Communication is such an essential part of our lives. We communicate from the moment we are born through our cries and learn language to communicate later what our cries or happiness means. But we don't learn language in a structured or efficient or most importantly fully compassionate manner. We just learn words to express what we are
feeling. An important realization to have is that all our unpleasant feelings arise from our
needs which go unmet in some way. In essence, when we communicate, we are expressing that we are feeling a certain way but often fail to communicate clearly what fundamental
need of ours isn't being addressed. It can be a skill to decipher what the essential
need is. Once we get skilled in that, we can communicate clearly
why we are feeling the way we are. Another aspect is when we express how our
need is not being met, we often tend to blame the other in our expression. This is not entirely compassionate. So, the next lesson would be to learn how to make clear
observations of what is happening which is causing our
need to not be met and us
feeling a certain way. An
observation is simply stating what is happening rather than putting blame on the other. The final step is to make a
request. We can make a
request to the other for doing what we think would meet our
need and not make us feel in an unpleasant way.
As Marshall Rosenberg, the developer of Nonviolent Communication said something along the lines of every communication essentially being a please or a thank you. A request and an honoring of that request because the other person is no different than you. If you can express yourself clearly and compassionately, the other person will recognize the fundamental need in you as every human being has certain basic needs and are familiar with the feeling of those needs going unmet in themselves which unlocks the compassion within them to honor your need.
Hope you can communicate with skill and efficiency and compassion and may all your fundamental needs be met 💖
Comments
Post a Comment