Communicating with Compassion: A Workbook for Couples

Introduction

The purpose of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is to create a quality of connection that inspires a natural giving from the heart. The premise of this work is that our natural state is one of compassion and connection.

Unfortunately, your experience of life isn’t always compassionate or connected. What gets in the way? Common ways of thinking and speaking can send messages of blame and judgment that keep you disconnected when you want to be heard and understood. In NVC any language that stimulates disconnect is referred to as jackal.

Jackal language comes in many forms. Jackal honesty is one. Jackal honesty refers to the expression of judgments, diagnoses, and analyses of yourself or someone else. It might sound something like this, I just have to be honest with myself. I am a hot tempered person. This judgment doesn’t connect you to what’s alive in your heart. In giraffe this phrase might sound like this, When I think about how I raised my voice at my kids last night, I feel regret and sadness, because my needs for self-awareness and contribution are not met. I will let my kids know I have a commitment to taking a time out next time I feel that frustrated.

A judgment tells you what you are and a diagnosis tells you what’s wrong with you. When faced with someone’s pain, you might be tempted to think that if you can determine what’s wrong with them that will alleviate their pain. As your partner tells you how irritated s/he is because s/he is having difficulty focusing at work, you might be tempted to offer a diagnosis of ADD and suggest some helpful herbs. Offering a diagnosis is likely to stimulate defensiveness, rather than being received as support. What your partner likely wants first is to know that you hear him or her and that you care.

Analysis outlines a matrix of causality for someone’s pain. It might sound something like this, You know honey, you are having this trouble because your boss reminds you of your father with whom you have unresolved anger. This analysis doesn’t help. There’s nowhere to go from here except to more analysis.

One of the most popular jackals is what I call the resistance jackal. This is the jackal that doesn’t want to accept life as it is. Should is the most common way this jackal expresses itself. When you hear yourself say things like, You should be working more. You should have been on time to pick me up. you are disconnecting from feelings and needs. Depression, anger, guilt, and shame are alarm feelings that let you know this jackal is howling. Underneath all shoulds is a vulnerable feeling and need. Identifying feelings and needs informs action. Thinking and talking in should’s stimulates resistance and a tensing of the body which is a hard place from which to move.

The three D’s make up other forms of jackal language categories or life alienating communication; demands, deserve, and denial of responsibility. Demands are anything that communicate that you are willing to meet your needs at the cost of others’ needs. Deserve is most explicitly found in the practice of reward and punishment. Deserve thinking sends the message that you only deserve to have your needs met if you behave according to some standard or rule. The idea of deserve gives rise to violence at all levels, from self-harm to genocide. Denial of responsibility is found in ideas of obligation and duty and is characterized by phrases like, I have to. Those are my orders. I am just following the rules. It’s my duty as a good husband to provide for you. This kind of thinking disconnects you from the fact that you are always acting