I was not told, “Come.” I was told, “Go where you will.”
WILLIAM SHELLER
French singer and musician
At my conferences, one comment is made with considerable regularity: “It’s all well and good to listen to ourselves like that, but boundaries nonetheless have to be put in place!” Of course. We need reference points; we need to be able to position ourselves clearly in relation to things, people, and events. Does this mean, however, that they have to be imposed, made into an obligation?
This is what, in the first chapter, I referred to as language of diminishing responsibility. It is one of the four functioning habits of the mind that causes violence. This language—and especially the low level of awareness that it expresses—allows no freedom and provides no information as to meaning. Worse still, this language anesthetizes awareness and responsibility.
Several years ago some folks in South Africa were campaigning for an amnesty for a number of the perpetrators of the oppressive apartheid system. In an English newspaper, I was reading the interviews of several of these torturers who had been offered amnesty in exchange for owning up to their acts. One of them, the father of two children and an amateur musician, was asked how it had been possible for him to spend the day torturing human beings in the prison where he worked and then go home in the evening to play with his two daughters or improvise on the piano. His answer: “It was my job! I was paid for it. I had to.” My jaw dropped in dismay! Was it possible that the mind-numbing mantra of duty and obedience had made of this human being a torturing machine with neither conscience nor misgivings? Nazi criminals interviewed about their motives have given the same sort of replies: “Just following orders.” Hearts and consciences can be deadened and robotized in the same way.
It seems to me that in our day-to-day lives, without, thank the Lord, the consequences of our acts being so tragic, we nonetheless act or expect others to act like automatons—lifeless, soul-less, senseless. “We must succeed. You must work. You have to go to school. You must take out the garbage. I have to earn my living. In this situation I have no choice.”
At my first Nonviolent Communication training session with Marshall Rosenberg, he introduced the question as follows: “Now I’m suggesting how to get out of slavery, how to get rid of I must … I have no choice … It’s compulsory … It’s required …” Then he asked if someone among us thought there were things they had to do or not do. I responded unhesitatingly:
“But of course there are things you have to do in life, whether you like it or not.”
“Could you tell me one thing you believe you have to do?”
“Well, of course! I have to work. I have no choice. That’s the way it is. I only get money if I work—and to earn a living as a self-employed person, you have to work hard!”
“When you say, ‘I only have the money I earn through my work, and one has to work hard to live (O),’ how do you feel (F)?”
“Well … tired and worried, if you really want to know.”
“And your needs (N)?”
“I’m tired because I would like to make a more creative and generous use of my time, and I’m worried because I need physical security. Yes, I need to know that I’m safe. I need to know that I can pay for my apartment because I no longer want to live in a student room; to know that I can pay the extra pension as a self-employed person because I don’t want to die of hunger at the age of sixty-five; to know that I can pay for my car because I don’t want to travel only on foot or by train; to know that I can offer myself vacations from time to time, some travel, a celebration with friends, or a training session.”
“When you become aware that you work because that enables you to live in a more pleasant apartment than a student room, to ensure that you get an old-age pension, to drive a car, to go on vacation, or to continue your training, how do you feel?”
“Very surprised. I had never looked at things like that. It’s true that every morning I choose to put on a shirt and tie and go to work. Nobody, except me, is stopping me from going to Outer Mongolia or Tierra del Fuego for the rest of my life. I choose a certain level of comfort, a certain degree of social and family integration, a certain freedom that I could, if I wanted to, give up. It so happens that I don’t sufficiently wish to be in Outer Mongolia without any resources or in Tierra del Fuego without any roots. At the same time, I realize that I have an urgent need to change professional direction, and I’m content when I observe that I am contributing to that by taking this training course.”
I could avoid the trap that was paralyzing me: Either stay safe and die of boredom, or change and die of fear.
As soon as I was able to clarify what was at stake underlying my “I must,” that is, the need for physical security on the one hand and a need for a change toward more satisfying work on the other, I understood that I could avoid the trap of the binary system that was paralyzing me: Either stay safe and die of boredom, or change and die of fear. So I made a gentle and gradual transition. Little by little, I cut back my work time as a legal consultant and developed my human-relations activities. The constraint (“I have to earn a living”) had become a support: “Thanks to this job, I can change careers safely!” The energy I experienced during the transition years had shifted dramatically since the value (or the need) toward which I was working was clear.
My warm recommendation, therefore, is to confront all our “I musts” and “I have no choices” with our conscious values—in order to check out which values they actually support. This makes it possible to sort things out. We very often drag along behind us dead-weight anchors, old “I musts” once voiced long ago, that haven’t been updated. If behind any “I must” there isn’t any real “I would really like to …” then it’s obsolete and closer to an automatic reflex than a responsible awareness.
This prioritizing can bring about major changes. For example, I have friends, who after having combed through their own “I musts,” quit everything—jobs, house, habits—to go off for a year traveling around France in a horse-drawn caravan with their children. And what about school? In the caravan, by the light of an oil lamp. And what about income? Little jobs all along the journey: Their material needs are at an all-time low. And what about the children fitting in when they come back home? We are living confidently, thank you, and in the present moment.
During a recent workshop where several families, parents, and children were together, one mother, who was also a teacher, threw a question at me:
“But, Thomas, in life there are things we have to do, whether we want to or not!”
“Could you let me hear just one of them?”
“Of course. As a mother, I have to prepare a meal every evening. I have no choice.”
“How do you feel when you say that (F), and what is your need (N)?”
“Exhausted, because I would simply like to let go, perhaps just one day a week, and go up and have a nice bath as soon as I get back from school.”
“So, do you feel exhausted (F) because you would like to have some time for yourself when you finish work (N)?”
“Yes. But as you can see, if I don’t cook, the children will eat any old thing, and they have to eat well.”
“Do you feel concerned (F) that they should have a balanced diet, and you need to be sure they eat healthily (N)?”
“Oh yes. For me, that’s a real priority.”
“So then do you feel divided between the need to have time for yourself, for example, to go and have a good bath and the need to be comfortable with the balance of their diet?”
“That’s right. But surely you can imagine they wouldn’t understand if I went up to have a bath while they were waiting for a meal.”
“I see it’s difficult for you to believe that they could understand that.”
“Oh, I’m sure they couldn’t understand.”
“Since your daughters are here, I suggest we ask them how they feel in relation to all of this rather than deciding for them that they wouldn’t be able to understand.” Turning toward the children, two adolescents who were taking part in the workshop, I said, “How do you feel when your mother says what she just did?”
(Practically in unison …) “We’ve been telling her for a couple of years now either to take the time to relax before she starts cooking or to let us cook. Not only do we know she needs to have a break in the evening, she also hates cooking. So that makes for a really charming atmosphere, since she isn’t a happy chef! That frustration on her part often makes a real mess of the evening. She could at least trust us a bit, accept the idea that we could manage for ourselves, prepare the meal ourselves, and produce something good. We’re no longer at the stage where we would eat all the cookies in the cupboard or scarf five ice cream sandwiches!”
I then turned to the mother: “How do you feel when you hear your girls saying they would like you either to trust them to produce a good meal or give yourself a little time to relax before getting the meal ready yourself?”
“Both concerned and relieved. It’s true they’ve often told me that, and I’ve never really heard it. I have this image of my own mother working her fingers to the bone to do things right, exhausting herself to be a good mother, and I realize it’s difficult for me to get out of that mind-set, even though my daughters have been urging me to do so. After all [sighs], the way things have been happening hasn’t been very good for them or me.”
This exchange demonstrates our extraordinary ability to shut ourselves up in the beliefs we have about ourselves (“A good mother must …”) and about others (“They won’t understand … I can’t even talk to them about it … I know what they would say …”). Only a genuine connection with the other person—and some “communication coaching” in this case—make it possible to get out of the trap.
I realize how difficult it is for us to recognize our responsibility, and I see how much we tend to ascribe to others and to outside forces the responsibility, even blame, for what happens to us. It was difficult for this mother to clarify on her own what was at stake and to freely discuss the matter with her daughters. Unconsciously, we often prefer our cage and its familiar perches to the freedom of flying out through the open door. Yet the door is open, wide open, as in the poem by Hungarian poet and novelist Gyula Illyés quoted at the beginning of this book. Why do we hold back? Is it not because freedom generates in many of us greater fear than does security?
Why do we hold back? Is it not because freedom generates in many of us greater fear than does security?
We’re familiar with constraints, a synonym of sorts for security. Constraints are familiar—uncomfortable perhaps, but familiar. Freedom, well, whoops! Freedom is new and can generate fear of the unknown! After generations of education in duty and habit, accepting the option of acting out of choice and enthusiasm from the heart is difficult. And yet, it is vital. To ensure that the world doesn’t anesthetize itself into soporific oblivion, it is urgent for each of us to reconnect with the drive and life force of our hearts.
During a training session, a mother said to me, “I cannot get my six-year-old daughter to understand that she must put on her slippers when she runs around the house in her pajamas.”
I asked the mother to show me how she went about it, suggesting that she talk to me as she would talk to her daughter:
“I’ve already told you a dozen times to put on your slippers. I simply don’t know what language to use to be understood. Go and put on your slippers at once!” she said to me (laughing as she noted the tone of her voice).
“If I’m your daughter and I hear that, I feel like doing just the opposite for at least two reasons. The first is that I don’t understand the meaning of your request; I’m very happy to run around barefoot!”
“But I told her that at the outset: I’m afraid of her catching cold, of getting sick, and of my having to take time off to stay with her. What is true is that after I’ve told her something once, I believe that she has understood, then I lose my cool and don’t tell her the need underlying my request.”
“You may perhaps observe that she hasn’t assigned to your need the same importance as you have. I think we can all easily understand that for a little girl, catching cold and staying at home with mother is less of a constraint than for the mother! So it may be useful to further clarify the need—and certainly state it again. Because you said it once, it wasn’t necessarily perceived by the other person exactly as you meant it. Now I would like to ask you if, by letting her know your need and then making your request, you have respected her freedom not to agree …”
(Laughing.) “Oh, no! Certainly not!”
“There we have the second reason why, if I’m your daughter, I don’t want to put on my slippers: I have a need for my freedom to be respected, even if I am just a little girl!”
“That is really difficult—accepting that the other person might not agree!”
“Of course it isn’t easy. But if we turn our requests into demands, we get either submission or rebellion, but not connection. Now, when you say it’s difficult, are you not reassured that you’ll be able to hear disagreement from your daughter without giving up your own needs?”
“Well, yes. Basically, I would like her to be in good health, and I’d like her to be able to begin to assume responsibility for herself through such little things as putting on her slippers when it’s cold.”
“Would you like to succeed in trusting her, in accepting that she can, little by little, decide for herself if and when she puts on her slippers?”
(Long sigh and silence.) “That’s it: ‘succeed in trusting.’ I have to admit that it’s very hard for me to trust, so I try to control everything! I must say, it’s exhausting!”
As the workshop progressed, this mother became increasingly aware of her difficulty in trusting other people. She also understood that it was up to her to work on herself in order to improve her relationships with her children and her husband. The workshop took place over several days. She came back one morning, very happy, saying, “I still haven’t succeeded in expressing my need to my daughter clearly, but yesterday evening, instead of getting annoyed, I did ask her if she knew why I wanted her to put on her slippers. She answered me clearly: ‘So I don’t catch cold.’ I at last succeeded in letting go of things without imposing anything. A few minutes later, I noticed that she had put on her slippers herself!”
So we see that accepting and deciphering a “You must” gives us an opportunity to go back inside ourselves and do some work on our own responsibility.
I of course know that circumstances exist where the range of choices can be both considerably reduced or even annihilated. I’m thinking, for example, of physical violence or coercion. These do away with freedom of action. However, I’ve always appreciated the courage of those who recognized that they didn’t have the strength to decide, to refuse, or to change. Consequently, they chose to accept the situation, which doubtless didn’t fully suit them but which nonetheless met certain needs—among them the needs for physical safety and emotional security. I believe it’s courageous to acknowledge one’s responsibility and limitations rather than accuse other people or even circumstances.
I think it’s a language habit that causes us to say, “I have no choice,” just as we say, “I don’t have the time.” If we had greater awareness of our needs, we would see more clearly that we choose our priorities—and that the use of our time reflects that in a very obvious way. Our schedules are indicators of our priorities. A person who works ten to twelve hours a day and who says, “I don’t have time, with the job I have; I don’t have any choices” might reformulate that to say, for example: “My present priority is my safety and that of my family. I haven’t yet had an opportunity to find a job that is better paid and that allows me to be freer” or “I’m really interested in assuming major responsibilities and to devote myself to them because that nurtures my need to feel useful, stimulated, and happy in my work, and it provides for my material comfort. For now, I’m therefore choosing to devote most of my time accordingly.” The “not yet” and the “for now” open up possibilities to change freely.
If we had greater awareness of our needs, we would see more clearly that we choose our priorities—and that the use of our time reflects that in a very obvious way.
In fact, it’s enough for us to examine what we’re doing, what we’re devoting our time and energy to, the people we’re seeing. These components are an excellent barometer of our priorities and thus our choices. Beware, though! It isn’t necessarily what at first sight we do, but rather the needs that are satisfied in us by what we do—and how we do them.
Once again, we can observe that it’s only if we assume responsibility for our choices and the use to which we put our time that we give ourselves power of action to change what we’d like to change. A British saying states this point humorously: “If you don’t like it, change it; and if you can’t change it, like it!”
If a choice absolutely had to be made between violence and cowardice, I would advocate violence … but I believe that non-violence is infinitely superior to violence.
MAHATMA GANDHI
Indian philosopher and social activist
As I was driving one day through a small village, I was stopped by a policeman just after a bend in the road where I had absentmindedly driven slightly across the center line. In a flash, seeing the policeman made me aware that I had been distracted and reactivated in me a longstanding rebelliousness against the stereotype of the blankety-blank, cocky small-town cop. And, clinging to this preconceived idea, I was expecting to be given the usual lecture (“You’ve just broken rule number XYZ of the traffic code. The fine is fifteen hundred francs. That’s the way it is; you have no choice”) or some similar moralizing discourse (“Are you out of your mind, driving like that in a village? Have you no sense?!”). I parked my car at the side of the road and waited with a rising sense of dread about what I knew would soon ensue. The policeman came up to me and greeted me … very courteously: “Sir, I’m worried (F) because I’m in charge of safety (N) in this village when the children come out of school. When I see you driving across the center line, I’m not sure (F) that you’re aware of the risks (N) for the children who might be walking along this road or crossing it. How do you respond when I say that to you?”
I almost asked him to repeat what he had said because I simply couldn’t believe what I had just heard. This officer had observed a scenario without judging me. He was conveying to me his feeling, indicating to me his need, and requesting me to tell him how I felt! I marveled at the awareness of this man; he wasn’t there to punish, reprimand, or constrain but to point out and remind me of a value and a need: safety. He wasn’t acting threateningly or punitively; he was inviting me to be responsible. Though I wanted to jump out of the car and give him a hug, I quietly answered him that I was embarrassed at my absentmindedness, that the safety of people and particularly the safety of children was very close to my heart, and that his conscientious and responsible attitude was an invitation to me to be more aware and more responsible at the wheel. He wished me a good journey, and I drove off quite contented.
I can assure you that this story still keeps me alert when I’m driving, much more so than if I had been required to pay a fine to buy judiciary peace. This policeman, who might well have adopted a “breakwater” attitude (saying, for example, “You are in the wrong; you must pay”), still comes to my mind like a compassionate beacon—a marker I reflect on with respect and warm feelings—and that continues to urge me to greater watchfulness on the road.
“If young people don’t abide by the rules, it’s usually because they don’t understand them.” It was Pierre-Bernard Velge, the founder of Cops and Hoods, who taught me that. I say “taught” because, for the lawyer that I am, this was true learning. It isn’t because a rule exists that it has meaning or, more importantly, that it’s “meaningful” for all people in the same way.
In addition, as I have already said, understanding empowers us. Instead of seeking to abide by the rule blindly, we give ourselves the possibility of seeing if the meaning of the rule, the value that the rule expresses, is perceived in the same way by all. As long as we fail to recognize that a rule is an attempt to express or illustrate a value in daily life, there is a much greater chance that we’ll experience it merely as an annoying constraint.
During one of the expeditions we organized to the Sahara Desert with troubled young people, an atmosphere of tension and animosity had started to creep in. We heard that personal belongings had been stolen, and some were complaining about doing all the chores while others were idle, but we allowed the youngsters to “stew in their own juice” for a while, letting the tensions simmer. Then one evening after the meal, sitting around the fire, we suggested they talk about it, each person in turn having the time to speak, using the ritual of the speaking stick. Here is a summary of the exchange among three young people and the facilitators who started the dialogue:
“Terry, do you want to take the stick (floor)?”
“Yeah. Someone has ripped off some of my stuff. They’re a. I’m going to smash their faces in!”
“Are you angry because you need respect for your things and for yourself?”
“Yes, I need to be respected, plus I have a need for honesty.” “Jeanine, do you want to speak now?” (She takes the stick from Terry.)
“Yes, I’m fed up. I’m alone with two or three others, helping unload the trucks and set up camp. There are some people on this trip who do as f little as possible and just hang out!”
“It sounds like you’re disgusted because you’d like some sense of solidarity and a fair distribution of chores?”
“Yes, it would be a lot more fun if we actually helped one another. Things would get done so much faster. And we’d all have more time to get our personal stuff together later.”
“And how about you, Jean-Luc, would you like to say something?”
(He takes the stick.)
“Yes, I’m sick and tired with people talking about me behind my back. Corinne and Angela never stop gossiping about me, and what they say isn’t true.”
“Are you angry and disappointed, Jean-Luc? Would you like them to tell you up front if they have something to say to you?”
“Like I said, not behind my back. I’m tired of having to hear through the grapevine the lying s--- they’re saying about me.”
Thus, one after the other, they all spoke. We listened to each of them, reflecting their feelings and needs back to them without judgment. We heard clearly from their own lips many of the values that make for well-being in society: respect, honesty, solidarity, cooperation, fair play, candor, truth, etc. Most of these young people had lengthy rap sheets because they had committed serious crimes. Some had even been entrusted to us by court officials subject to our signing a discharge because the teens already had been categorized as hardened habitual offenders. However, isolated and in the starkness of the desert, far from their familiar turf, they shared with us the beauty of their intentions. They showed us how in their hearts they cherished such values, even if they gave the impression of trampling them underfoot in a society where people like themselves had no place. Suddenly, these values took on self-evident meaning. That is, the young people themselves were able to observe that without values, life is just resentment and misery.
Imagine if we had played prison warden, of the “breakwater” type, saying to them: “You have to respect one another; you have to help one another. If you don’t, you’ll be punished or sent back on the next camel.” The kids would have snickered, shrugged their shoulders mockingly, or moaned, giving us the finger to top off the whole thing! Worse, we as leaders would’ve strengthened their belief that they were different, that they were misfits, that they were, in effect, nonexistent. They would very probably have raised the ante, simply because fighting or resentment, in the same way as mistrust or ill-being, at least produces a sensation of existing. Ill-being is nevertheless being—just as it’s better for such kids to be rejected than ignored. That evening and the rest of the trip provided them with many further opportunities to become aware that one also can enjoy life when there’s well-being, mutual respect, trust.
This story made it possible to realize anew that if we’ve been raised from little on up in an atmosphere of tension, quarreling, and emotional discomfort—if since infancy we’ve believed that aggressing someone else is the only way for us to have our place, unless we give up altogether—there settles in us a kind of resistance to well-being because this may prove less intense than ill-being and less safe because it’s unknown. There is then the risk of our unconsciously (or consciously; recall Tony in Chapter 3 who quickly returned to jail) re-creating the circumstances that we’re familiar with in order to experience again the known.
I once knew a very polite, nice, and elegant businessman who, as a child, had suffered greatly from the attitudes and treatment of his highly authoritarian father. Among other things, his father had inflicted upon him outrageous trials of endurance in order (so the father claimed) to get the child used to not feeling pain. What was painful to him in his present life were his reactions toward authority. He had come to realize that he got himself into scrapes with authority figures in order to get them into a fight! He constantly questioned all legal and administrative constraints he came up against at work, using huge amounts of energy to counter the officials in government departments who were simply asking him to clean things up administratively. He had become aware of this after being taken to a police station for insulting an officer who was carrying out a mere roadside check.
By working on his needs, he became aware that, at those times when he was fighting the authorities, he was in touch with a degree of intensity and confidence that he existed and had a place, which in other circumstances were lacking. Together we then explored all of the repressed anger and feelings of revolt linked to the behaviors of his father. Then, when he was ready for it, we explored the needs his dad had for behaving as he did, in order to try to understand the father. Finally, we highlighted the following needs: “Today, I need to feel intensely alive in ways other than through rebellion or aggression. I need to give myself all the room and respect I didn’t get from my father.”
Whether we’re from the upper classes, a street-gang member, or a straitlaced businessperson, we all need meaning and intensity.
Whether we’re from the upper classes, a street-gang member, or a straitlaced businessperson, we all need meaning and intensity. And, more than anything else, we observe that if we don’t attempt to understand ourselves and the mechanisms of our violence (thus becoming more aware of our ways of functioning), we run the risk of continuing for a long time to put up barbed wire and iron curtains to protect ourselves.
The subtitle “Barbed Wire or Shepherd?” came to me two years ago when I was going through a region in France that I had known twenty-five years before. At that time it was so remote, so desolate, and so unfrequented that for many people it represented their dream of a return to nature. I was then an adolescent fascinated by the work of the shepherds who lived there. I loved seeing them as contemplative poets bathing in the pool of the universe. They walked freely with resolute good-naturedness among their flocks through the harsh shrubland, down ravines and up hillsides, through the stony places and plowed fields. A few light-hearted orders and many a word of encouragement showed the individual knowledge the shepherd had of each of his sheep. Making an even bigger impression on me, though, about the shepherd’s life were silence and time. The shepherd would take care to adjust his pace and his route to the well-being of his flock. Returning to the region twenty-five years later, I was struck and, yes, disappointed to see fences and enclosures keeping the sheep in. No more time to roam the fields and lead the flock with personal attention; a few strands of barbed wire saw to that! The sheep marked time, and the shepherd, sadly, had been reduced to the largely ceremonial role of gatekeeper.
My thoughts often turn to schools and education, to families and homes for young people, to boarding schools or prisons, to all of those places meant to educate and regarding which everyone complains about the “lack of time.” I have caught myself dreaming of quality connections between human beings. Obviously, I don’t wish anyone to be a sheep, neither literally nor figuratively, with everything that metaphor entails! I’ve also caught myself dreaming that all the people working for welfare and education would be able to feel free, like a shepherd, and take the time and choose the route best suited to each of their charges. I’ve even caught myself dreaming that anyone in a learning relationship would be able to ask for help and be listened to; to express their fears or the fact that they weren’t well and also wanted to be listened to; to be aware that they weren’t succeeding in something and then receive encouragement; to show their distress and receive understanding, without being compelled to mark time in an enclosure.
I regularly work in the school environment, and frequently I hear the same complaint, “But we don’t have time!” After a conference where I had talked about the image of the shepherd, the head of a large school in Brussels told me: “You are so right. Neither the parents nor the pupils any longer know what it means to take their time. There are two things the pupils hear continuously: ‘Hurry up, hurry up!’ and ‘Quick, quick!’”
But do we truly lack time, or is it because we no longer want to look at certain priorities? Often it’s the race for organization at home, logistics. One couple realized that they were claiming “never to have time” to see their children except at the evening meal because they were refurbishing their house. They had chosen new kitchen furnishings and a new living room, plus they were redesigning the flower garden. In addition, they “had to” change cars since the first one was getting old. So they had just bought a new turbo-diesel family car! The children complained about the parents’ lack of availability and were beginning to show their distress: fits of anger, minor school problems, exam failures, sulking. The parents, who had begun to accuse their children of poor discipline and lack of respect, were willing to admit that they had, for some while, reversed their priorities by putting the house and material comfort to the fore—hence the overload of work and their concerns with money. Having gained this awareness, they reorganized their priorities, and therefore their time, differently.
In fact, what is the use of a refurbished kitchen if we’re to eat there alone, or if we’re to give each other the cold shoulder? What’s the use of a new living room if one hardly ever has the time to sit down there? What’s the use of a new car if there is quarreling on virtually every journey and if, in any event, there’s precious little time to travel, go for walks in the woods, or go on vacation?
A few years ago, Francois, who had been a participant at several NVC training sessions, called me to ask for help. He had just been appointed head of a home for young people in an underprivileged district of Brussels, and people had described for him a disastrous picture of the atmosphere there. Young people in the home were apparently in a state of revolt and had smashed up everything in the living room of the home that was supposed to be a gathering place and recreation workshop for them. Francois had a long career in welfare and humanitarian activities, but he had never yet been in charge of so-called street children. I met him and some of the members of his team who were familiar with the district. I learned some of the background to this revolt and took time to talk it over with some of the young people. It turned out that the previous head had promised activities and programs, but the promises had not been kept. The young people had entertained great expectations, and they felt let down. One day, hearing one final cancellation of a program, they freaked out and broke all the chairs and armchairs in the central meeting room.
Francois told me that his superiors had insisted on his repairing the home immediately and purchasing the necessary furniture again. He asked for my advice. I answered him: “Why rebuild the home if the bomb hasn’t been defused? It’s almost a provocation. The young people are going to see that there is money to replace things but not to look after people! It seems to me that that’s the best way of pressing the detonator again. They get the impression—rightly or wrongly—of being considered worthless, considered like things that can be dragged from one program to another. It’s a matter of urgency to show them human consideration, to listen to them, and attempt to understand their frustrations.”
At his request, I accepted the proposal to listen to the young people and take the time to try to help reestablish peace. Francois wanted me to make a proposal with a budgeted quote that he could present to his hierarchy. Without being very sure of the number of hours of work this would take, I proposed four modules of four hours’ duration each so as to have meetings with some fifteen young people in all. The price I quoted, at the time, for this work was about twenty thousand Belgian francs (approximately six hundred fifty dollars).
Francois called me a week later to let me know that my proposal had been turned down because the management had already used up all the budget for the current year by allocating eight times my quoted budget to fixing up the living room and buying chairs. In addition, he also pointed out to me that the management was of the view that it was a matter of priority; for the young people to feel at home, the rooms had to look welcoming. At the same time, management was envisaging reinforcing surveillance measures to ensure that the furniture would be respected.
Naturally, the setting is important, but what is the use of having a welcoming setting if there is revolt or hatred in people’s hearts? It’s all very nice, but does it really make a useful contribution to the relationships between people? Naturally, it’s important to attempt to see to it that material things are respected, but does a reinforcement of surveillance really provide the most effective and satisfactory answer for all concerned?
This true story shows us to what extent our institutions resemble ourselves in that they have not yet put humanness at the center of their concerns but allow themselves to be distracted by the organization that is supporting the human beings.
When expressing ourselves, words fail us, and when listening, patience fails us. After that we start putting up barbed-wire fences.
One time we took some twenty troubled young people for two days of climbing and risky-looking exercises on cables and rope bridges at a commando training camp, which was in the middle of nowhere and not enclosed. We had been given a litany of warnings from the young people’s supervisors: “They’re dangerous … Supervise them properly, and don’t let them escape … You’re crazy … They’ll go drinking and cause trouble in the first pub they find … Bring them back in the evening.”
We left trusting. And rightly so. Usually these kids lived inside the four walls of a group home or in the street. With us, they spent a whole day in the open air, swinging from the end of a rappelling rope above a three-hundred-foot drop or crossing rope bridges suspended over gorges far above the tips of the fir trees. They were hot, hungry, and scared—and then argued, moaned and groaned, and laughed with adults ready to listen to them. In the evening around the campfire, when the tents were up and the meal was on the fire, not one of them wanted to be anywhere else. And what kept them there? Well-being, the ingredients of which were the meaningfulness of what they were doing and the feelings they were experiencing.
We’re all dangerous if our vitality has no opportunity to express itself.
Let me put it to you straight: We’re all dangerous if our vitality has no opportunity to express itself, if our ill-being has no opportunity to be shared, explored, and understood. Violence is a bomb of thwarted dreams exploding.
“The bank is the river’s good fortune”
I cannot remember who produced this punchy aphorism. Indeed, it’s true that without banks a river becomes a marsh and goes no farther. We need meaning the same way we need bread. We need meaning in the sense of both direction and significance. The trick is to understand and get others to understand that the bank is the river’s ally, its friend, its faithful partner. The river does not endure the bank but leans on it and gathers strength from it.
With young people I work a lot on issues of meaning and freedom. I observe that they would like to have both but usually don’t know how to go about it, realizing for themselves that doing what they want doesn’t necessarily have meaning. Conversely, choosing meaningfulness can be a constraint when it involves giving up things. To illustrate the fact that being free doesn’t mean being able to do just anything—but is rather a question of doing what one has chosen to do—I suggest to them the following metaphor:
“Just imagine there are a dozen of you on some wasteland, in the sun, in the middle of the afternoon. What do you do?”
“Well, we just hang out, sleep, or we wander around the district and just get bored.”
“Just imagine that I suggest a few restrictions: Draw a large, white rectangle on the ground with chalk and divide the big rectangle into two. Form two teams. Only use one ball for both teams and only for a specific time, observing a few rules for passing the ball. Then what happens?”
(A look of surprise.) “Ah, clever. We’d be playing soccer!”
“So you can see that the rules and the restrictions form a framework for the game. That’s what gives you the opportunity to exercise your freedom to play in a truly satisfying way, just as traffic lights and traffic laws are opportunities to exercise our freedom to travel in a more satisfying and safe way. As long as we’re unaware of the meaning of the rule, we might well prefer going off to play alone outside the frame. If we’re aware of the meaning of the rule, there’s a greater chance we’ll find pleasure in participating in the game.”
Describing meaningfulness is difficult if one hasn’t pondered the question oneself. I note the helplessness of many parents and teachers in this respect. The questions adolescents and even younger children have about the meaning of what they are doing sometimes leave them stunned! Personally, I truly rejoice when young people ask themselves questions about meaningfulness and don’t accept “That’s the way it is because that’s the way it is … You go to school because it’s required … We go to work because one has to earn a living” and so on.
Through their questioning, young people are inviting adults to think over their priorities, to reformulate them even, as well as redefine what “makes sense” for them as teenagers. I see in that a sign of evolution toward greater meaningfulness, responsibility, and truth. Naturally, this shakes up our old principles and habits! And it’s certainly no small task to call oneself into question and begin reevaluating long-held assumptions.
If I see my young son running into the road where cars are going by, I’m going to waste no time in catching him and bringing him back onto the pavement, no messing around. This is neither the time for telling him how I feel nor what my needs are; this is an emergency! Once the child is safe, rather than telling him off and being reproachful, or worse, punishing him, I will explain to him that I felt very scared (F), that I wasn’t sure he was aware of the danger, and that it was to protect him from a possible accident (N) that I grabbed him. Then I will ask him if he agrees to be more careful in the future (R). This is the protective use of force.
If I get attacked on the street by a mugger and have no other means to avoid being hit than by striking out myself, I will do so. Not for the purpose of attacking, but to protect my life. It’s life and life alone that enables us to assess the legitimacy of physical defense. What is our intention? To subject, reduce, or suppress life? Or protect, allow, and encourage life?
Regarding the use of force “to educate,” whether it be through a slap, a beating, or confinement to a room—means that are still very commonly used—I am simply stunned when I hear that parents, who say they love their children, are capable of hitting them when there is a disagreement. Do they show their disagreement in the same way with their friends or close family? As a parent, I can fully understand how one can feel exasperated and occasionally driven to the breaking point by the behavior of children and be unable to know how to react. However, I am convinced that hitting a child, even lightly, is to perpetuate the old belief that violence is a legitimate way of solving conflicts. It means legitimizing in the hearts of tomorrow’s next generation the use of force to oblige another to submit. It means getting a child to accept that “if we don’t reach an understanding, we hit each other.” It means maintaining the old illusion that evil can bring good.
Acting out is an admission of defeat—the powerlessness to make oneself understood, to understand another. You can see how urgent it is to learn a new language, to understand one another, and to make ourselves understood. I’m not saying it isn’t important for acts to be approved or disapproved, depending on whether or not they’re in the service of a significant value. This very clear benchmark seems to me indispensable, not only in education but also for the well-being of a community.
But should we use punishment? Are there not ways of showing that an act has compromised a value—ways that enhance the assumption of responsibility? I believe that punishment often reveals a lack of imagination, creativity, and trust in the efficacy of consultation to come up with a restorative-justice solution in the service of life. Judges are beginning to understand this and are issuing sentences involving work in the public arena. I’m not saying this is easy, and I’m not judging parents who are exhausted and at the end of their rope. I’m simply noting that we’re all complicit in the perpetuation of an educational paradigm that approves violence.
Punishment often reveals a lack of imagination, creativity, and trust.
Almost every day, I see to what extent the fear of punishment and the quest for reward, which are but the two sides of the same tragic coin, keep so many people in a state of dependency with respect to one another, in a state of paralyzing guilt and deep-seated mistrust in relation to initiatives, novelty, difference, and responsibility. So many situations trigger the fear of “being mistaken” and punished or not receiving the reward stemming from approval. The system of punishment and reward does not create inner safety and self-confidence. Often unconsciously, but durably, this system produces a somewhat desperate quest for good marks or anguished apprehension over bad marks. I have so frequently seen the mechanics of this at work, particularly within businesses, and I have been saddened to witness the damage done by an educational system that, in the final analysis, transmits its values by recourse to fear and guilt rather than enthusiasm and agreement.
Let us be clear about our intentions. What do we want from others? Do we want automatic obedience, stripped of awareness, and based on fear or shame where the main concern is to “please in order to buy peace”? Or do we want responsible adherence to values that are close to our hearts, a taste for doing things in full awareness of the common good and moral commitment?
When I was twenty-five years old, there was still compulsory military service in Belgium. At the time, I had no idea that I could do something else and, more importantly, I had no awareness of the strength and power of nonviolence. With my head filled with law books, I had a need for the open air and contact with physical reality. So I enrolled in the army in the commando regiment. After six months of extremely demanding training, both physically and psychologically, I was an inexperienced young officer in front of my platoon of twenty-seven soldiers, all of them bigger and stronger than I and most of them with several years’ experience!
I soon realized it would be inadvisable to go against their wishes, even though I was their hierarchical superior. Even prior to learning the concepts of Nonviolent Communication, I didn’t want these men to act out of duty or submission but out of awareness and responsibility. I realized instinctively that they needed to have the meaning of proposed activities clearly spelled out and the reasons for doing them understood. Giving orders without specifying their meaning or ensuring that the men were motivated would have deadened our relationship. I wanted our relationship to be lively and as egalitarian as possible, while clearly respecting the functionality of the roles each of us played.
I have no memory of ever having raised my voice. As a group we operated joyfully in an atmosphere of mutual trust. Although my military experience taught me a lot about myself and about how human beings function, I am certainly not singing the praises of the army. I have a dream that 10 percent of national defense budgets the world over would be allocated to:
The organization of self-expression and intervention groups requested anywhere.
Training in communication and mediation as early as primary school.
Learning respect for difference.
Stimulating inner security and self-confidence.
Just imagine a mere 10 percent of the world investment in armament and war being reserved for tools in the service of peace! This would be a United Nations-style peacekeeping force, but with the backing and funding of national “peace” departments. When I see the amazing results that my colleagues and I obtain with ridiculously small budgets, I thrill to the thought of the extraordinary power we all have to create peace actively.
From this experience in the armed forces, I understand even more deeply in my bones that although life may have us play an authority role, it can only be authority in the service of life, a function to inspire movement and facilitate cohesion, somewhat like the role of an orchestra conductor. Will a conductor “punish” the violinist whose bow slips or the flautist who wanders off the score? Far from it! He will recall the meaning of the music and respect for the notes; he will stimulate a taste for playing together and will inspire the members of his orchestra to stay focused and leave improvisations to the jazz musicians! I maintain an awareness that one can experience strictly hierarchical relationships while deeply respecting one another, without losing either one’s identity or one’s dignity. Once again, it isn’t so much what one does as how one does it that is so pivotal.
Finally, I’m not claiming that firmness isn’t sometimes necessary. But can we not learn to be firm and assertive without being aggressive? Can we not learn to say, to shout even, “Enough is enough!” without judging, but just expressing firmly what we want and allowing the other person not to agree?
When we’re exhausted, it’s so easy for us to consider that another is the cause of our exhaustion. When our first daughter, Camille, was born, Valérie’s and my nights were of course short and broken. One night, Camille’s tears were becoming really difficult to bear; she had not yet found her rhythm between feeds. Both my wife and I got up, moaning: “She is so exhausting. This is unbearable.” But quite quickly we corrected that: “No, we are the ones who are exhausted and find it difficult to put up with her crying. As for her, she is alive and is showing it. We certainly don’t expect her to be nice in order to let us sleep. It’s up to us to meet our need for rest in some other fashion.”
French geneticist Albert Jacquart, referring to how society applies sanctions, reminds us of how important it is to fully assume our responsibilities: “The existence of a prison in a town is proof that something is awry in the whole of our society.” Similarly, resorting to punishment is a sign that something is out of kilter in the way we educate, work, or live together.
“What man is missing out on is intensity.”—Carl Jung
A few years ago in a shopping area in a city in Quebec, in the middle of the freezing month of November, I was greeted by a smiling teenager, sixteen or seventeen years old, who seemed to be waiting, leaning against the corner of a wall. He came up to me and said: “Hi, how are things? Are you looking for someone?” I immediately realized what he was doing there, in the cold, looking like a schoolboy going home. It wasn’t drugs he wanted to sell. He was offering himself. I replied: “No, I’m not looking for anyone. But I’ll gladly get you a cup of coffee if you want one.” It was bitingly cold on the street, and something about this unexpected encounter touched me. He accepted. We went into a café on the corner, and we chatted about everything and nothing.
“Tim,” I said to him, “it’s young people who taught me a lot of what I know and what I apply as I do my job. Would it be OK for you if I asked you a question about yourself?”
(In a cloud of cigarette smoke …) “No problem. Go ahead.”
“What led to doing what you do on the street?”
“Drugs.”
“And what led you to drugs?”
“Life.”
“And what more specifically in life?”
(He gave a big sigh, dragged on his cigarette, then stubbed it out, annoyed.) “I just can’t take hearing my father telling me I should go to school ‘because that’s the way it is.’ He can’t even tell me why he’s working! Come on! His job can’t have any meaning or purpose.”
“Do you need things and life to have meaning?”
“Well, of course! And then even life is a waste, my dad is a loser, my hometown is worthless. I need to have fun, so I have a blast.” (He actually giggled.)
“Would you like life to be even more intense, more alive?”
(Getting irritated.) “Yeah, well, I want things to go wild. You can imagine what things at home are like. Everything in its place, all neat and tidy, dead. Not much life there.”
“Do you need to have liveliness to be alive?”
“I sure do. I need to feel that I’m fully alive. But I don’t get that in my life. So I have a few lines of coke, I smoke joints, and I have sex with people I don’t know. I haven’t yet found any other way of living on the edge.”
In a few words, Tim summarized the basic aspirations of human existence: We need to be aware of meaning in our life, the direction it is taking us and its significance—human, philosophical, spiritual. We also need to know that we’re embodied in living, pulsating flesh capable of enjoying the full range of experiences and pleasures in the world. Unless we take care of these needs in some constructive fashion, we run the risk of trying to meet them in a destructive way.
Three days after we met, as I was leaving the premises where I was doing some training, I came across Tim again. He was begging on a major boulevard. I couldn’t believe I was running into him again. He was looking worse than three days before, and it was clear he had come to the end of his resources. He needed twenty dollars to get a bus ticket back to his hometown.
“Twenty bucks, I tell you, that’s all I need to get back to where I live. It’s two hundred fifty miles away!”
“I’m willing to help you, but what is there to reassure me that you won’t smoke away the twenty dollars?”
“Come and buy the ticket with me. I’ve got to go, I tell you!”
We were walking to the bus station, and Tim explained to me: “I’m scared of missing my bus. My parents are expecting me tomorrow, and my buddy here won’t put me up anymore. So I prayed. I always pray at times like this.”
“And are your prayers always heard and answered?”
“Well, you came by, and you’re paying for my ticket!”
“Do you believe—”
“In what? In God?”
“Yes.”
“Well, of course, and he always answers me.”
He was confident, confident that one day he would have a wife, children, a job. He spoke of what he was experiencing as something temporary, momentary. I’m grateful to Tim for this lesson in life and faith. This encounter nourished in me a taste for digging even deeper to find the vein of truth and health, even through the mire of pain and our day-to-day existence.
As for Julian, he was a seventeen-year-old and so quiet that he was thought to be autistic. He did have drug problems, and we invited him to join us for a downriver trip we were organizing in a remote mountain region. For the first few days, he lay in the bottom of the canoe without moving a muscle the whole ride, without saying a word, whereas the others were taking turns riding in front, sitting astride the canoe floats, and enjoying jumping the river’s waves.
Julian was from a very humble, even impoverished, background. His father, a foreigner, had long since returned to his native country. Julian was sad and lonely. Seeing the others have such fun, he nonetheless did become more sociable. One day he took the risk of going up front, sitting astride the canoe’s floats. He was watching for the next rapids. There the wave was much larger than he thought it would be. It crashed over the whole canoe, and the eddies almost made the boat capsize. Julian was jubilant: “Did you see that wave; did you see that? And I stayed on, didn’t I? Did you see? What a whopper! That was fantastic!” Then he stopped, speechless, and we were mesmerized to hear him produce so many words in such a lively way. Never had he heard himself like that or felt so good.
At that moment, the whole crew cheered him in chorus, the way one would welcome a birth! With the splash of water, Julian got a splash of life that let him into his body, let him leave the sad Peter Pan behind, let him dance, move. Gradually, Julian left his torpor and his muteness. Day after day we saw him mixing with the others, taking his place in the group, and beginning to laugh. Eight years later, I saw Julian again. He was at work and taking care of his own son.
Here is a challenge I especially like to take up: to find presence, joy, and the taste for life, even through its harshest difficulties, not denying or repressing them. The challenge is to find neither optimism nor pessimism, but simply live the experience as consciously as possible, trying to avoid the usual traps—getting set in our ways, our principles, and our old wounds. Other pitfalls include being ill cared for or not cared for, as well as flights into idealization or spiritual desolation.
Before closing this chapter, I want to celebrate life in all its many-splendored dimensions, in all of its movements and all of its moments, the life that gets us to seek what we truly want beyond the constraints that sometimes threaten to weigh us down.
To trust our children.
To take a bath rather than cook unwillingly.
To pack up and set off in a horse-drawn caravan rather than accepting anomie and boredom.
Gets the little girl with her slippers to stand up for herself because she is seeking to understand the meaning of what is being asked of her and seeing her freedom respected.
Urges parents to redefine their priorities and leave their gardens, their houses, their cars to be with their children while there is yet time.
Gets us to change what we no longer like and like what we cannot change.
Makes us aware of possibilities in our interactions, like the policeman in the village as the children were leaving the school.
Gets us to sit down with young people to exchange information on our values, checking their relevance and efficacy.
Lets us discover and lets us free ourselves from an old-time repressed revolt straining beneath the neatly pressed suit and polished shoes to live free.
Gets us to jump off the runaway train in order to listen to ourselves.
Encourages Tim to refuse to suffocate even as he wades through the mud to “resuscitate” his life.
Joyfully slaps Julian out of his torpor and brings him into the land of the living.
Will, finally, cause us to postpone our all-important budget for “the purchase of chairs and decorations” so that we can sit on the ground (or in the gravel if necessary) in order to start listening to our hearts.
During World War II from 1939 to 1945, my grandmother, who was a marvelously generous and a deeply devout Christian woman, hid Jews in the cellar of her house. We, who at the age of ten or twelve played there in every nook and cranny in later years, found it hard to believe that human beings could have been hidden there to protect their lives. She would tell us these stories, and we always quivered with emotion when she got to the moment when the Germans raided the house and searched it. Without so much as a tremor in her voice, Granny had dared to tell the patrol leader searching the house that only the members of the family were there and that no one else was in the house.
I was in such admiration of her dignity and courage, and yet I had misgivings. “But, Granny,” I said, “you didn’t tell the Germans the truth. You say that we should always tell the truth …”
She stopped a moment to think, her eyes closed. “You’re right,” she finally said. “I think we should always tell the truth. But in that case, truly, there was something more important at stake than the truth: life itself. Life had to be respected.” With that, my grandmother taught me what lies beyond words, principles, and habits. Life itself.