Building a Needs-Based Life By Painting Word Pictures
Conflict is at the Level of Strategy
When there is potential for conflict, I have found huge power in describing a vision of how I want something to be. When I use universal human needs to paint that vision, it is usually the case that another person wants that too.
With this vision-painting, I’m working the Nonviolent Communication principles that
1) all human behaviours are strategies to meet needs, and
2) conflict happens at the level of strategy, not at the level of need.
For example: “You need to go to bed so you’re in a good mood tomorrow.”
My kiddo doesn’t give two hoots if they’re in a good mood tomorrow. They want to stay up. Now! Tonight! I have an agenda about them going to bed because I want peace/ease/space tonight and I want ease/flow/fun/connectedness tomorrow. But none of that comes through in the sentence above.
What if, instead, I say: “I really want you to enjoy your friends and your birthday party tomorrow, and you tend to have a hard time when you’re tired. If you stay up until midnight, like Harry Potter did, you might find yourself fading and struggling while your friends are here. I want you to have the best birthday possible, with as much fun and enjoyment as possible.”?
When I can describe a vision that we both want, I am drawing on the power of togetherness and shared reality at the beginning of a conversation.
I know this is helpful because this particular kiddo went to bed, fell asleep and enjoyed their party the following day.
In the rest of this piece of writing I am bolding words that either are needs or are pointing towards needs. Sometimes, as they are written, they appear as a strategy, but they are pointing towards needs. For example, I might bold the word hear, which is a strategy but is pointing toward the need to be heard. Make sense?
Also, some of these suggestions don’t sound colloquial at all. I am leaving them for you to adjust to your own style of speaking. They hold the nuts, bolts and principles of what I’m trying to say.
“Would you spend a little time discerning (which means gently checking with yourself) when, between now and bedtime, would be a good time for you to pick the colored pencils up, so that you can do it willingly and go to bed content?”
Here, I’m painting a picture in my child’s head. In that picture, they are in full choice, they are taking responsibility for their actions, with open-heartedness, empowerment and ending the day at peace. This is in spite of the reason for the colored pencils being on the floor - upset had repurposed them into projectiles.
“I want us to have this difficult conversation, dear adult, and I want it to end knowing that we love each other and for us to still be connected.”
In this, by painting the picture for the outcome, I am also building some trust up front around my intentions and communicating that their experience matters.
Principle: The more we know we matter, the more capacity we have to receive another’s messy attempts at communication.
I want to try to hear what’s going on for you because I want you to feel like you are understood.
I’d like to have this conversation because I really want you to hear what’s true for me, even if we aren’t on the same page, I want you to know what’s going on with me.
“I really, really want you to enjoy your birthday fishing trip tomorrow, and it is so hard for us to enjoy things when we are tired. If you get up at 3.30am you will be exhausted and it will be hard for you to get all the fun out of it. I imagine, if you get up at 5am, that will give you more of an opportunity to soak up the joy and fun of being with Daddy out on that lake.”
In this, choice is implied and also the chance to take some responsibility and agency over the outcome of the following day.
“I want us to have this conversation, dear co-parent, knowing that we both want our children to grow up happy, healthy, kind, considerate and responsible. And we both want to be able to contribute to that growth and love.”
In this word-painting is partnership and shared-reality.
Dear darling children, I hear that you’re wanting me to go jump on the trampoline with you right now after dinner. I want us to go have fun together, to laugh, to enjoy this later summer light. And if I jump now I’m more likely to feel sick. I also want you to see how much there is to do to clear up the kitchen. Could we all work together to clear the dinner table and wash the dishes, which would be more efficient and effective and easier. I imagine after that I’ll be more likely to have the energy to jump.
You were very grateful for your birthday presents and I’m wanting the people who sent you those gifts to know they matter to you, and that you see the effort they made. How can I support you writing your thank-you letters? What would make it easier?
I want us to stay connected when you’re triggered, so that you can work through the trigger. And I want you to explore other possibilities for reacting to your trigger, so that you can continue to behave with dignity and respect and my needs for being seen and cared for continue to be met. I want us to use partnership to find a way forward through this so that we come through with more self connection, more understanding and more togetherness.
Can you give me a second? I really want to respond to you in a way that lets you know I hear what you’re trying to tell me and in a way that is self responsible and I’m too upset enough that I can’t.
I’m wondering if we can find a way that cares for you in these kinds of moments when there is some impact on you, and which allows you to behave towards me in a way that lands as caring too.
When we can articulate a vision using universal human needs, we are launching ourselves and this other person into a field of togetherness.
This is easier said than done, and easier if we practice self empathy (getting to our needs) or find someone who can help us guess our needs before we embark on these difficult conversations.
Cycle shifted, this time.
Now, while I am feeling well, and have the capacity, I am back to offering NVC support through mediation, supported family conversations, resonant listening.
As a parent this kind of practical advice, specific scripts backed up by sound emotional logic, is invaluable. I just wish in the heat of the moment I could be eloquent and emotionally contained enough to master it… maybe like anything else it just takes practice.
Is there a codified structure Sarah? Something I can latch onto in those heated moments? Something like
acknowledge need > paint vision > articulate present reality > invite collaborative action
?
I love this post. It really clarifies, for me, what NVC accomplishes. It also reinforces my old idea that basically we mostly all want the same outcomes--we just have different ideas about how to get there.