by Lynd Morris
Like many people, I began exploring Nonviolent Communication because I wanted to better understand why people behaved as they did and because I longed for others to hear and value what I was trying to express. As I participated in additional NVC trainings, a whole world opened up before me, a world in which not only was I able to see and appreciate my own aliveness more fully, but I increasingly discerned the breathtaking aliveness in others, even when they said or did things that would have sent me reeling in the past.
What changed?
I practiced, practiced, practiced basic NVC skills…and I discovered the “Living Energy of Needs” approach to NVC offered Robert Gonzales and others from the NVC Training Institute. Now, my heart is constantly being nourished and filled by the living energy of needs as I experience their qualities in myself and am aware of them in others. When I become aware of a feeling of deficiency in the way I am viewing myself, anyone else, or even just a situation, I now use the practices Robert has developed to move from a sense to lack to one in which I directly experience the fullness of the needs I am longing to meet.
Whew! This is what I call transformation.
Below is a description Robert has given of how the practice of touching the energy and beauty of a need can transform our experience of life from one of deficiency to one of fullness:
“The need is a qualitative living force within us. There‘s two meanings of the term ‘meet your needs.’ One is: I take an action that meets a need of mine. Or someone else takes an action that meets my need.
“But there’s another one that I think has prior importance. And it is this: I sense the need as it lives in me, even if it’s unmet.
“So, let’s say my need for love is unmet by an action—or the lack of an action—of someone…someone doesn’t do something, and then my need for love isn’t met. When I get in touch with that, it’s emotionally painful; I might feel sad or hurt.
“For example—let’s imagine that I asked to have a conversation with you about something that’s very important to me and you said you had something else to do and you weren’t available to have the dialogue with me.
“When I heard you say you weren’t going to have the conversation I requested, I felt pain, hurt, and sadness…because l have such a need for care and love and the kind of connection I experience when I share something authentic about myself.
“In this example, I feel hurt because my need for love is not met. When I touch the quality of love inside of me that’s not met, I can feel the sadness and can mourn.
“But we can only mourn that which we love, that which is beautiful. So, as I mourn, I allow the beauty of love to blossom in my heart, even when the need for love has not been met. And, when I touch that energy of love—even when it’s not met—I find that it starts to activate something in me, it starts to heal and transform something in me, it starts to take on a life of its own.
“Although touching the beauty of the need is an inner practice, I also have the tool to bring that energy into a dialogue with the other person. So, now, having touched the beauty of the need for love, when I decide to express myself to you, I’m not going to express blame and criticism, or even the deficiency—the lack that my need for love was not met as a result of the action you took or the words you said. When I speak to you, I can express my authentic sadness and hurt, but I will also express the fullness of the love, never the lack of it. That’s the beauty of the need. It is not theoretical, it’s a living passionate energy that gets cultivated in our hearts.”
Last week, Robert Gonzales presented 2 NVC workshops hosted by Capitol NVC. During both of these events, I was moved, again and again, as I heard many of the nearly 100 people attending describe their discovery of the beautiful, living energy of needs, regardless if these needs were met or unmet.
At one point during Thursday’s workshop, Robert offered a quote attributed to Mahatma Gandhi: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Touching the beauty of needs as they live in my heart is the most direct way I’ve encountered to do this. For me, it is no longer just about longing for fullness, it is about living it.
I will be offering several of the NVC practices Robert Gonzales has developed in the
"Transformation: from Deficiency to Fullness" NVC class series I will be leading Silver Spring this June (Monday nights, June 9-30). Please contact me (lynd [at] capitolnvc [dot] org) if you would like to join us.
Robert Gonzales, PhD., has been teaching NVC for 22 years. He is President of the CNVC Board of Directors and founder of the Prescott Center for Nonviolent Communication. He is also a member of the NVC Training Institute, leading NVC workshops around the world.