Self-empathy exercise NVC Nonviolent Communication
Giraffe Self-Empathy
The way of attentive love suggests listening to and talking with children-living with them instead of guiding their lives by remote control.
-Nel Noddings
I say to myself : My Observations, Feelings, Needs, and Requests.
I say what I see and hear.
When I see /hear . . .
I say what I feel.
I feel . . .
I say what I need.
Because I need . . .
I decide what I think might meet my needs.
Right now I ask myself to . . .
When you feel painful feelings-upset, hurt, worried, angry-taking the time to connect with your feelings and needs often meets your needs for comfort, understanding, and compassion. When you feel confused, listening to your thoughts and inner dialogue can create clarity.
When you feel pleasurable feelings-happy, excited, joyful, satisfied-self-empathy is a way to privately acknowledge and celebrate needs that have been met. Whenever you acknowledge that your needs have been met, you build confidence in your ability to meet needs in the future.
Examples of Self-Empathy
When I think of how I used such a loud voice with the kids today, I feel sad and disappointed because I didn’t create the connection with them that I wanted. It also didn’t meet my need for respect. When I see how difficult it is for me to stay focused on my work and my family, I feel concerned and worried because I need to be healthy and present for things that matter.
Listening to Others: Empathy
More than anything, your kids want to be heard. Listening to them with a focus on their feelings and needs is the essence of empathy. Empathy is giving the gift of your presence-without judgment, analysis, suggestions, stories, or any motivation to fix things. When you empathize with your children you listen for their feelings and needs even, and especially, when their words sound like criticism, blame, or judgment.
Empathy is not dependent on words; it is, in fact, often silent. If it seems helpful to express empathy out loud, it’s important to guess rather than state the other person’s feelings and needs. Guessing shows a respectful understanding that you never know for sure what others’ feel and need. Respectful guessing sounds like this: Are you feeling frustrated and wish this puzzle was easier? Are you worried and do you want reassurance you’ll be safe?
Being accurate in your guessing is not important. Being sincerely interested in what’s going on with your child is. Taking time to let go of your own agenda and be fully present to what’s going on in your child is a golden gift, and the surest route to connection.
Examples of Non-Empathic Responses
These are some common, non-empathic responses that are unlikely to meet your needs at times when connection is the goal:
Advising: I think you should . . .
Commiserating: That’s terrible. She had no right to do that to you.
Consoling: Everything’s going to be okay.
Correcting: It’s not really that hard.
Educating: You can learn from this.
Explaining: I didn’t want to do it this way, but . . .
Evaluating: If you hadn’t been so careless . . .
Fixing: What will help you is to . . .
Interrogating: What are you feeling? When did you start feeling this way?
One-upping: You should hear what happened to me . . .
Shutting down: Don’t worry. It will go away.
Story-telling: Your story reminds me of the time . . .
Sympathizing: You poor thing.
Learning Giraffe is a lot like learning a foreign language: it takes study and practice over time to develop fluency. At first, as you become more aware of your language habits and begin to practice, you might feel tongue-tied and awkward. At times, you may even begin to doubt that it is possible to unlearn habitual ways of speaking and listening. At those
times, we hope you will remember that knowing even a little bit of a foreign language will increase your ability to communicate. And you will have many opportunities to learn each day. Another wonderful thing about Giraffe is that it only takes one person to use it-to defuse a conflict, to make a heartfelt connection, and to inspire co-operation.
Daily Practice
Notice your intention in communicating. Do you want to connect? Or do you want to be right or get your way?
Notice the flow of communication. Who is listening? Check in with your feelings and needs throughout the day.
Practice observing what your children and others do and separating your observation from your evaluation.
Practice the respectful grammar of NVC: I feel because I need, you feel because you need, he feels because he needs.
Practice making concrete, present, do-able requests.
Cultivate your curiosity about what people are feeling and needing.
Silently ask and answer: What could she be feeling right now? What are her needs?
Find more practical exercises for using NVC with kids in the booklet Parenting from the Heart by Inbal Kashtan.
