Needs, wants and everything in between

I don't think that the following statement should be surprising to anyone but:

EVERYONE WANTS TO FEEL LISTENED TO

The reason, I think, is that everyone wants to feel like they have equal shot, equal footing to have their needs met. It isn't possible to have your needs met when the other people involved in a conversation are not interested in listening to what you have to say. Beyond that it is increasingly difficult to have your needs met if you are not able to articulate what you actually need.

Sounds easy right - you just have to be able to say what it is that you need... You just have to put it out there and allow it to be heard and then your needs might potentially be met, so what makes it so amazingly fucking hard to ACTUALLY do?

Social interaction, moral codes and judgements

My theory is this - over time we are taught as kids by our parents, and elders about things that we can't say or can't do. Kids are negatively reinforced by their elders about how they use their words and are told that the choices that they make can hurt people. As kids we are taught to take care with other peoples feelings and often the ways in which we are taught to do this are statements like:

"...don't say that..."

"...you can't say that to people, you'll hurt their feelings..."

etc.

But we are rarely positively reinforced for using words and other statements to state what we feel and need while also not hurting the people we are interacting with. Think of it like sharing that toy that there was only one of when you were little. Someone else was using it at the time you wanted to also play with it. Now you have choices, you can walk over and take it, you can ask to play with it, etc. However when young we often don't consider beyond ourselves and we don't often have a role model for interacting. We learn as we go about what gets us in trouble and what doesn't including some of the sneaky "I get my way without getting in trouble" actions that can be taken.

Speculate for a minute though - what IF what we modeled for our kids and others was as truthful as kids tend to be, telling things like they see it with few filters but the words were chosen to be clear and concise and non threatening.

Marshal Rosenberg lays out a discussion and conversation model called nonviolent communication. Where he describes the ideas of stating clearly what you observe about a situation, describing how it makes you feel and as a result what needs you have around it. Seems straight forward but is actually amazingly difficult to do. Think about the last argument you had with someone, do you think that you would have been able to be level headed enough to not escalate the conversation with angry commentary but rather stop and say what you observe and what you feel? Ya, I didn't think so - I know I certainly don't - but I am trying.

Imagine if you will

Now - lets go back to the kids. I mentioned them earlier because I wanted to speculate what our adult interactions would be if we were able to example for our children when they were young a method like nonviolent communication. Kids are unfiltered and wonderfully blunt, they say what they see and their interpretation on it. Kids are not afraid to tell us how they feel, but somewhere along the way as we grow up the interactions we have and the things we are told by our elders drum out of us the ability to just say how we feel, and what we need. I love to speculate how much better a place the world would be if we could all get our needs met. I for sure am looking to get my needs met, and using nonviolent communication where I can to help me articulate them.