Here's the VERY hard part...

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So - if everything we do, we do to meet a need, doesn't that apply even to people who have hurt us?  Some of us are still in pain because of harm done to us by our parents.  Rosenberg promises us that they too were trying to meet a need.  Maybe our reaction to that truth would be that they did what they did because they were bad people and had to hurt us because they needed to do something bad.  Well, that's not what Rosenberg meant and we know that.  Maybe our parents had parents who hurt them.  Maybe our parents had no idea how to handle the difficulties they were facing in their lives, and took it out on us.  There are a million possible explanations for why our parents and/or other people have hurt us that have nothing to do with their being bad people.  So once we've let ourselves off the hook for the things we've done that we've judged as bad, we might be able to let the people who have hurt us off the hook too.  Rosenberg says that the pain will go away when we've let ourselves and everybody else off the hook.  This might be the hardest thing we've ever done, but wouldn't it be worth it to be out of pain?

Communicating with Ourselves

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Think of a mistake you made recently and remember what you told yourself at the moment you regretted it.  Was it something like, "I'm a bad, stupid person.  How could I have done that?  What's wrong with me?"  This is the way most of us talk to ourselves when we make mistakes, and we learned it from the people who educated us when we made mistakes - blame, attack, etc.  Dr. Rosenberg thinks we all go through life more than a little depressed from talking to ourselves like this when we make mistakes.  This is not a way to a more wonderful life!

Working from the concept that everything we (and everybody else) do is for the purpose of meeting a need, what need were we trying to meet when we made that mistake?  It may take some thinking and exploration to identify the need, but once we do we'll probably notice that's it's just sad that we took such a wrong-headed way to meet that need.  Dr. Rosenberg says feeling that sadness and "mourning" our mistake is the way to learning better ways to meet our needs.  We can empathize with ourselves and not lose self-respect.

Let's say I said something that hurt someone's feelings.  I feel terrible and berate myself for the mistake - Why did I say that?  I should have known it would hurt his feelings?  I'm just an insensitive person."   Then I begin to try to find a way to make it the other person's fault - "Well, he shouldn't be so sensitive.  After all, he asked my opinion.  So what if he didn't like it." 

Wait, wait!  Stop!  That's the old way of dealing with mistakes.  Back up and ask myself - What need of mine was I trying to meet when I said that?  I'm probably going to find out that it's complicated.  Maybe I've actually got a resentment about something the person did to me in the past that came out.  Instead of asking for something I wanted (a request, not a demand), I said something hurtful to get even.  Hmmm.  I wasn't even aware of this when I said it.  I can feel my sadness that I hurt someone and that I don't honor my own needs enough to at least ask for what I want from other people.  I can use this insight to begin taking better care of myself and as a result I will be more aware of other people's needs.

Requests vs Demands

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How many of us have had the experience of learning a new way to communicate - and with the best of intentions changed our approach but still expected to get our way?  I know it's happened to me a whole lot of times.  If I've asked you nicely, you're supposed to do what I want, right?  I remember being told by my husband and my oldest daughter, that I always asked nicely, but they knew there would be hell to pay if they didn't comply.  So... that's a demand, not a request.  If you know I'm going to hurt you if you don't do what I want, it doesn't matter how sweetly I ask.  Nothing about that suggests non-violence, does it? 

To get past this, I remember that the point of my communication is to make life more wonderful for BOTH of us, not to get my way.  The mom who wants her daughter to clean her room envisions a life where she, herself, will have to clean the room if she makes a request rather than a demand.  That's not necessarily so.  It misses the point though.  The point is to make life more wonderful for both of them and to give both of them a chance to be happy through returning to their real natures - the desire to be compassionate and to contribute to other's well being.  By making a request, rather than a demand, the mom is giving her daughter that opportunity.  If they have a history of a circle of demands, resistance, conflict, etc., it's going to take more than a little while for her daughter to quit believing that mom is making  a demand.  Mom must really mean it when she says she is just as interested in her daughter's needs as her own and she's going to have to prove it.

But wait!  Isn't a parent supposed to teach orderliness, responsibility, obedience to authority, etc.?  Well, there are some questions about that - like:  Is teaching from the position of power where punishment is the power the best way to teach?  Is obedience to authority always a good thing? Could some of these things be more effectively taught by example?  Would teaching through appealing to the joy of giving be more effective?

Dealing with Conflict on a Personal Basis

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What kind of conflict could we assume is the most common?  I think it could be boiled down to: Someone-is-doing-something-I-don't-like.  Of course, we could also say that the person isn't doing what we want or that the person is doing something that hurts us, or doing something wrong,etc.  BUT the first sentence could easily sum up most personal conflicts.  What many of us do at that point is explain to the person how wrong he or she is and demand that they stop doing what they're doing and do what we want instead.  Guess what?!  In case, you haven't noticed, that almost never works. 

If it does work, it's only temporary and it's usually because we have the power to hurt the person in some way so he or she is afraid not to do what we want (at least as long as we're watching).  This situation usually progresses to the person eventually reverting to his/her former behavior and then finding some way to retaliate.  Good grief!  Now we've got a war going on.  Since I believe every single one of us has experienced being on one side or the other of conflict with another human, I shouldn't have to explain in detail what the future holds - more conflict, followed by more conflict, sometimes interspersed with truces.  What a way to live!  There's got to be a better way.

Well, there is another way but it means a lot of work for us - NOT for other people.  First of all our job will be to get acquainted with our emotions, our hearts, our true desires.  This will not be easy because we have been educated to always look outside ourselves when we're uncomfortable to see who or what is the problem.  Our new way will be to look inside and see what our emotions are and what our needs are that are not being met.  Sound easy?  Well, forget that.  It's hard.  We have years of education to overcome.  Then we must learn to communicate our feelings and needs to other people - WITHOUT even implying a little bit - any judgment of them.

Parents have lots of opportunities to practice this.  Example:  1)  Identify the behavior that's bothering you:  My daughter won't clean her room.  2)  How do you feel when this happens?  Answering this can be a problem for a lot of us.  "I feel she is lazy."  No.  That's a judgment not a feeling.  "I feel she is wrong."  There you go again.  This type of interaction makes the daughter feel attacked and what usually happens is that the daughter will counter attack and defend. 

Surely we must know this is going to happen.  But we keep doing it anyway.  Why do we keep doing what doesn't work and makes us unhappy?  Because we have been educated to see everything in terms of right and wrong and to believe that our job is to make them hate themselves for what they've done, which, theoretically will make them feel so bad they will change their ways.  We are waiting for them to say, "You're right.  I am soooo sorry.  I will change."  Oh this is so sad.  Have we ever, ever, ever heard anybody say that after we've "straightened them out?"

So what about the parent whose daughter doesn't clean up her room?  What might she be feeling?  For sure it would not be a good idea for her to say, "When you don't clean up your room, it hurts me."  That's just another way to manipulate - trying to induce guilt as a motivator.  That doesn't work either.  So maybe what she's feeling is frustration or sadness or anger.  In any case, one word describing an emotion rather than a demand or a judgment is what's needed.

Now comes another hard part - what need does Mom have that's not being met?  Let's be honest.  Maybe Mom is a control freak that just wants her kids to do what she says with no argument.  Let's also hope that she knows this desire isn't likely to be met and in actuality isn't the kind of relationship she truly wants with her children.  Maybe her true need is for order and beauty in her home and for help and cooperation in meeting that need.  Even a teenage daughter might be able to see that as a legitimate need her mother has that would give her a more wonderful life.  Then, it will be necessary to be very clear about the request.  "Clean your room," is clear to Mom, but maybe not to the daughter.  A better request would be:  "Please take your trash out, your laundry to the laundry room, change your sheets, make your bed, put away all clutter, vacuum and dust." 

So this scenario should have a happy ending, right?  No, not necessarily. It's a good start.  Mom has identified the behavior she doesn't like and the emotion she is feeling.  She has identified the need she has that's not being met.  She has made a request that doesn't contain any judgment.  Isn't that enough?  No, there's more.

Using New Ideas and Behaviors in Relationships

Speak Peace in a World of Conflict outlines a whole new way of being in relationships.  Since relationship is at the heart of a wonderful life, maybe exploring new ideas and behaviors is of #1 importance.  So, I'm going to do a series of posts about these new ideas summarized from the book. 

One of the first radical ideas Dr. Rosenberg puts forth is that we are naturally compassionate and naturally are made happy by contributing to other people.  Of course, most of us would say, "What?!! Are you crazy?!! Look around - that's not how people are acting."  We would be right about that.  So he follows up with the idea that for thousands of years we have been educated to enjoy hurting each other.  We are taught to believe that human beings are basically evil, that people are divided into good and bad, and that bad people must be punished.  We are taught that a good life is one where we are the good guys who heroically fight evil people.  So in order to feel good about ourselves, we have to identify the bad guys and punish them. 

We are certainly going to need to feel better about ourselves because we also have been taught to violently criticize and judge ourselves.  Unless we attack other people that we judge as worse than ourselves, we will sink into depression and guilt.  This explains why we have learned to enjoy hurting other people (whom we have judged as the bad guys).  It's the only antidote we have to self-hate!  Naturally, then, the world is going to be divided into warring factions as each person tries to align him/herself with the good guys and fight the bad guys. 

Dr. Rosenberg suggests we think back into our memories of the times we were the most pleased with ourselves and with life in the last week.  He says that most people will think of times when they've done something for someone else and the memory will make them smile.  When I make my gratitude list each day, there's usually something on there that I had the privilege of doing for someone else.  I'm tremendously grateful for learning this truth.  Just to keep things clear, neither I nor Dr. Rosenberg are suggesting huge Mother Theresa self-sacrifice to our own detriment.  Nothing that extreme is necessary for happiness.  Even little things like holding the door open for someone with their hands full, smiling at a child, complimenting a sales person's shirt will add up to a happy day.

All this is quite simple, but there's no denying that it is incredibly difficult.  The mindset of judgment, criticism, hate and blame is deeply ingrained and not easy to root out.  But the payoff is way, way bigger than we can imagine.  Every step in the direction of service to others brings us closer to the life of our dreams.

Speak Peace in a World of Conflict

There's no doubt in my mind whatsoever that creating the life of our dreams is more about our relationships with other people than anything else.  If I achieve all my goals, am amazingly successful, world-famous, wealthy beyond my wildest dreams, and surrounded by admirers, but am lonely and/or at odds with the people closest to me, none of what I've achieved will matter to me.  My wish for us all is to spend at least as much time studying all the GOOD (be careful; not all information is true or good) information we can find about how to have happy, loving friendships - with partners if we have them, our children if we have them, our parents if they're still around, brothers and sisters if we have them, co-workers, bosses, people we supervise, people we serve in our jobs (all jobs serve someone), the people of our communities, organizations we belong to and most of all our friends.

What I've observed in the time I've been observing - which is quite awhile, by the way - is that what most of us do is, by some process we don't even really think about, decide what "the rules" should be and try to get everyone on the planet to follow our rules.  So far, almost no one seems to have figured out that this doesn't work.  Those other people are trying to get us to follow THEIR rules.  So there's constant conflict everywhere, all the time.  Sit in a restaurant sometime and just listen to the conversations around you - it's likely what you will hear is conflict, complaining, blaming, criticizing.  Nobody is getting their way and they are not happy.

If I were to start a crusade - and I've already done enough of that in my life so I probably won't - I'd preach peace in a world of conflict.  In fact, what do you know?  That's a title of a book by Marshall B. Rosenberg, Ph.D. about non-violent communication.  In the Introduction, Dr. Rosenberg says,  "For most of us the process of bringing about peaceful change begins with working on our own mindsets, on the way we view ourselves and others, on the way we get our needs met.  This basic work is in many ways the most challenging aspect of speaking peace because it requires great honest and openness, developing a certain literacy of expression, and overcoming deeply ingrained learning that emphasizes judgment, fear, obligation, duty, punishment and reward, and shame."

The focus of the book is on making life more wonderful - for both ourselves and others.  Dr. Rosenberg believes, and so do I, that we were created to be lovers and givers and that we are naturally compassionate - happiest when we love, give and are compassionate.  I know it appears that there are a lot of people who enjoy making other people suffer, but I suspect that's because they don't feel worthy and no one is giving them love - or not enough, at least.  I know, I know - that makes me some kind of bleeding heart. But consider  how things are going with the other way of doing things?  What have we got to lose by trying something different?  Unless, of course, our relationships are already peaceful and loving and perfect or we actually do love conflict.

My recommendation is that we just study this information and try it out as an experiment.  Nothing is lost by experimenting with new behavior.  Maybe it will help us get the life of our dreams.