Some praise and critiques of NVC

 I just did a group Zoom call with a Non-violent Communication (NVC) study group. It was very interesting. I'm happy to say that I was able to keep my mouth shut and tuned more into watching and listening, rather than resisting and critiquing. I'm also happy to report that I did the activities/games and got a lot of benefit from it. Overall, it was a very positive experience.

I'm enthusiastic and cautious. NVC always includes some notion of making distinctions of feelings vs needs vs stories/reactions/actions/interpretations. In this way, there is considerable overlap with Buddhism: feelings are to be understood in an of themselves. And there is a recognition of the terrible self-harm we generate with our stories/interpretations, which we often identify with as "the only way". There is a focus on "insteads" and an emphasis on our ability to have choice / insight around the workings of our mind, rather than being hijacked.

Honing in on just one document, consider this table: Pathways to Liberation. In over a dozen dimensions, it demonstrates a domain and 4 levels of skillfulness in the domain. 

Example

Domain/Skill: Observing

Definition: Noticing (and possibly describing) our sensory and mental experiences, and distinguishing these experiences from the interpretations we ascribe to them.

1. Unskilled: Habitually confuses interpretation with observation; assumes that evaluations and interpretations are facts.
2. Awakening beginning: Becoming aware of interpretations as distinct from observations when reviewing past events; little skill or clarity of this distinction when interacting in real time.
3. Capable: Increasingly remembering and making the distinction between observation and interpretation.
4. Integrated: Effortlessly able to distinguish observations from interpretations.

---

The four levels are reasonable and even helpful. They give a bit of a roadmap by indicating the guideposts. In awakening, it's that you don't realize in the moment, but can notice when reviewing. Capable: Making a distinction between two ways of seeing. Integrated, the highest level, has effortlessness or, what Dreyfus might say, "intuitiveness". This is a fine map, but maybe only an initial map. Hence my critiques.

• NVC is the way
• This was not an issue in the group session, but I've seen this a lot. People adopt this as the way and start "weaponizing it" to start distinguishing and policing proper ways and improper ways. Even though NVC might have distaste for "should" statements, NVC does have shoulds: we should move away from Unskilled and toward Capable. In that way, NVC can be another way to push people to be a certain way and to get there quickly. Rather than an invitation, an exploration, and a "go at your own pace".
• Shuhari is an interesting Japanese idea about the levels of mastery. One learns at the dojo, first obeying its forms. But one knows that at one point, one needs to tinker and modify to be a real master (and not a rote reproducer). And then, finally, one leaves, looking at the whole picture without limitation of the rules (but still keeping the knowledge of those rules in mind).
• A distinction between helpful and unhelpful
• Building on the critique that "NVC is the way", NVC may have a weakness where adherence to its framework puts+subordinates one's own ability to see and evaluate. Specifically, if the NVC manual says X, but we find that X is not helpful, sometimes the NVC manual will interpret our sense of unhelpfulness as "resistance". It's as if the manual is saying, "If you just trust our process more than your own feelings, you'd make better progress." This is not without some merit, as the Kalama Sutta clearly states that we don't just follow what feels right for us. But that doesn't mean we give up our internal evaluation mechanism to accept an external evaluation mechanism. Buddhism resolves this with some non-personal tests: when you find it to be harmless, beneficial, and praised by wise people, then you can accept it as valid dhamma. I think a better way to say it is that it is "helpful" dhamma. And, a rule that we find in year 1 may be helpful for 10 years, but once it loses it's helpfulness, it's no longer dhamma for us. Theravada Buddhism and Zen Buddhism point to this pitfall of fixed and rigid wrong views.
• A toolkit, or an evaluation rubrik
• If NVC is treated as a toolkit, I think it can be universally recommended. It has a very useful typology of blindspots and internal and interpersonal cause-effect relationships. And I do see the temptation of wanting to accept it wholly. But I will keep it as a toolkit. Try these 4 columns out. And, futhermore, edit and rewrite the columns. Personalize the vocabulary, informed by your somatic experience. Be careful not to be too self-indulgent, but also don't treat it as an inviolable evaluation rubrik.
• Following on the Shuhari approach, don't just modify it to be a rebel. But you do want to tinker. For example, is "effortlessness" really a distinguishing quality of Integrated-level observing. In Buddhism, they say that the right effort is needed up until the very end. 
• Treating it as 90% correct vs 100% correct.
• This is a critique I find useful, for NVC but also my own assumptions. Hold them a little loosely. Since I love using numbers, this means treat them as 90% correct. That means, you'll be led in the right general direction if you follow them fully. But you could be misled. But it also says to look out for, actively, the 10% that is not correct. Or, more to the point, the 10% that is not useful. Keeping this around is helpful to keep the evaluation/watching parts of the brain active. Because, if we believe something is 100% correct, that means we keep trying to push the peg into the round hole, even if it is clearly square and won't fit. Because we know 100% that it will fit. If we instead allow it to be 90% correct, we don't force. We can look carefully and conclude, "this part isn't helpful in these ways", "this part isn't fitting". (But we still have to watch out for our own impatience or laziness telling us hard things are part of the 10% unhelpful).
• EXAMPLE (optional) The map analogy is helpful. I use Google Maps (GPS maps) a lot for directions. 90%+ of the time, they are correct. But occasionally, they are very wrong. Once, Google Maps had me drive down a dirt road and tried to tell me to cross a river.
• If I had accepted that GoogleMaps was 100% correct, then I'd conclude that my eyes were wrong. And I'd drive through the river and drown.
• If I remember that GoogleMaps is not 100% correct, then I could conclude that the directions to drive-through-river was a "bug" or "exception". I could over-rule GoogleMaps. I wouldn't drown. Essentially, I had a higher sense that the rule of "Don't drive through rivers" over-rules Google Maps.
  
• The analogy with NVC's rules? Buddhism offers a "don't drive through rivers" rule: if your action increases greed, anger, or delusion over the alternatives, don't do it. So, applied to NVC, this means: follow NVC rules except when it is unhelpful like when it increases greed, anger, and delusion.
• I've also had the opposite issue: over-ruling GoogleMaps when it was right and I was wrong. Once, I was impatient and driving in a town I thought I knew well. GoogleMaps had me take a long route that seemed confusing. I decided to use the rule, "I know my town better than GoogleMaps" to over-rule. Well, I took the direct route and, it turned out that there was some construction I didn't understand: temporary one way streets and closures. Looking back, it seems like the "I know my town" rule is not as infallible as "don't drive through rivers" rule, and most people would say that it's probably better to just follow Google Maps when it disagrees with "I know my town".
• The analogy here is that "I don't like this rule" is analogous to "I know my town better". If NVC tells you to do something you don't like, that's not an indication that the rule is wrong. In fact, NVC knows this and warns you that some of the things it teaches will be resisted. Buddhism does the same thing with the warning to "Practice the dhamma in line with the dhamma, and not in line with your likes and dislikes".
• What is the goal/underlying framework?
• NVC seems to be aimed at both the internal elements of the mind but also the "being in the world" elements and the interpersonal dynamics (exploration, negotiation, conflict, connection). So, when viewed via the lens of interpersonal dynamics, a lot what's written is super useful. Maybe 99% useful/helpful.
• However, Buddhism has a different starting point. It is very internal. It's aware of interpersonal elements (see metta, Brahmaviharas), but Theravada has interpreted these as valued for their protection to oneself, not for their benefits to others. Similarly, generosity and forgiveness are to help loosen one's tight heart; the actual benefit to others is secondary. In fact, forgiving someone (like my sister) in my heart is just as useful as actually calling her and apologizing out loud; just as useful in the internal dimension. In the interpersonal dimension, it's largely useless unless I open my mouth.
  Viewed from this lens, NVC is probably closer to 80-90% useful/helpful. Which is a fantastic starting point. But the lessons and approach are very different in the long term, when one knows it's not 100% from the get go, vs accepting that one has to shoehorn oneself into this "right answer" framework.

*** Somewhat amusingly, one can summarize: NVC is a framework where "no right answer" is the right answer. Wait, that's not right. Maybe NVC is often the right answer. (And that "maybe"+"often" can make a big difference.)

And, finally, may nobody mistake NVC for Buddhism or Buddhism for NVC. Related and highly overlapping... sure. But not identical, nor superset/subset. Nor even that they aim to the same purpose.

UUDR