Taking Responsibility For Our Own Feelings

this is a talk on chapter 5 of non violent communication. it is all about assessing our own feelings and needs when confronted with challenging conversations, and discusses the options we have when faced with difficulty. It also goes over the stages of emotional liberation according to said literature.

Transcript

Hello.

Taking responsibility for our feelings.

Touched on this in the first talk,

Mostly because it's something I'm pretty excited about and just so went for it.

But today I'll get deeper.

This part is so fun,

Because it gives me the ability to see the root of my emotional experience and SPOILER ALERT,

It's not anyone else's fault,

Blame,

Responsibility,

But my own.

Yep,

All these years thinking it was my dad's fault.

I'm so so so very emo.

I was really just lost in space.

So for me,

When I hear a difficult or negative message,

Perhaps criticism,

Perhaps snark,

Perhaps simply carelessness,

We have four options.

Okay,

We probably have more options,

But chill.

Number one,

My favorite one,

Personally,

We can blame ourselves.

This is my fave,

Because I've been gaslit pretty hard throughout life,

And I'm pretty happy to take a lot of blame for things which aren't mine.

Someone might say,

You're the most impatient person I've ever known.

If I blame myself,

I might think,

She's right,

I'm the worst,

I can't even put the protein powder back on top of the fridge where it belongs.

Accepting the other person's judgment,

Blaming myself.

Second,

I might blame others.

You have no right to say that to me,

If you weren't so obsessed with details,

This wouldn't be a problem.

Third,

I might sense my own feelings and needs.

I feel hurt by this,

And my need for compassion and acknowledgement of the ways in which I am patient are not being met.

And four,

I may sense the feelings and needs of others.

Seems she's really frustrated because the kitchen was left a mess again.

Her need for cooperation and respect is going unmet.

So it's worth noting that at some times,

If we're not very resourced,

It might be really hard to access number four without first going to number three and assessing our own feelings and needs and providing empathy for ourself.

If I'm a burnt out husk,

Then it's going to be pretty tough to hold difficult experiences and then go straight to empathy for another.

I might in fact even need to receive empathy from someone else first.

And that said,

Some of the real importance here is that if we don't value our own needs,

Others may not either.

We essentially teach people how to treat us.

So the major categories of basic needs that Marshall mentions in the book are autonomy,

Celebration,

Integrity,

Interdependence,

Play,

Spiritual communion,

And physical nurturance.

There are of course a list of subheadings under each of these.

And so he goes on to talk about these three stages of emotional liberation.

First one is slavery,

Emotional slavery.

This is where we take responsibility for other people's feelings.

It's obviously a huge burden when we start to become vigilant,

Just trying to make sure that they're happy.

You know,

I saw this play out for myself in relationships where I was constantly on the move to find something to entertain us and have things to do,

And I couldn't sit still.

And if there was the slightest suggestion that my person was unhappy,

I thought I needed to fix it.

In truth,

I just needed to be there for her and hold space for her feelings and offer empathy and understanding of what her needs were.

Number two,

Which is lovingly referred to as the obnoxious stage,

I would liken this with developing maturity in teenage individuation,

You know,

Like living from your inner teen kind of thing.

In this stage,

We learn that carrying other people's feelings is a burden and it can manifest very bluntly by telling people things like,

That's your stuff and not my problem,

Or you're creating your own suffering.

We might still carry the remnants of having our own feelings and needs and may express this in a teenage way.

Here we don't yet grasp that emotional liberation is more than just asserting our needs.

Just like the path to adulthood,

This is an important stage and nothing to be ashamed or feel bad about because it just is part of the process.

I remember doing these things and doing these things currently,

And sometimes it's the best I have,

And that's okay.

And the third is emotional freedom,

As you may have guessed.

At this stage,

We respond to the needs of others out of compassion,

Not fear,

Guilt,

Or shame.

We own our own needs and intentions and not other folks' feelings.

Here we see that we can't truly meet our own needs at the expense of others.

Let me say that again for everyone in the back.

Here we see that we can't truly meet our own needs at the expense of others.

By those in the back,

I mean my internal self.

This is powerful stuff in recognition that we are all parts of a whole,

And that needs aren't more important because they're mine,

Nor are they less important because they're mine.

So in the third part of NVC,

We take stock of our own feelings and needs,

Knowing that other people can be a catalyst for our experience but never really the cause.

This one is the reason I'm doing these talks,

Because this is it for me.

My whole thing.

My whole strategy of life is making other people responsible for my feelings and then getting mad when they don't do what I want.

So judgment,

Critique,

Blame,

Shame,

Interpretations,

These are all distorted,

Alienated ways of trying to meet our needs.

So when people hear criticism,

We tend to get defensive or attack.

The better we connect with our own feelings,

The easier it is for people to respond compassionately.

Owning this and working with it,

We can move from emotional slavery to emotional liberation.

And as Bob Marley said,

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery.

None but ourselves can free our minds.

Till next time.