Why Stress Makes Communication Difficult

You find it hard to communicate in stressful moments. So do I. There’s a reason why it is hard to listen and not yell in tough situations that all relationships face. Science proves it is near impossible for you to communicate well when under stress.

The body experiences a primal response that agitates people in conflict. A stressed guy will tense his face, breathe shallowly, raise his voice, respond faster, and not think clearly. If you controlled these body responses, you would not be stressed. Not only does tension hurt your communication, it creates a viral effect. Your stress infects those around you.

Conflict is probably synonymous for you with stress. To be in conflict with someone is to be stressed. For me, I must have my mental and physical tension under control so I can communicate effectively to improve my relationships. If I do not manage my stress, it inevitably gets the better of me, as it will to you.

Stress makes us mentally ill. A psychiatrist could diagnose you with depression, mania, psychosis, bipolar disorder, or another mental illness when you are stressed. The difference between you and someone diagnosed with one of these mental health problems is the time you and they spend in those states. A person diagnosed with depression feels down for most of the day while you may temporarily be depressed only when you are under loads of stress. No wonder it’s difficult to communicate well when stressed.

Fight, Flight, or Freeze Responses in Conversation

Stress in conflict evokes the fight, flight, or freeze responses. An argument, disagreement, or confrontation elevates tension as you yell, withdraw, stand confused. You do things you later regret.

Aggressive behavior towards another person temporarily feels okay, but then reality kicks in as you feel even more stressed from hurting the person. When you try your best to hide tension, your suppressed emotions eat at you to later hurt your relationships.

A psychiatrist could diagnose you with a series of mental illness when stressed. No wonder it’s difficult to communicate well when stressed.

When under stress, your communication style will change in response to the situation. You can go from a cool, collected person one moment, yet when a stressful situation impinges your tolerable threshold your calm style can quickly shift to aggressive or submissive behaviors. The behavior you fall back on in stressful situations is the one you found comfortable in the past that offered momentary protection.

When someone surpasses their tolerable degree of tension, telling them to get their act together or to communicate better, does not work. It won’t work for you either. It’s human extinct to block external factors, such as other people’s feelings, and listen to internal ones as your interpersonal communication skills decline. Better communication in intense conflict is a matter of managing stress otherwise it is next to impossible to deal with conflict.

“What Did I Say?” – Memory Loss and Other Dangers of Stress

Stress motivates us to take action, but it too often works against us. We yell, withdraw, or shut-down in tense communication. Our bodies produce cortisol, known as the “stress hormone”, to compel us into action. Without this double-edged hormone, we would accomplish little. If you are completely relaxed in conflict and untrained in good communication skills, you could overlook the problematic issue or give an unsympathetic response.

Research has shown cortisol to improve cognitive functioning. Too much cortisol, however, causes impairment. If you have ever forgotten what you said in a verbal fight, cortisol has literally shut off short-term memory. Cortisol obtrudes neurotransmitters that are chemicals responsible for communication between neurons and other cells. That is why you can memorize a speech 50 times and forget it when you present it. A stressful crisis temporarily results in a blank mind.

Stanford neuroscience professor Robert Sapolsky found that cortisol also causes long-term memory loss. When the receptors for cortisol located in the hippocampus (the part of the brain responsible for long-term memory) gets flooded overtime, it melts like microwaved Swiss cheese.

The affects of stress are too numerous to list here. From rapid aging of the body and heart disease, to poor sleep and skin conditions, the effects are real. You need techniques to manage your stress; not just for your communication, but also for your health.

Stress Reduction Tips: 9 Key Lessons for Intelligent Stress Management

We need to attack stress deep within our neurology where it originates. Thinking positively or talking yourself through stress isn’t going to reduce tension. I have developed nine effective ways and techniques to manage stress you can use to keep calm in stressful moments so you can communicate better and live a happier life:

1. Prevention is the best cure. The best technique to deal with stress is to stop it before it begins. Create the appropriate measures, boundaries, and strategies to interrupt rising tensions. If the tension between two people rises beyond a safe level, one strategy is to pause, walk away, punch a pillow, and take slow deep breathes before commencing the conversation. You can incorporate other stress management techniques listed below into your plan to be more calm in conflict.

2. Accept your feelings. Never tell yourself you shouldn’t feel what you do. Do not say, “I shouldn’t be feeling stressed right now.” You must accept your feelings otherwise they will persist or repress into forms that severely affect your mental health and ability to effectively communicate. When you accept your stress, you move forward to taking personal responsibility.

3. Accept responsibility for how you feel. It is tempting and easy to release stress on other people. Do not treat people inappropriately. If you treat people in a way they don’t want to be treated, you make them tense, which they will be happy to put back on you.

Blame makes you more stressed because anxiety is related to events within your control. What is beyond your reach makes you anxious. If you blame your shouting spouse for making you angry, your anxiety and stress will remain because you have little influence over your spouse’s voice.

When you accept responsibility, you eliminate blame. You live in truth. You do not become a victim of others. You take control of your feelings. Your new levels of responsibility cause you to do something about how you feel.

If someone causes you stress, address the person about the problem. Explain to them how you feel, why you feel that way, and what can be done to fix the problem. Be problem-oriented; not person-oriented.

4. Breathe. When tension in your body rises, you automatically take shallow breathes. This is one of the first stages prior to full fight, flight, or freeze responses that hurt effective communication. When your stress levels rise, take several deep, slow breathes and you will instantly reduce your stress levels.

Accept stress. Never tell yourself you shouldn’t feel what you do.

5. Take time out. A walk away is guaranteed to refresh your mind. Don’t call for the travel agent to book a Caribbean cruise though, because a temporary break is all you need. Go for a walk or workout at the gym. Be active to release hormones that counter stress. Exercise is the body’s emotional reset button.

Absence from the situation that created the tension takes your mind off the problem. It gives you clearer thoughts to attack the problem. Be sure to address the problem after your time out otherwise you will only temporarily avoid the real issue.

6. Be flexible. Stress is like the sunrise and sunset. It is inevitable. It is a part of your human body. Therefore, the best way to deal with it is to change your behavior and communication.

Be soft; not brittle. Recognize signals of stress by reading people’s verbal and nonverbal language, then adjust yourself accordingly. Be flexible by going a bit out of your way for them to assist their temporary needs and wants. Don’t run around the world for them, but do be more aware and respondent of them. This can lead you to less stress.

7. Discuss the problem afterwards. Combine this tip with the prior tip of remaining flexible and you have two keys to manage tense people. You need to address the problem following the stressful moment otherwise destructive, repetitious behavior occurs. Also, if there is someone you know that finds it difficult to manage their stress in communication, you can refer them to this article by clicking the “ShareThis” link at the bottom of this article.

8. Ask others about your responses in stressful moments. You are to do this because you cannot provide an accurate self-assessment when stressed. Your short-term memory loss makes it impossible to recall information.

Awareness of your behavior can trigger a pattern interrupt. If the person says you consistently yell when stressed, raising your voice can trigger self-awareness that your stress needs to reduce before the conversation continues.

9. Listen to binaural beats. Discovered by Heinrich Wilhelm Dove in 1839, binaural beats describes the low-frequency pulsations in the brain created by different frequencies played into each ear. The brain integrates the two sounds to form a third sound that relaxes the mind.

In terms of stress, binaural beats is a miracle. A correctly made binaural beat will scientifically make your brain produce alpha waves, which is the same brain wave you have when resting. That wonderful feeling you have when lying in bed almost asleep can be replicated by binaural beats. Imagine how better your life would be by simply putting on a headphone the next time you feel stressed as you enter a relaxed state at will!

If you are after binaural beats, Paul Kleinmeulman has a good program that includes a series of binaural beats for different purposes. You can check out his program here, where you will learn more about the proven science behind binaural beats, which can make you motivated, sleep better, intensify your focus, learn efficiently, and keep relaxed.

Conflict does not need to be synonymous with stress. Neither has to make you miserable. Stress can be a good thing when managed with the above tips.

Your body experiences stress because it is threatened in conflict. Do something about it. You don’t want to feel the same way in a fight as you do when watching the Simpsons. Harness this primal response and you will be communicating more effectively in your next confrontation.

Principles do not change. Water is two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom – this will not change. The North poles of two magnets repel – this will not change. Gravity rips you down to Earth – this will not change. The unchanging laws of science are parallel to the unchanging principles and laws of communication to deal with difficult people.

If you have a difficult person in your life, you may think he or she is impossible to deal with, yet the person is not an impenetrable rock. It’s human! And humans follow laws of psychology and behavior you can benefit from. This article will provide you with judo-like principles to convert seemingly impossible forces of a difficult person into tips to effectively deal with them.

The world is filled with stubborn people. The difficult and not so difficult people even think you can be difficult. Learn the following tips (taken from my Communication Secrets of Powerful People Program) to deal with difficult people in your everyday life:

4 Common Methods that Do Not Work

Sending solutions. Common phrases that indicate solving include: “What if you…” “Stop doing… and start…” and “Why don’t you…” Telling people what to do does not work. Solutions are the problem. The more you push solutions on people, the more they pull away from you and your suggestion. Real solutions, commitment, and desire for change come from participation.

Moralizing. Common phrases that indicate moralizing include: “You should….” “It would be good for you to…” and “Stop doing wrong…” Chapter eight of my program defines moralizing words as “using what is right and wrong, good and bad, black and white to further your logic.” Manipulation from guilt and other emotions that arise from moral words do not change difficult people yet alone anyone.

Complaints. “I wish Bill wasn’t so damn annoying.” Bickering is mental masturbation. Creation comes from being proactive. If you complain, you’re the difficult person. You become no better than the person you try to change.

Criticism. People criticize to build change. “I’m results-focused. I criticize people to get things done.” Similar lines of thinking drive the 12 communication barriers (criticism, labeling, diagnosing, praise, orders, threats, questions, moralizing, advice, reason, reassurance, and deflecting). Avoid criticism because it is not charismatic persuasion. Criticism intensifies conflict. Criticized individuals feel diminished, unworthy, and less important.

10 Principles and Tips to Deal with a Difficult Person

The following principles and tips are not short-term tricks to transform an annoying person. Endless articles shared on the Internet provide frivolous advice on this topic. When the core problem is addressed, however, colds get skipped and the cancer is cut out. Advice shared here gets to the core of what really matters when dealing with a difficult person.

1. You see the world as you are. Stephanie Rosenbloom for The New York Times hit the heart of difficult people; or rather the people who think someone is difficult. Rosenbloom says the issue “is not the difficult people themselves. It is you.”

Problems transmute from your perception, then your reaction.

Most articles that provide tips to deal with difficult people focus on difficult individuals (“They’re the problem”); hence they miss the real problem (“You’re part of the problem”). You play a role in a difficult person’s behavior. Problems transmute from your perception, then your reaction. Carl Jung said we repress our hated characteristics, which manifest in discomfort around people we repulse. Jungian psychoanalyst Edward Whitmont writes:

Ask someone to give a description of the personality type which he finds most despicable, most unbearable and hateful, and most impossible to get along with, and he will produce a description of his own repressed characteristics – a self-description which is utterly unconscious and which therefore always and everywhere tortures him as he receives its effect from the other person. These very qualities are so unacceptable to him precisely because they represent his own repressed side; only that which he cannot accept without ourselves do we find impossible to live with in others.

What characteristics in people do you hate most? What do these characteristics say about you? Who does not find the person difficult? What can you learn from the person who does not find the person hard to face?

A chronically difficult person is rare. Your self-image makes people difficult. I strongly encourage you to notice as often as possible what you deny in yourself because this could be a repressed image, a shadow you see in others, that you have ignored in the past. “In the end,” says Rosenbloom, “the specialists say, we cannot control other people, only our response to them.” (The first chapter of my Big Talk training course taps into this deep, dark psychological theory that stops us from enjoyable conversation. When you connect with your full self, it becomes easy to connect with people and make friends. This is cutting-edge material you can discover more about here.)

2. Lose the need to be right. When you enter a conversation with the intent to fix someone, you become difficult. Stephen Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People says you must open yourself to be influenced to influence. Quit thinking you are right because this drives your resistance to be changed and change people.

3. Clear your heart, open your mind. Too often our experiences with people hurt our current conversations with them. It takes time for someone in your negative light to shift under a positive spotlight even when the person hasn’t been difficult for a while.

Forgive to clean your heart then keep an open mind as to why someone is difficult. Stop hopping to conclusions by portraying the problem as the person’s difficulty. You blockade truth with judgments and fear of self-analysis.

Perhaps you are the problem, their father was diagnosed with cancer, or they are in financial trouble. Acknowledge that you do not – and will never – know all reasons why someone is difficult. An open mind that welcomes a person’s point of view to enter possible explanations for their behavior creates a cushion to soften harsh judgments.

Listen to the difficult person and let them express their point of view. It will help you see why they are difficult. This tip alone can be enough to deal with the person as you see the reason for their behavior. Listen honestly and actively with empathy.

4. Want difficult people. It’s scary, but wanting a bothersome person helps you. Difficult people create conflict – and this creates change. An organism with no challenge has no reason to evolve. Difficulties challenge you, compelling you to evolve into a superior being.

Does this mean you can be difficult? No. There is people who find you difficult enough. The diversity of human nature brings with it differences that catapult humanity through difficulties.

5. Be proactive, not reactive. Reactive persons blame circumstances for their reality. They reciprocate bad behavior. They reason other people need to change.

The diversity of human nature brings with it differences that catapult humanity through difficulties.

Proactive persons create what they want regardless of constricting circumstances. Create a value in yourself to be proactive and treat people with respect. Once you stop reciprocating bad behavior, you feel proud, empowered, and in control of your life regardless of whether you successfully handle the situation. Make the fundamental decision to commit to the advice given in this article.

6. Be responsible, not a victim. Don’t blame people for how they make you feel. The degree you’re a victim of someone’s behavior controls the impact it has on you.

Take responsibility for how you feel. Prevent people from entering and exiting your emotional state at will. Eliminate blame to free yourself from a person’s difficult behavior.

You don’t have to be burdened by people’s problems. You will work towards a solution faster and be less emotionally exasperated when you lose the victim mentality and stop thinking people are villains. My friend Gary Harper has a good article on this where he also discusses similar principles to this article.

7. Be problem-oriented, not person-oriented. Difficult people have a difficult problem and are trying to fulfill a need the only way they know possible. It seems elusive, but even they want to live in harmony.

People are not the problem. Focus on the problem and not the person. A helpful tip for this is to disassociate the problem from the person. Their behavior, even you, or something else is the problem.

8. Find the unmet need. Difficult people have an unmet need. Whether somebody is angry, unhappy, depressed, loud, or anxious, they try to fulfill a need – though it is often done poorly. Notice a hidden need beneath someone’s difficult behavior, and you will see another human being. This will allow you to compassionately communicate. The Nonviolent Communication Process is a model that gets you focused on, and fulfilling, other people’s needs and your own.

9. Be interdependent. Dependency is unhealthy. To overcome this, self-help experts teach independence. According to most people, independence is health, freedom, and power. By itself, nothing could be further from the truth.

According to Robert Greene, author of 48 Laws of Power, a powerful individual living in isolation destroys his power. John O’Neil in The Paradox of Success confirms Greene’s remarks. O’Neil says leaders and other individuals in powerful positions destroy their success and happiness with overt independence. Such persons do it all, have chronic obsessions with work and difficulties getting their mind off work, and easily become irritated by others who disagree with their decision-making.

A powerful communicator knows how to distribute decision-making for freedom. He or she knows how to seek help because the person is not afraid to admit failure and learn. This is the interdependent standpoint you need beyond solitude. “When we try to pick out anything by itself,” said famed conservationist John Muir, “we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”

Use other people to help solves problems. It sounds simple because it is. Talk to a parent, manager, or human resource department. People bring knowledge, skills, and persuasive power to handle a difficult person. Be beware of risks associated with making a private problem public. It’s your responsibility to respect a person’s privacy concerns and at the same time request another’s help when necessary.

10. Be detached from an outcome.

If the above tips and principles fail you, it’s not because they don’t work – it’s because you disobeyed them. The principles and tips given to you cannot fail because they are the foundations for good communication.

When you attach to an outcome, your rigidity causes resistance.

If you lose the need to be right while remaining proactive, for example, you deal with the difficult person. Stop thinking the only way to deal with a difficult person is to change them, such desire only makes you difficult.

When you attach to an outcome by seeking a specific result from an interaction at all costs, your rigidity causes resistance. The most common outcome people attach to when they converse with a difficult person is their need to be right and change the person (principle #2). Going into a conversation with the righteous intent to change a person guarantees failure. You must detach from an outcome.

If the principles and tips do not bring you the result you’re after, prepare to walk away. Give the people involved space to think the problems through. By doing this, you clear your heart and open your mind, remain proactive, and keep problem-oriented. A tough issue can be solved at a later time. Another day can bring different possibilities. Emotions, thoughts, and attitudes change.

Unsuccessful conflict resolution with a difficult person can escalate the problem, but adhere to these principles and tips to deal with a difficult person to make the difficult more manageable. “Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen,” said Friedrich Nietzsche, “few in pursuit of the goal.”

(If you are reading this and found the above principles and tips to deal with difficult people helpful, you will enjoy my “Communication Secrets of Powerful People Program” where the principles for this article were extracted. Click here to learn more about the program and how you can develop your communication skills to charismatically have cold-hearted persons wanting to change. Also discover more about Big Talk, my training course that lets two persons openly and freely talk with one another, by clicking here.)

What is the link between the following scenarios:

1. Your partner leaves the room in anger after another argument
2. A friend lashes out at you despite you having done nothing wrong
3. A child’s constant disobedience makes you frustrated and causes you to yell things you later regret

Thousands of situations like the ones above all have a common thread that play out in your life every year. There is a better way to handle the situation, but you cannot figure it out. Your emotions get the better of you and others as you poorly handle the situation. The answers and the secret human need I will show you how to fulfill is through a method of communication called “nonviolent communication”, also known as NVC.

The Answer to World Peace and Our Greatest Need?

The process I am about to discuss in this article is one created by the Center for Nonviolent Communication. The organization is a nonprofit organization founded by Marshall Rosenberg, author of Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. Rosenberg and a couple hundred other NVC trainers, conduct workshops throughout the world where they teach their nonviolent communication model. The NVC process has changed millions of people who learned the techniques directly from trainers or Rosenberg’s book, and people who have been fortunate enough to have those trained in the NVC process use the model on them.

If you are after a process that changes a person’s behavior, NVC is not the best one to use. NVC builds a deep intimate relationship and connection with effective communication by satisfying people’s needs. It achieves a level of connection most people never experience. It can be used to change a person’s behavior, but the primary purpose of the process is to help people face what matters with compassion to connect at a very intimate level.

Once you have gone through the process, then you can use your negotiation skills to persuade the person. If you try to persuade the person upfront before you use NVC, you will often find you are resisted and ignored.

When a person disagrees with you, refuses to comply with a request, or is angry at you, a poor communicator tries to firstly express oneself. The person seeks to be understood before seeking to understand. An NVC user seeks to understand the person, which in turn leads to their own need of being understood. Once you understand others, they often want to understand you.

Once you understand others, they often want to understand you.

The commonality of the situations mentioned earlier, and thousands of situations you experience throughout the year, is people’s desperation to be understood. Your angry partner wants to be understood. Your friend wants to be understood and will have almost zero frustration once you understand. Children want to be understood, which naturally compels them to talk with you about intimate issues. Nonviolent communication helps you understand people and have them understand you.

The need to be understood is possibly the greatest unmet human need. Fulfill this need and you will trigger new experiences, intimate sharing, and connect with people at the heart. Thanks to Dan Kennedy, a great marketer I intently learn from, I came across a quote by Cavett Robert, founder of the National Speakers Association, who said, “Most people are walking around, umbilical cord in hand, looking for a new place to plug it in.” If you can be that “socket” by understanding the person and empathically receiving their needs, you automatically share an electrifying connection with the person. Something about the person will change before your eyes. They will know something deep is going on without knowing what you are doing.

Unfortunately, the majority of people never arrive at this stage of electrifying intimacy. Answer this question truthfully: How many people truly understand you on a frequent basis? Think about the question for some time because it is important to understand understanding.

I ask this not to make you blame others for their failure to understand you, but to show you the scarcity of people who seek to understand. If you are like most people, you will not have one person that frequently and truly understands you in conversations. Few people care about understanding others, which causes themselves to be misunderstood. People who complain that “no one understands me” are constantly misunderstood because they live on a one-way street seeking to receive before they consider giving.

Violence is widespread because one group wants to be understood while another they are in conflict with also wants to be understood. The failure to see the others’ needs means neither gets what they want. The result is emotional and physical destruction. So much pain in the world is caused by misunderstandings.

The need to be understood is possibly the greatest unmet human need.

The anger and frustration present in everyday situations appears to be irrelevant to deeper issues, yet it is our inability to effectively face conflict that contributes to a global scale of war and hatred. Our everyday wallowing in resentment, frustration, and misunderstandings has as much – but probably greater – impact on peace and love than kind actions. If you cannot resolve your minor nuances in relationships that are suppose to be intimate and love-filled, you cannot expect nations who have hated each other for centuries to resolve major conflicts. To understand another person is a secret of world peace. “Peace cannot be achieved through violence,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson, “it can only be attained through understanding.”

The nonviolent communication process is simple once you know the process; though it’s not always a fun slide to ride on because emotional pollution clogs your use of it. With practice, you will become better at NVC and be more successful in your communication and relationships. Over time, provided you continually practice the techniques and polish your skills, you will become excellent at the process.

An Overview of Nonviolent Communication: The Four Steps to Compassionate Communication

The process has four steps: observing, feeling, needing, and requesting. There are really eight steps, however, because you firstly apply the four steps to the other person, then you apply them to yourself. Remember what I said before about seeking to understand before being understood? The first four stages make you understand people so you can be understood when you apply the four steps on yourself. This is the most critical part of the concept to grasp.

Unless the person is a compassionate communicator, go through the four steps first on the other person otherwise he or she will not listen to you. Use the visualization of a vacuum empathically “sucking up” the person’s communication. Until the person feels “cleaned”, you will be unable to clean yourself. Once you have sucked up the person, and hence understood them, you are then ready to use NVC on yourself.

Most people identify a few problems in firstly focusing on the other person. If you have not identified one of these now, you will as you continue to read about the process. The biggest concern I had with NVC is that you forgo your own needs, concerns, and emotions like anger. NVC prevents destructive expressions of anger and frustration via harmful attitudes and behaviors like the sarcastic teenager or the employee who does poor quality work. The process encourages you to express intense emotions – especially anger – in a healthy way that fulfills the underlying need.

At first glance, I understand the model may overwhelm you, but keep at it and reread the pages in this article to refine your ability to understand people and be understood. The NVC process as described in this full article will give you a good idea of what to expect in my Communication Secrets of Powerful People Program should you want to invest in it. It could be one of the greatest investments you make. Once you know how to understand people and help them understand you, you can mold your relationships however you want. It is time to kick into the first stage: observing.

1. Observing

The first step of the process has you observe something specific about the person that impedes their wellbeing. One example is, “When you see your children hitting one another…” You separate the person from the behavior and refer to a specific circumstance. People make predictable mistakes at this step.

The greatest mistake at this stage is giving an evaluation instead of an observation – because of this, I will thoroughly teach you how to avoid evaluations and observe in this section of the article. An evaluation is a judgment of personal opinion that lacks detachment and objective evidence. Judgments prevent observations and the recipient from feeling understood.

Think of a birdwatcher who carefully and calmly admires nearby birds. The birdwatcher does not disturb the birds. He watches to see the behaviors of the birds as he listens to the sounds they make. He may even respond to a bird’s sound in the same manner by whistling.

If people were birdwatchers and they tried to observe a bird (the other person), they would fire gunshots, scream, and throw rocks at the bird. These dangerous actions for the bird is the emotional equivalent to judgments and evaluations for people in the listening process. When we feel judged and evaluated, it drives us insane! We fly away, avoid the person, and do not talk about what really matters as the judgmental person incorrectly blames and wonders what is wrong with us!

When you supposedly “listen” to your partner, a customer, or coworker, your “effective communication” and “excellent listening skills” has you fire a gun with evaluations and judgments. My experience in communication has me estimate 99% of people fail at this stage of NVC because of evaluations and judgments. I am no exception because, even now, I occasionally fail at this stage. Do not get discouraged. The migration from evaluation to observation fights communication habits you have adopted your entire life.

Evaluations can take many forms. It means you do not receive someone’s communication in its real form. You observe the bird, but do things to destroy its natural, beautiful presence. You mostly “shoot a gun,” “scream,” and “throw rocks” with judgments, criticisms, blame, or generalities. Other mistakes include labeling, questioning, deflecting, and other communication barriers I will soon describe.

An evaluation is a judgment of personal opinion that lacks detachment and objective evidence.

Valued customers of my Communication Secrets of Powerful People Program know the common ways we intoxicate our ability to listen to others. I believe your ability to actively listen and be in the present moment without polluting the person’s message with your thoughts and feelings is one of the greatest communication skills you can obtain.

I will give you common examples of how people fail to observe by applying the 12 communication barriers in my program. Never before has it been made in clear detail the common mistakes people make that kill conversations. The first part of the dialog is person one while the second part is person two who uses the communication barriers:

1. Criticism – “I’m trying to improve my skills in that area.” “Good. Because you’ve really sucked at it recently.”
2. Labeling – “I wish you would do house work more often.” “You’re just a nagger.”
3. Diagnosing – “I don’t want to go out right now.” “You’re just saying that because you’re mad about last night.”
4. Praising – “There! Done! Happy I’ve done the work now?” “You’re great for doing that job!”
5. Ordering – “I need a break from working.” “It doesn’t matter. Do what I told you to do now.”
6. Threatening – “I need a break from working.” “It doesn’t matter. Do what I told you to do now or I’ll make you do more.”
7. Questioning – “I’m feeling depressed about what happened today.” “You’re depressed again?”
8. Moralizing – “I don’t want to donate to charity.” “It’ll be good for you to help out.”
9. Advising – “I can’t believe my friendship has ended with Jenny.” “You shouldn’t have talked with her about Bob the other day.”
10. Reasoning – “I’m so angry right now because of my boss at work today!” “You need to focus on getting a new job.”
11. Reassuring – “I’m worried about performing well at the presentation tomorrow.” “You’ve got great skill and will perform fine.”
12. Deflecting – “Argh! I can’t believe Jerry always bugs me.” “Oh, yeah. Speaking of people being bugging, his friend John annoyed me the other day.”

Each time the second person judged and evaluated when he or she had the chance to provide a healthy observation. We hate being judged, evaluated, and told what to do. In response to the barriers, people become defensive, argumentative, frustrated, and resistant to persuasion.

To further demonstrate the barriers and help you grasp the observation stage because it is vital to understand, here are more examples of evaluations and the reasons they are evaluations:

• “You’re very kind by helping out.” – The word “kind” is a moralistic and judgmental word. It is distinguishes the behavior as good or bad. The person gets evaluated as good instead of the person’s behavior as good.
• “I reckon Mary is ugly.” – The adjective “ugly” evaluates and criticizes Mary’s looks. Ugly is dependent on each person. Other people will like Mary’s appearance.
• “All guys are clueless about managing a relationship.” – Too generalized and not specific enough. Nothing productive can come from such statements. Blame, misery, and a lack of change can only develop.
• “She avoids me.” – This is a diagnosis because the person tries to interpret and read into the person’s behavior. The person needs to provide evidence why the woman avoids him or her. Also, the word “avoid” needs to be replaced with something more concrete, like “walked away from”, because it assumes the woman’s behavior when there are many possibilities.
• “Britney, you don’t like my helping you.” – How does the person know Britney dislikes the person’s help? The person tries to mind-read instead of stating something more concrete like Britney’s emotions or physiology that communicate her possible dislike.

It can be overwhelming to hear about the communication barriers because they dissect the most common problems you have in your communication. In these frequent problems rest enormous potential and opportunity to be a powerful communicator. Should you see the barriers in your communication, you help transform yourself into someone who powerfully communicates with people. You may already be feeling the power of the communication barriers.

Some communication barriers in the above examples can be eliminated and evaluations be removed when you be specific. You can be specific by referring to a past situation. An effective observation typically begins with, “When you hear…” or “When you see…” The goal of this stage is to reflect your observation to the person. It cannot be repeated enough that it must be specific and free of evaluations.

One saleswoman knew the NVC process well. An angry manager approached her about a poor recent presentation she did. If most “good communicators” were in the lady’s shoes, they would respond along the lines of, “You’re angry at me about a bad presentation” or “You think I do not give good presentations”. At first glance, the examples may seem okay responses, but they are general evaluations. The manager may not be angry about a bad presentation. He may also think she is a good presenter.

The woman listened to the manager’s concerns and gave a good response: “When you hear me give a presentation that fails to persuade a potential buyer who could have given our company half a million dollars…” A couple of other good responses the saleswoman could use in different situations include: “It sounds to me as though you are gravely worried about the project not being accepted…” and “I see my exclusion of [so-and-so] facts made you frustrated…” All these examples are observations without evaluations. They are specific and show understanding and empathy.

Additional examples of the observation stage, which I will build on throughout the article to explain NVC, follow:

• “When you hear me tell you to do work around the house…”
• “I see that you’re unhappy with the changes in the office?”
• “It sounds to me as though you’re worried about losing a friend.”
• “I see that you’re excited about winning tonight!”

The four lines are free from judgments and other evaluations. They show understanding and empathy. They build a connection with people as they feel someone at last understands them! A lot of times your observation may be incorrect, but this does not matter when you observe without evaluation because the person will happily correct you.

Observations… build a connection with people as they feel someone at last understands them!

Now you know how to apply the observation stage on other people (the first step of the NVC), let’s learn how to apply the observation stage on yourself (think of it as the fifth step). When you use the observation stage on yourself, it is also necessary to remove evaluations. This will clarify what you require to fulfill that need.

Common evaluative statements and possible corrected observations (which I will build on throughout the article to explain NVC) include:

• “When I hear you become angry…” – Assumes the person is angry. You need to avoid judgments and say what lets you know the person is angry. Correct statements include, “When I hear you raise your voice…” or “When I feel intimidated around you…”
• “When I see you avoid me…” – Assumes the person avoids you. You need to say what it is that makes you think the person avoids you. Correct statements include, “When I see you walk away from me…” or “When I cannot make eye contact with you…”
• “When I come home from work and see you annoy me…” – This starts off well, but quickly deteriorates. The person will become defensive when you say he or she annoys you. What is it that annoys you? A correct statement could be, “When I come home from work and see you lying on the couch…”
• “When you don’t like my cooking…” – Contains a judgment because the person is evaluated to determine if they dislike your cooking. It misses the true emotional content of the conversation. A correct statement could be, “When I don’t hear appreciation of my cooking…”

As you can probably see, observation statements of yourself typically start off with: “When I hear…” or “When I see…” Such statements initiate concrete evidence that lead you to a pure observation without judgment. You cannot judge or evaluate when you express what you hear or see.

A pure observation instantly reduces interpersonal violence, makes people feel understood, and increases your power with people. People open themselves to intimate communication and persuasion from your healthy expression that you understand them. Your understanding of people gives you the power to mold your relationships into the shape you want.

(There is a lot more to the 12 barriers I cannot explain in this article. Of the hundreds of communication books and programs I have been through, no other program has explained and made it easy for you to know what prevents you from connecting with people. I highly recommend you read the program by clicking here and grab your copy to learn more about the 12 communication barriers that kill conversations.)

2. Feeling

Once you observe the person, the second step of NVC is the feeling stage. The feeling stage has you identify the person’s feelings (the second step) and express your feelings (the sixth step).

Too often we get caught in the “what really happened” argument. Back and forth the argument goes to create destructive conflict. No one wins when logic gets the spotlight in conversations where people have an unmet emotional need. Feelings matter and deserve more attention than they get.

To continue from the example situations in the observation stage, the feeling stage of NVC follows:

• “When you hear me tell you to do work around the house, you feel overwhelmed…”
• “I see that you’re unhappy with the changes in the office? This makes you feel restless…”
• “It sounds to me as though you’re worried about losing a friend. This makes you feel brokenhearted…”
• “I see that you’re excited about winning tonight! You feel energetic…”

Also, to continue from the provided examples in the observation stage for yourself:

• “When I hear you speak loudly, I feel scared…”
• “When I see you walk away from me, I feel detached…”
• “When I come home from work, I feel exhausted…”
• “When I don’t hear your appreciation of my cooking, I feel depressed…”

Like the first step, people make common mistakes at the feeling stage that destroys effective communication. One of the greatest mistakes made at this stage is the inaccurate selection of feeling. I am an emotionally aware guy with regards to my own emotions and others’ emotions, yet I still express inaccurate feelings.

It is more important you accurately state your feelings than someone’s feelings because the person will likely correct their feelings you state. Unless the person has good communication skills and a good ability to interpret emotions, you are the only person who will accurately express your feelings. Choose an accurate feeling when you apply this stage of nonviolent communication on yourself otherwise the person will never understand how you truly feel.

To use the example “When I see you walk away from me, I feel detached…”, if the person instead said, “When I see you walk away from me, I feel angry…” a misunderstanding occurs (assuming the person feels detached). It is easy to confuse detachment with anger. The person may be angry, but anger is not the real concern because detachment drives that anger.

Be responsible for how you feel and do not be responsible for how people feel.

A good emotional vocabulary is essential to nonviolent communication. The Nonviolent Communication book has a large list of feelings when our needs are being met and when our needs are not being met. I encourage you to read the list a few times to expand your emotional vocabulary. Alternatively, you can view a list of feelings online. When you expand your emotional vocabulary, you more accurately state what someone feels and what you feel.

The second largest mistake people make at the feeling stage of NVC is the wrong level of responsibility for emotions. We blame people for how we feel and blame ourselves for how they feel – we get mixed up. Be responsible for how you feel and do not be responsible for how people feel.

When you fail to be responsible for how you feel, you blame, condemn, and criticize people. You feel a victim of this world. You believe people are the source of your pain. You believe other people need to change. We all need to be continually reminded to take responsibility for how we feel because it is too easy to see ourselves as victims of people’s actions.

The other lesson to keep in mind is to not be responsible for how people feel. When relationships advance in importance, it is common to feel responsible for your partner’s emotions. If your partner is grumpy, you may feel responsible to make your partner happy. If your partner is sad, you may feel responsible to lift your partner out of his or her depressed mood. Statements such as, “What did I do to make you feel…” and “Have I caused you to feel…” are signals you feel responsible for someone’s feelings. Feeling responsible for someone’s feelings is dangerous to a happy and successful relationship because the person you feel responsible for becomes a liability. You feel they weigh you down.

I do not advise you to ignore the person’s emotions. In replacement of feeling responsible, you need to empathize. The first two stages do just that. Observe without evaluation and express the person’s feelings; do not judge the person or try to mind-read. This is far more helpful for you, your partner, and the relationship than manifestations of thinking you are responsible for people’s feelings.

The last point I want to make about the feeling of stage of NVC is taken from my Communication Secrets of Powerful People program: avoid the logical argument and shift your focus on emotions.

Your partner storms into the room where you peacefully sit in your chair. “What the hell were you thinking when you did…!” Most people ignore the feeling and engage in a logical argument. In this example, logical statements could include, “I didn’t do that”, “That isn’t what happened”, and “You’re missing the point”.

Do not get entangled in a logical battle that cannot be won.

Do not talk about the content of your partner’s concerns. Do not get entangled in a logical battle that cannot be won. Focus on feelings through empathy. An effective statement would be, “You feel angry because you need…” This instantly shifts the conversation to what really matters: feelings.

One or two empathizing statements will not be enough when emotions are intense. Just keep going through the process and you will be amazed at the communication changes that take place. Follow the feeling stage of nonviolent communication, and you will understand people – and have them understand you.

3. Needing

The definition of a “need” says it is a requirement. For our use, it is also something you or the other person wants like personal space, silence, or attention. When you verbalize a person’s needs and your needs, two separated persons understand what it takes to resolve the problem and establish harmony.

Needs is a layer of communication that frequently gets submerged beneath the icy-cold waters of conflict. Rarely does someone express what they want. People prefer to destructively vent anger, complain about what they do not want, or whine about the problems that annoy them. Inside, they are frustrated individuals desperately wanting to be understood. When you look beneath the surface of someone’s behavior, you realize their feelings about unfilled needs is ignored.

Your first goal of the needing stage is to express the other person’s needs so both of you know what he or she wants. Your next goal is to express your needs to let the other person know what you want. These are the third and seventh respective stages of NVC. Once the two goals get ticked off, the couple understand one another, they become satisfied, and the relationship is more fulfilling.

To continue from the provided examples in the observing and feeling stages for the other person:

• “When you hear me tell you to do work around the house, you feel overwhelmed because you need rest…”
• “I see that you’re unhappy with the changes in the office? This makes you feel restless because you need consideration…”
• “It sounds to me as though you’re worried about losing a friend. This makes you feel brokenhearted. You need someone very close to you…”
• “I see that you’re excited about winning tonight! You feel energetic because you have a need to win this important game.”

There is one more stage to NVC, but you can already see the power in the process. The above incomplete examples have already shifted two frustrated individuals on different wavelengths to get in sync as they at last discover the needs of their conversational partner. Defined needs can be fulfilled (which is the purpose of the next step, requesting).

When you look beneath the surface of someone’s behavior, you realize their feelings about unfilled needs is ignored.

As with feelings, precision is not required when you express the person’s needs. People will correct you when you observe without judgment or evaluation. Listen to what they say. Empathically receive their hidden plea. If you do the observing and feeling stage then get confused at the feeling stage, ask them, “What is it you need?” Most times, if you say an incorrect need, your observation and feeling steps help them correct you.

Drawing back to the common mistakes people have when they try to express their needs, the lessons of responsibility in the feeling stage relate to the needing stage. It is common to blame and criticize others when you try state your needs.

A manager needs the daily quota completed, but he blames and criticizes employees in ways like, “You’re not working fast enough. I can’t afford for you to be working at this pace.” While the criticism and vague statements is an entire communication problem by itself, the manager has not said what he wants. The manager may want to achieve the daily quota and have good intention to help employees, but this is not the message received. The employees feel attacked and remain bewildered about their manager’s wants. I doubt this manager has a happy and productive workforce.

As another example of someone poorly saying their needs, a husband comes home from work and needs personal space. His wife needs intimacy and communication. The husband needs personal space, but instead says, “Not now”. The wife needs intimacy, but she uses the communication barrier of diagnosing by saying, “You never want to talk to me”. Not only has the couple failed to express personal needs, each partner also failed to provide a pure observation of their partner’s needs.

If you cannot express your needs, it is difficult for someone to fulfill them. That is obvious now, but the heat of conflict can burn your positive intent to follow the NVC process. You now know to express your needs – and follow other stages of NVC – but it is easy to blame, criticize, and avoid the techniques when anger gets the better of you.

In conflict, you feel attacked and mirror someone’s anger. This is not peaceful communication. You probably reason to yourself that if people change, then you would not become angry – that is reactive, blame-filled living.

There is an amazing thought that has worked for me to overcome this problem. It is something I use everyday to separate myself from people’s below-average behavior. The technique keeps my head above the water in difficult conversations as it prevents me from being dragged into the depths of someone’s anger, rudeness, and poor communication.

No one can control how you feel without your permission.

When I feel an urge of anger towards someone, I think, “They aren’t making me angry. It’s my response. The way I’m reacting is making me angry.” I allow my anger to surface (because anger is healthy) while reframing my thoughts. Possible reframes include, “They aren’t making me angry. It’s my response.” “I know she cares about me because of what she did for me last night.” and “He’s probably angry because he had a tiring day.” No one can control how you feel without your permission. As Marshall Rosenberg said, “I never have to worry about another person’s response, only how I react to what they say.”

This is gold. No one can make you angry; it is how you react that makes you angry. The messages you channel in your mind makes you angry. You “reason with yourself” the meaning of their shouting, swearing, and anger. You probably interpret such messages as signals of disrespect or their lack of care for you. It is this rationalization that makes you angry.

If you react instead of respond, you will be angry because your response is dependent on the person. The example reframes I gave you control your interpretation of the person’s behavior to help you be calm and maintain poise regardless of someone’s reaction. You become a powerful person when you are a rock of emotional stability. People cannot undermine your strong foundations. (Learn how to maintain your power and control in any tough situation by reading the Communication Secrets of Powerful People Program.)

When someone is angry, they have a need. It is hard to realize a need when you are fearful or angry, but an angry person poorly attempts to fulfill an unmet need by indirectly trying to make you aware of it. Knowing that a person’s anger originates from an unmet need prevents you from taking it personally. The needing stage of NVC helps you identify what they need.

It is crazy how out-of-tune you are with your needs. If you cannot express your need in a constructive and direct way – let alone have an awareness of your needs – it will always be a fight to effectively communicate. Be aware of your needs, then it becomes much easier to manage conflict, control your responses, and be nonviolent.

To continue from the provided examples in the observing and feeling stages for yourself:

• “When I hear you speak loudly, I feel scared because I need emotional safety…”
• “When I see you walk away from me, I feel detached. I need physical closeness…”
• “When I come home from work, I feel exhausted. I need to relax…”
• “When I don’t hear your appreciation of my cooking, I feel depressed because I need to be appreciated…”

Think at a level of needs to see the deeper, more powerful, reasons behind a person’s actions.

You may catch yourself saying an incorrect want or what you do not want. You want to be accepted, yet say, “I need to not be ignored”. You want to be touched, yet say, “I need you to not be distant”. You want to be understood, yet say, “I need to not feel misinterpreted”.

Do not expect someone to magically fulfill your needs when you fail to state what you want. Figure out your problems instead of traveling the easy path of blame.

If you have problems seeing someone’s needs, it may help to identify your needs throughout the day. Tune-in to your needs and it becomes easier to tune-in to someone else’s needs. I think this is because you begin to think at a level of needs. You become aware of what drives humanity. You see a deeper reason behind each word, gesture, attitude, and behavior. Think at a level of needs to see the deeper, more powerful, reasons behind a person’s actions.

4. Requesting

You have discovered the first three stages of nonviolent communication: observing, feeling, and needing. The final stage of NVC is the simplest. It is the most powerful step to change a person’s behavior. Once you use the previous steps of NVC, you supercharge your power to get the request fulfilled because you have dealt with the emotional layer.

The requesting stage has you offer a solution that fulfills the need. The solution should prevent similar problems from reoccurring.

The most important technique to keep in mind when you make a request is to be specific (“Would you be willing to talk with me for 10 or so minutes after dinner just to chat?”); do not be general or vague (“I want you to be nicer to me.”) A request cannot be completed if it provides too much room for error.

Specificity does not mean you control everything. You can be specific in your desired outcome without being a frustrated control freak. I recommend you study my model of accountability, the decision tree of leadership, to learn more about responsibility and getting things done, which at the same time empowers people to be their own person.

To continue on from the provided examples in the observing, feeling, and needing stages for the other person:

• “When you hear me tell you to do work around the house, you feel overwhelmed because you need rest. Would you be willing to workout a weekly plan regarding the household chores?”
• “I see that you’re unhappy with the changes in the office? This makes you feel restless because you need consideration. Would you be willing to accept the changes this time and in the future we’ll ask you for your thoughts regarding the issue?”
• “It sounds to me as though you’re worried about losing a friend. This makes you feel brokenhearted. You need someone very close to you. Would you be willing to solve the issue with your friend?”
• “I see that you’re excited about winning tonight! You feel energetic because you have a need to win this important game.” (This example does not really have a requesting stage because it is an unusual application of the NVC process. You could say, “I would like to come watch you.”)

Once you apply the four steps of NVC on someone, you are ready to use NVC on yourself. To continue from the provided examples for yourself:

• “When I hear you speak loudly, I feel scared because I need emotional safety. Would you be able to keep a low voice the next time we argue?”
• “When I see you walk away from me, I feel detached. I need physical closeness. Would you like to cuddle when we’re alone and together?”
• “When I come home from work, I feel exhausted. I need to relax. Would you allow me to sit down for 15 or so minutes after work?”
• “When I don’t hear your appreciation of my cooking, I feel depressed because I need to be appreciated. Would you say ‘thank you’ or give another form of appreciation around once a week?”

“Would you like…” is the typical way to make a good request because it does not order, threaten, or blatantly advise the person. You can come up with and test peaceful ways to make a request.

If the person does not want to follow the request, you need to jump back through the stages to keep building empathy. “You do not like my solution of lowering your voice. You feel something else should be done.” You want compassion first, persuasion second.

Give people time and space to process what you observed, feel, need, and requested. When someone tries to connect with you by reflecting what you said, the worst thing you can do is condemn him for not understanding you. I know someone who gets frustrated when you do not hear or understand what he says. The people talking with him are afraid to seek clarification. They pretend to hear him to avoid his anger.

Somebody says that you are sad, but you are actually depressed. Do not say, “You don’t listen.” Thank them for their effort to understand then clarify your message.

Another helpful point from the needing stage is to say what you do want instead of what you do not want. Be clear, be specific, and make it actionable. As an example, do not say, “You need to work harder.” Say something along the lines of, “Would you be willing to complete the daily report by 5pm each day?” Nonviolent communication creates change when you are compassionate and specific.

A Complete Application and Case Study of the NVC Process

You learned a lot about empathy, listening, and the entire nonviolent communication process. It is time to give you a full example of the entire process. The main points I want to show you is the application and how it is not as sequential as the short examples you read.

Rarely do you say all four stages at once because it lacks empathy. Your partner says, “When I come home from work, I feel exhausted. I need to relax. Would you allow me to sit down for 15 or so minutes after work?” “Woah! Slow down tiger. You’re feeling what?” You need time to absorb what was said, why it was said, and what will be done about what was said. It is difficult to experience the depth of all NVC stages in one blow.

The first, second, and third stages often occur many times. You can observe, feel, observe, feel, need, feel, need, and then request. It all depends on what is appropriate for the situation. Think back to the analogy I mentioned about the vacuum. “Suck up” the person’s communication before moving on. You will always “miss a few spots” and need to return to stages. This is not backtracking or signs of failure – it is reality. Marshall Rosenberg says you will know when you adequately empathize when the tension reduces or the person has nothing else to say.

Onto the complete case study. The italicized text creates and describes the scenario. The non-italicized text in brackets is my discussion of what is going on to help you understand the communication dynamics taking place and the reasoning behind the person trying to use NVC. You can stuff up the process and still have it work out.

You will know when you adequately empathize when the tension reduces or the person has nothing else to say.

Ryan and Jessica are married. Recently, Ryan has been watching a lot of television, playing computer games, going out with friends, and working. He has not given Jessica the intimacy she wants. She has pointed out the problem and tried to provide a solution, but like everybody, she has repeatedly used the communication barriers, which block open communication and powerful change.

Ryan arrives home late one night after going out with friends. Jessica has no clue where he went. He enters the house where the couple make eye contact. Jessica is keen to use what she recently learned about nonviolent communication, but her newness to the model means she is likely to make mistakes.

Jessica: (Jessica has been anxious about Ryan for hours and greets him inside their house with a very unhappy face.) “Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick about you.”

Ryan: (Ryan has a smile on his face after arriving home from a good night out.) “Chill out. I’ve been out having a good time with my mates.”

Jessica: (Jessica’s emotions get intense causing her to become angry and forget the effective communication skills she learned.) “You want me to chill out while you’re out partying? Are you kidding me? You didn’t even tell me you were going out. You’ve been out having fun all the while I’ve been stuck here at home!” (Jessica has been caught in a logical battle with Ryan. She is talking about facts and trying to logically argue with him. The issue here is an emotional one, which means her focus needs to be on emotions.)

Ryan: “That’s why I don’t tell you because all you’re gonna do is annoy me. You’re a nagger. It’s not like I have to tell you everything.” (Ryan has become angry and joins Jessica in the conflict by using three communication barriers. He has diagnosed, criticized, and labeled.)

Jessica: “Ha! You’re like a little child. You don’t take responsibility for anything. I do all the work in this relationship.” (Jessica has criticized, labeled, and used universal quantifiers – all things that will make Ryan defensive. She has taken Ryan’s criticism as a personal attack and becomes angrier because she has failed to recognize that Ryan tried, though poorly, to met his needs.)

Ryan: “Oh! And you’re little miss perfect? You’re just a big pain in the a**!”

Jessica: (Jessica realizes she has forgotten nonviolent communication and sets herself back on the right path. She takes a moment of silence and breathes deeply to clear her head.) “You feel annoyed and this makes you angry.” (Jessica has turned her focus towards Ryan and first seeks to empathically receive what he has to say. NVC begins!)

Ryan: “You do more than annoy me! All you do is tell me what to do! You’re a stupid control freak and a b****!”

Jessica: (Most people say one good empathy statement and expect to receive an accolade. Few people notice it, but they will feel your empathy over time. Jessica keeps focused on the process.) “When you hear me tell you what to do, you feel controlled.” (Jessica has reflected back another one of his statements by using the observation and feeling stage. She begins to see he has an unmet need of freedom, which prevents her from feeling attacked.)

Ryan: “Yes! I hate it when you constantly nag me! I just want to have fun without you being a damn pest!”

Jessica: “So I can understand what is annoying to you, is what I said tonight an example of the nagging?” (Jessica is unsure of what he means by “nag” and so she asked a good question to clarify what he means. She needs to be careful about taking responsibility for the way Ryan feels.)

Ryan: “That’s just one small example of you being a damn pain.”

Jessica: “When you hear me ask you what you did, you feel irritated because you need freedom.” (Jessica has observed, felt, and identified a need.)

Ryan: (Ryan begins to calm down though he is still agitated.) “No! I… I just don’t like having to run everything through you like your some boss.” (Jessica wrongly identified one of Ryan’s needs, though it did not matter because he clarified himself.)

Jessica: “When you hear me ask you what you did, you feel irritated because you need independence.” (Jessica has rephrased her previous statement with a different need. She is attempting to identify Ryan’s unmet needs, which will lead to a solution.)

Ryan: “I do need independence and you’re not giving it to me. You control me. You’re not fun at all. You’re just a pain.”

Jessica: “You feel detached from me when you hear me tell you what to do.” (Jessica jumps back to the beginning of the NVC process by shifting her focus onto another feeling. Notice her empathy instead of reciprocating the attack.)

Ryan: (The tension is reducing.) “I guess that’s right. You’re no fun anymore. All you do now is annoy.”

(There is silence.)

Jessica: “When you hear me tell you what to do, you feel annoyed because you need more joy with me.”

Ryan: “That’s right.”

Jessica: “Would you be willing to help me become more fun?” (Jessica sensed the tension in the air dissipate and felt Ryan has said what he wants. Therefore, she made a request.)

Ryan: “I’d love to.”

(There is silence.)

(Jessica has used all four stages of the NVC process on Ryan. She is now able to use the process to express her observation, feelings, and needs, and make a request for Ryan to change his behavior.)

Jessica: “When you constantly go out without me, I feel detached.” (Jessica made a poor observation by evaluating with the word “constantly”.)

Ryan: “I don’t constantly go out!”

Jessica: “You feel frustrated because you don’t go out much.” (Jessica realizes Ryan may have another need then switches her focus back on him.)

Ryan: “Yeah.”

Jessica: (Jessica senses the number of times he goes out is not an issue and so she switches her focus back on herself.) “When you do not go out with me like tonight, I feel alienated from you. I need to be close to you a few nights per week.” (Jessica has made an accurate observation without evaluation and has given Ryan a specific example of the behavior she dislikes. She has also been able to identify her need of intimacy with Ryan.)

Ryan: “I see. You need to be with me whenever I go out?”

Jessica: “Thanks for telling me your understanding of what I need. To clarify what I meant, I don’t mind if you go out by yourself, but for example, like tonight I wanted to go out with you because I need physical closeness with you.” (Jessica thanks Ryan for trying to understand her even though he misunderstood. Most people would have felt frustrated, and started an argument, from Ryan’s excessive statement.)

Ryan: “Okay.”

Jessica: “Would you be willing to tell me what you’re doing so that we can go out more often?” (After completing all seven stages, Jessica finally makes her request to change Ryan’s behavior. This is usually the first thing people do; not the last.)

Ryan: “Sure – provided that you become more fun like we said earlier.”

Jessica: (Jessica hugs and kisses Ryan in huge relief. They have solved a problem ruining the relationship for months.) “Agreed.”

There are many possibilities that could have taken place in the above scenario and changed the communication, but the scenario beautifully demonstrates how nonviolent communication is applied to real life.

When you use this powerful type of communication for the first time, you may cry or have your conversation partner break into tears. Crying is good. When nonviolent communication opens the relationship, mental and emotional dams erected over years from misunderstanding smash down as intimacy gushes into the relationship. New emotional structures get built to form peaceful relationships when you use NVC overtime. “Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process,” said John F. Kennedy, 35th American President, “gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.”

(Read my review of Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg and visit the provided link where you can order a copy of the book today. Secondly, if you felt this article touched you, the “Communication Secrets of Powerful People Program” will bring more magic in your life because the skills and advice in the program strongly interconnect with nonviolent communication. Learn about the program here.)

Your relationships often determine the sweetness or bitterness of your life. When your relationships are great, life feels great. When you go through a break up like you are right now, life feels like crap.

The lessons in this article will be hard to accept. If you are after tips like “go see a movie with friends” to avoid the dark, deep secrets of working through emotional pain, go read the hundreds of trash articles about this topic over the Internet. The lessons in this article are hardcore. You will learn true mental and emotional strategies to get over your break up so you are ready for whatever you want your future to be.

What to Do About Your Special Situation

Not every break up is the same. Some create intense emotions of sadness, depression, and anger, while others are complete relief. I categorize relationship break ups into three groups:

1. You initiate the break up. This type of break up is the easiest. It will give you fewest troubles. Often the decision makes you happier than being in the relationship.
2. They initiate the break up. This is the hardest type of break up to manage. It is the main focus of this article.
3. Mutual break up. The rarest type of break up where both individuals often care how the other person feels about the decision. The two of you talk the process through and conclude splitting up is the best option. Reasoning, openness, and future plans are common.

When your ex decides to end the relationship, it feels like a loved one passing away. Psychologists concur that a relationship break up is like experiencing grief. If we contrast grieving with a break up, in both cases you lose someone you loved and you’re unwilling to psychologically let them go.

Deaths are inevitable. Break ups are inevitable. The first step to healing is to acknowledge relationships end. As simple as that statement appears, do not mistake simplicity for power. Your ego blows personal problems out of perspective causing you to think what is common in the world is unique for you.

You may think an ending relationship is the end of you. If you talk to a friend about getting over his or her relationship break up, you will not have this ego problem. You will see from a healthy perspective that break ups happen. This strategy is similar to disassociation where you look at your difficulty from an observer perspective. It is the first technique you can use to get over your ex.

You would be unable to experience the wonderful feelings you had with your recent ex if you stayed with your “ex ex”. The same can be said for your future partner. You cannot experience the wonderful times with them if you do not get over your broken relationship. It is as simple as that.

Deciding to get over a break up is often not that clear-cut. Sometimes you undergo a painful recurrent uncertainty when splitting up as you wonder if the two of you are actually apart. This leads us to the golden rule to get over your ex.

The Golden Rule of Moving On From Your Ex

Once you truly realize break ups happen and more importantly – that they will happen to you – tell yourself the golden rule of getting over a break up. Affirm and reaffirm to yourself that you want to get over your ex. Why is this a golden rule?

How often have you seen someone want to get over a break up yet they are resistant to actually breaking up with the person? It happens too often. You see them caught in the emotional turmoil, a tug-of-war game they can only lose.

What is even worse than being resistant to getting over the person, yet wanting to not get over them, is not being aware of the mental tug-of-war game. The internal conflict leaves you frustrated. You may think you have some weird psychological problem. You will be uncertain about getting back together as you unwilling move on and fail to enjoy life. When you want both lifestyles, you achieve neither. Commit to a decision.

If you have a choice to fly to Paris or Sydney, and you hesitate because you want to visit both cities, you will miss both cities. There is a Russian proverb that says, “If you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one.” By not being 100% clear with what you want (this goes for every other goal in life), you achieve little and remain frustrated. You become uncertain of yourself because you never critically think and investigate your feelings and thoughts to know your true desire.

Follow the golden rule. Ask yourself questions and be fully aware of what is making you resistant to emotionally releasing yourself from the person. You can ask yourself questions like, “What makes me still attracted to the person?” “Is my ex actually good to me?” and “Am I just afraid of loneliness?”

Discover the cause of your emotional pain. I cannot emphasize that enough. People are unconscious of their emotional awareness in a break up and never know why they experience pain. Conduct an “investigation” making it your goal to discover as much about yourself as possible. Gather as much information about yourself from self-talk and other people to solve “the crime”.

9 Signs You Should Break Up or Stick Together

You are still unsure if you should break up. There are simple actions you can take to see whether a break up is the better option.

There is no need to attend university for a degree in psychology to understand when you are in a bad relationship. There are signs you may be aware of that hint your relationship is more like a lemon than lemonade. Ask yourself these practical questions:

• Are you and the other person feeling the same emotions as you were at the start of your relationship?
• Do the two of you share the same important values like religious beliefs?
• How often do you communicate with one another?
• When you do communicate, what things do you talk about?
• Do you enjoy being together?
• Do you perceive being single in a better light than being in a relationship?
• What causes the two of you to fight? Little things that show hostility or big problems like an affair?
• Do you have a fear of hurting the person? Why are you putting yourself through misery in not wanting to hurt the person?
• Are you in the relationship because of guilt or love?

Ask other people what they see and think about your relationship with the person. Take their opinions into account. Do not base your decision solely on what they think because the most important factor is how you feel.

Many women in bad relationships remain in them because they would rather be in a bad relationship than be alone. They feel comforted in awful relationships. They see married couples and envy their relationship. They are overwhelmed at the thought of having to find another guy.

Another common reason for remaining in a bad relationship is love. Are you using the excuse that your feeling of “love” is keeping you from breaking up? Love is an intoxicating emotion. It is blinding. Even if you think you still love the person, ask yourself the many questions above. The questions act as objective judges to the situation; contrasted to your subjective emotion of love that intoxicates your understanding of the situation.

Love is an intoxicating emotion. It is blinding… It is not a relationship. It is an emotion.

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) teaches that you often fail to distinguish between various emotions. For example, excitement can be misunderstood as fear. How do you know that you feel love? Does your answers to the above questions sound like love to you? What specific events let you know you are in love? What physical responses do you have that let you know there is no love? Asking yourself these questions make it clear whether you experience love.

Even if you are sure you love the other person, love alone is a poor indicator of a good relationship. Love is not a relationship; it is an emotion. Without other aspects like time, happiness, and communication, what you feel is love does not comprehend a healthy relationship. Free yourself from the intoxication of affection, attraction, or love.

Relationships can be repaired even if things are sour at the moment. If you still have a relationship with this person where you can communicate, talk things over with your partner in a safe environment. If the relationship is over, ask yourself the list of above questions to reinforce your thoughts to fight away “what ifs” and “maybes” that may surface in getting back with your ex.

How to Handle Emotional Baggage

Emotional baggage occurs when you carry emotions from one relationship to another much like you carry a backpack when you travel from one destination to another. It is easy to carry emotional baggage from one relationship to the next because you fail to let go or you fear reliving emotional pain.

People protect themselves all the time in new relationships by withholding themselves from the relationship. They say things like, “I don’t want to get hurt again”, “I’m still hurting”, or “I’m not over it.”

You forgo the risk of being hurt again when you protect yourself, but you also miss out on happiness with your partner.

There is no denying you can be damaged when you place trust in someone, yet holding yourself back makes you miss the joyful rewards of an intimate relationship. You reduce the risk of being hurt when you protect yourself, but you also miss full happiness with your partner.

You do not have to quickly “dive into” a relationship. Solid relationships build over time. You can “dip your toes” into the relationship and gradually, but surely, immerse yourself. Gradually drop your emotional baggage onto the ground. Doing so ensures you experience full intimacy that otherwise was unachievable with emotional baggage.

What to Do About Your Ugly Past

I firmly believe every person can learn a lesson from every person and situation. A relationship break up is no exception. You can experience personal growth instead of personal decay from any past challenge.

Your main goal in relationships is finding your perfect partner, someone with whom you can share love and feel connected. Emotional baggage limits this goal. It makes perfect sense to learn from a break up. I know you want to progress forward and find your ultimate partner; instead of remaining stuck in an old relationship where you waste time, intense emotions, and energy.

It is too easy to find the negative to strengthen negative beliefs instead of looking for the positive in a break up. This mindset is damaging as it causes a chain reaction of negative building on negative until you are emotionally unavailable. The negative reinforcement prevents you from becoming smarter and stronger for future relationships.

To learn from your experience, I recommend you take responsibility for what occurred. In many break ups, each person blames the other. Rarely is one person mutually agreed to have caused the split. Take responsibility and do not play the blame-game.

I can almost guarantee you did something seriously wrong in the relationship, which contributed to the break up – you just may be unaware of your contribution due to a lack of knowledge. Maybe you do not know how attraction works, how to effectively listen to your partner, or how to assert yourself to address a problem that concerns you. Can you see the role you played in the break up?

It is important to know that getting over a break up is more than moving on; it involves learning from your past for a better future by accepting responsibility for what occurred. Look at the situation as a experience to learn from in your journey towards finding your ultimate partner. What a powerful perspective.

The Quickest Way to Get Over a Relationship

There are many things you can do to get over a relationship break up, but the most important is to have a support group. This is the quickest way to get over a relationship because you explore what is inside of you and share the burden of a break up with someone who cares for you.

For most girls this is easy. You can communicate to your closest friends and talk to your parents or brothers and sisters.

For guys, it may be more difficult because we think we are not masculine if we talk about our emotions. Chances are you will not want to talk to your guy friends about the break up. Remember that if it’s not expressed, it’s repressed. You need to have a support group or at least a support person. You will find that accepting your emotions and expressing them allows you to heal. If there’s no one to talk to, try a friendly therapist. If you find a good therapist, trust me, it will be your best investment of the year.

If it’s not expressed, it’s repressed.

The most important thing with anyone you talk with to get over your relationship break up is to explain you simply want to be heard. Let the person know you are only after a listening ear to avoid having them turn into an amateur psychologist (a term I use in my communication secrets program to describe a person’s inclination to judge and project solutions). By letting them know you only want them to listen, they will be more willing to “absorb” the pain you feel. You do not want advice but to be able to express yourself and feel your emotions.

How to Move on From Pain: An Exercise to Heal You Now

Naomi Eisenberger, a University of California neuroscientist, discovered that the feeling of rejection in a break up switches on the same part of the brain as physical pain. The anterior cingulate receives an intense boost in activity. This is why a break up can be very painful. A punch in the nose is as threatening, according to your brain, as rejection in a break up.

A punch in the nose is as threatening, according to your brain, as rejection in a break up.

Physical pain can be cured by a doctor. However, does a doctor actually heal your wounds? No. The doctor helps your body get into a state of healing so it can heal itself.

The pain you experience from the past is irreversible. There is nothing you can do about it. You need to put your mind and body into a state that allows it to heal itself. One way to achieve this is time, but I am sure you do not want to waste ten years of your life in pain.

Another option is seeing a therapist. Should you choose a therapist? It is up to you. There is no shame in therapy. All therapy works for different people in different situations. Even no therapy is therapy because time itself is therapeutic.

Before you decide to spend thousands of dollars on someone who will listen to your problems, I want you to do this exercise. The exercise I am about to share with you is powerful because it does not change the content of your experience. Your experience has happened. You cannot change it. What the exercise does change is the process. The exercise changes the attributions you make to the past and future.

Think of a pleasant experience or imagine a pleasant experience you would like to have in the future. See the image. As you see the image, make it larger. Make the image bigger, brighter, and clearer. Take your time as you see the image increase in size. Step into the image as if you were living it from a first-person view. As the image changes, notice how you feel. Give yourself one-minute. Just sit there.

Next, move the image in the opposite direction. Take your time. Gradually make the pleasant image smaller, dimer, unclear, and distant from you. Step out of the image as you observe yourself in the situation. Again, as the image changes, notice how you feel.

Once you complete that little exercise, how did you feel when the image is bright and large? How did you feel when the image was small, dim, and far from you? Most people experience intense emotions when they see a bright, large image in first-person. They experience little emotion when seeing a small, dim, distant image.

If you make unpleasant images large, bright, and up close, while making pleasant images small, dim, and distant, you will be an expert at feeling miserable! On the other hand, if you make pleasant images large, bright, and up close, while making unpleasant images small, dim, and distant, you will be an expert at feeling happy!

Apply this concept to your relationships. If you want to move on from from an ex, make the images you have with him or her dim, gray, and distant like a dodgy old movie. See the images move away from you. To feel better being single, think of someone you love like a parent or role model. Make the image bright, vivid, and large.

Constantly see, hear, touch, taste, and smell the images in your mind. See yourself and others in your scene. Hear the sounds in your scene. What are you touching, tasting, and smelling? You will get over your relationship fast by intensely imagining your desired five senses.

The Last and Most Fun Step to Get Over a Break Up

At the start you read how life is sweet when your relationships are sweet. When relationships are bitter, life feels bitter. When you are single, life probably feels awful. It is a dependency trap.

You may desperately want a partner. You think the person will solve personal problems like boredom, unhappiness, and feeling unattractive. This neediness deteriorates a relationship. If you go into a relationship like this, you destroy it.

I question whether you should be in a relationship if you do not have a great single life where you wonder how to fit in a relationship. Become your own energy source. Be comforted, happy, and emotionally secure while you are single. This view is the opposite perspective to a time-consuming, miserable, codependent relationship.

I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to make a big change in your life right now. You could work harder to get a promotion, exercise, read self-help books, take a new course, socialize more often, or go out with friends. Create a single life where you are happily active – and even do not want a relationship with someone you like because you are so busy loving what you do. Such a great single life will attract a future partner for you.

A break up can be one of the greatest things to happen to you if you are aware of the potential held in the moment. Learn from the break up. If splitting up encourages you to undergo a lot of self-help, the change can excite you.

When life throws you a lemon with a bad relationship, do not try and divulge the lemon. Look at the lemon from a different perspective to see you can make lemonade. You may feel bitter right now, but follow the advice in this article and you will look at a break up from an empowering perspective. Soon you may even wonder why you were in a relationship because single life can be so great.

(If you are reading this article, single because of your recent break up, feeling a sense of depression, and still want to get back with your ex, pay attention to what I’m about to share with you before your ex finds someone else. For a full course to get back with the person you love, I highly recommend guys get this course and girls get this course.)

Covey’s book has sold over 15 million copies for a reason: It ignores trends and popular psychology, and sticks with enduring principles of lasting change. His seven principles build a lasting foundation for truth, openness, and integrity. The principles are timeless – unchanging to events – that make the book the personal development favorite of many self-help experts.

The first three principles are: 1) be proactive, 2) begin with the end in mind, and 3) put first things first. These first three principles deal with dependence as the author moves you through new paradigms.

The first principle moves you from blame and victimization to responsibility. The second principle moves you from destructive centeredness and obsessions to a healthy focus and clear values. While the third principles deals with the “fourth generation” of time management where you learn to do what matters most instead of following to-do lists and doing frivolous tasks that contribute little to your life and other’s lives.

The second lot of three principles (four to six) deal with interdependency. The second triplet of principles are self-explanatory: 4) think win/win, 5) seek first to understand, then to be understood, and 6) synergize. These three principles are more like communication skills as the first three principles provide you the foundation to use them.

It is sad to see many people ignore these principles. As a result, their relationships suffer and people resent them. Any success they get is short-term, unsatisfactory, and often lonely.

Covey emphasizes that effective people are interdependent on others. While they are independent and strong in their own right, when they use the three principles for interdependence, the sum of people’s work is more than the individual parts.

Many personal development public speakers, authors, life coaches, and organizational trainers say the book is the best they ever read.

The last principle is called “sharpen the saw”. It deals with renewal in the physical, mental, social/emotional, and spiritual dimensions. Just as a blunt saw becomes tiresome for a woodcutter, a failure to renew in these four dimensions result in unproductive and sometimes destructive living for the exasperated individual. When the four dimensions are renewed, the seventh principle of “sharpen the saw” is followed to encapsulate the other six principles. It is in such ways that all the principles feed from one another.

The last point I want to emphasize to encourage you to invest in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People if you have not already done so is the character ethic Covey focuses on. Most books today focus on the personality ethic. A personality ethic deals with attitudes, behaviors, skills, and the techniques for human interaction. While the personality ethic is important, without the character ethic that offers courage, patience, and integrity, long-term success is inhibited. The establishment of a strong character ethic creates change from the inside-out.

You must get the book. Many personal development public speakers, authors, life coaches, and organizational trainers say the book is the best they ever read. I highly encourage you to grab your copy of Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People now from Amazon right now by clicking here today.

Carl Rogers, a pioneering psychologist in the 1950s on human relations, said love, genuineness, and empathy are three essential pieces to constructive communication. Many studies since then support Rogers’ theory. When we fail to love people, we fail to communicate in a way that supports ourselves and people. Love is the core of powerful communication. Think about it for a moment and I’m sure your experiences confirm love is the heart of effective communication.

It is unfortunate we are not taught how to love people. Instead of learning how to love, we learn to fight. Instead of learning how to love, we learn to defend ourselves. Instead of learning how to love, we learn to get our point across in a debate. It is no wonder society is deprived of the core energy that drives humanity.

This article will help you love people more. It is not about falling romantically in love with someone, though the advice can help you in that sense. You will learn how to love people to empower your communication. I will give you a logical nine-lesson plan you can easily follow. Loving others will bring an abundance of love into your life.

What is Love? It is Not What You Think

One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.Sophocles, 496-406 B.C.

What most people need to learn in life is how to love people and use things, instead of using people and loving things.Author Unknown

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.Bible, New King James Version, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Love is a tough subject for anyone to address. Not many people agree with a common description of love. As Haddaway’s classic hit is titled, “What is Love?” Some say it is a willingness of sacrifice, some say it is blindness to flaws, while others say it is unexplainable. Some say it is an intense devotion or affection, but that can be neediness.

Just hearing the subject of “love” makes me cringe. Love is twisted by society – not only by younger generations who are often picked on in this area – into a form that destroys its pure meaning. People think they are in “love” because they feel attraction or have been in a relationship for many years, but this does not comprehend pure love.

I’m not particularly fond of most material on love because the subject tends to categorize as romance. “Do nice things like give gifts and the person will love you.” Romance does not describe love – not even an act of love because romance by itself can be superficial and manipulative.

Love is beyond actions. Love is beyond reactions. You don’t wait for love to be created. Something deep works in pure love.

Love is beyond actions. Love is beyond reactions. You don’t wait for love to be created.

Psychologist Robert Sternberg attempted to explain love in his triangular theory of love. The theory is applicable for interpersonal relationships. It categorizes love using three scales: 1) intimacy, 2) passion, and 3) commitment. Variances in the three scales produces types of love. It is only when all three are present that a pure form of love, known as “consummate love”, can develop. Consummate love is the ultimate form of love an individual can desire.

A more applicable description of love to the style we want in this article is explained by Susan Hendrick and Clyde Hendrick in their love attitudes scale:

1. Eros love is based on physical appearance. It describes superficial love.
2. Ludus love is a game based on conquest. Pick-up artists (PUAs) often experience this type of love. PUAs love to conquer women. When one succeeds at getting a woman into the bedroom, he quickly loses interest in her.
3. Storge love is gradually built from similarities and friendship. The transition from friendship to love is often unclear.
4. Pragma love is more rational than other types of love as it is based on practicality. An extreme form of Pragma love is prostitution where financial gains rationalize attachment.
5. Mania love is very possessive and unstable. Strong feelings of insecurity, neediness, and jealously drive attachment.
6. Agape love is selfless, unconditional, and often spiritual.

Agape love most accurately describes the type of love we wish to have towards family and friends. We want to unconditionally love those with whom we desire to effectively communicate; not just when these people do something nice for us or when we are in a good mood. Agape love does not change when the mood or circumstances change. Agape love remains when the person you feel agape love for does something mean to you. It is unconditional and withstanding – almost divine. It is our goal here to develop an agape form of love.

The Power of Self-Love

The selflessness in agape love we wish to develop is one beyond sacrifice. It is beyond confining boundaries and a lack of concern in fulfilling one’s needs. Selflessness is about focus, attitude, and action towards others while retaining self-love. It is not about sacrificing your needs.

There is nobody more unloving than one void of self-love.

Selflessness in an area you lack resources can lead to unhealthy selfishness, which worsens by its supposed solution of selflessness. Neediness comes from poor self-love. There is nobody more unloving than one void of self-love. Being desperate for love diminishes the love you give and receive.

Rarely are selfless actions self-less. Selfish actions misinterpreted as “self-less” fail to remove the self from the action. Unselfish actions that undermine the needs of the giver builds resentment that destroy selflessness in the action. The self-less person may be a people-pleaser quietly harboring resentment from ignoring his needs and desires that have potential to kill a relationship. This makes him feel invaded and discounted.

Be selfish in the healthy sense before you are selfless. All selfishness is not wrong. If you need to be alone while your partner wants your presence, you might need to be selfish. Greed is different to healthy selfishness. In mathematics and life, you cannot give what you do not have.

To give love you must firstly have love. You can only be truly selfless when you love yourself. It is in selfishness and the selflessness of agape love that we get our first lesson on how to love someone:

1. Love yourself to love others

If you are Christian, Jesus is your unending source of love. If you are not into religion, the most reliable source for love is yourself. You do not need to approve of everything about yourself, but you do need to accept yourself. You will always have flaws you dislike. Accept it. Only by loving yourself can you love others.

The Give-Take Relationship of Love

As babies, we were dependent on our guardians. We would cry to be feed, cry to be warmed, and cry to be loved (some adults have hardly changed). We wanted to receive without giving. The only thing we gave was emotional warmth and love, yet that was out of our control accidentally created from people’s perceptions towards us. Perhaps the only true thing we gave as a baby was regurgitated food.

As we began to age, we became more “independent”. We were able to feed ourselves, make ourselves warm, and put a shelter over our heads. Rarely does our growth extend beyond this independence or dependence. We are still that crying baby who wants everything without giving.

On the rare occasions we give, we hope to receive something of higher value in exchange. We give because of reciprocation. A part of this problem comes from our teachers and parents advising us to avoid people who take advantage of us. We get conditioned to not be conned by someone who fails to return a favor.

The principle of reciprocation is a double-edged sword that can empower you. It states that humans have an inherent desire to return favors. When something is seen as a favor, not an obligation or expectation, we react by reciprocating something to the person of equal or greater value. By giving we usually receive more than what we gave. Give love to others to receive things you cannot comprehend.

Give love to others to receive things you cannot comprehend.

Unfortunately, when we do give and do not instantly receive, our giving stops. The expectations we create are the demise of our giving. Our expectations, which exceeds results, makes us dissatisfied. If you think you need to receive love from others in order to give love, you live reactively. The more you get, the more you want. Neediness disables you from loving people.

Stephen Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People says most people interpret love as a feeling, a reaction from events. Hollywood drives us to think love is a product of circumstance – a feeling out of our control. People who live reactively to their environment blame others and situations for a lack of love.

Covey says “proactive people make love a verb”. They create the life they want. The greatest lovers in the world are people who live by their value of giving love instead of reacting to the moment. It is through loving that love is created. This is our second principle:

2. Simply start loving to love

We live in an interdependent society reliant on people, as they are on us, so we need to give. When we love others, they often in turn love us. It is easier to love someone who first loved us. The purpose of loving yourself is to create love in your life so you can love. An active creator of his reality does not wait for the right circumstances – he does what he wants complete.

Agape love is not dependent on firstly receiving love. Agape love is free from limiting conditions. It gives without receiving. Mildred Norman Ryder, also known as the “Peace Pilgrim”, nicely said, “Pure love is a willingness to give without a thought of receiving anything in return”. This gives us our third lesson of loving someone:

3. Give love without expectation of receiving love

You may fear giving love and receiving none in return. Rejection is scary, but protecting yourself blocks the flow of love into your life. The need to receive love in exchange for love is needy, approval-seeking, and destructive. Reduce your need for someone’s approval to empower yourself to love the person. Agape love is unconditional. Loving someone without the expectation of being loved in return, takes you one-step toward radical personal responsibility and unconditional love.

Daniel Goleman in his revolutionizing book Social Intelligence looks at the science of human relationships. He emphasizes the need to go beyond ourselves. When we overcome self-absorption, we can connect with people and love them. “When we focus on others, our world expands,” says Goleman. “Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection – or compassionate action.”

How to Create Love Everywhere in Your Life

The worry of giving without receiving is scarcity. We fear being conned, taken advantaged of, and receiving unfair treatment. Scarcity assumes love is a limited resource. It means there is a finite amount of love in the world so you better keep what you need to yourself. Your perception of love makes your survival dependent on hogging the resource.

When we focus on others, our world expands.

What you think is rare can be everywhere. Extend your self-love to others. Self-love empowers your giving of love compared to the limitations of giving it from guilt, ego, and scarcity. “Love wasn’t put in your heart to stay,” said the singer Michael Smith. “Love isn’t love until you give it away.”

Though scarcity can work against us when loving others, it can also work for us. The principle of scarcity states that we value a resource more when it is rare. Knowing love is scarce in the sense it can be lost, makes you value it more. This gives the fourth lesson to love someone:

4. There is no better time to love than now

If you lose a loved one, you know the value of love in that moment. Some people are too late to express their love. They regret failing to communicate their love to someone no longer with them. Do not be someone who devalues what is in your life until it disappears. A love-filled person knows their love in a person’s life counts. Tell someone important to you right now, “I love you.”

How to Transform Pain Into Pleasure

You may use experiences to justify the lack of love in your life. It is your choice to overcome feelings of blame, resentment, and hatred towards others. Yes, it is literally a choice.

I’m not saying to ignore historical emotions like pain and anger, but rather to do what you need to recover. When you experience such feelings, you fight an uphill battle that discourages you from loving who “caused” these feelings. Take anger, for example. It is not bad. Anger signals a problem you need to work through, a conversation you need to have, or a cry you need to share.

A loving person knows their love in a person’s life counts.

When you feel anger at someone for a bad event in your life, you lack radical personal responsibility. It is a sign you are reactive rather than proactive. Men who complain women are “bitches” and women who complain men are “jerks”, are examples of two types of people who lack personal responsibility. Once you accept radical responsibility, you release anger. You allow love to enter your life.

Treat the pain to experience the gain. The elimination of emotional pain through radical responsibility gives you the fifth lesson to love someone:

5. Heal blame and resentment to make love possible

Will the acceptance of radical personal responsibility remove all your bitterness towards others? No. It is not about the removal of anger, but altering your victim mindset that people cause your pain. Every second you decide how to respond to the world. Use the part of you that has you behave beyond everyday annoyances to accept radical responsibility.

Resentment comes from blame. Iit needs a mention by itself because of its destructive capabilities. Resentment is a powerful emotion that builds in size when you fail to forgive someone and take responsibility. Learn the art of forgiveness to erase resentment. We think we hurt others with an attachment of resentment, but we only hurt ourselves.

What If You Really Dislike Someone?

When I teach people to love others to improve their communication, they often complain they cannot love, forgive, or even like someone in their life. The underlying story of their argument is something unique in their history excludes them from being able to love.

While this hints that the person is yet to forgive, they mistake love for liking. You can dislike someone you love. Jewish philosopher Martin Buber saw that love is a choice while liking is more reactive. We do not always choose who to like, but we choose who to love. Your sixth lesson to love people is to remind yourself:

6. Loving is not liking

It is possible to love someone you dislike. Love is not a group of feelings even though feelings accompany love. What you feel is a result of what you did. Hit movies trick you to believe love is luck.

Love is a choice. You choose to love yourself because it is best for you. Decide to love people because you want the best for them. There is your seventh lesson:

7. Want the best for people

My Secret to Love People and Communicate Better

You may be held back from wanting the best for people because you are hurt. What helps me to always want the best for people, overcome pain, and see love in everything, is to think about the meaning of “appreciate”. To appreciate is to increase in value. Therefore, to be grateful for everything in your past, increase your feelings of value toward your experiences. To be grateful for your present, value the world around you.

Here is a useful exercise to help love people you resent. It will make you grateful for everything in your past and present, and create an abundance of love in your life. This exercise will create our eighth lesson:

8. Be grateful for your past and present

Think of significant positive and negative events in your past. Make the events things that changed your life. Summarize them on a piece of paper in separate rows. If you have a painful memory of how your parents raised you, you could write, “I hate the way my parents abused me.”

Beside each significant event, write what you are thankful for about the event. It can be tough to spot a lesson in a problem – you may need to think about it for sometime. A benefit exists – it always exists. I suggest you read Mind-Lines to conquer the challenge of seeing empowering qualities in challenges.

If you disliked how you were raised by your parents, you could be thankful for:

• The independence they created in you
• Your new knowledge on how not to raise children
• The desire they gave you to lovingly raise your children

People who value lessons and opportunities, instead of being absorbed in pain and problems, are sometimes accused of delusion. Negativity and pain is no more real than positiveness and pleasure. Hate is no more real than love. You decide to be grateful for everything in your past and present. You decide to be loving. You decide to communicate well.

Being grateful for everything in your past and present removes pain. It makes you aware of the abundance of love in life you ignored. We now have our ninth and last lesson on how to love someone:

9. See abundance and you will be exposed to an abundance of love

Love is everywhere. It is in our past and present. It will reside in our future – more so if you follow the advice in this article. “Although humans inherit a biological bias that permits them to feel anger, jealousy, selfishness and envy, and to be rude, aggressive or violent,” says Harvard psychologist Jerome Kagan, “they inherit an even stronger biological bias for kindness, compassion, cooperation, love and nurture.”

It is your choice to see the abundance of love because it is real. It is also your choice to use your biological gift of compassion and love to bring an abundance of this precious energy into your life. “Only when we give joyfully, without hesitation or thought of gain,” said love expert Leo Buscaglia, “can we truly know what love means.”

In the first three parts of the course you learned the power of apologizing, common mistakes and barriers in apologizing, and how to correctly apologize. We have nearly covered all you need to know for a successful apology to heal relationships from pain. In this part, it is time to learn the art of forgiveness to build the roof of emotional freedom to protect, empower, and encapsulate what you have learned in this course.

Let’s look at how apologizing and forgiveness work together. Up until now in the course, we have focused on apologizing and emotional healing. What do you do if a person is unwilling to forgive? Are there certain communication skills you can use to help the person forgive you or should you move on instead and accept the person’s unwillingness to forgive you as their problem? How can we forgive others and start experiencing more happiness, success, and enjoyable relationships as a result of forgiveness?

The Ugly Duckling: Dealing With Unforgiveness and the Odd One Out

There once was an ugly duckling who felt unrelated to his brothers and sisters. His difference frustrated him. While his brothers and sisters were a lovely white color, he was the odd one out with gray-colored feathers. To make him more different, he was large and clumsy. One day the duckling had enough of being rejected so he ran away from home.

One year later, the once ugly duckling – now a young swan – saw many white swans swimming in a pond. The young swan admired their beauty, waiting to be rejected like the other times in his life. To his surprise, the swans welcomed the young swan as part of their group. They declared him to be the most beautiful swan of them all.

Over the years I’ve come to notice that while there are laws and principles that govern how to get the most out of communication, quite a few times an ugly duckling exists. This ugly duckling is the exception to the group. I will read, learn, apply, change, and reapply skills in my life; yet there always appears to be the exception when a skill doesn’t work – a reaction doesn’t take place, for example, or words aren’t received the right way.

There are skills you can use to get a desired response, to get people doing what you want, and to build healthy relationships, but the skills often have an exception like the ugly duckling. Psychology is about categorization and understanding, but even psychologists know they cannot categorize humans. With the complexity of human behavior, it is impossible to establish unbreakable skills that work every time. The ugly duckling for you right now could be the person who is unwilling to forgive you or the circumstance where you are unwilling to forgive.

There will always be people who never accept your apology and refuse to forgive you. If you have planned, taken responsibility, used good timing, explained yourself, and sympathized (as taught in the earlier lesson on how to correctly apologize) and the person does not forgive you, move on. You can only do so much. I still encourage you to put the following skills to use that will help the person find forgiveness, but be prepared to move on and not expect anything in return. Life is too short to be burdened by people’s miseries and resentment.

Provided you’ve done everything in your power and the person is yet to forgive, the person’s unforgiveness is his or her problem. He or she will be burdened by the grudge more than you. Moreover, if you move on, the person maybe willing to accept your apology at a later time.

Where’s Your Awareness?

It is easy to blame others for not doing something they should have done, but this is an illusion. We all think, feel, and behave the best we possibly can at any point in time. Whether you lose a peaceful attitude as you lash out in an argument or miss an easy goal in soccer, hockey, or football, you always achieve your best. You may feel you could have done better in past situations, but the truth is: you did your best.

I once struggled to agree with this principle. When I learned this the first time, I was astounded and felt compelled to disagree with it due to my conditioning from sport coaches, family, and others who use to tell me, “Come on. You can do better than that!” This is partly true.

Your best performance is based on your present level of awareness. A sports coach who revs up his players about not doing their best is still right, yet this is misinterpreted. The sports coach who yells at his players stimulates a new awareness that they are not trying their hardest. While the players underperformed, they still did their best. What the coach does is create a new awareness in the players, which allows them to do better than their prior performance.

No one can act beyond their present awareness.

Applying this law of awareness to our communication and relationships, we have different perceptions, understandings, and experiences – which forms our current awareness – than one another. This creates conflict as someone gets frustrated over someone else not having similar awareness.

Forgiveness and healing is impossible if one’s level of awareness is not high enough. No one can act beyond their present awareness. Awareness applies in being conscious of the fault at hand and knowing the art of forgiveness. A greater awareness can be created from learning the skills and mindset one must have to forgive, which leads to problem identification and a solution.

Someone may not forgive you because they are unaware of the secret art of forgiveness you are discovering in this article. By shifting their awareness, you can transition them into forgiveness, opening their mind with what could occur from emotional healing.

Effects of Not Forgiving

Forgiveness is not limited to religion (though religious individuals probably see a lot similarities and power with the advice in this article). Forgiving others and giving an effective apology to be forgiven creates emotional freedom – one reason forgiveness is seen by many in spiritual terms.

The root of evil, negative actions, grudges, anger, resentment, hatred, and envy begin with unforgiveness. It may seem religious to you, but rejecting someone else’s apology and not forgiving them leads to these effects. Anger is not bad, for example, but you can easily feel angry by resenting something from the past.

Should not forgive someone over one issue, there is enough potential in the resentment and anger generated from that problem to damage your life. That’s right. Just one, single, solo, individual, lone grudge is enough to ruin someone’s life. You can live in anger, misery, and resentment because one grudge causes other things in your life to crumble around you.

To demonstrate how one issue can damage a person’s whole life, I’ll use an example many people struggle to handle: their upbringing. You may have never talked about this problem with anybody your entire life. You may have been abused by your parents at an early age or perhaps they made some wrong decisions that negatively affected you. Let’s say you have experienced such a problem from your parents.

The mistake they (or your mother or father alone) made hurts you deeply, generating severe emotional pain. You hold this mistake against your parents. Even though you forgive everybody else – and your parents on other problems – you cannot forgive your parents for this one problem. Though you are now someone who forgives everyone because you have learned from this course that you need to forgive others, you have been unable to forgive your parents for how they raised you. As a result, you constantly live in anger and resentment. One issue is enough to make your entire life unhappy.

You cannot afford to let this happen by not forgiving others. Do not be that person who cannot forgive. Clear your mind by clearing the other person’s slate of mistakes. Forgive every person, on every issue, every time – or suffer the negative effects of resentment. To do this, there is one principle in the secret art of forgiveness I live by that changed my life and will change yours as it allows you to forgive others over issues you thought were insurmountable.

The Secret Art of Forgiveness – Whose Canvas is It?

I believe there is one true life-changing secret in finding the art of forgiveness. There is one mindset that changed my life forever and allowed me to start forgiving, healing pain, overcoming problems, letting go, eliminating the blame-game from my life, and truly getting on with life.

Are you interested in creating a master piece by forgiving others? Are you ready to begin painting your life and taking control of how you feel? Are you willing to no longer let the past mistakes of other people make you angry, frustrated, and resentful? Are you interested in teaching others how they can apply this secret art of forgiveness so they can forgive you?

When you do not forgive, you probably think your resentment hurts the person who hurt you. You hold unhappiness and painful memories against people who inflicted pain on you in an effort to reciprocate their damage.

The art of forgiveness lies in knowing your hurtful attachment to the past does people no harm – it only hurts your wellbeing.

The art of forgiveness lies in knowing your hurtful attachment to the past does people no harm – it only hurts your wellbeing. Throw your grudges on the ground by acknowledging that what you do to make people unhappy only makes you unhappy. The gun you fire is off target and the recoil blasts into your face. You are not messing up somebody’s piece of art; you are scribbling on your masterpiece. Once you acknowledge the resentment you hold hurts you more than it hurts others, you change your life.

You can only forgive someone when you make the choice to be happy instead of right. If you see the person as having done wrong and you are right, you will forever be tied to painful emotions. The art of forgiveness is not about who is right and who is wrong – it is about making the choice of happiness over righteousness. Only then do you become free from a painful past. You will at last paint your life the way you want.

Forgiving a person does not “let them off the hook”. It doesn’t mean you accept or condone the person’s behavior, or trust the person. What forgiveness does mean is a clean future in the face of a dirty past. In part three of this course I said:

If another person holds the bitter memories and resentment of your mistake against you, the person has not forgiven. It is almost humanly impossible, however, to forget another’s mistake. Forgiveness heals the past releasing ill will against the person. Not forgetting provides a memory of the pain that guides future actions. Forgiveness and forgetting are closely knit together, yet define entirely different things.

An apology is successful when it is accepted and the mistake no longer is held against you. The person may not forget your mistake, but he or she forgives you and no longer resents you for the mistake or uses it to manipulate you. Resentment, frustration, anger, gossip, bitterness, ill will, and other outward manifestations of hatred are erased upon a successful apology. Someone with these emotions possibly signals the person has yet to forgive.

Forgiveness is not easy, but by acknowledging the only person you hurt with resentment is yourself, you relinquish pain and relish the happiness you were born to experience – which may lead the person to forgive you for your mistakes.

You can only forgive someone when you make the choice to be happy instead of right.

If someone is yet to forgive you, make sure you have entirely forgiven them then communicate that you thought you were hurting them by not forgiving, but you only hurt yourself. What you are doing with this technique is educating the person in an indirect manner about the art of forgiveness so your passive advice is not rejected. It will increase the person’s awareness of forgiveness so they more likely accept your apology and forgive you. “To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love,” said Robert Muller, a well-known advocate of world peace. “In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness.”

More Materials to Create the Art of Forgiveness

The information I have given so far is enough to help some people forgive others, apologize, and encourage others to forgive, but here are additional sources and tips to find the art of forgiveness:

• Check out the many powers of apologizing. Doing this will create massive amounts of pleasure to motivate yourself to apologize, forgive, and free yourself from resentment.
• “I know what you said Josh, but I can’t forgive my enemies. What do I do?” You only hurt yourself when you fail to forgive. You don’t have to forget the past, but you need to release resentment. Cry about it to purge resentment. You hurt enemies more by forgiving them than bottling up your resentment. Nothing makes your enemies more satisfied than seeing you beat yourself over an issue you inaccurately think hurts them. Oscar Wilde was quoted in saying, “Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them so much.”
• We are full of mistakes. Acknowledging this helps you see someone’s mistake as them being a typical human. A mistake-filled life is natural so we all need forgiveness to heal our past.
• Are your expectations of the person too high? Expectations determine satisfaction. If your expectations in the person are too high, you set yourself for a hard fall. Unreasonable expectations lead to unreasonable circumstances where it can be difficult to forgive the person for not meeting your expectations.

As you apply parts of the course, the skills will become more natural to you. Where you once would hide beneath your pride, guilt, or resentment as you fail to apologize and forgive, you will now create emotional freedom. Even when an ugly duckling arrives in your life, you can now forgive and encourage others to forgive.

People you apologize to will feel loved by you from the open communication. You will experience happiness and inner peace, freeing yourself from guilt, anger, resentment, and other forms of bitterness. You will at last take advantage of the powers of apologizing. Put away your pride, bring out your apologies, and forgive people.

Links to all four parts of this course, “Freeing Yourself From Mistakes and Pain: A Four Part Course On Apologizing and Emotional Freedom”:

1. The Power of Apologizing
2. Barriers and Mistakes in Apologizing
3. How to Correctly Apologize
4. How to Forgive and Be Forgiven – The Art of Forgiveness