Free Nonviolent Communication - A Language of Life, Second Edition @Team LiB by by Marshall B. Rosenberg

Her plaintive request elicits resistance rather than compassion from her listeners. They have difficulty hearing and valuing the needs behind her pleas, and furthermore react negatively to her weak attempt to argue from a position of what she “should” or “deserves” to get from them. In the end the speaker is again persuaded that her needs don’t matter, not realizing that they were expressed in a way unlikely to draw a positive response.
    If we don’t value our needs, others may not either.
    My mother was once at a workshop where other women were discussing how frightening it was to be expressing their needs. Suddenly she got up and left the room and didn’t return for a long time. She finally reappeared, looking very pale. In the presence of the group, I asked, “Mother, are you all right?”
    “Yes,” she answered, “but I just had a sudden realization that’s very hard for me to take in.”
    “What’s that?” “I’ve just become aware that I was angry for 36 years with your father for not meeting my needs, and now I realize that I never once clearly told him what I needed.”
    My mother’s revelation was accurate. Not one time can I remember her clearly expressing her needs to my father. She’d hint around and go through all kinds of convolutions, but never would she ask directly for what she needed.
    We tried to understand why it was so hard for her to have done so. My mother grew up in an economically impoverished family. She recalled asking for things as a child and being admonished by her brothers and sisters, “You shouldn’t ask for that! You know we’re poor. Do you think you are the only person in the family?” Eventually she grew to fear that asking for what she needed would only lead to disapproval and judgment.
    She related a childhood anecdote about one of her sisters who had had an appendix operation and afterwards had been given a beautiful little purse by another sister. My mother was 14 at the time. Oh, how she yearned to have an exquisitely beaded purse like her sister’s, but she dared not open her mouth. So guess what? She feigned a pain in her side and went the whole way with her story. Her family took her to several doctors. They were unable to produce a diagnosis and so opted for exploratory surgery. It had been a bold gamble on my mother’s part, but it worked—she was given an identical little purse! When she received the coveted purse, my mother was elated despite being in physical agony from the surgery. Two nurses came in and one stuck a thermometer in her mouth. My mother said, “Ummm, ummm,” to show the purse to the second nurse, who answered, “Oh, for me? Why, thank you!” and took the purse! My mother was at a loss, and never figured out how to say, “I didn’t mean to give it to you. Please return it to me.” Her story poignantly reveals how painful it can be when people don’t openly acknowledge their needs.
     

From Emotional Slavery To Emotional Liberation
    In our development toward a state of emotional liberation, most of us seem to experience three stages in the way we relate to others.
    Stage 1: In this stage, which I refer to as emotional slavery , we believe ourselves responsible for the feelings of others. We think we must constantly strive to keep everyone happy. If they don’t appear happy, we feel responsible and compelled to do something about it. This can easily lead us to see the very people who are closest to us as burdens.
    Taking responsibility for the feelings of others can be very detrimental in intimate relationships. I routinely hear variations on the following theme: “I’m really scared to be in a relationship.
    Every time I see my partner in pain or needing something, I feel overwhelmed. I feel like I’m in prison, that I’m being smothered—and I just have to get out of the relationship as fast as possible.” This response is common among those who experience love as denial of one’s own needs in order to attend to the