Communication Matters: Feelings, nothing more than feelings…

By Jeyanthy Siva
(5th of the Weekly columns published on “The Nation”, an English language newspaper in Sri Lanka on 24th Oct, 2009)

This is a column on Nonviolent Communication (NVC), also known as compassionate communication. NVC shows a path, a step-by-step process, of how to go from disconnection and violence to connection, compassionate understanding and cooperation – with ourselves, the people around us and the world we live in. It is a language of mutual respect, empathy and honesty and is often described as ‘the language of the heart.’ The goal is to create a quality of connection which will lead to everyone’s needs being met.

Today I am going to talk about feelings. In our day-to-day practice of NVC, we focus a good bit of attention on feelings, because this can be one important way of understanding what’s happening in our own heart, expressing ourselves to others, and understanding what’s alive in someone else’s heart. However, before we get further into our discussion of feelings, what is it exactly that we mean by “feelings” here?

Reading this, you might be thinking “Why do we need to talk about the obvious? Everybody knows what feelings are!” And I would agree with you – partly. We do all know what feelings are. Feelings are things like sad, happy, angry, joyful, fearful and excited, etc. But what about words like “rejected,” “insulted” or “betrayed”? In normal use of the English language, we also use these words as feelings. For instance, we might say, “I feel so rejected when my friend doesn’t return my calls.”

However, in Nonviolent Communication, we would not consider these words as feelings. The reason is that they are not purely expressing the emotion of the person speaking. Instead, they contain traces of judgment, opinions, or stories, about the person doing the rejecting, insulting or betraying.

If we were to look for the pure feeling in the heart of the person speaking in this example, we might find hurt, pain or sadness. Or maybe annoyance or anger. Feeling is something that happens internal to each of us. It’s the emotion felt in the heart, often accompanied by a physical sensation. Words that describe this internal felt emotion, as clearly as possible, are what we are looking for when we are trying to communicate our truth to another person.

Words like “rejected,” “insulted” and others of that kind all involve thoughts and images of someone else who is doing the rejecting or the insulting. When we hear the word “rejected” or “insulted,” it brings up an image of someone doing something to the person speaking, doesn’t it? Can we have rejection without a rejecter? Or a betrayal without a betrayer?

But what about when we hear the word “hurt” or “sad”? When I say “I am feeling sad,” it is an expression about me, about the internal state of my heart.

I wonder what difference you might notice in the way you respond in your heart-mind to the first statement (“I feel rejected…”) as opposed to the second statement. I notice that the first sentence puts my attention on the friend who was doing the “rejecting” and starts me thinking judgmental thoughts like “what a rude friend” or things of that nature. In my experience, the second sentence (“I feel sad…”) puts my attention on the heart of the person speaking and I notice a response of compassion and caring rise up in me for the person speaking.

In other words, when I hear the feeling expressed clearly without mixing it in with judgments of the other person, it makes it easy to focus my attention on the person speaking because it describes an internal experience of that person, without blaming other people.

When I hear the feelings spoken about in this way (and needs, which we’ve discussed in previous columns), it becomes easier for me to see the vulnerable human being in front of me and to connect to the common humanity of the person and to have compassion for them.

Of course, this is exactly why it can be frightening to share our feelings openly with others – it can feel very vulnerable to show so nakedly what is in our hearts. Yet, having the courage to do so is exactly what will make it possible for the person listening to hear us and see us and to open their heart to us.

Taking responsibility for our feelings

So far, we have been talking about what feelings are and distinguishing them from thoughts and judgements. But where do feelings come from and what is their purpose?

Some say feelings come from our heart. Some say they come from our thoughts. I would say that feelings are experienced in the heart-mind and they are caused by our needs. Another way of saying this is that feelings are like the messengers that carry the message from our needs to let us know when our needs are met or not met.

In the example above, if the friend doesn’t return the phone calls, I might say “When you don’t return my calls, I feel sad because my need for consideration is not met.” This is a very different statement than “I feel rejected when you don’t return my calls.” Why? Because in the first statement I use a feeling word (sad) instead of a judgement word (rejected) masked as a feeling. And I take responsibility for my feeling by connecting my feeling to my own need. In the second statement, however, I am putting the responsibility for my feeling on other person’s behaviour.

The first statement is a more empowering way to speak (and think) since when I connect my feelings to my own needs; then if I want to change how I feel, I can focus my attention on my need and think of ways to meet the need.

In the next week’s column, we’ll expand on the topic of feelings some more and have stories and examples to illustrate exactly how our feelings are connected to our needs. Through these stories and examples, I hope to show you how you can use your feelings and needs to express yourself honestly and compassionately to people around you.

(For information on NVC trainings in Sri Lanka, visit www.sandhi.org)

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