On the surface, Nonviolent Communication seems simplistic, little more than common sense. But just as watching one’s breath becomes something deeper over time, the practice of compassionate communication can lead to subtle but profound inner shifts. I label myself and others less frequently now, and I have developed a more fluid sense of self and others.

Last Christmas morning, when my stepsons left the house without saying goodbye while I was making breakfast pancakes, I felt crushed and insulted. In the vocabulary of Nonviolent Communication, however, “insulted” is not a feeling; it’s a tangle of emotions—surprise, sadness, and anger in this case—thoughts, expectations, and interpretations: What did I do wrong? Don’t they like me? They shouldn’t treat me like that. Their father should discipline them more. Teenagers are so rude.

Silently, I rephrased my inner dialogue to describe the situation factually, articulate my feelings about it, and identify the unmet needs: When the boys walked out the door without saying anything, I was surprised and disappointed because I had assumed we would all have breakfast together on Christmas morning. My needs for contact, celebration, and respect weren’t being met. Through Nonviolent Communication I was, in effect, practicing a meditation of disentanglement, teasing out the individual strands of thought and feeling that had arisen in a jumble, like snarled wool.

Later, when the four of us talked around the dinner table about our blended-family holiday angst, I learned that the boys had had longstanding plans to see their mother and exchange Christmas gifts. I understood their feelings of divided loyalty and their need to connect with her, and made a mental note to discuss their holiday plans in advance next year. I asked Ryan to routinely say hi and goodbye to me when he comes and goes. He does that now, and it’s made a huge difference in my daily comfort.

Nonviolent Communication doesn’t solve every outer and inner conflict. But it softens and illuminates them, bringing to light hidden assumptions in my thought and speech. I am remapping my inner landscape now. What I used to call selfishness or stubbornness I reframe as a need for autonomy. What I called codependence I now describe as my need to contribute to the lives of others. What I called a fear of intimacy I now characterize as a need for private time.

On a spiritual level, I no longer see Nonviolent Communication as a technique for getting what I want but as a practice—a middle way between quietism and activity, acceptance and action, love and assertion, the bodhisattva ideal and human vulnerability. Nonviolent Communication complements Buddhist teachings with a language and approach that allow me to be gentler with myself and others, without sacrificing my inner truth.

And how is Nonviolent Communication working out down here on the ground? Last spring, in negotiations with an insurance company over a car accident, I left on good terms—and with a $16,500 settlement, $11,500 more than predicted by the lawyers who refused to take my case. My two-week visit with my parents last summer ended without a single bruising fight, even though we talked every day about death, disability, and money. As for Jeopardy!, I’m getting used to it. While I cook, I even find myself shouting out some of the answers.

How It Works

Nonviolent Communication—called “a language of compassion” by its creator, Marshall Rosenberg—is a method for resolving conflict by expressing needs without blame or criticism, then listening and responding empathically. The basic steps are these:

• Observe the situation upsetting you and describe it in language free of judgment. Avoid labeling of yourself or others.

• Understand that external events are only a trigger for, not the cause of, your inner reactions. Take responsibility for your emotions. Instead of saying “You made me so mad,” try “After you said that, I felt irritated and sad.” Eager,” “angry,” and “satisfied,” for example, fit that definition. “Betrayed,” “ignored,” and “misunderstood” do not; they mix emotion, description, and assumption, and include a judgment about another’s intentions.

• Connect your feelings with the needs that were unfulfilled in the situation. (“I felt irritated when I heard the TV because I need silence.”) NVC acknowledges not only universal human needs like air, food, and exercise, but also complex needs like creative expression, respect, and love.

• Follow up with a specific do-able request. Avoid vague generalities, as the other person will have no way of knowing exactly what new behavior will satisfy you. To avoid sounding reproachful, ask for what you want, not what you don’t want.

• Listen carefully to the other person’s response and to the feelings and needs their words are expressing, even indirectly.

• Empathize with the other person’s feelings and needs. Repeat back what you think is being said, without sounding patronizing or all-knowing.

• Differentiate between universal human needs and pet strategies for meeting them. The need for love and reassurance is universal, but wanting a particular person to say “I love you” right this minute is a strategy and may meet with opposition.

• Brainstorm strategies that meet everyone’s needs. NVC assumes that needs are never in conflict but that the strategies for meeting them often are.

• Be willing to take no for an answer. The difference between a request and a demand lies not in the sweetness of your speech but in whether or not you subtly punish anyone who says no.