Don't Like NVC? Look Inside.

27Jun08
Marshall Rosenberg is the founder of Non-Violent Communication. At the core of this system is the understanding that disputes come up from unmet needs. That listening for and acknowledging the other's needs, or spelling out your own, has a remarkable effect.

I'm spellbound when I listen to Marshall on CD speaking his way. It's very warm and friendly, while being an unfamiliar approach to communication for me.

I found myself critical of others attempts to speak or write it. It seemed stilted in some way, unreal, not going over for me. I recently had an Aha! moment about it.

I am a mediator personality, someone who listens to both sides of a dispute, puts no personal spin on discussion of it while helping it to be resolved. I am a person who has learned as a child that having needs was dangerous. Whether I whined to get something, cried, or tried to negotiate, I learned it was VITAL to have no needs, which became "no preferences," and I became a person who was game to go-along, not to confound a decision-making time by inflicting another choice, or even a vote.

I so effectively buried my needs, that I have no concept of MY needs, or needs at all. I have to look at lists of human needs in order to answer questions about them. The Aha! was that NVC (Non-Violent Communication) is based on needs, and when I listened to people talking about needs, or thought about trying to name mine or yours, I choked. I was clueless. Now, I believe I can learn about them, learn a list or two, work on recognizing... shudder... a need.