Non Violent Communication - Livestream 2 (bPzb63nAnHA)

https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=bPzb63nAnHA

And we’re live. Hello everybody. Welcome to our second nonviolent communication stream where we will be going through things that we took from the second chapter of nonviolent communication. Yeah, maybe Nodrick, you want to do an introduction of the book? Or she’s busy. Well, so Nodrick found this book really special, right, because there’s a way in which it allows you to re-imagine the way that you’re communicating. It allows you to reframe things. And my personal perspective is it’s always good to get contrast upon the dealing with things because then there’s new opportunities opening up. And when you have new opportunities, you can react better. So the book is, well, the first chapter of the book, it focused on these four components, observation, feeling, needs, and requests. So the observation is trying to figure out what’s going on. And then the feeling is what emotions are associated with it, right? Like so what is driving you as a consequence of what’s happening. And then the needs are the implications of the feelings, right? Like so what, when you think about what you’re feeling, what would be the solution to that, right? Like what would be needed to solve that problem, like solve that feeling for you. And then the request is implementation. It’s putting it into practice. Like, okay, if you do this, then that would help me with my feeling, right, to fulfilling this need. So that is quite a nice framework to go through. Nodrick had this way of doing this in our head towards yourself, right? So maybe you can tell a little bit about that, Nodrick. Yeah, so I would not expect people to find it normal if I would talk to them in that kind of robotic way. What I absorb is what I feel is what I need is. And then can you please do that for me? If I would keep talking like that, it would seem unnatural. But it does help me to put things into perspective for myself. So that’s the way I talk to myself and I forgive myself for being robotic. Like I do need it sometimes. So that’s what we discussed in the previous chapter. Please check out the link below. And today we’re talking about chapter two, which specifically focuses on judgment that we have. So when we observe something, we immediately put our, let’s say, mark onto it. What do we see and kind of like what we judge it as. Like, for example, in the previous chapter, there was the situation of the conflict. And Manuel expressed judgment over it. Like he said, well, that guy is obviously very emotional, so we will treat him like that. And so this chapter specifically focuses on not having the judgment, but on finding out the reason for behavior. So the thing that we observe would be attuned to another person, actually, without preconceived notions or implications. Because sometimes we just don’t understand the other person. So that’s partially what we will talk today. Yeah, I think if we go back, it’s unnatural to speak these things out. But sometimes it’s important to go through the process of speaking these things out. Because if we don’t have a correct observation or we don’t understand the fullness of what we’re participating in, then we might reframe the problem wrong. If we don’t communicate the feeling to the other person, then sometimes they might not realize that we have this feeling. And then if we don’t communicate the need with the other person, then maybe the need that we have is actually misarticulated. Like, so maybe there’s a different implication that you can take from your feeling and a different need that arises that is a better path forward. And then the request, well, you need to change something. You need to take action. So that’s the most important part eventually. But there’s also an element where we might skip to the end. We have this tendency, like, oh yeah, I just need you to do this for me. And we don’t have the person on the same page because they’re not realizing the importance of the request. And in some sense, if you don’t realize the purpose of fulfilling that request, then maybe you can’t fulfill it. If I say bow to me, then if you’re doing that because I say so, and I want you to bow to me because I want you to show humility, then doing it to appease me is not a way of showing humility. So it’s not doing actually what I want it to do. And so it’s important to realize that you can’t do the right action in the wrong way and still not achieve what you want to achieve. Like sarcasm is a good example. Like I say the words that you want me to say, but not in a way that you like. So everybody, like the links are posted in the chat. So if you want to join up with us and have a chat, then you’re welcome to join us. So let’s go to the second chapter. So this is the first slide. We call this thing. So this is referencing back to the four components we just have. And then there’s also an element of receiving, although I don’t think we’ve gone through that yet. But there’s an understanding that comes with that framework. And so it’s not only explaining yourself, but it’s also receiving the explanation of the order that is important for that communication. So when we’re communing, there’s two parties. And they need to be on the same wavelength in order to do something functional in the world. So yeah, Nodrick, you want to say something about this? Nodrick K. Yeah, it’s intent is very important. If we do it to cohere, like to manipulate another person coheres into our way of thinking, then it’s not worth it, actually. And very important, like, honestly, to be in touch with whatever we want, really, but also with understanding what another person actually also needs, somehow. Because nobody, like, it doesn’t last for a long time, this way of communicating if the intent behind it is unclear, let’s say. Just like, doing it to be passive aggressive. It’s like, no, that’s not the way to do it. Or something like that. That was the big criticism of that part. It may seem passive aggressive. What do you think, Corey? Sorry, Takuan. But what you said about passive aggressiveness kind of intrigues me, to be honest. So I’m trying to relate that in relation to the four components. So the four components, if I’m not correct, is observation, feeling, needs, and requests, right? So how would passive aggressiveness be like, violate that? It’s the intent. How you frame it. I can show you an example of the two. So honest one would be, I see a lot of people here, and I feel a bit lost. I need to get my shit together. I would like Manuel to take over for some time, because I’m very, very much very much worried and have anxiety. So this is honest expression. Whatever is happening. Now passive aggressive. Same thing, basically. But passive aggressive. I observe a lot of people here. I feel like I kind of want to see this one out. So I need you guys to take it over. So do the thing somehow. I don’t know. Is it passive aggressive? Actually, I’m bad, not really good on passive aggressive. Not an expert. I always had trouble with passive aggressive. It’s like you have to do it now, because it will fall apart or something. Well, but it’s the right one. Yeah. Yeah, but it’s putting something upon the other person, right? Unnecessarily. Putting pressure onto another person. So you can do something out of humility, right? Or out of a sense of like, I can organize this. I know what should be done. So, and there’s also a bit of spite in the passive aggressiveness, right? Like, so because you made me feel this way, like now you need to be doing this, right? Or like, there’s this implication that that’s not warranted. So Gavin Palmer in the chat said, my passive aggressiveness has almost been, almost always been accidental. It was only perceived as such. Yeah, but like, at a certain point, you can do an objective-ish analysis of something, right? It’s like, is what you’re doing aggressive, right? Like, or is what you’re doing neutral or receptive or like humble? And if you have a communication style, right? Like then you can have a passive aggressive communication style, maybe because that’s what happened in the family that you grew up or like it’s a defense mechanism to bullies at school or whatever, right? Like there’s many ways to which you can get into. Okay, I got an example. So I remember one time I had a friend, right? And, okay, so one friend was offended by another friend and he had a bit of like a receiving hairline, right? And he’s like, yeah, well, you know, I forget how he did it. He goes, he didn’t say, well, at least I don’t have receiving hairline. Oh, I can’t remember. There was a good example I can remember in my mind. But yeah. Yeah. So when you’re passive aggressive. I may not be this, but at least I’m, no, damn it, continue. So that was kind of passive aggressive because you’re like, oh, what I’m saying is more important than you, what you’re saying, right? Like you’re overruling me in the conversation. You’re creating a new narrative while there was a narrative going. Right. So there’s a way in which you can do that, right? Where it’s aggressive, right? And then there’s a way in which you can do it where it’s more distracted, right? But when you say what I have to say is more important than what you have to say, that is aggressive, right? Like that. In my, in my trying to give an example, I was doing that or in the example that I was trying to portray. No, in trying to give an example, you would do that. Okay. Right. Cause I was, I was in mid in the middle of an explanation, right? Oh, okay. I’m sorry. What did I miss? Please. Okay. I just wanted to say hello to everybody. Chesie, Nataniel, everybody. Hello. So. And also Shleif. Welcome Shleif. Welcome Shleif. Nice to see you again. So I’m really grateful that we’re- The second chapter. I didn’t read the whole book. Should I be here or should I leave? No, it’s okay. Stay here. You’re allowed to be here without having read anything. But yeah, it’s, it’s nice that you- Manuel says you’re allowed to be here. What form of communication was that? So in the book- Authoritative. What? Authoritative. Authoritative. Authoritative. Okay. On Manuel’s side, right? What? Like, can we go on? Cause like- Sorry, sorry. I don’t want to irritate you. In the world of judgment, our concern and centers on who is what, right? So this is what the chapter is about. If you read the chapter, they’re all about like, like, how are we judging things? Like, what is the way that we’re judging? What are the implications of having judgment? Right? And so, so a judgment is, is, is in some sense, discernment, right? Like we’re, we’re placing a label upon something so that we can have a relationship with it. So if we say something is passive aggressive, right? Now we’re labeling something that didn’t have a label before. And, and now we’re like, okay, we need to have a relationship to it, right? Like sometimes that’s a good thing. And sometimes that’s a bad thing, right? Because like, it’s disruptive, right? Because now we’re, we’re changing the attention from what we’re talking about to what, to the way something was said, right? So, so we’re, we’re changing the conversation to something else, right? And usually when something like that happens, especially when it’s applied to a person or an action of a person that is felt as, as an imposition, right? Like, so when I say you did this, I’m now defining who you are, right? Like I’m putting you an identity upon the other person. And when I put an identity upon the person, you kind of have to accept what I did, or you’re going to have to fight me because you disagree. And, and so they’re talking about this and how to So when you say I have to accept what you did, or you have to fight me because you disagree, what form of communication was that? I’m explaining something like, why are we like, okay, no, no, no, I’m sorry. No, can you take it? Sure. So, judgments, I really like one sidedness of judgments. So there is this favorite part. We have a bias towards judgments, like everything that comes from us has all the reasons to be right. Here is the excerpt from page 16. If my partner wants more affection than I’m giving her, here comes judgment. She’s needy and dependent. If I want more affection than she’s giving me, then she’s aloof and insensitive. Judgments, they always kind of have their bias. Which is kind of favorable towards us, in a sense. So I do believe the importance before we make judgments to understand what the actually the person trying to do, or trying to convey who is what, basically, that’s what I see in that slide. I want to also add that the point I think he’s making about judgment is not only that it might be more lenient towards ourselves, because we can also be very judgmental towards ourselves. I think the stronger point is that over judgment can hinder understanding. Because if you’re not attentive to see, okay, so maybe the situation is this person is, like my partner, wants more attention than I’m giving her, maybe that’s something that can be solved. The judgment is like putting that buffer between you and the situation. And I think that’s maybe the stronger part. Yeah, I had something more to say and then I forgot. Well, I think the judgment is like framing something. So if I frame you, I might be right, but I have less information than you. And it’s also constraining things to a certain way of looking at things. So if I say, you’re short or something, like now we’re suddenly talking about length. And if that wasn’t part of the problem, like now we can’t get to the solution. And I think that’s the part that you’re talking about, that there’s a way in which these things can distract or pull us away from the real thing. But I think we need to have judgment, right? Like at a certain point. But imposing judgment is often non-productive in conversation. Absolutely. I want to add about that. I think what you said at the end is very important because we do need judgment. And I think there’s definitely a lot to take from this dialogue about nonviolent communication. But also I think it’s important to point out things that are, let’s say, less ideal or less rigorous about certain things that he says. So at some point he makes the claim that the reason we talk in terms of good and bad is because of how useful it was to create oppressive societies for monarchs and dictators. And I’m just saying that that’s a very extraordinary claim to say that all of the way we talk is somehow caused by oppressive political forces. And I don’t think there’s enough evidence for that. So I think he makes good points but also tries to throw away the baby with the bathwater. I think there’s a really, really important sense in which good is a really important word and bad is a really important word. And if we stop using them altogether, then we’re actually hurting ourselves more than helping. So this slide I really like. There’s this saying, right, like a philosophy says more about the philosopher than about the world. There’s this, yeah, like when we express something about something in the world, right, like that is a consequence of the lens that we use to look at the world. So it is firstly saying something about us and maybe also something about the other person. We have to keep that in mind. Amen. Projections. We see in other people whatever is inside us. So we have a filter of our personal experiences. So if something irritates me in somebody else, it shows me where my weaknesses are. Like the moment I am angry, let’s say, about somebody unprepared, this means I myself did not do enough work to prepare. So projection is very current. So I would like to know what guys have to govern. Yeah. True. Can you hear me? All right. Yeah. It seems like this nonviolent communication is difficult to do. Like even in this stream, part of the reason I hopped in is I saw that we weren’t able to do it. That’s an observation. Is that a judgment? It seemed like the people in the conversation were not able to do the nonviolent communication. And then I have the notes up. So then the feelings I have, I actually have a feeling to try to participate. Maybe I can help us practice doing nonviolent communication. And then for me, my need would be this question of is there a time when we should not be doing it? And maybe what we’re doing right now is not a time where we should be trying to do it. But yeah, my ask or my request would be an answer to that question is like, is this the wrong time to use nonviolent communication or can we do it all the time? Can I add to that also maybe that we can aspire and fall short of? I mean, what I’m saying is the fact that some of the communication in the stream didn’t live up to what is aimed is not necessarily to say that the whole framing should change. Sometimes it’s just about keeping at it and having some patience. What do you think? Yeah, it’s only chapter two. So we just started. Yeah, agent wanted to say something. Oh, did I? Yeah, I don’t know. Okay. So it’s like there’s a moment there, a back there. Like I say, if I go, for instance, when Manuel, when I tried to give an example, I observed what was going on. And then I had a, and then when Manuel mentioned it to me, I felt kind of like slightly angry in a sense. My need was to try to be understood. But I think I ended up giving a fine example of what passive aggressiveness was. You are perfect. Don’t worry about it. Oh, honestly, it’s, it’s a lively conversation. And yeah, Gavin, I don’t hear Gavin. I’m figuring it out. My bad. I switched rooms, but, and if I raise my hand, it doesn’t mean I want to interrupt you. It’s you can continue. Okay. I just would like to speak at some point once there’s another turn. Sure. No, it’s like you guys like nonviolent communication or just popping out now. No one ever knows when to speak. So honestly, yes. Hold on guys. Hello, Manuel. Sorry. It’s, it’s the thing that we are figuring out as we go along. But I remember Gavin asked the question, when is the time not to have nonviolent communication? When is the bad time? Which is actually an excellent question. There is time, there are times where the only response would be run away. Then it’s not the time for violent communication or I think I would not advocate for violence. So I will just like keep that one option. But the other options, we know the violent communication. Yeah. I just, I just wanted to say like, when we provide an answer, all of a sudden, like that’s when it’s hard to do this nonviolent communication. Because anytime we try to provide an answer, it’s, it’s how deep, like how would you observe and state your feelings and your needs and requests? If you’re responding to someone else’s observations, needs, requests. It seems like at some point, once you try to provide answers, you are stepping outside of the realm of nonviolent communication. As soon as you start trying to deal with the question. And maybe I’m wrong. Yeah. So I would reframe everything in what, what are you trying to do in the conversation? Right? So from my perspective, what happened is we’re, we’re trying to do something. And then Corey has this other idea of what we’re supposed to be doing. Right. And then there’s, there’s a conflict there. Right. So, and then the question is, well, how do you resolve that conflict? Right? Like, is, is this a conflict that, that even needs resolution? Right? Like, can we just move past it? Or, or is this something that actually needs to be talked out between people? Right. And, and I think in the talking out between people is where you want to get into in potentially get into the procedure of nonviolent communication. Right. Like at least you should pay attention to, to the things that they’re pointing at in the book. I would add to that another thing. So agent was trying to communicate something. Maybe the timing was a bit wrong, but I wanted to hear him out completely before making a judgment call and shutting him down. Was that passive aggressive by the way? Yes. I’m mastering it finally. That was passive aggressive. Yeah. Like, but honestly, in that situation, even when the timing is wrong. Yeah. No, actually I didn’t find that passive aggressive to be honest. Yeah, because it wasn’t targeted at you. Why? Okay. So am I a participant or not? Yes, you are. Okay. You are an equal participant. Honestly. I thought you were like, so I wasn’t mistaken in saying that you were addressing us all. I’m addressing everybody. Now, and I have two questions. I wasn’t mistaken in whether you addressed us all. And is that, was that an aggressive move on my part? Well, I would say it was not aggressive move, but the timing, because I know you personally, and it’s absolutely hard. I absorb, I absorb it also for myself. It’s difficult in an unknown situation to get the timing correctly. It’s really, really difficult. The cues are unclear, especially precisely because the leaders of the stream are still figuring things out. And Manuel and I still figuring out the dynamics. And so getting and just like stating your opinion with the timing without preset cues is actually like you’re trying things out. And I think it’s good because we will know how to lead it in the future. So people will get the social cue properly. Plus no, no, anyone is like, no one is a mind reader. No one. And getting social cues correctly is really difficult for me as well. So that’s my point. And nonviolent communication would be to make, to express myself in a way that you would not feel violated by my actions. And I felt that I expressed myself so it violated Manuel in a bit because he was aggressive. Sorry, man. I’m still learning. I’m still figuring things out. I’m trying to be non-aggressive to everybody. Apparently I do have to take sides at some point, which seems aggressive. Damn, it’s really difficult. Yeah, you don’t have to take sides, right? You can just state your wishes. Maybe just hearing each other out, but getting timing correctly. And which is on our part, by the way, it’s us who give the time. Can I ask you a question, Orrick? Did you feel attacked by what I said? No, actually, no. I feel like you reacted as if you were attacked. No, I noticed Shleif was trying to say something, so I was trying to speed up my answer. That was the reason. Not me feeling attacked, which is, by the way, judgment. No, I said I feel like that was the case. Okay, sorry. Shleif? Actually, I wanted to address what you were talking about, Gavin, that the question of when should you not practice non-violent communication is, I think, really important. And I personally would narrow it down more than Kara. I think you should only practice non-violent communication when you have at least some level of cooperation from the people that you’re talking to, because I think the underlying premise of non-violent communication is of good faith and cooperation. And coming in good faith to a bad faith situation can lead you to just be trampled and hurt. If you’re in a conversation with someone who actually aims to hurt you and you’re saying, I’m feeling attacked, they could just say, you know, the most offensive thing that would hurt exactly where they know it would hurt, because you just told them. So I think it’s hard to overstate the importance of trust in this. And I think where it really is useful is when you have actually people that you do want to have better communication with, and they want to have better communication with you, and you find yourselves constantly arguing. That’s where you want non-violent communication. That’s where you want to have some more tools to reach a better dialogue, and not necessarily where you just go out to the world basically naked, without defenses, and being very good faith towards everyone. And I actually feel that there’s maybe more appropriate to use non-violent communication in writing. Because we were talking about it last stream where it kind of sounds robotic when this guy goes and does his thing. It’s feeling alien. But when you’re writing and using it as a structure to construct your argument, to have self-expression, and then give that to someone in a way that they have the time to process it without feeling the pressure of an immediate response and all the time constraints, I think that’s way better. And I think the dynamicness of a conversation and the immediacy of emotions within conversation is problematic to this. So I’m having trouble with the orientation between observation, thinking, and feeling. Does anyone have anything to mention about that? Can you expand? Yeah, so like you were saying, I was thinking about observation, feeling. Where does thinking fit into this? Well, thinking is in structuring your needs and requests. Observation is also good because you are trying to understand, but not through your lens of framing, like not through the filter of your past experiences, let’s say. But through the understanding of what other people are trying to do. So there is your thinking, actually. What are they trying to do actually here? Then your feeling is how are you in relation to that? And then your need is to be understood, let’s say, or to be heard, or to be understood. And then you need to understand to be understood, let’s say, or to be heard. And then request, guys, hear me out. Hear me out. That’s what I think implied. That’s what I implied from the question. I’ve had some experience with my wife. And the thing that can happen is I will end up judging feelings inside my mind. And if I communicate my judgment, I’m in danger of causing my wife not to want to share her feelings with me. And so I can actually just observe what’s happening without judgment through my communication. I can still judge and my mind. But then I can express the way I feel that I don’t want, I feel like I’m scared that I will push you away if I try to provide an answer to the problem of the feelings that you have. And so I don’t have to actually talk about answers. I can actually talk about, like at a meta level, why this is a challenge, having this challenging conversation where we’re trying to develop each other’s character, for example. So it will encourage me to think. But then at the same time, I don’t have to actually communicate the answers. And sometimes even if my wife wants to know what’s in my mind and know my answers, I can still say the feeling that if I tell you what I’m thinking, it’s like I’m afraid that you will not want to share how you feel with me again. So I’ve been repeating that one a few times because I want to make sure that my wife knows that I want her to tell me what she’s feeling. That could be more important than the actual answer to the problem because being able to communicate is really important for a community of people. In the case of my wife and I, it’s the smallest community possible. Yeah, I want to add to that. I was saying that these steps, they can give us understanding. You don’t have to go all through all of them. Sometimes understanding needs to settle down a little bit. It needs to get to a different way of seeing things first before we can proceed. I like the intention behind it. So the intention behind it is to keep the open conversation going without scaring, let’s say, her away from participating in the conversation. And that’s already in itself is a big deal as a woman. I also want to add a small point. That for me, at least a lot of times, being honest is more of a challenge than not lying because there’s a lot of noise going on in your head. And maybe a lot of it is not really so important and interesting to put on the table, let’s say. So I think acknowledging, like you say, that maybe I have an answer or a judgment or some instinctual, for instance, I might be talking to someone and think, like, have this rise up to my head. What is this person babbling about? I am so impatient to even hear about it. Well, if I say that, that’s in a way not very honest because I’m very honest because it’s not representing my general attitude towards them. It’s a thing that happened in my mind right now, but impulsively just putting it out there, maybe not the greatest move and even not very honest in a deep way. I just wanted to add to kind of pull something out. One time I was having a conversation and I said, I feel like I wish you could just read my mind. And Kara’s earlier was saying, we’re not mind readers, but it’s honest. It’s the way I feel and it’s irrational. And so just to share that was helpful for my wife and I. And it just points back, communication can be challenging. But even sharing something that is honest about what’s going on in your head and being able to see who you really are and share that with someone in an intimate way, it can be powerful. So you have a goal state in nonviolent communication, right? Or would you not? Would the goal state just be engaging in continuous dialogue, like passing the ball back and forth? So, pretty much. And you read it. What? Hold on. I want to address everyone at the moment. So Gavin, when I hear somebody say, I wish you could read my mind, it translates to me through my perception filter, or observation thingy. I want to be understood. I really, really want to be understood right now. Then there is, oh, chat. Hello, chat. And then there is Upcycle Club, who mentioned Manuel here as well. There. It’s a message for Manuel. If I was right there with you, I will still utilize the live chat. Yeah, exactly, man. Exactly. Welcome, chat. And then another thing, I just wanted to say thank you. It’s a really nice observation or like an even wish for the future. All right. Jordan, a show. And Cory, could you repeat the question again? Sorry, agent. Well, I don’t. Yeah, sorry. I may have jumped in the wrong. My timing is a little off. But so I was wondering, like, so like, like, like, when you engage in nonviolent communication, or even say, like, positive communication, like we say, with a partner, what is do you do you enter into that thing with a goal state or an end state? Or is it more like kind of like trying to keep the ball going kind of thing like a game of catch or something? I got it. So first of all, the intent behind the keeping the ball going, there is an underlying motivation is I want the relationship between the two of us to continue all the time. So the intent and understanding what is underneath the entire thing. The moment communication completely stops, it can be even violent communication. It’s the end of interaction in between two people. Nonviolent communication is the mutual. I mean, maybe not at the beginning mutual, but hopefully by the by the as time goes by, people keep keep doing that mutual conversation. Because at least one of the people wants the conversation ongoing. And so nonviolent communication is the tool to keep the conversation to keep the conversation going for the people who do want to keep it going. Because violent communication is usually the end of communication. Like it can’t go on forever in violent state. The moment people want to figure out how to keep talking, that’s the because we are in toxic. Like even if people ever accuse others of being toxic, like deep inside, none of us is toxic. It’s like all of us just misunderstood. All of us. Mano, that’s my observation. I have talked to a lot of people and I like if you if you if you appeal to the inner kind of highest potential, not to the outside pre learned ways of expressing, but to the inside, let’s say deeper. Everyone is actually like light and good. Light and good. Well, so I had a point to the previous part and then I’ll let you respond to the second part. That’s okay, Mano. So just to the goal to your question, agent, the I think the goal that that I would put on it is to de automatize the communication. So what happens, I think in a lot of relationships is that you have some automatic reactions. You have, you know, you know each other’s buttons and you know how to push them and you kind of, you know, escalate in a way that neither of you wants to. And you don’t know how to get out of it. So I think the goal is to find a new path, where not only you keep the conversation going, but you rejuvenate it with something that is more alive and less automatic. So I think that’s why when someone says instead of you’re needy and dependent, says something like, I don’t know if I can provide the kind of love and affection that you need and that scares me because I want to be with you. That’s reframing the discussion in a way that is not the automatic argument that you’ve been having for years, let’s say. So I hope that helps. Yeah, so the way I look at things is you need a foundation, right? You can call it trust, but I don’t really like that word. I think you need a way from which to have the conversation. And when you’re not emotionally aligned, right, for whatever reason, you cannot have the conversation. Like it will always go wrong, right? So sometimes it’s necessary to build the base, right? And again, sometimes it’s just becoming okay with each other’s feelings so that those feelings aren’t in the forefront all the time so that we can make place for other feelings that will allow us to have the discussion. And like when someone says there’s the good in people, right, like you can and you should always appeal to the good in people, right? So I think that that is a given, but I don’t think that always works. Like I don’t think people are always reachable. So like I don’t think that you can always resonate with the good within people. So I can’t say that people are good because if they’re not there, like if I can’t communicate to it, then it’s not there, right? And then with the mind reading thing, right, like even if I could read someone’s mind, that wouldn’t allow me to act in a way that would solve anything. Like I think that’s a fairy tale. Like I need skills and the other person needs skills in order to have that interaction. And if I don’t have them, I can’t do it. Like it’s not an option. Like I need to cultivate them, right? Like that if I want to proceed in that relationship, but if I don’t have them, like knowing what’s going on isn’t going to resolve them. Someone sent you a message. Yeah. So a chain of trust. Yeah. Like that, I think that’s the Christian message, right? Like we all have to keep doing that. Like, I don’t know, like maybe it’s also Judaic, but it’s the spiritual message at least, right? Like we keep appealing to the goodness and then there will be more goodness, right? And there will be better expressions of the goodness. And I think that the sad thing is that in modern society, at least a big chunk of society is so confused that they are unable to to participate in that way. And they’ve just lost track. Judgment. Can I ask you a question? Hello? Is this thing working? Yes. Yes. It’s working, Chad. We can hear you. Okay. Yeah. I was thinking like, like the idea of nonviolence and communication is a great, a great idea. And I think it’s something that most aim for. What I think is when the idea of nonviolence kind of becomes the top principle or the top virtue in the hierarchy and like, in the avoiding violence at all costs can be sometimes very dangerous and futile exercise. So you know what I mean? It’s like, it’s like sometimes it just comes down to it. Like, you know, like, and I’m not like advocating for violence. It’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying like this idea of making sure that no matter what, no violence, no matter what, it like can be this toxic thing. Or might off base here might kind of like off topic? No, you’re on topic. Gavin touched on it earlier in the question, when is the right time for nonviolent communication? And like, it is depending on the situation, because sometimes there is no right time. Sometimes the only answer is actually a violent communication or escape. I was like, it’s actually a big thing for women. Like I can talk from my perspective. I had to learn because violence was never an option for me. I cannot protect myself. And I had to find out when is the situation where I escape and how do I escape? And I understand for me, a nonviolent situation where I could escape is being funny. So I would joke my way out of things, which is completely the opposite. Like nothing in Rosenberg’s book, I read the entire book, talks about nonviolent communication through humor and sense of humor. Like it only touches on the point of observation. Let’s say that’s the only thing humor is observational to the situation, you can joke your way out of it. But the other principle, need, request and feeling are in your head. Outside you only address to situational assessment. Yeah, there are other responses than a nonviolent communication. And of course, there are a lot of situations where nonviolent communication can actually get you into trouble. You have to think and yeah, agent was correct. Like at what moment my thought, my judgment comes in. And that’s the moment you assess the situation when it’s appropriate. And it’s not always that easy. Yeah, I would argue that humor can be a good solution to some situations, but it can also be violent. And not only in jokes that are diminishing to people, but just the fact that you’re not relating to something that they’re expressing by taking away the focus of the conversation from the thing that is important to them is, in my opinion, a way of being violent towards them. Manu, again, are you talking from your experience or from theory? Have you ever tried to escape a conflict via humor? Yes. Using humor while being a big guy? Yes, like I don’t conflict. And also, women also have access to violence. They don’t use physical violence most of the time, but they use social status, reputation, destruction as a way of violence. I’m talking about a situation where I don’t have social status. The only thing, nobody knows me. I’m a tiny, unassuming girl, like really tiny, very unthreatening. Because the way you appear is also assessed by your opponent. And in that book further, like in other chapters, they would be describing situations of girls escaping difficult, let’s say, situation where she could not do it otherwise, using nonviolent communication, addressing the perpetrator, and preventing herself from harm. And I can say it works. Like that’s why this book spoke out to me, because I was in a similar situation, so I could have protected myself, let’s say, using interpersonal skill without reaching for status or reputation, destruction. Like none of those would work. I know I’ve been on the receiving end of somebody trying to use humor. The problem is with that, it’s like, I’m sure it can work sometimes, but like maybe one party is more receptive to humor than the other. It’s like, this is serious business. And like where somebody was trying to use humor and that it only provoked violence and frustration. So I can see how it can backfire. I’ve been on both sides of that. It’s like I’ve gotten arguments, like let’s say with my wife, she’s like, everything’s not a joke. You know what I mean? It just made it more of a stop. So sometimes it’s a yeah. So there’s a, oh sorry, yeah if I may, there’s an interesting question. Like I’m kind of wondering about, I think non-violent, Chris Patkow says, I think non-violent communication breaks apart when you can’t agree what is at the top of the hierarchy. So what do you think of that Manuel? Well, I think actually that is what non-violent communication is trying to address. When stating the observation, stating the emotion, stating the need and the action with that, it is trying to establish a hierarchy. It’s trying to establish, this is the thing that we need to pay attention to. I would say that’s negotiable because it’s not only one person’s feelings, there’s two persons in the conversation. So they both need to be, their needs need to be met. If they’re conflicting needs, then you can’t fulfill one need and say, yeah, the other one, just like whatever. So they need to go together in a way where it can be productive. And yeah, so what’s on top of the hierarchy is essential. I would also like to respond to Chris’s comment. I think it depends in what sense you would mean that because the term to agree what’s at the top of the hierarchy, I think is used a lot in this corner, like top of the hierarchy in this corner of the internet, specifically Jordan Peterson and Jonathan Pajot talk a lot about it. But I think if you bring it down to an actual situation with actual communication, I think it doesn’t necessarily come down to really figuring it out and agreeing in any sort of philosophical way. I think there’s, the agreement is more in the underlying structure that you’re in. So I think if non-violent communication is possible, if you can start that communication, you probably in a deep sense agree about something that allows you to, if not promote both of your interests, then reach a compromise that is better for both of you than straight out fighting. But it also comes back to Chad’s point, which is violence, unfortunately and painfully, has a lot of consequences. And I think that’s a place in the world because there’s no, here I disagree with Kara, I think sometimes you’re confronted with a situation that simply cannot be resolved without a conflict. And in that sense, trying to hide behind stuff like non-violent communication can be cowardice rather than wisdom. Right. And then sometimes the thing is, so there’s difference between being a predator and being prey, so there’s a violence like that, but then there’s the violence of contenders. I think the violence of contenders is that they have an intimate relationship with their knowledge about violence. And so when you have somebody who’s a predator, like, but let’s, how do I say this? If you, if you, like, let’s say a culture, the culture has lost its intimacy with what, with the real ramifications of violence, they can be very humoristic and they can do all sorts of crazy things that can act very, very foolishly. And then that’s what can allow the predator to come in and harm. And then, so now that’s not like, that’s not violent communication. That’s like, so that I’m kind of getting a little off topic, but like, there was a thing, I just listened to Peterson talk to the new prime minister of Israel. The guy said that he had a very different ideology than, say, Obama. And the ideology he had was power produces peace. And he felt that Obama’s ideology was peace produces power. And so like, like I was, it’s interesting that you guys are talking about this, like, oh yeah, like, because if power can produce peace, the only way to really do that is if you have a very well, if you’re well acquainted with your history and what violence can do. And if you live in an overprotected society where violence is unacceptable, and then all of a sudden it breaks out, nobody knows how to live inside of it, that’s complete chaos. At least if you have the threat of violence in some order and some respect for order and for violence, the kid can kind of like be very beneficial. Yeah. That was, that was excellent. I just like to address, like, I was thinking of something that Chris Petcow kind of related to what I was thinking of. He said, if you’re arguing who does the dishes, you have to be able to appeal to higher ideas like fairness, people who fight over dishes aren’t fighting over dishes. I was thinking of this, like, in order to have nonviolent communication, you almost have the two goal states, but the, but in order to have to use a vervechism to appeal to the virtue above the meta, meta virtue or whatever the transjective between the two goal states, right? Mm hmm. I mean, for me, top of the hierarchy is why are we doing that? All of that. Top of the hierarchy would be like, what’s, what’s the end goal? It’s like, and then if both parties agree on the end goal, which is like a fair, mutually respectful relationship, then the question of dishes would be pretty solvable. Like it’s fair. I do dishes today. It’s fair. You do dishes tomorrow or something like that. The top of the hierarchy where both parties agree on the actual thing they’re trying to achieve, even in political sense, right? Mm hmm. Then, then the communication can become really, really productive. But yeah, the first thing is to observe, to observe, like, or to find out what are the, that at the top of the hierarchy, what are the final motivating forces behind our actions? Why are we doing that? There is a next question from William. I just, I want to mention, like, is this passive aggressive when I bring my microphone in? No. I’m trying to say something. It’s okay. Royd might have something to say about that, but I don’t think it’d be passive aggressive. Well, about dishes, if you want to, I’m just saying a conversation about dishes can go pretty deep if I’m involved. But anyways, for example, it’s like, you know, you could talk about fairness, but you could get to how much money are we spending on dishes? What are we doing with our money? And are we trying to help the people who aren’t, who don’t have clean water? It’s like, you know, that it can go pretty deep. But I would say like the nonviolent communication, like the goal of it, and to the point of what’s at the top of the hierarchy, to me, it’s just a matter of seeing for me specifically, it’s seeing the immeasurable potential in another human being. And so long as the other human being is not, you know, just completely disregarding me and ignoring me and looking down on me, then there’s an opportunity there for this kind of nonviolent communication. It has to do with the idea that you should love people or love God and love people. That’s what it is for me. You might not even have to love God. You might just might just be love people. I want to springboard from that if that’s okay. I think you’re making a good point. And I just want to maybe clarify my point before about about hierarchies is that there’s a lot of ways where at the end, you could say a lot of words, let’s say about what you see as the top of the hierarchy. And one person can say it’s the transcendent value of art and another person could say it’s loving people. And another person could say it’s God and another person could say that it’s something like Nirvana. That’s something like that. Probably not. But my point is, I think that putting that as a precondition practically, though I agree that at some point we have to agree, but if you practically kind of presuppose you have to agree about what’s at the top of the hierarchy, then you’re not going to be able to do that. And so I think that’s I think that you’re going to end up creating more alienation because it’s really easy to kind of classify, let’s say, a group of people and say, we can’t communicate with them because they have something else at the top of the hierarchy. And while I’m not sure that we know or define that well enough to make that kind of claim. Yeah, but I’m going to flat out disagree because you’re picking one hierarchy. God at the top of the hierarchy is important in some cases, but not in all cases. We can have a trade relationship without having God at the top of the hierarchy because we can accept a framework with I give you this and I give you that. So you could say that’s barter or something where we can come to an agreement and that is like we’re only need to accept that part of the whole big system in order to cooperate. Yeah, absolutely. I don’t think we’re in disagreement. What I was just trying to say is I think there’s a difference between the two points where usually when people say something about the top of the hierarchy, like all the comments there, they’re talking about something like God or transcendence or something like that. I do agree that in order to have useful non-biological communication, I have to agree about the next level, let’s say. What’s above this? What are we striving for in this specific conflict? In that sense, I’m completely with you. And that’s pretty much a more concise way that you put it in describing what I was trying to say. So like something at the top of the hierarchy would be the desire to communicate. Just like I would think in general, like if we’re going to be communicating, hopefully the ideal would be that we’re willing to communicate even if we disagree. Because if you don’t have that, you can go sour pretty quick. So I’m thinking about like, let’s say if somebody’s core beliefs or a culture’s core beliefs is that they are superior than anybody else, that it’s going to be very difficult to communicate with those people in a way that’s productive and useful because they’re just not going to hear you. To them, they’re speaking to like an insect or something. So it’s hopefully like you can come to an agreement. That’s why I think this works and why I see so many different kinds of people in these conversations. It seems like the thing that’s at the top of the hierarchy in these conversations or in let’s say the overall conversation that we’ve been having over the last couple years in this internet culture is the desire to actually communicate. Not necessarily the desire to with the argument. That’s maybe not on the highest part of the hierarchy between us. Chad, I thought that was excellent. I just want to clarify if I have that right. So in a sense, you could say that the goal of nonviolent communication is to be able to keep the communication and preserve the relationship, right? Yeah, but I need to disagree here. I think part of any discussion has to be having the discussion. You need to protect the means to the end in order to reach the end. That’s always true. So that should be a high value. It’s a necessary component. But it cannot be on the top of the hierarchy because it’s always serving to achieve something else. And so it’s important to realize that part of the hierarchy is the ability to maintain communication. But it cannot be the thing that organizes the hierarchy. Okay, Manuel, I would like to clarify that point. Do you mean that’s the way you communicate or do you say everybody should communicate like that? Because I agree with actually Chad, Agent and Gavin. It should be reciprocal. Also, everybody said it should be reciprocal to understand. But it also like the way we communicate and of course it is to keep the conversation going. That’s why we are trying so hard. And it’s for the other person and let’s say me to find the way to communicate. So I don’t feel the other person is imposing their way of seeing things onto me. Like those phrases, if you’ll be in chapter three, by the way, it should be like that. Well, I mean, can you say it clearer? Like, I think it should be like that rather than a statement of absolute undeniable truth. I think it’s a language problem maybe. So, Nodrik, what I heard you say is that I said we shouldn’t value communication or we shouldn’t value these things. That’s not what I said. I said there’s a hierarchy and it’s a subset of the hierarchy, which means that it’s on the hierarchy and it’s important. Yeah, who decides the hierarchy? That is the goal that you’re gathering. So the hierarchy here is to talk about nonviolent communication and within that hierarchy we need to have the communication being held high because else we’re not fulfilling the goal of talking about nonviolent communication. How are you guys doing? Do you think we’re holding nonviolence? I think there’s definitely some contention between you and Manuel being quite visible. I think the point is still being passed through because I think there’s some improvement, as you can see, during the stream. I think right now, if I can make an observation, I think you have, I’m not sure how to specifically describe it, but it feels like the communication is being very disrupted. You have just misunderstandings of each other time after time and it’s kind of escalating each other. Each misunderstanding is answered by a further misunderstanding, which is then further misunderstood, which is interesting, I think, in this context of nonviolent communication. How do you think you could fix that? If I put you two on the spot right now, what’s something you could do? I just think that that’s necessary. They’re negotiating. That’s what we’re doing. And also, when I say that I feel misunderstood, then I don’t think it’s fair to me to proceed with the misunderstood interpretation of me. You’re not talking to me anymore because I didn’t say that. So when people draw conclusions from what I say, without me agreeing with those conclusions, we can’t proceed until we have agreed. I think getting to agreement is important. That is the basis upon which you can start discussing. And I think when we go back to where we were in the book, don’t judge things, then the judgment is effectively stating, well, you said this. It’s like, well, yeah, but maybe I didn’t say this. So it is important to allow the other person to articulate the thing that they said instead of interpreting what they said. Can I offer one practical solution that might work specifically in this situation? I think it would just be nice going forward if every time, for instance, Nadric, when you try to respond to Manuel, start with a short answer and trying to say, okay, did I get you right? And then you can get on the same page because it seems like you’re building a lot of towers every time over that misinterpretation before the other person has a chance to say, no, no, no, that whole thing was built on something wrong. That’s a good advice. So Chris Peck, I said, you can argue over who does the dishes, but if someone wants to argue the dishes don’t need to be done, then violent communication is impossible unless you’re okay with a dirty kitchen. I think you said in a previous comment that if you don’t have the underlying similar axioms, then you can’t have negotiation at communicating. So does nonviolent communication necessarily need a hierarchy that has the similar axioms in order to engage in communications or is communication less impossible? So I’m going back. I think nonviolent communication is correctly trying to establish common ground. I don’t think you need to agree on the dishes. There was a bunch of comments earlier that were saying, well, if we’re talking about dishes, maybe it’s about other stuff. And it’s like, yeah, probably. When people react in a way that is nonconstructive, and we also went over this, they’re expressing a need. They’re having a need not met. And the need not met is probably not the thing that they’re talking about. It’s behind the thing that they’re talking about. Maybe it’s something like you’re not doing the thing in the relationship properly. Or maybe the way that you’re doing the dishes is not the way I want things done in the house, and therefore I have a problem with you. And it’s not about the dishes themselves. It’s about something that is more fundamental than that. So is the constructiveness of the situation determined by the transjective between the interrelated parties? I’ll just cut in because I have to go. So thank you. Oh, great. Nice to see you, Slaap. Thank you. Bye. No, I think it’s a negotiation. I think negotiation is the right word. It’s like, you value this, I value this, and this is where we can meet. And you need to have a way to get there. I remember there is in chapter two a story of a lady who came to nonviolent communication seminar, and she hates to cook. And then she spoke out, I was cooking for all those years, hating, dreading each time I would cook. And then after finishing the seminar, she understood that she should not cook anymore. And then she gets home and stops cooking, and she has a family with sons and everything. And then Marshall B. Rosenberg, next time he has a nonviolent communication seminar in the same town, he receives a visit from her family. He’s like coming in and he’s like, oh my God, will I get the beating? They’re like, dude, thank you so much. She was complaining every meal for like 10 years. I mean, I think it’s an outlier, but it was funny. I kind of thought it’s this nonviolent communication to herself that she had, identifying what she actually hates doing. So each time she would cook a meal, she would complain to everybody. I kind of felt it was like that thing about the dishes. And it’s like, it’s not always, if there is an argument about dishes, that it’s probably not about the dishes. Yeah, it’s probably about the garbage. And who cleaned the shower? And who took the dog out last? So my take on the dishes, what I was taught by my father is that every person had a fork and a spoon and a plate and a bowl, and you took care of it. You took care of it yourself. But that’s not the way every family does it. So you can be raised in a culture where all of a sudden you can collide on this whole dishes thing. I’m saying from personal experience. All of a sudden I’m washing everybody’s dishes. Whenever it’s like, well, I grew up, you washed your own dishes. But yeah, it can go deep. The dishes can go deep. Yeah, that’s what I mean. Maybe it’s the leaves that I’m really pissed about. Now I got to do the dishes, and I’m afraid to talk about it. I’m afraid to talk about the leaves, but I’ll go to bat about the dishes because I can seem to make sense about it. We can make a good argument about this. And I think a lot of this does boil down to, in my case, pride and fear and a couple things. I don’t want to be harmful to my partner, but I also don’t want to feel like I’m being walked on, even though I’m not being walked on. A lot of it is the story that I’ve spun in my own mind. And that’s a lot of, for me, a lot of conflict comes from this thing that I keep, this narrative that I’ve got hooked on sometimes. And that thing can distort my entire relationship with my family life. It’s little resentments that are not addressed, that are piling up all over the place. But again, I’m willing to go to bat on these damn dishes. I’m not sure Chris is actually talking necessarily about the dishes. I guess the first question I heard him talk about when he mentioned the hierarchy of the dishes, I thought I was hearing, again, maybe I’m projecting, but I was hearing him make a comment or a question about cultures colliding. And that to me is, because the conversation around nonviolent communication, I don’t think can really scale up to the national or the global. Probably. I want to get back to the book a little bit. I think the dishes fit in here appropriately. So we were talking about judgment a long time ago, and how making judgments is not constructive in conversation. And saying something about the dishes is a judgment. This is wrong. You are responsible for the wrongness in this way. And then this is what he says about making the judgment. It is my belief that all search analysis of other human beings are tragic expressions of our own values and needs. They are tragic because when we express our values and needs in this form, we increase the defensiveness and resistance to them among the very people whose behavior are of concern to us. Or if they do agree to act in harmony with our values because they concur with our analysis of their wrongness, they will likely do so out of fear, guilt, or shame. So how do you feel about that, Manuel? Well, so first of all, I don’t like this framing, but the first part is really correct. Like the tragic elements of we are trying to achieve something in the world, and while we are trying to achieve it, we actually do the opposite. We are not getting closer to a solution. We are not getting a more intimate relationship. We are not resolving it. And instead, we are creating the thing that will maintain the problem and disconnection and frustration. So that’s really sad. Well, so the second part is implicitly implying that the way of being, right? Like people only agree with us because out of resentment, effectively, or most likely agree with us out of resentment. I think that is a really sad view of humans, and I do not want to look at it that way. Like there are people who do it that way. Effectively, the way I see it is they don’t want to get into the conflict, right? So the conflict is still in the background, and instead of participating in the conflict, they’re acquiescing to something against their will, effectively, in order to not have the conflict. That is painfully common, unfortunately. So in order not to have the conversation, they will brush off all the explanation, reasoning, arguments in kind of this okay, okay, okay, okay, but on the inside, they would not be convinced, they would be coerced because they just don’t want to hear out their conversation partner. Yeah. That is, that is happy. Does anybody else have something to say? I’ll go to the next slide. Okay. We all pay dearly when people respond to our values and needs, not out of the desire to give from the heart, but out of fear, guilt, or shame. Sooner or later, we will experience the consequences of diminishing goodwill on the part of those who comply with our values out of a sense of either external or internal coercion. They too pay emotionally, for they are likely to feel resentment and decrease self-esteem when they respond to us out of fear, guilt, or shame. Furthermore, each time others associate us in their mind with any of those feelings, we decrease the likelihood of their responding compassionately to our needs and values in the future. So yeah, like what he’s describing here to me is like a vicious cycle. If you’re not in right relationship and you don’t resolve what’s playing on the background, you will corrupt yourself and the relationship and the other. Although I think there is a situation where one party can be blind, only one part, one side of the equation can have the conflict and the other person is just living their lives. But yeah. So like the what is the right relationship is determined by the one that has the more sight. Hearing each other out, actually, but not only hearing each other out, but the way people would want to communicate is without immediately putting another person off. Sometimes somebody just starts a sentence like this. What your problem is and the other person is shut down. I don’t want to hear anything further. Like exactly what did you want? Can you tell me the final goal? Because if I hear the conversation starting what my problem is, I just don’t want to hear it. Just, yeah. Stone warming. Yeah, Gavin. Oh, Gavin left. Okay. What was his problem? Bye, Gavin. Thank you for being here. Yeah. So like, Corey, I don’t like this trying to have an immediate solution, right? Like if you can have an immediate solution, probably you won’t need more violent communication. So I think you want to engage in a process. And out of going through the process, the solution will emerge, right? So like, I can give you a solution to a thing, but you might not be able to execute, right? So having a solution alone isn’t sufficient. Like there’s also the necessity of working up to getting there, right? Like now we can go into having something like a practice, right? For yourself, but also between each other that will start cultivating these skills and the path to the solution. I like what he says. He says, we all pay dearly when people respond to our values and needs. So what this kind of speaks to me of is when you don’t have the negotiation as a result of the tranjective of the higher values, which is ultimately continuing the relationship and the dialogue, then eventually it falls apart. And that’s where nonviolence is no longer an option. It is either just disengaged in the situation or engaged in aggression, right? Be it passive or otherwise. Hello, Dust. Hello. It brings up to me, there was Andrew Huberman podcast on relationships, and he said there are four signs of relationship that is about to end. And one of them would be defensiveness, criticism, stonewalling. And then there is, I don’t know, spite. It’s when one partner is talking and the other partner is just like, oh my God, he’s talking again. And he said if couples exhibit those signs, it’s the end of their relationship, essentially. And further, it will be like in the book, there will be examples of people who actually resolve that people on the brink of completely breaking their relationship, they started hearing each other out, which is interesting. Yeah, definitely watch out for those signals. So the book goes into three necessities. I don’t know if there was a fourth one, but I couldn’t distill that immediately. But humility is a requirement, right? So in order to give space to the other, right, like you need to draw yourself back from the center and give the space for there to be something. Responsibility is taking responsibility upon yourself is the thing that allows you to actually start working on something. And then the demands is like you’ve got to have something that you can work on. Yeah, I was thinking that we probably would get back to this slide a bunch of times, right? But when we’re not clear about what we need in the world, right, we can’t get those things. Like people can’t do things that they don’t know. I think that’s the value of clear communication. Well, the thing that I’m most curious about in nonviolent communication is the notion of demands. Would you be able to clarify that for me? I think we’ll go into that a little bit later on. So maybe we’ll just go to the new slide because I don’t want to talk to it outside of the context of the book. So this is my favorite thing, responsibility. And so he’s talking about life alienating communication, right? So it’s one of these things that Nodrick pointed out, right? It’s like the things that bring you a part of faculty. So another kind of life alienating communication is the denial of responsibility. Life alienating communication clouds awareness that we are responsible for our own thoughts, feelings, and actions. The use of our language obscures the common expression have to as in awareness of personal responsibility. I don’t know what happened there. But there are some things you have to do responsibility, or responsibly, whether you’d like to or not, illustrates how personal responsibility for our actions is obscured in such speech. This phrase makes one feel as in, you make me feel guilty is another example of how language facilitates the denial of personal responsibility for our own feelings and thoughts. So yeah, so there’s a thing where we’re this isn’t circling one of the presets, right? We’re responsible for our own feelings. And we should use communication that expresses that, right? So when we are not clear about the cause of things, we might misattribute the cause and then we get bad reasoning. So if the feeling is invoked by the other, right? Like the invocation doesn’t tell you what to feel, right? Like what to feel is part of your interpretation, right? And then how you’re relating to your interpretation, right? Because you can kind of feed the emotion or you can squinch it. And so there is a lot of things there. So maybe you guys take it up. Yeah, I like the idea of awareness is personal. We have to understand that we are in control of our feelings and reactions. And sometimes our reaction is projection as well. So that personal responsibility, big thing. You make me feel guilty. What? Like how? How do I make somebody feel guilty? It’s like, and then how to paraphrase it in a way so the other person doesn’t feel attacked. Because if I hear you’re making me feel guilty, I feel attacked because that’s not my aim. Like I was just explaining myself, like how am I making somebody feel guilty? I just like was talking about something else. Then I feel immediately misunderstood. And it goes into all of that building upon misunderstanding, like that hurricane unleashes, let’s say. And everything upon misunderstanding, basically. So there was this question in the chat. If you watch something that’s sad, are you still responsible for feeling sad? Well, first of all, you’re responsible for watching it. So stop watching it. And then you’re still responsible for keep thinking about it. So stop thinking about it. There’s all of these aspects where it’s like you are participating in it. So it’s not like so it’s not that you’re responsible for having the emotion. Like the emotion is something that happens. It’s not that you are responsible for it or that the other person or the video is responsible for it. No, the emotion is something that happens. And then what we do with that fact, just like there’s a tree in front of you, what you do with the fact that the tree is in front of you decides what happens. And if you walk into it, then the tree isn’t responsible for you walking into it. You are. I would disagree with that a little bit. Feelings are things that you can control up to a certain extent. You can choose to be frustrated with things. There are ways in which you can reason or rationalize things, allowing you to sort of calm yourself down or rationalizing a sad circumstance that will allow you to better cope with that. So I mean, yes, the feelings can be overwhelming, but there are things that you can do to be responsible with those feelings that come in. I want to address the dog situation. If you walk across the street and the dog is being hit by a car right in front of you, getting killed, you feel sad. It’s natural. You’re a human being. But the thing is, we absorb bad things in life and we deal with it. Because there are a lot of horrible things going on in the world. A lot of it. And we have to learn to deal with them. We have to. I keep hearing terrible news, horrible, like to the point of friends dying. And I have to learn to deal with it. And I have to find methods to cope with it without saying, oh my God, the world, you are responsible for me feeling like that. The world is as it is. I have to absorb it. I have to understand it. And it’s my own age. I’m not a dog. It’s my own agency, inner agency that makes me cope with the reality. Let’s say, yeah, dog getting hit is rough. It’s part of life. You have to deal with it. And it’s unfortunate that it happened. But it is happened. We have to understand those unfortunate situations too. And that being said, I always feel sad when I see a dog being hit by a car. So it continues. I think this is a way in which you’re… I wanted to say to Chad, we absorb life. Try not to notice life. No, no, I notice life. I notice every bad thing that happens. Not every bad thing. I pay attention. I accept it. I have to get it in. Like those things, they do touch me. And I do respond with sadness, pain, crying, to all of it. Just ignoring life is not the solution. You’re right. To Chad’s point, sorry, Manu, for interrupting. Yeah. I think ignoring something isn’t the right reaction. You’re experiencing something and then you have to do something with it. And what you do with it, that is what you contribute to it. It’s not that you don’t contribute to the dog being hit. You contribute to, okay, I have this experience. Can I learn something from that? I have this energy within me, this emotional energy. How do I express that? Is there a way that I can positively contribute to the world while being in this state? And maybe that positive contribution is not participating in something and crying it out. Maybe. You have the responsibility and you have to figure a way to deal with it. So this is a list of things, I think, where we give responsibility to external to us. So those are vague, impersonal forces. I cleaned my room because I had to. So the had to is originating from somewhere. What is that referring to? Our condition diagnoses personal or psychological history. I drink because I’m an alcoholic. Your identity of an alcoholic or your identity of a fireman or like your identity is now responsible for the action that you take. You’re no longer taking that responsibility unless you choose to be an alcoholic. I drink because I’m a fish. Are they drinking? That’s a good question. I said they must be. I know that fish pee. They drink their piss. I hit the actions of other. I hit my child because he ran into the street. So now we’re making the child responsible for the reaction to the child. The dictates of authority. I lied to the client because the boss told me so. So now there’s a hierarchy that is influencing our action. And I actually think that these saying the hierarchy set me set to do so. I think that that is appropriate up until a point and then we have to take our own responsibility. So I don’t think it’s black and white. Group pressure. I started smoking because all my friends did. Right. Again, like a group being part of a group is also a kind of authority or a hierarchy that you’re in. Like sometimes you go bowling because your friends want to go bowling. Right. So there’s a line there as well. So does anybody have anything to say about these things? I would say the last comment with I started smoking because all my friends did. There’s actually kind of a justification when you’re surrounded by bad behavior that you’re going to absorb the bad behavior a little bit, but not not much. I mean, obviously you’re still personally responsible, but you increase the chances that you’re going to do something bad if you’re in that circumstance. Yeah. So I think the point of these sayings is that it is a way of speaking. Right. So when we start using these phrases in our language, we’re not taking responsibility. Right. So the correct thing would be to say, I started smoking because all my friends did and I wanted to be a part of them by smoking. That would be a more correct way of saying that. I always think there are many reasons why we do everything. And all those explanations seem like the story we tell to ourselves, whereby our actions have been already chosen and decided upon even subconsciously. So those are, I actually agree with that from Basani. Sometimes it’s just an excuse rather than explanation. Yeah. Yeah. I think in an explanation, we’re not trying to assign blame. So this is stuff that I’ve actually studied quite a bit in psychology. So it’s kind of interesting to see a review of it, but taking responsibility for where you are and then being able to pay attention to where you yourself are trying to be manipulative or so on. I guess the best way to do that is to be self-assertive with yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Then we also have institutional policies, rules and regulations. I have to suspend you for this infraction because it’s the school’s policy, gender roles, social roles or age roles. I hate going to work, but I do it because I’m a husband and a father. Uncontrollable impulses. I was overly overcome by my urge to eat the candy bar. I feel attacked. It’s violent communication in a nonviolent communication. Yes. So I’m actually interested in the last one because I think that can happen. I don’t see that’s invalid. Well, it’s also kind of still an excuse, I suppose, because it’s like, yeah, you can be overcome by an urge, but that doesn’t mean you have to respond to the urge. No, that’s what overcome means. I guess so. Anyways. For instance, if you drink too much water, you can refuse to go to the washroom and decide to pee your pants. I was overcome by the urge to pee my pants. We can replace language that implies a lack of choice with language that acknowledges choice. To go back to the candy bar urge thing, I think it would be fair to say that I put myself in a place where I could be overcome by an urge or something, and that’s a way to take a step back and take a different level of responsibility. Yeah. Yeah. So, Norderik, I think you like this one. So maybe you should read it. Oh my God, can you enlarge it? Okay, I will squint my eyes in that case. My children gave me some invaluable lessons about demands. Somehow I had gotten it into my head that, parent, my job was to make demands. I learned, however, that we can never make, could make all the demands in the world, but people do anything, still could not make the children do anything. Okay, I think there’s something wrong. I’ll look it up in the book. Okay, thanks. Thanks, man. I think there is partially unposted stuff. Well. So generally, I remember that part of the book, and generally, we cannot make people do anything for us, just to summarize that bit. We can make all the demands in the world, but we cannot make people do things. And children are teachers of that, and each time we make a person by force, people will retaliate. It will hit us at the back the moment we do not anticipate it. Unless you’re the government. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, that’s way more text. Oh. Yeah, it doesn’t look the same. No, it wasn’t. No, it looks like a little bit more. Yeah. Parenting advice. Why does it go away? Like, oh my God. I mean, dude, it’s a sign from God. Just keep it. Keep it away. Do not make demands onto the stream, otherwise the stream will retaliate. I like the parenting advice from Basani. Never negotiate with stereotypes. That was the author? Sure. I don’t know. Yeah. So yeah, I’ll just read the punchline, hopefully. This is a humbling lesson, the power of us who believe that because we are a parent, teacher, manager or job, our job is to change people and make them behave. Here were these youngsters letting me know that I couldn’t make them do anything. All I could do was make them wish they had true punishment. Then eventually, that time I was foolish enough to make them wish they had complied by punishing them. They had always, they had a way to make me wish I hadn’t. So in some sense, he’s saying when we apply force, there is probably a bigger force that will come back at us. Yeah, force has to be applied in only very limited situations. I’ve kind of gotten a lot of my understanding on how to deal with people or children or situations where there’s people who are out of control, kind of like Caesar Milan, the dog whisperer. He talks about being calm and assertive and having a air of dominance, but not like you’re frustrated with a situation. If you get frustrated with something, then you’ve technically lost control over it. So you have to be calm and assertive, so to speak. Yeah, that’s really good. Yeah, what you’re saying is identifying against. That’s the way I phrase that. So when you create an identity against something else, then you’re stuck in that framework. And if that’s accompanied with intense emotion, either positive or negative, then that emotion will keep you in that framework. And so the calmness is a way to be able to step out and not being ruled over. So is that how you feel about it, Manuel? About what? About what you just said. The question is, do you feel calm? How about now? Do you still feel calm? How about now? How about now? No, like, yeah, no. So I would argue, I don’t think it’s necessarily bad to be in that emotion. Even anger is good if you need to fight. You need that strength to aid you in this threatening situation. That is important. So I think it’s having appropriate identity against the things around you, because you need to pick your identity and you need to pick the problem. So you need to have a right problem for the question. And yeah, you need to be able to switch between modalities. If your anger is unjust, you should be able to snap out of it. Yeah, it’s a matter of proportion, having anger and proportion. Because if you sound out of control, that’s just going to add to the situation being out of control. Yeah, that’s very good. I think Benance wants to hop in for a little bit. But yeah, like so, we were talking about judging and we were talking about these ways in which our communication is problematic, right? Because we have wrong framing and we use our language to express this wrong framing. So maybe I can go back to that slide that I said we would go back to. What is the wrong framing that we have, Manuel? I just need you to reiterate that. Right. So lack of humility, right? Like if we’re not putting ourselves in a right relationship, then that does not allow place for the other and their needs. Not taking responsibility for the things in the way that we’re speaking, right? So in the sense that’s not being truthful. And then these demands, right? That was the example about the children, right? If you’re imposing your will upon the children, right? Or you’re using force to achieve something, especially with people, then you will not achieve something lasting, right? Like the only thing that you might achieve is cooperation in the moment. Yeah, that’s very good. I agree. Are there still many slides? No, I think we went to the end. Maybe we can go back to this one and close it off. So these were the four steps. And I think, yeah, like what was the purpose of the second chapter? Was it like preparation in order to do the steps or something? Well, there we are. Yeah, it’s explanation of non-judgment and the intent with which we are trying it. So the other person doesn’t feel guilt that into the thing, but not coerced, but actually understand the reason why we do it. So it is maybe further elaboration on why we do it and how. Yeah, welcome. Hey, guys. Yeah, we’re kind of closing down. So did you have some things you wanted to bring up still? Well, I was just, yeah, I don’t know. You guys just keep going and I might chime in. Welcome. You’re welcome. Welcome. So I guess if you want to do a summary, right, like we had this struggle about when and like I’m going to say more importantly, how to implement this violent communication. Are you asking a question, Corey? No, I just find my pen. Because it’s important to realize and I had this comment about maybe it’s more appropriate to do in writing, right? Because I think it’s really disruptive to step back into the systematic structure. And then we were talking about hierarchies and what we value, right? And I think if we value smoothness of communication and realize that we can’t establish smoothness, then maybe we need to reorient towards establishing the ability to commune before, well, not maybe, probably to commune before we can continue. Yeah, excellent. Thank you. I learned a lot from today’s stream, especially that I need to clarify things before making a judgment and building up on the misunderstanding, all those towers and then throwing them at the person. So that was a valuable lesson. Thank you. I hope nobody got buried under rubble. I think I have a few times. So, Buzani, do you want to have a final say? Well, just something I’ve been thinking about since I’ve been listening to this. I had heard Kara use the term nonviolent communications before. I have been curious to kind of try and understand what she was getting at with that. But I have been curious to kind of try and understand what she was getting at with that. But where my thoughts have been on this subject, and they have been on this subject for a while now, is that what you see, what I think we’re talking about here is a pattern of us basically using force on other people to do things that they don’t consider to be good for themselves or right, potentially. I think it’s especially where it goes wrong. And how this is not just a pattern. This is a pattern that when you see it in the context of marriage, we’ll use the term abuse, when we see this in the context of a religious or political group, we’ll call it a cult, right? But these same sort of things can actually be systematized into controlling mechanisms of behavior that a sociologist would actually describe as a cult. But quote unquote violent communications being one part of that. But anyway, I think this has been a very wonderful conversation. And it’s really cool to see somebody else kind of looking at that same area. So, awesome. Thank you. I also wanted to comment. Excuse me. It kind of reminds me of something I sort of came up with a long time ago in my thinking. And was it the term judged not and now shall not be judged for in the measure you use it, it will be used against you. Now, I don’t think that’s an exact thing to communication all the time. But relatively speaking, you know, being aware of the assertions that you’re making in your thinking when approaching someone else, and what that person has to go through when it comes to your assertions, you know, you are projecting something that’s going to come back right at you. So, yeah. I remember agent asked at the beginning, why are we doing it? What’s the point of nonviolent communication at all? Is this to keep the conversation going? And there is a reason why I started reading that book. It’s not a cult because it doesn’t have a like leader or gatherings, nothing like that. Like the author had his seminars, but it’s not a thing. Maybe there are some seminars. I never looked into it. To me personally, it started with me dealing with reality and I had difficulties to process violence and war. Like it was harmful to me. I would come in and like most of the videos, people fighting people presenting their arguments and they’re like, ah, stop. So I looked into that book because for some reason I could not take it anymore. Jason Vale A lot of the reason people fight often has to do with much more underlying things in their psychology, much more. It’s usually what they’re projecting in front of you with their words is often surface level. It’s usually very surface level. So I, yeah, I understand. Dasha I get that there are reasons. Yeah. It’s like, I was not trying to understand the reason dust. I was trying to cope with it. Like the oldest influx of the news and I had to deal with it. I had to keep my eyes open. I could not ignore it. Jason Vale Why do you have to keep your eyes open? Dasha Because otherwise I cannot be of use or help to people affected in my life in all this violence. Like if I go and like hide my head in the sand, I don’t think I’m much of use. So I needed to pull myself out, let’s say, and find a way to frame the reality nonviolently to myself. Somehow all those observation, clarification, the way I pose so that I can be of use to people who are like in my immediate family, who am I trying to help? Jason Vale Well, I think the one thing that probably teaches people how to be more gracious in those circumstances is trauma themselves and going through trauma. But it’s hard to understand what trauma someone else is going through, because it’s very particular to their narrative and their thinking and what’s going on in their mind. But I mean, all you can really bring to you can’t necessarily lift up all of those traumas, though. You want to be useful, right? But there’s a case where rescuing somebody from being drowning, when there’s this thing where there’s this thing where you can’t go up to somebody who’s flailing around in the water constantly and saying, you know, I’m drowning, I’m drowning. No, you have to give that person distance and wait for them to calm down and say, I’m not going to help you until you stop flailing. And yeah, I mean, there’s, there’s things that you cannot, you’re not burying your head in the sand by keeping yourself safe. And that’s all I’m trying to get at. Yeah, before we close, agent or Basani, would you like to guys add something? Thank you. Thank you for advice. This is really interesting. It’s really good. And I think there’s lots of examples that we all exemplified of material in our discussion. So I really enjoyed that. And I look forward to next time and being a little bit more prepared. So thank you for allowing me to participate. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much. How’s a great conversation. Thank you. Yeah, wonderful discussion. And I think I’m going to try and review the first installment of this before, before the next one comes out to you. But yeah, appreciate being able to listen in and chime in a little tiny bit. But yeah, I mean, just I think it’s to a couple of the points that were brought up in the comments. So, you know, somebody, a friend of mine on Twitter said, something along the lines of like, parenting is a sort of tyranny, but it’s a good one. Right. And I thought that kind of like, kind of, it kind of addressed the issue properly. Right. When we say coercion or manipulation, like whenever you really start to dig into this subject, the issue comes up. Well, what if you’re really doing it for their good? Right. And when it comes to a small child who doesn’t understand why I’m not supposed to, you know, run wild in the parking lot, right? Or, you know, play in the street or whatever it is. Right. You know, in those sorts of situations, right, all they understand is kind of action and consequence. Right. And so you deal with them as you deal with the child. Right. But as they grew up and they’re capable of understanding things and, and, and processing things and making decisions in a different way, right, then your style of parenting should change. Right. And it shouldn’t stay that, that way that when they were two. Right. And so for me to treat my 23 year old daughter, right, the same way that I treat my six year old, right, there’s something really wrong with that. Right. For me to treat my wife the way I treat my six year old. Right. Something really wrong with that. Right. So, so I think what we’re talking about, like, I think we’re hitting on a nerve, right, that I think everybody kind of knows at some level, like there’s something off, right, when we get into that space. And I think really what we’re trying to do here is, you know, we’re trying to say, well, what, what is it exactly? Right. You know, that, you know, how do we define the wrong, right, in some sense? And that’s a, it’s a good, a good conversation, I think, for us to have. Well, yes. So there’s a couple things I want to add. Right. Like, Nodrick was effectively talking about a framework that allows her to engage differently. And I think we need a framework to engage because else we’re, we’re floating. Right. And then we can slowly, through the conversations like this, right, we can hone it to be more true. So I think that’s really important. And I, I also think that when, when we’re talking about imposing things, right, I think humility is, is, is the thing that is appropriate there. Right. Like, are we doing the thing for the right reason? Right. Like, are we doing it for personal reasons or for the right reasons? And then secondly, is what we’re doing actually achieving what we intend with our action? Right. Like, because even, even if you’re doing the right thing, it might not achieve the right result. And then you have to adjust your strategy. Right. So just saying I’m doing the right thing and therefore is insufficient to be a good agent and all. Yeah. Okay. Thank you all for coming. And we are closing the stream. Bye. Bye. Thanks, everybody. Good to meet you guys. Thank you, Kara. Thank you. Thanks, Manuel. Okay. How do