Thread by @eriktorenberg

1/ “Observing without evaluation is the highest form of intelligence.” — J. Krishnamurti

2/ We create many problems for ourselves by using static engage to express or capture a reality that is ever changing — by mixing evaluation and observation.

3/ NVC doesn’t mandate that we remain completely objective and refrain from all judgements, just that we make a separation between our observations and evaluations, and, when we make judgements, make them specific to time and context.

4/ Judgement: You’re always busy.
Observation: The last few times we’ve tried to hang out, I haven’t been able to get on your calendar.

5/ watch how insidious judgements can become:

I come 15 minutes late 3 times in a row

That becomes “he’s always late”

That becomes “he’s just an irresponsible person.

That becomes “he’s mentally unstable”

That becomes “He doesn’t care about me”

That becomes “I don’t matter”

6/ NVC says judgements are tragic expressions of unmet needs — “tragic” because they reinforce the label you’re projecting onto them.

7/ “I feel like I’m married to a wall.” A husband hears himself criticized for behaving like a wall; he is hurt and discouraged and doesn’t respond, thereby confirming his wife’s image of him as wall.

8/ Other forms of judgements include diagnoses, moralistic judgements, comparisons — any language that implies blame towards the other person.

9/ We don’t label others, and we don’t label ourselves.

We don’t think of ourselves as a “worthwhile person.”

If we do, we will spend a good amount of time questioning whether we are “worthless people.”

10/ In NVC, we don’t spend time thinking about what kind of person they are; they think moment by moment — not “What am I?” but “What is the life that is going on in me at this moment?”

11/ Isn’t that weird? If a person is usually lazy, why not just say so?

Because, as Marshall Rosenberg used to say, “when you label people you’re putting them in a box — and I’m talking about a coffin”

You’re treating them as unchangeable — not in the next hour nor the next yr

12/ Also it’s too simplistic:

Consider, e.g, a couch

Every molecule in a couch was made inside a star, which exploded, shooting its guts across the universe. These molecules have lived on as different forms before this couch , and will continue to do so after the couch is gone.

13/ This is much more than the label “couch” suggests, but we call it a couch so we know we should sit on it. The identities we project onto others provide guide posts. This isn’t particularly harmful with couches, but it is with people.

14/ Humans use concepts to help navigate the world. A couch is for sitting, so we will not try to plug our cell phones and expect it to charge. We project ‘concepts’ onto people so as to use them as well.

15/ We’re missing what’s truly going on for people when we judge, and it leads us to act toward them in a certain way that usually provokes the very thing that we’re labeling.

16/ Another problem is that we’re also biased in our judgements, arbitrarily switching between personality and circumstance judgements.

17/ Natural selection designed us to think of others in terms of disposition and us in terms of circumstance

I do bad things because…legitimate, redeeming, reasons. [circumstance]
You do bad things because…you’re an idiot (personality)

19/ These problems of judgements (inherently static & arbitrary) are manageable for individuals, but catastrophic when it scales to groups:

Nation’s leader is bad
Nation is thus our enemy
Nation’s people are thus bad
It’s thus ok if we bomb them, because they’re enemy!

20/ Sadly, it’s hard to stop judging others instead of observing them. Judgements are rooted in our culture, language, and even our brains.

Think of how many labels and judgements we have for people we have never even met!
It’s so easy, so tempting, to size people up right away.

21/ A common mindfulness response (I think) is to let judgements flit through your mind without attachment; “don’t believe your thoughts.”

NVC adds that judgements often mask unmet needs — judgements are the “wrapping paper” and underneath them is an unmet need the “gift.”

22/ You can take the “gift” (take the steps to meet the need) and discard the wrapping paper (the judgement).

This is not a comprehensive method to separate observations from judgements, but it’s a start.

23/ With practice, one can

A) focus more on differentiating observations from judgements (we barely notice the difference!)

B) realize that judgements (esp. reoccurring judgements) are often masking unmet needs, and take steps to meet unmet needs.

24/ C) when making judgements, make judgements specific to time and context (i.e “X person is acting like Y” vs “X is Y”).

This works for self-policing but not recommended for policing others (I.e telling others not to judge is usually not effective :-)]

25/ Separating observations and evaluations—we can do this when expressing ourselves to other people, listening to what other people say back to us, and communicating with ourselves.

26/ NVC believes that, as human beings, there are only two things that we are basically saying: Please and Thank You. Judgments are distorted attempts to say “Please.”