Catastrophic Leadership Failure as Defined by Henry L. Thompson, Ph.D.

Henry L. “Dick” Thompson, PhD, has done important and revealing research into what he calls “Catastrophic Leadership Failure”. Dr. Thompson has found direct relationships between Emotional Intelligence and “Catastrophic Leadership Failure”, but what does this mean for HR/OD professionals, and, what if anything can we do about this when we encounter it?

To help us better understand how leaders often find themselves in these stressful and difficult positions, Thompson’s work below can help us better understand why a leader who is educated, intelligent, and may even be a very pleasant person might start to make really quite bad decisions. Thompson says, “There are numerous well-known public examples, e.g., Enron, World.com, Tyco, the American Red Cross, Katrina, etc. CEOs are being replaced at a record high rate of 7.6 per business day. Over 28% of these CEOs were in position less than three years, and 13% less than one year (Challenger, Gray & Christmas, 2005). Research (Thompson, 2005) shows that stress and its impact on cognitive and emotional abilities may provide at least a partial explanation of” what Thompson calls “Catastrophic Leadership Failure.”

Thompson continues: “Cognitive ability (IQ) and emotional intelligence (EI) abilities are required for successful leader performance—at all levels. Recent findings on leadership, stress, IQ and EI over the last 25 years indicate that when a leader’s stress level is sufficiently elevated— whether on the front line of a manufacturing process, in the emergency room, the Boardroom or on the battlefield—his/her ability to fully and effectively use IQ and EI in tandem to make timely and effective decisions is significantly impaired. This impairment often leads to catastrophic results. A war for talent is underway. Finding, recruiting and hiring talented leaders with high IQ and EI are only the first battle of the war. The war will be won or lost by those who are able to control stress at the individual and company levels. Stress negates talent, IQ and EI.

Research clearly demonstrates that cognitive ability (IQ) directly impacts leader performance (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998; Sternberg, 2001; Thompson, 2007). Schmidt and Hunter (1998) reviewed 85 years of leadership research and found that general mental ability (IQ) was a strong predictor of leadership success. As the complexity of the job increases so does the value of IQ.”

Thompson’s “observations and empirical research on the relationship of IQ to leader performance over the last twenty five years validates that IQ is predictive of “cognitive” learning ability and speed of information processing, both of which make a significant contribution to leadership performance, particularly at the higher leader role levels. IQ tends to be the price of admission for executive level leadership positions. It is very difficult to rise up the corporate ladder without an IQ in the 120-125 range.”

Thompson also states: “Whether IQ or EI contributes the most in leader performance is still debatable at this point. However, EI has been shown to play a significant role at all levels of leadership. Salovey and Mayer defined emotional intelligence as:

A person’s innate ability to perceive and manage his/her own emotions in a manner that results in successful interactions with the environment, and if others are present, to also perceive and manage their emotions in a manner that results in successful interpersonal interactions (Thompson, 2006).

Note that this definition does not require interaction with another person. EI involves managing/ controlling the Awareness and Appraisal of emotions and the resulting action in a manner that produces successful outcomes, whether in the presence or absence of others.” This has great significance for decision-making, performance evaluation, how a leader responds to diversity issues, how a leader responds to legal compliance issues, how a leader experiences and uses his or her authority, and whether or not a leader wants to know if he or she is doing his or her job properly or well. This is the simplest way to describe it. The description that follows is one of the more complex ways to describe it.

Thompson explains how emotional intelligence (EI) works in the human brain: “When a stimulus occurs, a signal comes into the brain to the thalamus, which acts like an air traffic controller. The thalamus sends information to various parts of the brain, particularly “up” to the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and “down” to the amygdala (Goldberg, 2001). The PFC, or CEO of the brain, controls “higher” level thinking processes, e.g., logic, analysis, decision-making, etc.—a significant portion of the leader’s IQ.

The amygdala, sometimes described as the emotional center, plays a major role in emotional responses. It responds incredibly fast to in coming stimuli. But, fortunately, in most cases, the PFC is able to exert control over the amygdala reactions and help the leader avoid what Daniel Goleman (1995) calls “amygdala hijacking.”

When the right blend of thinking and control from the PFC is combined with the right amount of emotion from the amygdala, a person may execute an appropriate action pattern to respond successfully to a particular event (stimulus). If this process works “correctly,” then that person is said to have performed intelligently, both emotionally and cognitively. Successful leadership interactions require a certain amount of conscious intention using both the PFC and the amygdala to create a blended response. When something, such as stress, interferes with the functioning of the PFC, the probability of making an inappropriate interpersonal decision increases.

Each year stress in the workplace costs US industry over $350,000,000 and is linked to each of the six leading causes of death: heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidents, cirrhosis of the liver and suicide. Stress was dubbed the 20th century disease and is quickly becoming the disease of the 21st century as well. When a leader encounters a stressful event, a cascade of neurotransmitters and hormones is released into his/her system resulting in a short-term increase in strength, concentration and reaction time. These changes may be helpful in the initial response to a stressful event.

However if the stress becomes high enough for a long enough period, deleterious effects will follow. The initial release of neurotransmitters and hormones into a leader’s system begins to affect major brain systems, particularly the PFC and the amygdala. Too much stress “turns off” the PFC, resulting in a drop in IQ and ability to control the amygdala. Stress temporarily reduces IQ (Arnsten, 1998)! At the same time, the increased stress “turns on” the amygdala creating an overly sensitive heightened state of emotion. A leader loses a significant amount of ability to “control” his/her emotions, thus be coming not only temporarily cognitively impaired, but also less emotionally intelligent!”

What can we learn from Thompson’s important research for ourselves, to better understand and assist our leadership, and to better understand the entire workforce? Many important things. The implications of this research extend far beyond “Catastrophic Leadership Failure”. The issues of stress and health are very relevant for HR/OD professionals as well as all employees.

Change is hard. People—any of us–can be resistant or defensive. However, we can also be resilient and bring awareness to ourselves; we can ask what we want to be different and better. We can explore what is in our power to adjust, change and improve. We can make changes. We can define what our goals are and plan to meet them. When we consider how far we have come from the time of cave dwellers until now, we realize just how much change, growth, and development is possible for human beings.

There will be those leaders who don’t want to hear Thompson’s cautionary message on “Catastrophic Leadership Failure” and who don’t want to understand how it is they wound up in the news media, in jail, or having bankrupted millions of stakeholders. There will be those business leaders who are too frightened or ashamed to acknowledge that they have mishandled something important. They will keep it a secret. They will view all those around them who try to do things differently than them as their enemies. There will be those leaders who don’t understand that employees who are hard-working, innovative, creative, ethical, but who aren’t “yes-men” or “yes-women” will either grow bored and leave or might even be lost by getting fired for not being “yes-people”, which is just another form of leadership failure—firing the wrong people and retaining the wrong people.

Leaders who fail will exclude quality staff from meetings, decisions, and processes because they don’t want to share power, to share success or to share failure – they don’t want to share learning. They may continue to make quite bad decisions and not even be aware if they are violating the law or creating more and more serious problems for themselves because they only want to be surrounded with those who agree with them–or–because they will only accept disagreement and critical thinking from a select few.

This is another area where diversity and emotion, largely happening in the unconscious, must be noticed, acknowledged, and addressed. Catastrophic Leadership Failure—making bad decisions due to decreased IQ and EI– can be a downward spiral. The refusal to “share power” is crucial. When the HR professional says, “I think we need to do this differently”, he or she is asserting himself or herself in a way that may or may not be welcome – depending on the kind of leaders the HR professional reports to.

Catastrophic Leadership Failure is marked by a refusal to acknowledge or correct errors and/or stop and reverse large errors when they are still smaller errors. Catastrophic Leadership Failure is also marked by a refusal to share power and by several concepts noted by Sue Annis Hammond and Andrea B. Mayfield in their book The Thin Book of Naming Elephants, which looks at gaps between what is said in organizations policy-wise and what is actually done in practice as well as leadership arrogance and allowing abusive managers to remain in management positions.

Hammond and Mayfield studied the culture of NASA after the Challenger tragedy to learn the conceptual markers of workplace cultural “elephants” that predict organizational crisis and/or failure. While not all failures result in the loss of many lives, just as tragic damage can be done over a longer term which impacts spouses, children, employee health, insurance costs, and the rest of the workplace culture that observes and responds to these markers of failure, which can easily be prevented.

Thompson, Henry, L. 2008. Catastrophic Leadership Failure (trademarked). International Conference on Emotional Intelligence. 2008. Chicago, IL.

Hammond, Sue Annis, and Andrea B. Mayfield. 2004. The Thin Book of Naming Elephants: How to Surface Undiscussables for Greater Organizational Success. Thin Book Publishing Co. http://www.thinbook.com.

Romantic and Sexual Relationships in the Workplace

David Letterman’s admission of having had sexual relationships with several women on his staff raises the issue of romantic and sexual relationships in the workplace and the many challenges this can pose for corporate leaders who determine and enforce policy.

On the one hand, we know that for the last five decades, more and more Americans have met their significant others in workplace situations. Workplace romance is not inherently a bad thing and should not be entirely prohibited unless there is justifiable reason to do so. Most of know at least one couple who met at work under completely acceptable circumstances, such as meeting:

Colleagues who pose no conflict of interest issues
Consultants who are not technically co-workers and who pose no conflict of interest issues
Persons at other companies with whom you come in contact with during the course of your job
Employees in other departments who do not report to you and pose no conflicts of interest
etc.

On the other hand, there are issues that need to be considered when we consider what our coporate policies will allow in terms of who can be romantic with each other in the workplace, why, or why not.

Most workplaces have policies that prohibit employees from engaging in romantic or sexual relationships with those to whom they report or who report to them. This is a very justifiable prohibition for obvious reasons.

David Letterman was engaging in relationships with staff who reported to him either directly or indirectly. This raises not only issues for all the women on his staff – (who has special privileges, who has undue influence, and who does not?) – but also for men on his staff who presumably have no such access to David Letterman. It also creates sexual harassment and conflict of interest liabilities.

What is further disturbing about this revelation is that CBS does not appear to be taking any significant action against David Letterman. This raises issues of consistency around policy application. Many HR professionals who watch this story are wondering if there are any other employees working at CBS who have ever engaged in sexual or romantic relationships with persons who report to them or to whom they report – and who have been terminated as a result.

Most companies consider this a firable offense; yet Letterman is still firmly in his position. Should Letterman be above such a policy? Should anyone? In my opinion, the answer is no. Clearly, CBS either does not have such a policy or does not apply this policy to Letterman.

If Letterman had been engaging in a relationship with someone who did not report to him, this would be a non-issue. But, his relationship was with someone who reported to him–many times apparently. The fact that he is working the situation into his almost nightly comedy routine only makes light of a serious situation.

One can only imagine the incredible frustration of the HR executives at CBS who are most likely dealing with a severe inconsistency in policy application on this one.

Workplace Violence, Workplace Bullying, Harassment, Discrimination, and Retaliation as Abuses of Power and Control-Over Resulting from Permissive Corporate Cultures and Deficiencies in Emotional Intelligence Skills: What Can We Learn From the Recent Yale University Workplace Violence Incident?

Denise A. Romano, MA, EdM. Certified EI Coach

There are inherent power differentials in workplace relationships, and there is nothing wrong with that. It only becomes a problem when authority is misused and abused resulting in bullying, harassment, formal complaints, formal charges with external agencies, lawsuits, low morale, slander, harmful gossip, and workplace violence, among other things.

We can learn important lessons from the Yale workplace violence incident. First, we can learn that even if there is no overt incident or complaint, we still have a responsibility to be aware of the dynamics of workgroups and intervene if there are issues that could potentially provoke an employee’s disposition to murderous rage. How do we do this? We aren’t psychic.

Many states are now implementing mandatory workplace violence prevention laws that insist upon surveying employees, documenting incidents of workplace violence, and otherwise doing whatever possible to remain vigilant of risk factors for workplace violence.

What are the risk factors? The FBI tells us that workplace bullying is a high risk factor for workplace violence. So does a great amount of psychological research and occupational research and statistics. We know from OD research that emotional intelligence can be developed and improved and that combinations of improved emotional intelligence, sound conflict resolution skills, high-quality diversity training, and workplace cultures that mandate respectful interactions regardless of conflict are protective factors against workplace violence. So, why aren’t all workplaces doing all they can to implement protective factors and prevent risk factors?

We’ll get to that soon. First, an important look at the underlying employee experiences that are not as invisible as they seem if workplaces look for them. Workplaces can only competently address risk factors for workplace violence if they understand how to recognize them. And they can only recognize all of them if they actively look for them.

Workplace violence is preceded by anger, whether in our understanding of the situation that anger seems rational to us or not. We do have a responsibility to understand those workplace situations that produce anger in employees, even if in understanding those situations, we are forced to address uncomfortable realities about the workplace including the existence of various dysfunctions such as disparate treatment, cronyism, needs for diversity training, or needs for a complete overhaul of workplace culture. We must be willing to see these things and address them with intellectual and emotional honesty and integrity. We also must be willing to intervene.

Even the NY Times reports on how workplace bullying contributes to sleep problems: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/work-bullying-linked-with-poor-sleep/

Anger in workplaces that goes unexpressed either because the angry person is not making it known or because employees in general are not welcomed to provide feedback or complaints or because employees have directly been told to not express any anger, is a very serious risk factor for workplace violence. According to the FBI report on workplace violence:

“It is the threats, harassment, bullying, domestic violence, stalking, emotional abuse, intimidation, and other forms of behavior and physical violence that, if left unchecked, may result in more serious violent behavior.”

“A plan should take into account the workplace culture: work atmosphere, relationships, traditional management styles, etc. If there are elements in that culture that appear to foster a toxic climate—tolerance of bullying or intimidation; lack of trust among workers, between workers and management; high levels of stress, frustration and anger; poor communication; inconsistent discipline; and erratic enforcement of company policies—these should be called to the attention of top executives for remedial action.”

“In defining acts that will not be tolerated, the statement should make clear that not just physical violence but threats, bullying, harassment, and weapons possession are against company policy and are prohibited.” (FBI, monograph on workplace violence).

Clearly, the murderer of Annie Le had something he was angry about. Was his anger rational? We don’t know. Does it matter if his anger was rational? Yes and No. Whether anger is rational or not, agreed with or not, understood or not; it does need to be acnkowledged and addressed skillfully by highly qualified professionals in workplaces.

His anger could have been addressed if those with the skills to address it with competence had been aware of his anger. Had there been awareness of his anger by the right people, and had his anger been acknowledged as a risk factor for workplace violence, this murder might have been prevented.

Mark Slaski, Phd, states that the expression of anger is about power. Issues of power and control in every aspect of humans’ lives are fertile ground for producing anger. There are striking resemblances between the misuse and/or abuse of authority or even assumed (not actual) authority in workplaces and issues around power and control in both cult (high-control) groups and domestic violence situations.

First, power and/or authority is being abused and mis-used in all of those situations. Secondly, the trauma that results for those on the receiving end of such abusive behavior is often very similar. Most employees have had childhood, adolescent, family, relationship, and other workplace experiences that involved the misuse of power and control that caused them to be very angry and/or feel unfairly victimized. This is a part of the modern human condition.

These experiences can range from the mild to the severe: We know that one in three American women has been sexually assaulted and approximately 1 in 10 Americans has been the victim of some kind of crime. We know that there is bullying in schools, hazing in high schools and colleges, bullying in workplaces, various forms of child abuse in families, hazing on athletic teams, clergy abuse, abuse and racial profiling by various police officers, and even abuse of authority by some TSA agents. We know that most people have experienced some form of unhealthy power and/or control over them, which has resulted in anger. We know that throughout human history there are examples of persons in positions of authority who abuse their power.

This teaches us that before anyone is put into a position of authority, they need – we all need – training to understand our authority, understand what abusing it is or would look like, understand how not to abuse that authority, understand our own anger at previous situations in our lives which might contribute to our likelihood of abusing our authority, and we must understand a framework of values to guide us during those situations when we might be most likely to abuse our authority.

This also teaches us that in workplaces, where there are many interactive relationships around authority, that we have a serious duty to ensure through trainings, workplace cultural values, and consistent application of policies and procedures that authority is not misused either brazenly or subtley. And when it is, we need to intervene to prevent the abuse and feelings of anger that result. Furthermore, when it results, we must work not only to prevent future instances, but to repair and make whole those who have been injured by the abuse of authority, otherwise, we invite dormant anger that can take any number of forms, including workplace violence.

Jill Sarah Moscowitz, a mediator and trainer, (http://www.nonprofitcareeradvisor.com/) teaches that workplace conflicts are messages to us about something that needs attention in the workplace system. She is absolutely correct, and the more we can look at these situations in this systems-approach way, the more able we will be to competently address and prevent workplace violence.

Often, unhealthy power and control-over (as opposed to healthy power that is shared, agreed upon, and somewhat fluid and flexible) – is also assumed by those who do not have actual workplace power or organizational authority. People who do this like to make others falsely believe they have more authority, skill, knowledge, experience, or organizational power than they actually have in reality. These people have a need to feel “more than” they actually perceive themselves, and because of their deficient emotional intelligence in every area, they often lie about what they know, what information they are privy to, who they know, who they have influence over, what their skills are, what their abilities are, prior positions they’ve held — and anything else they can think of in order to make others think they are more knowledgeable, skilled, “important” and more organizationally powerful than they actually are.

This points to deficiencies in every subscale of the EQi Emotional Intelligence measures: self-regard, emotional self-awareness, assertiveness, independence, self-actualiziation, empathy, social responsibility, interpersonal relationship, stress tolerance, impulse control, reality-testing, flexibility, problem-solving, optimism, and happiness. (http://www.mhs.com/ei.aspx)

When a workplace allows one or more employees to regularly mislead other employees about how much organizational power they have, the workplace becomes complicit in supporting this subtle but very damaging abuse of power. These kinds of employees often create such false power and authority so they can then wield it abusively and misuse it frequently. Intimidation, coercion, gossip-mongering, and attempting to have unhealthy control over other employees are usually what results when this is allowed to go on.

Bullying and unlawful harassment will not be far behind these behaviors. The very troubling thing about bullying is that there can often be a fine line between what is considered lawful harassment in the US (bullying) and unlawful harassment. For example, consider a person who has cognitive or emotional disabilities that are covered by ADA (now ADAAA). Consider that these disabilities are largely invisible to most people. This person is disabled, yet the disability is not immediately apparent.

Now consider some co-workers who think they have a right to “lawfully” bully such an employee. They may be unaware of ADA and what their responsibilities as employees are to comply with ADA and ADAAA. Their training may not have gone into sufficient detail about what constitutes a disability and how some disabilities are invisible. They may say “we just don’t like him/her”. Whenever people say something like this, they are often covering up a known or unknown reason for disliking someone. Frequently, this reason — whether known or unknown — is due to bias based on an issue of identity such as those considered protected categories under EEO law. Many employees are smart enough to not say things like, “I don’t like him because of his race/sexuality/gender/age/disability” etc. And, there are still a great many people who react with primal disgust in a very unconscious way to those who are different from them in some way.

They may think they are well within their rights to bully and harass this person. What they don’t realize is that their bullying of this person based on attributes that are due to the invisible disability does qualify their behavior as unlawfully harassing under federal ADA, ADAAA, and EEO laws. This is a very serious issue given that the US (and worldwide) workforce has more and more persons with various disabilities in it. In the US, the population of disabled employees will only grow as more and more veterans return from active military duty.

A perfect example is a veteran who has PTSD. Such a disability is invisible, yet is very real. What might happen to a veteran with PTSD who is then bullied and harassed at work? Would this bullying constitute unlawful harassment under ADA/ADAAA and EEO laws? I think a more important question is why are we even asking if it constitutes unlawful harassment? Why aren’t we as HR professionals and as employees demanding that corporations mandate codes of conduct around civility and take them seriously? Where is the Department of Labor’s voice on this important point? Where are the voices of all employment lawyers on this important point? Rather than focusing on not wanting yet another thing that employees can take legal action over, why not address the enormous expense and risk for ADA/ADAAA/EEO liability that exists in refusing to address this? It’s alot like private medical insurance companies spending hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising to defeat a national healthcare plan so they can avoid having to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to insure people without health insurance. The money is still being spent; the costs are still there. Why not make the choice that creates the least personal and organizational harm?

We in the US (and in most other nations) have agreed that harassment, discrimination, and retaliation based on various characteristics is reprehensible and punishable by significant monetary torts as well as workplace monitoring by federal and/or state authorities. We have decided this as part of our societal norms. Those companies that choose to do business in the US agree to these terms. All persons who choose to work in the US also agree to these terms, whether they know it or not.

And if employees do not know that, then their workplaces are failing in their legal duties to prevent harassment, discrimination, and retaliation under EEO/ADAAA laws from happening at all.

The law says that workplaces have a responsibility to PREVENT harassment, discrimination, and retaliation based on those protected categories (which vary from state to state). Usually, policies, training, and behavioral norms in the form of workplace culture enforce employee behavior and do prevent this unlawful behavior. And, often, those things are not in place or they are but aren’t taken seriously, and then harassment, discrimination, and retaliation can occur.

Even if policies and training are in place, but behavioral norms of organizational leaders or those with great organizational power are not in alignment with these policies and trainings, then employees will model their behavior not after the policies and trainings, but after the behavior they see and experience. Harassment, discrimination, and retalitiaon can and often do happen under these circumstances. Slaski (http://www.markslaski.com/), taught this concept very powerfully in his recent lecture at the International Emotional Intelligence Conference in Toronto in 2009. Slaski discusses the importance of organizational modeling of behavior for employees and how if that is not present, policies and trainings are meaningless.

It’s very interesting that we’ve decided that harassment, discrimination, and/or retaliation based on certain categories is repehensible enough to warrant jury trials and multi-million dollar tort awards, but that the very same behavior not based on those categories is perfectly legal and those who suffer it have little to no recourse. The message this often sends to some corporate leaders is that “lawful harassment” is then none of the company’s business and there should be no policy governing or addressing it.

Smart companies will address all forms of harassment, including bullying, by clearly defining it, preventing it, prohibiting it, delivering consequences to staff consistently, and modeling behavioral norms in sync with these policies. I would like to recognize the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries for their excellent anti-bullying workplace policies: http://www.lni.wa.gov/Safety/Research/OccHealth/WorkVio/default.asp#Bullying

Not-so-smart companies, will allow bullying to go on, because afterall, “it’s legal”. Not-so-smart companies will also allow “equal opportunity harassers” to continue their behavior. “Well, they harass and bully everyone. It’s not because of any protected category in EEO law; it’s just the way they are; it’s just their personality. These are personality conflicts”.

These are not personality conflicts. When corporate leaders do not perceive the cost of allowing any employee in any position and at any level to behave in this way, they are in serious denial about the enormously costly damage that is done by allowing this behavior to continue. They also become absolutely complicit in any results from allowing this behavior to continue including formal complaints, the loss of high-quality employees who resign or lose motivation to work well, emotional and psychological harm restulting from this allowed behavior, risks for workplace violence, low staff morale, disregard for employment policies if this behavior is not seen as problematic, disrespect for a leadership that allows this behavior to go on, subtle dislike of the workplace, active dislike of the workplace, zero loyalty to the workplace, workers’ compensation mental health stress claims, and other serious problems.

At this point in time, given all the research done on workplace bullying and how harmful it is, there is no excuse for a corporate leadership to not know the very serious risks of allowing such behavior. The information is there in the psychological literature, in the workers’ compensation statistics compiled by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the caselaw of those nations that have made workplace bullying unlawful, and in the countless cases of workplace violence in the US that have ended tragically. Given that we know what the risk factors for workplace violence are, it is stunning that we still look the other way and allow certain abusive behaviors in workplaces to continue. When we do this, we are clearly and loudly saying we are willing to risk workplace violence in our workplaces because we would rather not address those other unpleasant, inconvienent issues for whatever reasons.

Bullying in schools is finally getting the attention it deserves, though it took Columbine for that to happen. Columbine was not only an example of bullying at school; many people work in schools, and as we know, at least one teacher was killed during the Columbine tragedy. For that teacher, for his family and for everyone who knew him, Columbine was workplace violence caused by the results of unaddressed bullying.

The problem of having both lawful and unlawful harassment in the US is that this often confuses employees. Let’s revisit the situation of a veteran — or any other employee — with PTSD. He may not even know he has PTSD. He may have undiagnosed PTSD. Does that mean he doesn’t have a disability? Let’s say he is bullied and his emotional responses to events at work are ridiculed. Let’s say he is bullied because of his cognitive skills being affected. What are the risks in such a situation?

The risks are many. Because so many health issues and disabilities are invisible; HR, managers, and other employees cannot always know who has a disability and who doesn’t. And persons with certain disabilities are not required to tell the entire workplace, “by the way, I have this invisible disability, which is _________”.

The risks include huge lawsuits, workplace violence, low morale, conflict in the workplace that can spread from an individual level to a group level and become very entrenched, and a toxic workplace culture as result. Other employees who have deficiencies in Emotional Intelligence may observe one bully getting away with bullying and may then decide to also bully others. Workplaces with multiple bullies have signficant and serious problems as a result. This is undisputed.

The group dynamics implications of allowing bullying in workplaces are huge. Steven J. Stein, Phd, author of Make Your Workplace Great: The 7 Keys to an Emotionally Intelligent Organization and of The EQ Edge (with Howard Book, Phd), as well as David Caruso, Phd, Slaski, and other thought leaders have confirmed that emotions are contagious. Additionally, we know this from Tavistock group dynamics studies, experiences, and research. Given that we know that emotions are contagious, we have a responsibility to both prevent destructive group dynamics processes in workplaces and to also be aware of and intervene if any of these emerge. When these do emerge, we have a responsibility to learn what the causes of this are and to address those causes in order to prevent more destructive group dynamics processes from emerging.

For example, if one employee is being scapegoated, this points to a serious problem in the workgroup that points to group projections that may have to do with any or all of these: accountability, anger, envy, primal fear, primal disgust, etc. What we know about groups is that even if this scapegoated employee becomes fed up and quits or is terminated, the group dynamic is still present in the workgroup and it will repeat itself with someone else. It’s just a matter of time before someone else is “it”. For some reason, this group has a pathological need to have a scapegoat. This is a serious issue that must be addressed if the workgroup is to function in a constructive, productive, and healthy manner. In workgroups that engage in this kind of group scapegoating process, there are often disparate standards for measuring job performance as well as distortions among group members about what is true – organizational myths often become organiational “fact”. Even employees who are not actively involved in scapegoating operations in any way are harmfully affected by such dynamics as they perceive very clearly that joining the operation is implicitly expected of them and they also perceive that they could be next.

When humans allow what Slaski calls “primal brain” to overtake our ability to think rationally and we respond to situations without using emotional intelligence skills but rather respond not unlike junior high shools kids and allow groupthink and other aspects of group dynamics to direct our thoughts, feelings, choices, statements, rationalizations, and actions, we can easily get sucked into a downward toxic spiral. This is particularly harmful for workplaces. People who would ordinarily not engage in gossip will start to do so. People who ordinarily would not engage in ridiculing others will start to do so. Opinions of the targets of bullying and harassment will easily spread laterally just as costly unresolved conflict will. Myths that have no basis in truth will become organizational “fact” because they’ve been stated enough that people believe them.

Bernadette Poole-Tracy, EdD has done masterful trainings on workplace conflict management. She teaches HR, ADR, executives and employees of every level about conflict, what it is, what it is not, what will resovle it soundly and what will not resovle it. Again, the knowledge is out there for organizations that want it.

The cost/benefit analysis is a no-brainer: spend approixmately $100 (or less) an employee on preventative high-quality workplace conflict management training and roll out a clear policy addressing how employees are mandated to handle conflict or do nothing and spend much more per employee on complaints, investigations, legal fees, turnover, responding to formal complaints made to external governmental agencies, and low morale.

So, when disrespectful and ridiculing behavior rear their ugly heads in response to someone with invisible disabilities, the ADA and ADAAA are still being violated. This is a liability for the company and for those employees engaging in this behavior. By allowing bullying to occur because it’s legal or allowed, we run the risk of allowing behavior that is in fact unlawful to happen far too easily.

This just proves how dangerous bullying can be. It’s just like saying we’ve got two kinds of apple pie; one is made with organic apples and one is made with non-organic apples. You cannot tell by looking at the pie, by tasting the pie, or by smelling or touching the pie. The only way to tell is to read the recipe for each one or talk to the bakers. But this information may not be available. Substantively and on the surface, these pies seem identical. Yet they aren’t.

It’s the same in this situation and in many situations involving invisible disabilities and the very fine line between bullying and unlawful harassment. Very often, the only way to know if the bullying reaches the level of unlawful harassment is if we have access to private health information that is protected by HIPAA. But we all do not have access to this.

So, what is the greater risk? Creating policies, trainings, and corporate behavioral norms around a zero tolerance policy for any kind of harassment – unlawful or not — OR — deciding that your company is not going to make a policy to address behavior that isn’t techincally unlawful?

When employees are bullied or unlawfully harassed, we can easily compare this to the experience that battered spouses have. All relationship abuse is violent and horrible, but over and over again studies have shown that those persons who experience verbal, psychological and emotional abuse are often far more harmed than those who experience physical abuse. The reason is that verbal, psychological and emotional abuse are invisible. There are no bruises, broken bones, or lacerations. There is no external cue to the rest of the world that this person has been harmed, and frequently, those kinds of abuses are taken less seriously by law enforcement and even by some counselors. It may be more difficult for those persons to obtain needed services, protection, or recourse for their very real injuries.

Those who have been physically abused have certainly endured terrible trauma; yet they get the care they need because their sustained injuries are so visible and demand treatment. Invisible traumas do not always get the care they need, and this prevents and prolongs healing.

Bullying is just like invisible relationship abuse since there is often no recourse for the bullied employee, yet the wounds are just as bad as if the bullying had been unlawful harassment. What the current laws say to employees is this:

You’ve been called names, slandered, gossiped about, excluded, treated unfairly, lied to, lied about, scapegoated, ganged up on, treated with hostility, treated in a disparate manner, or otherwise mistreated – but we only care if those things happened because of this short list of characteristics. If those things happened because of some reason not on this list, we don’t care. Too bad. Deal with it.

Given the realities of group dynamics among humans in most workplaces, this is a slippery slope. We know that groups of humans in most workplaces will almost always devolve into destructive competitiveness, destructive conflict, and destructive bias unless there are mechanisms in place to consciously and actively prevent this. Another way to say this is that many adults have never left the school yard. Again, we look to a combination of policies, trainings, ongoing education, and the consistent modeling of corporate cultural behavioral norms by those with the most organizational power as an effective solution. We know that if any of those is missing, the others will become meaningless and destructive behaviors will reign in that workplace culture.

What is also fascinating when looking at workplaces is: What makes it perfectly okay in this workplace culture for certain people to be treated in certain ways? What makes it acceptable among this group of people to target those who are on the receiving end of gossip, slander, bullying, hostility, disparate treatment, increased surveillance, harassment, discrimination, workplace violence, retaliation, exclusion, or other forms of mistreatment? When someone says, “I just don’t like him/her”, where does that come from? Most employees are smart enough to know that they can’t say their reason for disliking someone is a protected category, and a great deal of personal disgust can actually be attributed to unexamined personal bias whether it is conscious or not. This is another reason why mistreatment on its own is just as harmful as “unlawful” mistreatment. The harmful and abusive behavior is the same regardless of what drives it.

When we look at the hallmarks of cults and high-control groups, we recognize that there is control exercised by the leader(s) over Behavior, Intellect, Thoughts, and Emotions. (B.I.T.E.). Cults and high-control groups accomplish this control over individuals in a group in various ways. It is often done gradually. Workplaces want to have a certain amount of healthy control over employees and this is accomplished in healthy ways by being straightforward and transparent about the goals: We all agree to abide by these rules and we will all be expected to do so consistently. The End.

This only becomes confusing, obfuscated, and abusive when key words in that sentence are not meant or true. For example, maybe we “all” don’t abide by these rules; maybe only some of us do. Or, maybe we don’t really abide by them, but we say we do. Or, we say this but we don’t even try or expect this. Or, we say we have a zero tolerance for harassment, but we really allow it to go on. Or we allow it to go on under certain circumstances — maybe when our star salesperson is the worst bully but we consider him or her too valuable to address problems with. Penny wise and pound foolish.

When mixed messages like this are sent to employees, they realize they really are allowed to behave outside of the stated rules and norms and many WILL do so.

Some workplaces will begin to mirror cult-like behavior by trying to control behavior, intellect, thoughts, and emotions either inconsistently resulting in disparate treatment or in abusive ways. For example, expecting or demanding differing emotional behavior from men and women because of discriminatory ideas about what men or women are. Or, demanding that certain employees only express certain kinds of emotions but not others; this can also result in disparate treatment and/or be just unrealistic as well as abusive and unhealthy.

Prevention is the key. Prevention must consist of policies, trainings, ongoing education, and consistently modeled behavior by those who are most powerful in the organization. Heather Amberg Anderson says that Leaders are in the business of influencing behavior, and she is correct. When it’s too late for prevention, as it is in many workplaces, intervention is necessary. If only someone had noticed this and intervened at Yale. Someone might not be dead.

Emotional Intelligence training, diversity training, sound conflict resolution training, and Non-Violent Communication training can all work together to prevent bullying, harassment, discrimination, retaliation, and workplace violence.

Every time there is an incident of workplace violence in the news, we all collectively wonder what happened. We wonder how it could have been prevented. We don’t really need to wonder about prevention. We have the answers. And, paying for EI training, diversity training, EEO/ADA training, sound conflict resolution training, and NVC training is alot less expensive and alot more pleasant than paying tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to address formal complaints, respond to formal charges from the EEOC or state human rights agencies, or to settle a lawsuit. And, there is nothing that can measure the costs of incidences of workplace violence upon all employees.

OSHA requires that employees be given a workplace environmet free from harm. The FBI cites workplace bullying as a high-risk factor for workplace violence eight times in a report on workplace violence, which has become a serious epidemic in the US (http://www.fbi.gov/publications/violence.pdf).

A white paper on SHRM characterizes workplace bullying as “the new sexual harassment”. Indeed, consider how sexual harassment was viewed before it became officially unlawful. There were many workplace leaders and lawyers who said, “Oh get over this; we don’t need yet another law to address this and we don’t need to legislate behavior”. But, we did need that law because of systemic sexual, psychological, and economic violence against women in the workplace.

As usual, the law has not yet caught up with clinical and organizational psychology. We know in the psychology field that the effects of bullying on someone are often extremely damaging and can often result in psychiatric disabilities whether those are temporary or permanent. We know that when two people are harassed in equally bad ways but one person’s harassment is based on a protected category and the other person’s harassment isn’t, that they are both going to suffer. Suffering does not cease because laws and policies do not recognize abusive and destructive behavior; in fact this refusal to recognize, identify, and sufficiently address the abusive and destructive behavior makes the suffering much worse.

Even those employees who have deficient EI skills will understand very clearly what they can and cannot do at work based on their corporate cultures. Permissive corporate cultures rely too heavily on assuming that employees understand what they can and cannot do without providing sufficient clear guidance, behavioral modeling, policies, and trainings.

We know that groupthink is a big part of this. In groups, humans will often do things they would never do individually. This can be harnessed for good, but left on its own in workplaces that are too permissive and do not adequately prevent abusive and destructive behaviors groupthink will often emerge around issues of competition, jealousy, exclusion, and unhealthy power and control over.

Any employee at any level who is deficient in EI skills and who is not given very clear behavioral guidelines, training, and modeling from their corporate culture can easily become a huge bully and/or unlawful harasser, causing extremely costly conflicts, unresolved conflicts, entrenched conflicts, conflicts that spread laterally throughout work groups and the entire organization, and conflicts that last years or even decades.

Even one conflict over something seemingly insignficant can easily draw in several people, can easily spread laterally, can easiliy last years and become very entrenched, and can easily harm morale, productivity, and the health of those involved.

And, when we look at Organizational Development and Organizational Psychology knowledge, we know that many conflicts arise out of misunderstandings, role confusion, ignorance of compliance responsibities, deficient EI skills, and actual bias. Emotional Intelligence research and knowledge teaches us that these can all cause the basic emotions of anger, fear, sadness, and disgust.

What is disturbing is when there are people in a workplace who derive personal and group joy from engaging in forms of bullying and harassment such as exclusion, gossiping, slandering, ridicule, scapegoating, etc. We know that when any person takes joy from someone else’s suffering, they are disconnected from their own pain. We also know that it is relatively easy for groups of people to derive joy from the suffering of others while denying they are in fact doing this. The holocaust is only one extreme example of this.

Anima Leadership Trainers based in Toronto, Canada (http://animaleadership.com/) use a combination of mindfulness practices, sound conflict resolution and communicaiton trainings, and Emotional Intelligence principles to provide experiential learning when they conduct their very effective diversity trainings.

It is very easy for a workgroup to unknowingly engage in any form of unlawful harassment without even knowing it and without any offending words to ever be communicated in any way. Subtle forms of this can include any kind of in-group/out-group dynamic based on any protected category. This is why impact is considered by investigators. It is entirely possible that a policy will say there is zero tolerance for retaliation, and yet mysteriously the impact is clearly that anyone who has ever made a formal complaint at the company has been placed under greater scrutiny than they were before or than other employees. Disparate treatment must be paid attention to even if there are no complaints. Disparate treament is another form of retaliation that can be subtle but extremely harmful and ultimately costly in many ways.

Most physical conditions are made worse by stress. Workplace stress is often more potent than other kinds of stress because it directly impacts people’s livelihoods and healthcare–their very survival. Workers’ Compensation costs often skyrocket in corporate cultures that have permissive cultures and do not adequately prevent abuses of power in the form of bullying, harassment, discrimination, and retaliation. All of these behaviors are very primitive kinds of abuses of power and control. These behaviors say, “I will mistreat you because I can get away with it”. This concept is the same in issues of domestic violence. Lundy Bancroft (http://www.lundybancroft.com/) teaches that men who abuse women do so “because they can”.

There is really no difference in the workplace. Abuse is abuse. Violence is violence. Harassment is harassment. Bullying is bullying. We now recognize the harm that schoolyard bullying does to children and adolescents who have taken their lives or otherwise suffered psychological trauma; there is no difference in these effects on employees in workplaces.

The very good news is that there are easy solutions for all of this that are much less expensive that lawyers’ fees and allowing lowered productivity and morale to exist as these destructive behaviors are allowed to exist. What it comes down to for organizational leaders is: What are you going to choose to invest in? Are you going to demand certain behavioral standards from all of your staff and from yourselves? Or, are you not going to demand certain behavioral standards from all of your staff?

If leaders are not willing to demand consistent behavioral standards from their staff members, they need to ask themselves why and they need to clearly realize the costs and consequences of not doing so. Henry L. Thompson, Phd, the founder of High Performing Systems, has done excellent work on Catastrophic Leadership Failure (trademarked), and explores how deficient emotional intelligence skills will lead to bad decisions, which you can read about here: http://www.hpsys.com/PDFs/CatastrophicLeadershipFailureOverviewv2_18SEP2007.pdf

The choice is clear: either choose prevention, education, training, clear policies, consistent policy application, and behavioral modeling by leaders OR risk lawsuits, increased workers’ compensation claims, formal charges of EEO violations, traumatized employees, costly unresolved conflict, entrenched untrue organizational myths, an injured corporate repuation, the loss of quality employees, and/or workplace violence.

The choice is yours. What will you choose for your company? Regardless of your position at your company, it is important to be aware of these issues and to raise them with your HR department and/or your boss.

One can only wonder what prompted the recent fatal case of workplace violence at Yale University. Since it has been classified as workplace violence, it will be interesting to follow any OSHA investigation into this as well as any legislative efforts around workplace violence prevention in response to this crime. There are currently at least 12 states in the US with legislative efforts to address workplace bullying. There are more and more states implementing workplace violence prevention laws.

Laura Crenshaw, The Boss Whisperer®, offers excellent trainings that address these important issues. Boss Whispering® is the art and practice of coaching abrasive bosses to rein in their agressive workplace behaviors. Much like horse whisperers who calm unmanageable horses, Boss Whisperers work to tame the fears that drive unmanageable managers to trample on coworkers’ emotions. Based on extensive research, this informative and enjoyable approach to developing interpersonal insight and changing behavior has proven effective with leaders at all levels. The process involves an initial two-day onsite assesment followed by regular in-person or telephonic coaching sessions. Positive results are usually evident by the third coaching session. Dr. Crenshaw’s important work can be found at http://exec-insight.com/.

“Violence in the workplace is a serious safety and health issue. Its most extreme form, homicide, is the fourth-leading cause of fatal occupational injury in the United States. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI), there were 564 workplace homicides in 2005 in the United States, out of a total of 5,702 fatal work injuries.” (OSHA)

The most important point is that these are not just academic pursuits; OD, EI, diversity, and leadership researchers are also practitioners who work in the real world with real people in real workplaces. OD, EI, diversity, and leadership work is not ivory tower work; it is about observing what happens in work groups, learning what can be done better and why, and then intervening to address dysfunction and improve group dynamics and workplace culture. It is motivated by exactly the motivation described by Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently on 9/15/09 when she spoke at a law school and said she became a lawyer to make others’ lives a little bit better. She urged the law students in her large audience to use their law degrees to make people’s lives a little bit better.

In order for any of us to do this, we must approach workplace issues with intellectual and emotional honesty, we must develop our EI, we must apply standards and policies consistently, and we must use all of the knowledge and research available to us in order to do the best we can for any workgroup. This is true whether we are HR/OD professionals, attorneys, organizational leaders, learning officers, consultants, mediators, investigators, board members, trainers, or others who have any influence over the issues facing modern workgroups.

What we can learn from the Yale murder is that it is our responsibility to observe, survey, solicit feedback, and intervene in workplace environments. If someone says someone else is controlling and territorial, that is something to address and intervene in before it escalates while we aren’t looking. If someone else is prone to explosive temper, it needs to be taken seriously. If there is ridicule, gossip, bullying, or other behavior that points to in-group/out-group or scapegoating operations, we need to intervene.

Intervention can take the form of coaching, training, transferring employees, mandating anger management, demanding changed behavior, mandating emotional intelligence development for all employees, implementing corporate cultural values, using experiential trainings around diversity, conflict resolution, and communication, and other actions.

What is most important for those of us who intervene is that we name situations clearly and transparently what they actually are. When we say that bullying is bullying, violence is violence, harassment is harassment, disparate treatment is disparate treatment, discrimination is discrimination, errors are errors, screaming is screaming, dishonesty is dishonesty, etc., we keep ourselves and others intellectually and emotionally honest. When we fail to do this or fail to do this consistently, we become part of the problem and can actually do much more harm than good.

When we look at other forms of violence and assaultive, unhealthy power and control-over others in various slices of modern human existence, we can see a history of behavior that can only be described as denial.

Rape victims have been blamed for dressing too provacatively, “asking for it”, “wanting it”, and otherwise held responsible for the violent and life-changing assaults they’ve endured.

Children and adolescents who have experienced incestual violations have long been ignored as the family was considered a soverign domain in which no authority had the right to intervene. Some children and adolescents have also been accused of having “asked for it” or have been blamed for having been “seductive”.

Before the Civil Rights Movement in the US, victims of lynchings were said to have been “uppity” or have “not known their place”.

Gay people who were unjustly victimized by the police in the Stonewall Riots were blamed and told they deserved the violence they received.

It is important to address conflicts in workplaces in a sound manner and to do so with as much training as possible. Certainly it can be useful to explore how each party has contributed to a conflict, however, when one party’s contribution is simply that they are a woman, are of color, are disabled, are gay, are trying to do their job, etc., it does need to be made clear that there is no sharing of blame or contribution to a conflict. There are times when conflicts in workplaces exist simply because one person is abusing another because of a personal need to abuse someone or because of needs for trainings around diversity issues or sound supervisory skills. Blaming when it is unwarranted is the kind of dangerous dynamic that can become contagious, can become a group dynamic, can result in scapegoating, and is an indication of a severe workplace problem that is most certainly a risk factor for workplace violence.

By all accounts, Annie Le had no trouble with her accused murderer and co-worker. However, clearly, he had a problem with her. I doubt that anyone would say Annie Le had any contribution to her death. Therefore, it is important for us to bear in mind that if she were alive and there were to be some intervention, we would want that intervention to be done soundly. It is ill-advised to demand that a victim of any form of workplace violence share blame for the situation when that is not true. Untrained persons in workplaces who attempt to resolve conflicts by making everyone share the blame equally do more harm than good. It is extremely important to bring in qualified, ethical mediators and to bring in qualified, ethical trainers to mandate sound conflict resolution skills for all workplaces.

Prevention is acheivable. And it is worth the money in that it will save lives and it will create healthier workplaces.

NYSDRA (www.NYSDRA.org) has one of the most brilliant workplace conflict mangagement trainings that exists. I recommend it as highly as possible. Bernadette Poole-Tracy, EdD is the presenter of that training and her combintation of ADR and OD knowledge and experience are like an innoculation against workplace violence, bullying, dysfunctional conflict resolution, and ignorance around the enormous costs of unresolved workplace conflict.

There is no longer any excuse for any workplace to be without these crucial trainings that save money, time, unnecessary angst, harmful stress, and lives.

Examining the Use of NVC and Emotional Intelligence Reality-Testing Skills as Helpful Tools to Address and Improve Issues of Power and Control in Both Healthy and Unhealthy Intimate Relationships and Dating: This Post Addresses a Spectrum of Behaviors in Intimate Relationships that Attempt to Have “Power and Control Over”, As Well As “Techniques” Used by Men in the “PUA”, “Game”, and “Seduction” Communities. (Coming Soon: The Same Look at Workplace and Family Relationships around issues of “power and control over”~ rather than power and control that is mutually shared, agreed upon, and experienced in healthy ways)

Denise A. Romano, MA, EdM.
Certified EI Coach

In a previous post, I asked “Will this person choose to stay far away from Joe? (Joe is a fictional person who was continually punching another fictional person in the face). The face-punching was a metaphor for any behavior that does not meet someone’s needs within relationships or dating–or behavior that harms a person in a relationship–just to provide some examples of how in NVC (Non-Violent Communication) one can observe, state one’s feelings, state one’s needs, and then make a request.

The beauty of Non-Violent Communication (NVC) is that there is very little new information to actually learn – it’s much more about practicing using these very simple communication methods. This is also true of learning Emotional Intelligence skills. The information itself is really quite easy! The challenge is that most of us operate in our lives on automatic. To actually apply the very simple yet very profound methods of NVC and EI does require that we slow ourselves down, question our first emotional and thought processes, challenge them; and compare what we automatically think, feel, and experience to what we’ve learned in NVC and/or EI training. THAT IS ALL THAT IS NECESSARY TO MAKE POSITIVE CHANGES! However, being THAT self-aware is alot easier with PRACTICE and support from others who are striving for the same improvements and also practicing these skills.

Before I continue with this article, I want to make it clear that there is ENORMOUSLY GOOD NEWS here! We all have the tools available to us to CHOOSE to IMPROVE our ability to:

1. Reality-test our thoughts
2. Recognize that our brains lie to us frequently and our thoughts may be distorted or simply mistaken (very strong emotions do lower our IQ while we have them)
3. Recognize that our thoughts directly affect our emotions, just as our emotions directly affect our thoughts
4. Improve our ability to check in with ourselves and observe what we feel in response to anything or anyone
5. Learn how our feelings are directly connected to our needs and learn to identify and express both our feelings and our needs
6. Learn what feelings and needs really are–and what they are not
7. “Work-out” our emotional, thinking, and communication skills – much like working out in a gym – except this is done in practice groups, with a coach, or with a trusted friend–and then the skills are practiced in REAL LIFE with REAL PEOPLE (who may or may not be working on improving these extremely important skills)
8, Improve the External Skills of communicating all of these INNER SKILLS as well as we possibly can: using our sound conflict resolution skills, using our Emotional Intelligence learning, and using our NVC skills.
9. All three of these help us develop both the INTERNAL Emotional and thinking MUSCLES and SKILLS and the EXTERNAL communication MUSCLES and SKILLS of being able to communicate those feelings, needs, requests, and responses to others.
10. NVC teaches us that there are 10,000 ways to get our needs met; if we are not currently getting our needs met we can easily learn new, healthier ways to get them met whether the needs have to do with relationships, the workplace, our families, our friends, our health, parenting, nutrition, fun–whatever!

It is also important to make clear that there are many many men and women in the world who are wonderfully healthy relationship partners who value integrity, trust, mutuality, consideration, communication, sexual expression, joy, humor, balance, harmony, empathy, dignity, partnership, friendship, and love. Most of these people became this way by looking inward and choosing to consciously do actual emotional and psychological work on themselves in the many ways that are possible–or they may have been lucky enough to have families and/or mentors who taught them these skills and values by example and how to live them demonstrably.

Unfortunately, most people do not come from families where these values and skills are taught by example. This is not necessarily anyone’s “fault”. Humans have evolved over time and continue to evolve. Most families unwittingly teach very unhealthy ways of handling conflict and expressing emotion because these skills are learned by example and passed down from generation to generation. The only way there is change and improvement is when individuals themselves or families as a group consciously CHOOSE to make changes. These changes can be anything from addressing alcoholism or drug abuse to parenting children differently to learning to identify, process, and express emotions in new and improved ways that have better results.

It is up to every single individual to choose how they will be in every single moment. Will you explode in anger and rage as you’ve always done or will you make it a priority to learn new skills, whether it is Emotional Intelligence development or Non-Violent Communication (NVC) or sound conflict resolution methods? We know that CHANGE is not something that happens immediately when it comes to human behavior. Things like not biting your nails anymore, not gossiping, not eating junk food, or exercising more are hard habits to change. Our emotional muscles and skills have been developed and “programmed” to be whatever they are in this present moment by all the “training” (upbringing, environment, what we’ve sought to learn, etc) we have had in our lives thus far. Often, we have to be willing to unlearn old thinking and behaviors that no longer serve us, while we simultaneously choose to learn new thinking and behaviors that do serve us.

If we want our emotional, communication, and conflict skills to be different, there is work to do. This will require more commitment, practice, and presence of mind to change our emotional programming and responses than the other habits I just mentioned above. This is because our Emotional Intelligence is a very real skill-set that is comprised of both our emotions and our thoughts. They influence each other enormously and simultaneously. We must recognize this if we are going to improve. So, we must be willing to be very conscious of both our emotional programming and our thought processes while also being willing to understand how we might improve both.

It’s optimal to have a clear mind for this work, so if you’re not sober, it’s wise to get sober before you’ll be in a condition to have the self-awareness necessary to do this kind of self-improvement work.

Start where you are. Accept where you are. Then go from there. There are some very simple questions to begin with:
1. Am I pleased with my current emotional skills?
2. Am I pleased with how I treat myself?
3. Am I pleased with how I treat others?
4. Am I pleased with the emotional skills of the people in my life?
5. Do I recognize my feelings when I have them, and am I able to communicate those well?
6. Do I know what my “core needs” are?
7. Are my core needs getting met?
8. Are my needs getting met in ways that do not prevent anyone else’s needs from getting met? Is this my intention? Do I need to make any adjustments to make this so?
9. Have I harmed anyone with my emotional responses, thought processes, or in the ways in which I have chosen to get my needs met? Do I need to make any adjustments because of this?
10. Do I want to improve my emotional skills, thought processes, and communication skills?

These are important questions for men and women to think about and answer honestly. You can do this alone or with a trusted friend or partner. Again, the REALLY GREAT NEWS is that we can all significantly improve all of this by simply learning and practicing Non-Violent Communication (NVC) and/or by measuring and working on our Emotional Intelligence with a certified coach, therapist, EI practitioner, NVC practice group, or Certified NVC trainer.

The Power and Control Wheel is a tool used to examine and assess the health of intimate and dating relationships. When there is too much power and control assumed by one person in an intimate relationship, this dynamic is often defined as an abusive relationship–depending upon how this power and control is assumed, enforced, or taken. In future posts, I will examine how the Power and Control Wheel can also be applied to family relationships, non-intimate friendships, and even to workplace relationships.

All human relationships have issues of power and control that exist at all times, and there is nothing inherently wrong with this. It is simply a fact. The way the relationship participants consciously and unconsciously understand, think about, experience, feel about, and act upon the power and control dynamics between them will determine whether there is unhealthy power and control over the other or whether there is healthy power and control mutually shared, assertively discussed, mutually agreed upon, and honestly enacted without decpetion or violations of trust over the course of the relationship.

Of course, the extent that any relationship includes healthy or unhealthy power and control dynamics occurs on a spectrum; however it is very important for relationship participants to consciously and clearly understand where their relationships exist on this spectrum of health regarding power and control, as this issue will affect one’s own emotional, psychological and physical health as well as those of any children involved. These issues will also inevitably affect one’s worklife, friendships, relationships with family, and financial situation; so these are extremely important issues for everyone to have awareness of regarding their relationships and how they exist in and experience them.

It is imporant to now address the widespread use of any “technique” described in the many instructional books, websites, dvds, cds, e-books, and newsletters for men from the “Seduction”, “Game”, or “Pick-Up Artist” communities, whose sole purpose is to instruct men in how to get their sexual and other needs met by women via manipulation, deception, trickery, misuse of NLP and/or misuse of hypnosis techniques, and the use of the abusive tactics on the power and control wheel to follow. These techniques are ABUSIVE.

And here is a VERY IMPORTANT PIECE OF INFORMATION for ALL PUAs, Gamers, Seducers, and any men who feel confused about how to relate to women:

The only thing you need to know is that you must treat women with the same respect, honesty, and consideration you would expect to be treated with. THAT IS IT!!!

There are no secrets, and you don’t need to learn a whole language and spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on PUA courses and weekends. And you don’t have to learn stupid magic tricks, talk about wallabies, or wear ridiculous clothing.

If you don’t like yourself very much or don’t believe you deserve much respect, then you need some help before you date any women. That is another story. However, I implore you to spend about $250 on an NVC weekend or 9-week course with a Certified NVC trainer or find an Emotional Intelligence Coach for much less money than PUA, Game, and Seduction will cost you. The truth about dating and relating is not as complex as they would like you to believe. They are just trying to make as much money as possible teaching falsehoods that do great harm to both men and women.

There are an alarming number of these instructional materials for sale on the internet. Imagine what a better world it would be if these misguided men sought out NVC training, Emotional Intelligence skill-building, and recognized the violence they commit with each of these “seduction”, “game”, and “pick up” actions! Imagine what a safer and happier world it would be if these men instead joined any of the many men’s groups that actively learn about and work towards stopping violence against women, men, and children. Imagine if these men understood the violence they do to themsleves in choosing this course of action. One can only wonder: do these men have sisters, mothers, female cousins, neices or daughters, for whom they experience love, concern, and respect?

Here are some important definitions from the Power and Control Wheel that explain how power and control are often used by one partner against another partner on a recurring basis; which is the definition of any kind of relationship abuse whether it is emotional abuse, psychological abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, or some combination of all four of these at different times. This also applies to casual dating and especially applies to those men in the “Game”, “Pick Up Artist” (PUA), or “Seduction” communities. The men who use these techniques are unequivocally engaging in abusive, violent behavior against women.

Intimidation: Any physical action taken or omitted which invokes a fear of negative consequences. (This can include punching an object when frustrated or angry).

Physical Abuse: Any unwanted physical contact, especially that which may cause fear, pain, or injury whether done directly or indirectly. Any contact, statements, or actions which are intended to cause or result in physical, emotional, psychological, or sexual injury to another person. Refusing to use a condom to protect against STDs and saying “My ex-girlfriend used to let me have sex with her without a condom”. Drugging a woman without her knowledge or consent.

Threats: Statements which promise negative consequences for certain behaviors or actions. For example, “If you don’t give it to me, I’ll get it somewhere else”. or “If you don’t have sex with me, you’ll be sorry”.

Coercion: Statements or actions which imply, indirectly, negative or positive consequences for a certain behavior or action. For example, if you state your opinion or ask a question and you are responded to with unexpected rage and/or belittling. Trying to persuade her to have a threesome or trying to get her drunk or to take drugs so her defenses and judgment will be impaired and then trying to persuade her to have a threesome or engage in some other sexual act she would not agree to if she were not drunk, drugged, pressured or all three. Pressuring her frequently to do things she does not want to do whether it is sexual, drug-related, degrading, or doing anything she does not want to do. Asking her to do tasks for you as though she were your servant (whether you reward her for these or not), but not being willing to do such tasks for her.

Emotional abuse: Any statements, actions or lack of action, which is intended to or results in a partner experiencing any emotional or psychological injury. “That statement you made is absolutely ridiculous! You’re a know-it-all!”; “I refuse to discuss this at all”. Also, when someone is angry and makes this clear by becoming withdrawn and silent but also chooses not to communicate why to his partner, knowing that his partner becomes afraid, anxious, or upset when he does this and knowing that if he chose to calmly express his feelings to his partner, that she would listen and do her best to be fair and empathic. The PUA community uses the term, “Neg”, which is an intentional put-down of a woman with the intention of harming and lowering her self-esteem; this misguided “technique” intends to manipulate the woman into either defending herself and drawing her into conversation or debate with the PUA or lowering her self-esteem so much that she might see him as an acceptable date. This is abusive and manipulative.

Obfuscation: Any action of obscuring, concealing or changing people’s perceptions, which results in your advantage and/or her disadvantage. “I’m not going to tell you what happened; it’s none of your business” “Yes, I’ll meet your sexual needs, honey, I love you”–But then he does not do so over and over again. He “forgets” or “is too tired” but still expects her to meet his sexual needs and will specifically say what he wants her to give him sexually. “I told you I loved you, but I never specifically said we were exclusively only going to sleep with each other”. “When I slept with her, we were taking a short break from our relationship because I needed that break and decided we would take it, so you have no right to be hurt by that”. Simply not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about something to your partner or date. Doing something in your relationship that your partner is unaware of–that you know your partner would not approve of or would be hurt by–and not admitting this honestly or not choosing not to do the hurtful thing.

Isolation: Any actions intended to result or actually resulting in her physical, psychological, emotional, or social disruption–or separation from those people, places or things she is attached to or enjoys. “Come on, stay here with me tonight instead of going out with your friends”. Another example: ignoring her suggestions and ideas for recreational activities she suggests you do together. Refusing to attend or regularly choosing not to attend activities she invites him to while she attends many of his recreational activities and suggestions. A lack of mutuality marks isolation. Imploring her to attend an event with him, while he refuses to attend social events with her friends or which she enjoys.

Economic abuse: Any action, which limits her ability to earn, have access to, or manage the economic resources in her life. Continually asking her to pay her share of something when he knows he owes her money for his share of something. Saying he will pay for birth control expenses or share in them but then never giving her the money. Agreeing to share household expenses but then rarely contributeing to or sharing them. Agreeing to share transportation expenses, but then “forgetting” to pay his share or just not contributing. Raging at her or otherwise abusing her so that she is so upset and harmed that she is late for work or misses days of work. Behaving abusively with her when he knows she has an important presentation or meeting at work the next day–or “forgetting” that she has an important work day, and behaving abusively by misusing power and control so that she is upset on these important days.

Using others or children: Any direct or indirect action involving children, other people, pets or social institutions used as leverage to gain advantage. Refusing to speak to her when she is around his family or friends, as punishment for something she said, didn’t say, did, or didn’t do that upset him instead of handling his emotions in a skilled, adult, healthy, respecful manner. Yelling at her, making a scene, or walking away from her in public to embarass her instead of expressing his emotions in a healthy, direct, calm, and respectful manner.

Male Privilege (privus = private; leg = law): Any action or inaction based on attitudes or beliefs that you have special or exalted status over others, particularly women. Him saying things like, “You defied me!” or “You said what you said at the wrong time; I was only asking a rhetorical question!” Asking her to do things for him and then not offering to do things for her; treating her like a servant. Only caring about how she can do things for him but not offering to help her with things he can do for her; or saying no to her requests for him to help her with things–or–saying yes to her requests for help, but “never getting around to” actually helping her. Making her his last priority while expecting her to make him her first priority; a lack of mutuality. Believing consciously or unconsciusly that his opinions, thoughts, values, ideas, concerns, perceptions, feelings and needs are more important than hers. Many men who behave in these ways will not acknowledge that they believe this and they may believe they do not believe this; but if they are saying things like, “You defied me!”; they reveal that they do, in fact, believe they have some kind of authority over whoever they’ve said that to.

Myths: Ill-founded beliefs held uncritically, especially by an interested group that benefits from such beliefs. The “Seduction”, “Game”, and “Pick-Up Artist” community is a perfect example of this. These misguided men view women as sexual objects to be exploited, used, deceived, tricked, lied to, and discarded. Instead of choosing to learn a simple 4-step healthy language like NVC or choosing to learn the 15 subscales of the EQi Emotional Intelligence assessment, they instead choose to learn an entire complex PUA (Pick Up Artist) “Game” language that is unhealthy for and abusive to themselves and others. These men have a library full of myths that erroneously deny the reality that both men and women have the very same kinds and amounts of feelings and needs, and that it is entirely possible for all to have their needs be met in ways that do not abuse others or deny others having their needs met.

Lack of Mutuality: He asks her to do things for him that he is not willing to do or does not offer to do for her. He may ask or expect her to change her schedule so they can spend time together, attend an event, or so she can help or support him with something; however, he will be unwilling to do the same for her. Again, lack of mutuality in the relationship. If she has good friends in town whom he has never met, he will not change his schedule. He will think nothing of asking her to help him organize his files or his apartment, but he will not offer to help her with something like this. If she knows he wants or needs something like stain remover or a lighted keychain or any other particular item; she will look for it and perhaps get it for him. If he knows she wants something that she has mentioned, it will not occur to him to look for this for her. Mutual consideration, acceptance, communciation, compassion, empathy, friendship, integrity, nurturing, partnership, respect, support, trust, dignity, choice, freedom, self-expression, awareness, growth, learning, participation, contribution, and understanding are MISSING from this relationship. One person is giving alot more of all or most of these things and of themselves, than the other person is giving.

In abusive relationships or dating situations, the metaphoric “face-punching” mentioned above need not be physical at all. It can be any of these:
Yelling
Cursing
Dominating
Coercing
Belittling
Sneering
Devaluing opinions, thoughts, ideas, preferences of the partner
Punishment for not complying with the abuser’s wishes
Raging
Refusing to listen to the partner’s needs, wants, or concerns
Pounding on objects to demonstrate threats
Threatening to harm or actually harming pets, property, or children
Giving the Silent Treatment
Slapping
Punching
Kicking
Choking
Demanding unwanted sexual activities
Lying
Deceiving and betraying trust and the agreed upon boundaries of the relationship
Cheating sexually and exposing the partner to sexually transmitted diseases
Violating trust and the boundaries of the relationship by engaging in inapprorpriate flirting with other women
leading other women to believe his is single and available when he is not
Tricking
Deceiving
Misleading
Misuse of NLP (neuro-linguistic programming techniques)
Misuse of hypnosis techniques
Deliberate use of Intermittent Reinforcement (defined below)
Humiliation and embarassment
Sexual Aggression: continuing to try something sexually with a woman even after she has said No to it
Date Rape
Refusing to wear a condom
Agreeing to wear a condom and then secretly not wearing a condom
Choosing not to tell a woman prior to sleeping with her about a sexually transmitted disease he has
Telling a woman he is not sleeping with anyone else, when in fact, he is, has, or plans to do so while also sleeping with her
Pressuring a woman into having a threesome
Attempting to coerce a woman into having a threesome
Drugging a woman without her knowledge or consent
Stabbing
Kicking
Threatening with violence
Stalking
Killing

What is very important to recognize about the list above is that the beliefs, thoughts, and feelings of men who abuse women in these ways are all the same regardless of which behavior an abuser chooses to use to in order to gain unhealthy abusive power and control over a woman. This does not necessarily mean that a man who is now a PUA will eventually definitely murder his partner or date.

What it does mean is that if he continues to live with these false beliefs about women and take actions that are harmful to himself (whether he realizes it or not) and to women, and if he does not choose to grow out of this chosen belief system and behavior by learning facts and developing healthier emotional intelligence, he could easily be capable of the more serious abuses listed above.

This is because he holds false and harmful beliefs about women which are conceptually the same as the beliefs Hitler held about Jews and the KKK holds about African-Americans. If you’ve ever watched the TV series Kung Fu, it is also the same hatred shown toward the main character because he is half Chinese. All group hatred is the same conceptually and is based in generalized untruths. Because the construct and false belief exists for the sole purpose of attempting to justify hatred, and hatred allows people to pretend that the group of people they hate:

A. Deserves hatred from others
B. Aren’t really people or humans
C. Have no feelings, needs, thoughts, ideas, or experiences that matter, that should concern anyone, or that have any value
D. Are somehow evil or responsible for the suffering, discomfort, anxiety, depression, or lack of happiness in the lives of those who are doing the hating

The PUA, Gamers, and Seduction communities are selling HATRED to justify their ABUSE-manuals and are making millions of dollars–while misguided men purchase these materials, use them and harm themselves and women in the process. This is reprehensible, vile, and dangerous.

When groups of people feel threatened by a another group of people that is somehow different from them, or when they are denied something they wrongly believe they are entitled to from this other group of people, they can find it easy to hate this group of people if they allow themselves to be taught falsehoods by others who are somehow charismatic, convincing, or persuasive. Hitler is an excellent example of this.

In the case of PUAs, Gamers, and Seducers, they want women to like them, to be sexually intimate with them, to have fun with them, and to spend time with them. If the women these men meet do not like them, want to be sexually intimate with them, want to have fun with them and want to spend time with them, the PUAs Gamers, and Seducers believe they are then entitled to use any method available to them–including unethical methods lacking in integrity, to trick, coerce, manipulate, obfuscate, and otherwise deceive women into doing those things with them. These men believe they have a right to get their needs met at the expense of the needs of the women whom they encounter.

Do the PUAs, Gamers, and Seducers have any regard for what the women want, feel, need, think, or experience? No. They only care about their needs, because they have allowed themsleves to be convinced that women are deserving of this trickery, women are responsible for their uncomfortable feelings or anxiety, and that any PUA, Game, or Seduction method they use is therefore justified.

It doesn’t occur to these men that they might want to simply make themsleves more appealing to women by getting to know different kinds of women and learning what these women might want in a man with whom they might spend time, have fun, and freely choose to be sexuallly intimate. It doesn’t occur to these men that if they would improve themselves as people; they would simply and naturally ATTRACT women to them rather than having to seduce, trick, game, deceive, or otherwise manipulate them.

Seduction, Game, and PUA methods are the modern-day equivalent of a caveman hitting a woman over the head with his club and then dragging her off to his cave so he can do whatever he wants to her. I say TO her, because she doesn’t have much choice in the matter if she is being tricked and deceived. If it was her own freely chosen decision, than she would be doing something WITH him. This is primitive, abusive, violent, and harmful to both men and women.

Modern man has a large brain capable of much more than this vile trickery. These men are doing exactly the opposite of NVC (non-violent communication): they are choosing to get their needs met at the expense of others’ needs. They have wrongly allowed themselves to be persuaded that this is justifiied and it is not.

NVC skills and Emotional Intelligence development don’t distinguish between men and women because these are skills that work for all HUMANS regardless of gender, as both genders are much more alike than they are different. These are simple communication skills that address the very same feelings and needs that all men and all women experience.

There are no NVC feelings and needs that men have but women don’t have and no NVC feelings and needs that women have that men don’t have. The same is true for EI skills and conflict resolution skills.

O.J. Simpson. Scott Peterson. Mike Tyson. Neil Strass, author of The Game, men in the PUA, Seduction, and Game communities–men who have abused their relationship and/or dating partners in various ways, and rappers (who devalue women in their lyrics)– all share the same erroneous beliefs–consciously and/or unconsciously: that women are less valuable than men, that women exist to serve and pleasure men, and that women’s feelings, needs, thoughts, opinions, ideas, and experiences are not as important or as valuable as those of men (or those of the male partner). THESE BELIEFS ARE TRAGICALLY MISTAKEN.

In NVC, we say that everyone can get their needs met without doing so at the expense of anyone else’s needs. In Emotional Intelligence, we seek to continually develop a core set of skills so that we operate optimally in as many interpersonal interactions as possible with respect for the feelings and needs of both ourselves and others. Mutuality in all things is a cornerstone of both NVC and EI.

I INVITE ALL MEN INVOLVED IN THE PUA, GAME, and SEDUCTION COMMUNITIES TO LEARN NVC AND EI, TO ABANDON THE PUA, GAME, AND SEDUCTION COMMUNITIES, TECHNIQUES, AND BELIEF SYSTEMS, AND TO JOIN A MEN’s GROUP SUCH AS http://www.menstoppingviolence.org/index.php or http://www.nomas.org/principles I also invite you to have one FREE coaching session with me, and I invite you to email me your thoughts and feelings about this post no matter what they are. I do want to know your feelings and thoughts in response to this article, even if you disagree–and especially if you disagree.

YOU CAN GET YOUR NEEDS MET IN MANY WAYS THAT ARE NOT AT SOMEONE ELSE’S EXPENSE!

In fact, in NVC, we say that there are 10,000 ways we can get our needs met. So, the very good news is that if we find oursevles in a situation in which we are not getting our needs met, or we find ourselves using strategies to attempt to get our needs met that aren’t working–there is very good news that there are still 9,999 other ways we can try to get our needs met–again in ways that do not deny anyone else from getting their needs met.

In NVC, we say that a request is a request; meaning the answer to the request can be a yes or a no. In Abusive Relationships (relationships in which one partner frequently uses some or many of the tactics above to maintian power and control OVER his partner instead of sharing power equally WITH his partner), frequently what happens is the abuser’s or PUA’s requests are NOT requests, but are DEMANDS. This is a problem as it is unhealthy. Because these are actually demands and not requests, the abuser will often have problematic angry responses towards his partner, designed to punish her for her non-compliance with his demand(s). This behavior is only one of many ways in which abusive men establish control in a relationship by using sublte forms of abusive behavior.

We also learn in NVC that a NO is actually a “YES To Something Else”. For example, if you are dating a woman for awhile and you would like to have sex, but she says, “No, I don’t know you well enough”, that is a NO. However, it may be a yes to sex in the future, when she feels comfortable and ready for sex with you. But, you don’t have to guess; you can simply communicate. You can simply ask her–or anyone–why they are saying NO to whatever your request is. Aren’t you curious? Don’t you want to know why the person said NO and what they might be willing to say YES to? There are an infinite number of reasons why someone might say no to something, and frankly, it may have little or nothing to do with you. Ask! Use your words. Communicate like an adult. If you have trouble communicating well like an adult; join the club! This is true for many people–which is why NVC, EI testing and coaching, and learning sound conflict resolution skills are extremely popular workplace and individual trainings right now. These are skills most of us did not learn growing up, but the great news is we can choose to learn and practice them NOW.

What we also notice in relationships like these is that the abuser/PUA isn’t particularly interested in or concerned with his partner’s requests. He may ignore them, say no to them frequently or all of the time–or he may verbally say yes to them, but then behaviorally say no to them by not doing them or by not being responsive to them. This will leave his partner confused, upset, hurt, angry, and which is also a form of obfuscation. (See above). He may refuse to discuss these issues with her when she tries to do so, and he may become angry with her if they do wind up dicussing these issues. When someone verbally says yes or promises something but then actually does not do what he said he would do or breaks his promise, that is actually a BIG NO. This is often very painful and disappointing for the woman (or man) on the recieving end of this behavior, because it also then becomes a trust issue, and over time it becomes a mutuality issue and a character issue.

How do we know when a request is really a demand? We know it is a demand when there are punishing consequences delivered by the “requestor”–or in this case the Demander to the person who says no, or who does not “comply” with the demand, or who “defies” the demand. Or when the person making the demand becomes extremely angry if the demand is not met.

A man who says “You defied me!” is revealing in his choice of words that he actually believes that whatever his request to his partner was that was not carried out–was not a choice for the partner–but was a demand to he; and that in his view, she is not free to say yes or no, but must obey his demand or he will provide the consequences of his anger, pouting, silencing, yelling, accusing, and character assassination. . The extent of anger in his response is the extent of punishment he chooses to give to her for failing to meet his demands, to which he believes he is entitled. This behavior is a CHOICE on his part. You can be sure he does not choose to behave in this way with his boss, on a job interview, or with someone for whom he has respect. He may withdraw, become silent, pout, yell at her, lash out at her, question or criticize her character, question her love for him, question her commitment to him, or say things like “My lover/partner should….”.

He may also use this as a way to try to justify something he did not do that he agreed to do, which is very, very different. If someone agrees to do something, they have agreed to do it. If someone makes a request of us to do something, we haven’t yet agreed or not agreed to it. These two things cannot be compared and should not be compared.

Let’s further examine this example: Instead of using the word “defied”, he could have said:
I felt disappointed that you _____________.
I felt frustrated that you ______________.
I felt annoyed that you _______________.
I felt resentful that you ________________.
I felt perplexed that you ______________.
I felt concerned that you _____________.
I felt suprised that you _____________.
I felt uncomfortable that you______________.
I felt sad when you__________.

But, instead, he angrily said, “You defied me!” What does this tell us about this man’s beliefs about his power and control in this relationship?

If the woman to whom he said this finds his revealed and demonstrated beliefs that he seems to think he rightfully has certain amounts of power and control over her self-expression, freedom, and dignity; what kind of emotional response might she have? Some words that come to mind are: outraged, scared, bewildered, alarmed, appalled, guarded, bereaved, disheartened, and/or detached. If her idea of their relationship and the relationship she knows she agreed to have with him includes a healthy power-sharing agreement, she will wonder who this man is who thinks he can have these beliefs and actually say this to her. She will wonder what he is thinking. She may question his mental health at that moment and wonder if he hit his head on something recently. She will have a sense that they do not share the same reality, but that they live in two very different realities; which can be a very jarring experience. She will be outraged beyond belief.

It is very similar to if an African-American were to get on a bus today in the 21st century and a busdriver told him or her that he or she had to sit in the back of the bus because of their race. There would be disbelief, outrage, and probably a very well-publicized lawsuit. It is also very similar to if a man kisses a woman and is then told by her shotgun-toting father that he is now obligated to marry his daughter. There would be disbelief, panic, and a sense of having been sent back in history in a time-machine against one’s will where there are expectations, laws, and rules to which one has not agreed of which one was unaware.

This is the kind of disorienting shock and utter outrage women experience when men attempt to gain power and control over them as opposed to sharing power with them using direct, mature, adult, clear, honest and healthy mutual agreement and communication skills about feelings and needs.</</em>

These are all forms of coercion and unhealthy uses of power and control with the intent to have power and control over her as opposed to relate to her in a healthy way in which both partners have freedom, choice, dignity, respect, and share power and control with each other. This is where it becomes extremely important for the emotional intelligence skill of reality-testing to be developed just as a muscle is developed during exercise and physical sport practice.

He is saying that her choice for her own reasons to do something else is NOT OKAY–and he is not interested in connecting with her respectfully to understand why she has said, not said, done, or not done–that is causing him to respond with his own anger, hurt, and feelings of unmet needs. He is not interested in her experience, her reality, or her feelings. He is only interested in the fact that his demand was not met, and he feels that his needs were not met. And, if he is angry, we know from NVC that he is feeling that an important need of his was not met. The extent of his anger will determine the depth of his feeling(s) or his experience of his unmet need(s). The extent of his anger and his beliefs about what his feelings and needs are, will be directly determined by how developed his emotional intelligence skills are. Is he reality-testing his beliefs? Is he a reasonable person? Does he have empathy for those around him? How is his self-regard affecting how he experiences the world?

An example of an integrated use of NVC and Emotional Intelligence Skills is below:
His other choice would be to say to his girlfriend, “I’m feeling disappointed that you are saying No to my request that you use words other than curse-words right now. This doesn’t meet my needs for order right now. However, I also know that I often curse in public; and I also have needs for fairness, mutuality, integrity, acceptance, and shared reality. As I remind myself of this, I realize now that we’ve talked about this, that those needs are much more important to me than my need for order right now. Also, I hear you telling me that you have very strong needs for mutuality, acceptance, self-expression, authenticity, integrity, self-acceptance, understanding, humor, relaxation, and consciousness; and I also acknowledge that you did not say the curse-word loudly and it’s probably true that no children heard it. And I also acknowledge because I have strong needs for integrity, mutuality, learning, and growth; that it’s true, as you have pointed out, that I frequently curse loudly in public–so I need to think carefully about why I would request a behavior from you that I don’t even expect from myself.

Only a person with a certain amount of self-awareness is capable of thinking this statement above either in his head to himself or of saying this statement out loud to his partner. In NVC, we call this checking in with ourselves and with others. In Emotional Intelligence, we call this emotional self-awareness. It would also be a use of empathy, interpersonal relationship, problem solving, reality-testing, flexibility, stress tolerance, and impulse control–all EI skills that can be developed and improved just as any other skill can be.

If we can learn to play musical instruments, learn foreign languages, and learn new computer programs, we can learn NVC, EI and sound conflict resolution skills.

When someone has very low self-esteem, as many abusers, gamers, seducers, and PUAs do; they will easily misinterpret the statements, non-statements, actions, and non-actions of others and erroneously experience them as personal slights or criticisms of themselves when they were not intended to be received that way at all. This kind of distorted thinking is a direct result of low-self-esteem, unresolved childhood wounds, and thus, under-developed emotional intelligence skills. The very good news is that all of this can be stopped, changed, and improved WITH WORK with an EI coach, therapist, or in a men’s group for non-violence training led by certified counselors in the domestic violence field. Emotional Intelligence skill-building is alot like working out; using skills to become aware of them, learn more about them, and develop them. Then, there is practicing them interpersonally with others in a supportive environment and with others in "real life".

Remember, with both feelings and needs, these say everything about those who have them and less about those meeting or not meeting the needs.

For example, here are some examples of people with needs for order and how they are personally expressed:

1. One person asks that his hands never touch another person's hands. If this interferes with one's life, as in the case of the fictional TV show character, Monk, we call this OCD.

2. Another person asks that her staff arrive before 9am each workday morning because this meets her need for order. She adds that if someone has a medical or childcare issue, she will be flexible about start-time, if possible.

3. Another person who happens to rule a nation, orders the execution of all people in one particular ethic group because this meets his need for order.

4. Yet another person who happens to lead a company says that he will start calling someone named Richard by the name "David" because Richard reminds the boss of his childhood friend, whose name was David and it's just easier for him this way. He states his needs are ease and order.

As we can see, our own feelings about things and our own rational thought-processes and belief systems about who we are in any given situation indicate a great deal about us and touch upon systemic issues having to do with power and control.

In example #1, we might decide this person has OCD or we might not; we really need more information.

In example #2, we would probably decide that this is a very average, normal boss with nothing unusual happening around this request.

In example #3, we seem to have a violent dictator, who believes that his needs for order are more important than others' needs to for safety, respect, air, food, dignity, freedom, and to be alive. I think it is safe to say that most people would question this dictator's sanity, accuse him of war-crimes, and perhaps consider him narcisstic. Although, it is important to point out that NVC itself does not use terms and labels like "narcissistic".

In example #4: We have a boss who believes that his needs for ease and order are more important than his employee's needs for dignity to be known, respect, clarity, and shared reality. This would most definitely be an example of abuse of power and workplace bullying.

Going back to the man who says his girlfriend "defied" him. What could his needs be? We can only guess without actually asking him. Let's say his request was that she use non-curse words at a particular outdoor event. Let's guess that his needs around this request are for order, the well-being of young children nearby, and participation.

In an effective NVC exchange, the conversation might have gone like this: Keep in mind that in NVC, we always have many choices about how to choose to do the following in order to do our best at communicating:

We have the choice to check in with ourselves to learn how we are really feeling and what we are really needing in any given moment.

We have the choice to check in with those around us and about whom we care to learn what they are feeling and needing.

We have the choice to question our immediate thoughts and feelings, and to ask ourselves if we are thinking in any distorted ways either out of habit, because of how our families mis-taught us something, because we don’t have all the information we need to draw a sound conclusion, or because we are having such very strong feelings at the moment that our IQ is very likely impaired.

We have the choice to not check in with someone we don’t care about and don’t wish to connect with about their feelings and needs or who we feel is somehow unsafe for us. We also have the choice to not check in with or connect with someone who has demonstrated that they do not value our feelings and needs.

We have the choice to learn, practice, and use as best we can the NVC communication model of observing, stating feelings, stating needs, making requests, and then drawing conclusions about how to best get our needs met based on responses to our requests: what those around us are willing or unwilling to do in response to our requests.

We have the choice to join a practice group and gradually learn, grow, practice and get support from others who share the same goals around non-violent communication, being authentic, and getting our needs met–though– not at the expense of anyone else’s needs being met.

Frequently in abusive relationships, abusers do not check in with themselves to learn their feelings and needs, and they rarely question their immeidate reactions: their thoughts and feelings. Abusers also tend to hold others responsible for their feelings and needs rather than taking responsibility for them themselves. They often just explode without fully understanding their feelings and needs, without considering that they may be mistaken, and without considering that they might be missing information or might be experiencing distorted thinking. AND they often explode without taking any responsibility for their feelings and thoughts or for how they communciate these to others. This is also a characterisitc of abusive bosses, co-workers, parents, friends, sports’ coaches, teachers, etc. The more actual authority (agreed upon and sanctioned power and control over someone or something) that a person who behaves in these ways truly has, the more damage is done to everyone involved in such a person’s abusive outbursts and misuses of authority.

Also, frequently in abusive relationships, abusers do not care what their partner’s feelings and needs are; they only care about their own feelings and needs and they very erroneously hold their partners responsible for their (the abuser’s) feelings and unmet needs. In NVC, we say that we are each responsible for our own feelings, for communicating our feelings and needs, and for getting our needs met in a way that does not prevent anyone else from getting their needs met and is not at anyone else’s expense.

This last part is very important. Many men who abuse power and control in relationships and can thus be called “abusers”–or who are PUAs, Gamers and Seducers– simply do not care about their partner’s feelings and needs. This means they have no or very low empathy for others. In EI terms, we would say they also have low social responsibility skills, low interpersonal relationship skills, low impulse control skills, low stress tolerance skills, low reality-testing skills, and low problem-solving skills. This is harmful to them as well as to others. I invite you all to learn about NVC and Emotional Intelligence to make your life easier, more joyful, more authentic, and less painful.

Or if these men do care about others’ needs, this concern is fleeting and only exists when they think their partner may be so fed up that she is leaving the relationship. It is at this point, when the abuser feels panicked and upset that he may lose her, that he suddenly starts to say and do things that may seem like he really cares about her feelings and needs.

However, we know that this is unfortunately probably not ACTUAL concern for her feelings and needs, but is more likely his own concern for HIS (yet again) feelings of loss and his need to be with her. So his responses are really more about HIS own feelings and needs than about her feelings and needs. I had a male friend once who told me that he saw men do this with their girlfriends, and he referred to it as “a man just trying to restore his pussy”. This may sound vulgar to some, but the point is, this kind of man in this situation will promise almost anything if he thinks he can hold onto the part of the woman he values most, which for most abusive men is his sexual relationship with her. What is unfortunate is that so many women mistake this for actual remorse and actual sincere promises of behavioral change, that they then choose to remain with the abusive man or return to him despite his previous mistreatment of her (and the near-definite likelihood of his future abusive treatement of her).

It is at this point, that he may promise that he will go to couples’ therapy, go to individual therapy, join an abusers’ counseling group, read certain books, learn certain skills, learn NVC, learn better conflict resolution skills, etc. Many times this is exactly what the abused partner (most frequently the woman) has wanted all along, so she may believe his promises and she may agree to not leave him or she may agree to return to the relationship with him. She may feel immense relief and want to believe that he really does love her and is willing to make these changes because he loves her. However, that reality is rarely the case without the intervention of a skilled domestic violence counseling group just for men that has taken place weekly over the course of at least a year. Statistics demonstrate that the men who are most likely to actually successfully change their abusive behavior and choose to never abuse again are young men in their twenties who have small children with their partners.

However, sadly, the abuser’s promises are often empty; he frequently will not even begin the things he said he would do–or he will begin some or all of them and then quit. He may agree to attend couples’ therapy but then quit after less than ten sessions. He may say he didn’t understand that it had to go on longer than that to be effective. He may say many things to make it seem like he didn’t consciously choose to make empty promises and deceive his partner into remaining in the relationship, but he actually did choose to make empty promises that he knew he didn’t really mean. This is just another form of being abusive, controlling, and manipulative. This is just another form of him caring about his own feelings and getting his own needs met at the expense of her needs. These kind of men need to be presented with legal contracts spelling out what they agree to and what they don’t, what they will do and what they won’t, and what is acceptable and what isn’t acceptable. Not very romantic or appealing is it?

Men who are abusive around issues of mutally agreed-upon sexual, emotional, and psychological fidelity will also make empty promises such as: never seeing “the other woman” again, having no further contact with her, no longer attending singles’ groups, no longer subscribing to emails about singles’ groups, never cheating again, not using pornography anymore, not using cyber-porn or having phone-sex with others, never violating the mutual agreements he has made with his partner, no longer belonging to or attending PUA groups, and/or attending therapy. Sadly, these are often (but not always) consciously chosen and spoken lies, manipulations, and empty promises that are eventually broken.

Another example of this is a man who is involved in an intimate relationship with a woman who makes it clear to him that she wishes to marry in her near future, while he knows he does not want that at all or with her or in the near future with anyone; yet he chooses not to tell her this. He is actively choosing to deceive her. This is lying by omission and is abusive. He is choosing to meet his need for companionship with no regard for the fact that he is doing this at the expense of her getting her needs met. He does not care for her feelings and needs as long as they get in the way of him getting his needs met.

The above is only one behaviorial example of someone who is narcissistic. We all have amounts of narcissism and there is a certain level of healthy narcissism in almost all of us, but there are also those with significant emotional and psychological wounds from childhood that have not been healed in therapy; and these people often develop unhealthy amounts of narcissism which result in their almost constant drive to get their needs met at the expense of others’ needs, and with absolutely no regard for the feelings and needs of those around them whom they regularly exploit.

The narcissist doesn’t see it this way. He doesn’t think he is exploiting anyone. He doesn’t think he has a personality disorder, and he doesn’t think he is abusive. Narcissists rarely have close long-term friendships because they haven’t learned how to give and take in relationships. They do have many superficial “friendships”, contacts, and aquaintances; but these are not sustained or sustainable because the narcissist only cares about these people to the extent that they can and will service him. He only cares about what they can do for him. Do they have a car to drive him places? Do they have credentials that impress him and make him feel good about himself by being associated with them? Do they please him sexually even when he “forgets” to please them? Often the people who do remain with narcissists longer than most others have their own boundary or self-esteem issues and wind up putting up with the narcissist/abuser continually pushing their boundaries even after they say NO to him repeatedly for longer than they wished they had. If and when these people ever do leave the narcissist, they will look back on the relationship and realize that they gave a great deal and that the narcissist took much more than he ever gave. They will probably resent this and feel very angry, used, and that they wasted their time with the narcissist. The learning here for such people is to not give so much until mutuality is established in a relationship with someone who demonstrates regularly over time that he is capable of it (mutuality), healthy power-sharing, sound conflict-resolution skills, and is able to take responsibility for his feelings, needs, and his expression of those.

We continue our imaginary conversation using NVC:

Him: I’m requesting that you please only use non-curse words at this event because there are some young kids over there who might hear you. This meets my needs for __________. I’m feeling ___________ when you do curse.

(Ideally, he would indicate to her what his feelings and needs are around this request as he makes the request, thereby taking responsibility for his own feelings and needs and clearly understanding that himself and making this clear to her as well). He would also clearly understand that his request is a request and not a demand, meaning she has a right to respond to his request with a yes or a no.

Her: I understand what you’re saying, but we’re outside in a public place, and I’ve been working all day. I’m not talking that loudly; and I have really strong needs tonight for relaxation, authenticity, and freedom. I only said one curse-word, “shit”, and I don’t think that is going to harm anyone who is out here at this event. It’s not like I’m cursing loudly or a lot.

(If he had communicated his feelings and needs, she could have responded to those with empathy while also stating her feelings and needs).

Here again is where they both have many communication choices and this conversation can go in many different directions:

He can understand that his request is merely that – a request – and that anyone always has the freedom to say yes or no to any request he ever makes, as is true for us all. In understanding this, he understands and also believes that she has the right and the freedom and the choice to say yes or no to his request. If he was studying NVC, he would also know that is she says “NO”, she is also saying “YES TO SOMETHING ELSE” and he could explore that with her.

In the case above, her YES TO SOMETHING ELSE could have been: “Okay, I will make an effort to not say one more curse-word if you also abide by this behavior, and if you cut me slack for having said “shit” once, let it go since you’ve never made this request of me before, and not make a big deal out of it. I’m feeling nervous because it feels like you’re about to make a big deal out of this, and I’m not interested in having a fight. I will gladly discuss this with you calmly, but I do not think it’s fair for you to get mad at me for saying “shit” once given that you say “fuck” regularly.”

Or, he can not understand that, and he can choose to believe (mistakenly) that she does not have the right to say yes or no to this or any request he ever makes. If he has this belief, and many men who abuse their partners do have this belief, he may react as though she does not have this right. He may react with anger. He may say something like, “You defied me!”

His interpretation of her or anyone’s “No” answer to any of his requests as “defiance”, indicates a great deal about his beliefs about and experiences of their relationship, the power between them in their relationship, and his (imagined) power over her in this situation (and perhaps in other situations). It also raises many red flags and concerns that he may be abusive and/or narcissistic.

In the example of Joe punching someone in the face repeatedly from an earlier post, we can only hope that the other person’s (the one being punched in the face by Joe) needs for safety and security are greater than their need for Joe’s company. However, as we know from what relationship abuse experts have taught us, those who abuse others are masters at manipulating their partners to stay so that they (the abusers) frequently succeed at getting their needs met (often at the expense of their abused partners) and frequently succeed in persuading the abused and exploited partner to return to the relationship with the use of apologies, consciously empty promises, and expressions of love.

Frequently, when a partner decides to leave an abusive man, she has decided and states that her needs for safety, security, respect, love, and harmony are more important to her than any enjoyment of anything she has ever had with this man (and there are often many good things she has enjoyed with this man, which makes this a very difficult and painful decision for her). She may also love him and have needs for fun, play, sex, friendship, and stimulation; however, all of us have many simultaneous needs which we are constantly priorititizing and re-ordering in any given moment.

Women who feel and are abused in relationships, frequently ultimately choose needs like safety and mutuality over needs like sex and fun–even when this choice is extremely painful, difficult, and she may be weakened from weeks, months, or years of trying to communicate with the abuser about her feelings and needs and the many ways in which he has repeatedly behaved in ways that have harmed her. His attempts to have unhealthy power and control over her, to punish her, and to control her finally have become unacceptable to her. Again, NVC teaches us that we can get our needs met in 10,000 ways, so this is a wonderful conclusion for such women to arrive at. If an abusive man is not meeting someone’s very important needs for safety, security, dignity, respect, trust, partnership, mutuality, friendship, etc., he can be left and all the other needs he may have met quite well, such as: fun, play, sexual expression, companionship, support, stimulation, etc., CAN BE MET ELSEWHERE for this woman! This is an important lesson for us all, not just for people doing their best to leave unhealthy relationships!

She has likely spent many hours reading self-help books, with therapists, writing him letters, talking with him, and pleading with him to learn what he is doing and why he is doing it–and to get him to see how it is harming her, him and both of them. She is most likely exhausted from this and very weary. She has also most likely lost some love, respect, and admiration for him as a person each time he has engaged in the unhealthy use of power-over and controlling behavior with her in their relationship. She is also probably extremely stressed out as his anger, rages, and disapprovals toward her have very likely come seemingly out of nowhere, have been unpredictable, and have shocked and hurt her deeply each time they’ve happened. She has reached a point where she feels like she is on eggshells, she is never sure what to expect from him, and she does not feel safe, whether she is consciously aware of this or not. She also feels shame that she is so strongly drawn to someone who has mistreated her so frequently. Women who experience this treatment from “white-collar” men, women who are highly educated, and women who are professionals themselves, feel additional shame; as they feel they should have known better. This is a useless judgment and a call for self-acceptance and self-empathy.

Most men who behave in ways that try to give themselves unhealthy power and control over their partners (as opposed to sharing power and control in a healthy way with their partners) often also behave in ways that their partners experience as kind, loving, fun, sensitive, respectful, and even empathic; and this is why the women stay as long as they do, accept apologies, and hope that it will remain “good” from there on in.

However, if there is any kind of abuse that emerges repeatedly as a pattern that begins to threaten the woman’s more important needs for safety, security, respect, love, and harmony (etc), this IS abusive, and she will often ultimately choose to leave the relationship.

The back and forth of the nice guy and the guy who engages in abusive behavior is called Intermittent Reinforcement. Some PUAs actually brag on their websites that they very consciously use Intermittent Reinforcement as a “technique” to keep women dating them or sleeping with them, which is reprehensible and abusive. The good times give the woman hope that he will stay kind to her and keep her coming back for this potential. The abusive times cause her to consider leaving, until he senses that he really may lose her, when he then consciously switches to behavior that appears to be kind, loving, apologetic, and promises changed behavior. This ultimately keeps the woman off-balance, and does very real harm emotional and psychological harm to her. The experts at the National Domestic Violence Hotline and Lundy Bancroft, a relationship abuse expert, point out that this “nice” behavior and the “nice” periods of behavior are ALSO ABUSIVE because he is only doing all he can to manipulate her into remaining in the relationship with him so he can continue to choose to exercise unhealthy power and control over her. That is all he wants and needs. As long as he is only concerned with meeting his needs and not at all with how he goes about doing this as well as with disregard for his partner’s needs, he is being abusive.

He would never admit this, he may not consciously believe this is true, and he himself may believe that he loves her and wants to have a happy and healthy relationship with her. However, as long as he refuses to acknowledge that his behavior is in fact, abusive, continues making excuses for it, continues blaming her for his reactions and abusive behaviors, obfuscates the facts, and refuses to enroll in a long-term men’s education group addressing issues of unhealthy power and control in relationships; he will likely never change, and he will likely never have healthy relationships.

Because many men who abuse their partners in any way (emotionally, psychologically, verbally, sexually, and/or physically) do not seem to believe that their partner’s needs are important or as important as their needs, they are often shocked or confused when she wants to leave. They say they don’t understand. They don’t believe they’ve been abusive. They don’t see their behavior as abusive.

These men will frequently point to times when their partners were so exasperated by the totality and cumulative outrageousness of his abusive behaviors that she herself yelled or screamed or cursed at him as an example of her having been abusive. For example, he may have raged at her many times and then asked and expected her to forgive him; but if she has reached a point where she cannot take his behavior anymore and then screams and rages at him once, he will say this is unforgiveable and she has been abusive. These men may even break up with their partners for something their partners have done once–even though these men have done the same thing or worse 8, 10, 15, or more times! What do we notice about this? No mutuality. No shared-reality. No integrity. No trust. No balance. No equality. No fairness.

Abusive men may even say she chose to stay with him so long, and if it was so bad, why did she do that? They refuse to acknowledge that they have made empty promises, have broken many promises, and have violated the trust their partner placed in them to behave in certain agreed upon ways. They will often also point to all the good things in the relationship (and there are likely many good things), and try to persuade the woman that because there were good things, he can’t possibly be abusive. This is another way to attempt to exert power and control over her by making her doubt her perceptions, her judgments, her feelings, her needs, her values, and her experiences.

When I mention her “values”, I don’t mean morals and ethics. I mean how she prioritizes her needs. All living things have needs. NVC teaches us this. If a woman decides that she has reached a point in a relationship with a man in which her needs for safety, love, security, well-being, respect, partnership, nurturing, trust, integrity, mutuality, etc. are not being met — even if her needs for fun, sex, play, companionship, etc. are being met; it is HER KNOWLEDGE OF HERSELF AND OF HER EXPERIENCES that allows her to determine which of her needs are most important to her. THIS IS WHY A WOMAN HERSELF KNOWS AND CAN DETERMINE WHEN SHE IS READY TO LEAVE SUCH A RELATIONSHIP, and why this man’s argument sounds ridiculous to her when he makes it. He is AGAIN having zero regard for her feelings and needs, and is AGAIN only caring about his own feelings and needs.

Many men who really do not care about their partners’ needs would say that is not true of them at all. They will point to examples of when they met their partners’ needs. They will say, “But what about this and this and this?”. And all of that may be true. What they neglect to acknowledge is that there has been a pattern of them doing any or all of the following:

1. Believing their requests of their partners are really demands to which they are entitled, and behaving accordingingly with punishing behaviors towards their partners for No responses.

2. The abusive partner promising or agreeing to attending counseling and then either not truly participating, not regularly attending, or quitting prematurely.

3. The abusive partner promising to care about his partner’s sexual needs and agreeing to meet them (saying Yes to her sexual requests) but then not doing what he said he would do, even as he demands and repeatedly requests that she meet his sexual needs and respond with Yesses to his sexual requests–and even when she repeatedly reminds and asks him for what she needs and wants sexually.

4. The abusive partner has behavioral expectations of his partner that he does not place on himself. This could be that he is “allowed” to curse in certain situations but she isn’t, that he is “allowed” to interrupt people but she isn’t, that he is “allowed” to be late but she isn’t. He may even argue that these things bother him but do not bother her, and attempt to completely ignore the coercive and abusive double-standard he is imposing on their relationship. Don’t let him do this; this is abusive. Tell him: “You have every right to think this way and I have every right to choose to not be in a relationship with a man who thinks this way. Goodbye.”

5. The abusive partner agrees to be fair with money, but then isn’t. He “forgets” that he owes her money, that she paid for dinner or the movie the last time, or that it’s his turn to pay for something.

6. The abusive partner believes that his upset, anger, hurt feelings, and perceptions are more immediate and more important than those of his partner or of anyone else.

7. The abusive partner doesn’t stop to question his thoughts and feelings or to process them; he doesn’t take responsibility for his thoughts and feelings and instead blames other people for their existence and is prone to sudden outbursts or long silences.

In short, it doesn’t matter how often he can point to examples of having seemed to care about his partner’s feelings and needs. When there is ALSO a pattern of him behaving abusively, ABUSE IS PRESENT regardless of how many “good times” there have been. Non-abusive behavior does not magically erase abusive beahvior!!! And ABUSE does not stop unless the abusive man is enrolled in a legitimate men’s education for non-violence group run by certified domestic violence counselors for several consecutive years and is able to acknowledge his abusive behavior.

In Conflict Resolution, we do our best to look at conflict as inevitable among humans and thus as an opportunity to get more information about the many possible solutions that exist and how anyone in the conflict can probably contribute to solutions. We also see the value of anger in conflict resolution and we encourage the examination of the thoughts behind ANGER, as well as the expression of it in responsbile ways. Again, we see anger as an important signal that something is happening that requires our attention–as well as an opportunity for constructive resolution via the use of emotional self-awareness and communication skills that we know are proven to have a great likelihood for a positive outcome for most involved.

The question, though, becomes more complex when we consider an individual’s emotional intelligence skills and abilities as a measure of their capabilities in stressful, anxiety-producing, fearful, threatening situation–or in situations in which their self-esteem or masculinity is or seems threatened as well as in any situation in which they have a strong emotional reaction to a sense of not having their needs met.

For example:

1. A six year-old child says a curse-word and is told he is not allowed to say that. He becomes angry and throws a tantrum. This is age-appropriate, so while unpleasant, it is understandable and does not indicate any mental health disturbance. If we want to describe this in NVC terms, we’ll say that the child’s needs for self-expression and freedom are conflicting with the parent’s needs for consideration and respect. Through empathic dialogue, this child and parent can resolve this conflict, and there can be learning on both sides for the future.

2. A forty year-old man doesn’t like the curse-word expressed by his girlfriend. He becomes very angry and expresses his anger by stating that she has “defied” him. This is not age-appropriate, and is, in fact, controlling, manipulative, and abusive. Linguistically, his choice of the word, “defied” indicates that he believes she is somehow required to obey him. This distorted thinking also may indicate a mental health disturbance or a substance abuse problem. At the very least, it indicates that this man believes his girlfriend does not have freedom of speech and does not have the same freedoms he affords himself.

Another similar example: a forty year-old man dosen’t like a thought or opinion his girlfriend expresses in conversation, and he angrily yells and sneers at her, “That’s ridiculous!” He then flies into a rage that lasts over 40 minutes, during which he distorts what she has said to him, he doesn’t listen to her attempts to calm him down, and he flails his hands and arms widly; she is frightened. This also is controlling, manipulative, and abusive behavior.

If we want to describe the two above situations in NVC terms, we might say that the woman’s needs for freedom, independence, self-expression, understanding, authenticity, partnership, mutuality, and safety, are not being met in these interactions. It is hard to know what needs of the man are not being met, but we can only guess that perhaps he feels insecure in response to the woman’s expressions, and so his needs for security are not being met.

It is extremely important to clearly understand that our needs being met or not met is all about US; not about others. So, if someone has a need for security that manifests as people not freely expressing themselves, that person may find that this need of his causes him many difficulties; just as, perhaps an autistic child’s need for total silence during part of the day causes an entire family to tiptoe around that child. With autistic children, this is certainly undertandable; but with healthy adults, while we want to try to understand this, we also need to ask each adult to be responsible, reasonable, fair and to truly consider whether his needs are being expressed as demands and whether the fulfillment of his needs are preventing others from having their needs met.Let’s add to this story and say that the 40 year-old man often curses and often curses loudly in public. How will his request that his girlfriend not curse because children might hear probably be experienced by her?

If she has needs for mutuality, integrity, shared reality, freedom, and self-expression; she will probably feel that his reqest is unreasonable. If his request (that she views as unreasonable) is not presented by him or thought of by him as a request, but as a DEMAND; there will probably be a very ugly conflict unless both parties are very skilled and practiced at using sound NVC or other conflict resolution communication methods. However, a person skilled in NVC would not make a demand of someone else that he does not also make of himself unless he were dealing with a child. Even if only the woman is skilled at practicing NVC and conflict resolution skills, she may easily and understandbly become de-skilled as she experiences outrage at his unhealthily controlling behavior and his abusive demands.

This is where NVC becomes profound. Even without using terms and labels like “abusive”, we can easily see how the woman might say to him, I have very strong needs for independence, self-expression, understanding, authenticity, partnership, mutuality, and safety. Your belief that my exercising my freedom to do something that you and I both understand and allow you to exericse, is “defying” you does not meet my very important needs; so I will choose to not be your girlfriend anymore.

Similarly, he can say to her, “My need for you to obey me and your choice to not obey me, makes me not want you as my girlfriend anymore”. (NOTE: “obey” is not really a “need”, but I’m unable to accurately guess what the real need for the man in this situation is.)

This reminds me of an Oprah show from years ago, wherein a woman was in a relationship with a man in which the man increasingly engaged in behaviors in order to have power over her, as opposed to mutually, peacefully, and respectfully sharing power with her. After one terrible fight during which she was feeling emotionally, psychologically, and physically exhausted and depleted; he put a muzzle used for dogs on the table. He said, “If you want to stay in this relationship, you will put this on and only speak when I say you can.” And the woman was so abused, so hooked in, so manipulated, so depleted, so exhausted and so worn down; that she did. She remained with this man for many years. On the Oprah show, Oprah asked him if he loved this woman, and he said, “No”. This was a wake up call for this abused woman, and is a stark example of how abuse can and will erode a woman’s self-esteem until she is no longer herself and no longer has the energy or will to even try to protect herself against abusive behavior in any form.

This is how people make conscious choices based on awareness of feelings and needs. It is often difficult for women to recognize abuse when the abuse is not overtly physical and is more subtle. Women will say to themselves, “But nobody is perfect” and “I know I’m not always perfect” and “He’s so wonderful the rest of the time” and “I really love him and want this to work out”. However, over time, abusive men tend to increase their abusive behavior in both frequency and severity; and it begins to become more and more unpredictable which exhausts, stresses out, depresses, and take a serious toll on the abuser’s partner. She will become increasingly unhappy, depressed, and confused; and her health will probably be adversely impacted.

Ofcourse, when we add issues of power and control as well as issues of how some people experience and interpret events, it can become more and more difficult to avoid labels like narcissistic, abusive, or suspected of substance-abusing.

I would like to see NVC taught in every year of school from kindergarten to the senior year of college as mandatory. I would like to see Emotional Intelligence testing done annually on all grades from 1-12. I would like to see sound conflict resolution methods taught mandatorily to all grades from K to 12. I would also like to see NVC, Emotional Intelligence, and sound conflict resolution be mandatory trainings in all workplaces.

There is an extremely important opportunity for human relations and for the elimination of abuse in relationships (which has devastating effects on all involved, but especially on children) when people LEARN that THEY are responsible for their own feelings and needs, for their thoughts that influence their feelings and needs, and for how they attempt to get those needs met and whether or not they are doing this in ways that respect others’ feelings and needs or not.

The point about thoughts influencing feelings is very key and an important point in Emotional Intelligence. If Adolf believes that Jews are the cause of his nation’s problems and his personal misery, he will feel hatred for them and he will believe he has a need for them to be exterminated. However, if Adolf begins to examine his Emotional Intelligence, using the EQi, for example, he will look honestly at his:Self-Regard
Emotional Self-Awareness
Assertiveness
Independence
Self-Actualization
Empathy
Social Responsibility
Interpersonal Relationship Skills
Stress Tolerance
Impulse Control
Reality Testing
Problem-Solving Abilities
Optimism
Happiness

In doing this, he may also learn to reality-test some of his thoughts. . Perhaps he is mistaken about the causes of his nation’s problems and his own misery; perhaps the Jews are not to blame at all. Perhaps he has unresolved wounds from his childhood. He can learn that he has problem-solving abilities other than those courses of action he has been considering. As he learns that his emotional intelligence abilities are actual emotional and cognitive muscles that he can work out and improve, he will realize that he has many other options for getting his needs met. As he allows himself to question his feelings and needs and to consider other options, he will realize that his feelings and needs change.

Similarly, imagine if all the PUAs, Gamers, and Seducers realized that they have other skills and options that are healthy and fun as opposed to destructive, scheming, and expensive. Imagine that these men learn that women are not to blame for their unpleasant feelings and that women are not deserving of their manipulative behaviors.

In NVC, we say that we always have 10,000 ways to get our needs met, so if we find that we are not getting our needs met, we just need to identify our needs, understand them, and then think of the 9,999 other ways we can get them met other than the failed strategy we have been trying. Have you been banging your head against a wall in a relationship, job, with friends, or family? Have you been trying the same failed strategies to get your needs met? How about checking in with yourself to really understand what your feelinsg are and what needs those feelings are connected to? How about now thinking about the 9,999 ways in which you can get those needs met other than the failed strategy you’ve been trying?

Imagine what a different world it would be if Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, Hussein, and Kim Jong Ill had been able to learn NVC and work on developing their Emotional Intelligence muscles to understand their feelings, reality-test their thoughts, and then find ways of meeting their needs that did not harm anyone or prevent others from having their needs met!

Imagine what a different world it would be if PUAs, Gamers, Seducers, and men who have needs to have power-over women instead of mutually shared power-with women–would be willing and able to learn NVC and work on developing their Emotional Intelligence muscles to understand their feelings, reality-test their thoughts, and then find ways of meeting their needs that did not harm anyone or prevent others from having their needs met!

These are very important issues. There are whole other paralllel applications of these concepts in which these very same concepts can relate to workplace abuse (which also has to do with people seeking to have unhealthy power and control over others–even when there is agreed-upon and legitimate authority present in the workplace relationship), abuse in families, abuse on sports teams, abuse in congregational groups, and abuse among “friends”; and those articles are forthcoming.

It is also true that our EI, NVC, and sound conflict resolution skills can be easily transferred to our lives and relationships in our workplaces. PUAs, Gamers, Seducers, and other men who engage in behavior that intends to have power-over others as opposed to seeking to mutually share power with others, also have an opportunity to look at how their beliefs, behaviors, and current relating skills ultimately help or hinder them at work or in other social and relationship situations–with friends, with family members, with aquaintances, etc.

Again, there is ENORMOUSLY Good News here! We all have the tools available to us to CHOOSE to IMPROVE our ability to reality-test our thoughts, to check in with ourselves and observe what we feel in response to anything or anyone, to learn how our feelings are directly connected to our needs, to practice emotional intelligence and NVC skills, and to improve our sound conflict resolution skills.

Please contact me at Denise@LoveAndWorkCoach.com if you would like coaching sessions around EI, conflict resolution, communication, dating and relating, or workplace issues.

Please stay tuned and please email me your comments!

Thank you,
Denise

Denise A. Romano, MA, EdM earned an EdM in Counseling Psychology and an MA in Organizational Psychology both from Columbia Univeristy. She has also received training from Victims’ Services in NYC and from the MEN’S Education for Non-Violence Program at the Genesee Hospital in Rochester, NY to work with men who were court-ordered to attend counseling sessions due to criminal acts of violence against their intimate partners.

Denise also completed a counseling internship in NYC working with client-residents of a Substance Abuse Therapeutic Community. Denise is also a Certified Coach and is Certified in the administration of Emotional Intelligence assessments: the EQi and the EQ360. Denise is not a Certiifed NVC Trainer, however she is actively learning and practicing NVC whenever it is possible and safe to do so. Denise’s new book for HR/OD Professionals will be available in the Spring of 2010.

This article may be reprinted, re-posted, and reproduced as long as written permission is requested via email at Denise.Romano@gmail.com and remains intact with the bio above and full credit to Denise A. Romano, MA, EdM.

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As you know, I’m a supporter of National Domestic Violence Coalition, and as you can imagine nonprofits and schools are facing a fundraising crisis this year.

The good news is that more than 900 of the top Internet retailers and travel sites including Amazon, eBay, Target, Apple, Expedia and more have joined forces with GoodShop.com to donate part of every purchase to your favorite charity or school at no additional cost to you (more than 72,000 nonprofits are now on-board)!

It takes just a few seconds to go to www.goodshop.com, select your charity, and then click through to your favorite store and shop as usual.

Also, Yahoo has teamed up with GoodShop’s sister site, GoodSearch.com, to donate about a penny to your cause every time you search the web. This is totally free as the money comes from advertisers.

To give you a sense of how the money can add up, the ASPCA has already earned more than $23,000!

Please tell 10 friends about GoodShop and GoodSearch today. They’ve been featured in the NY Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Oprah Magazine and more.

Charities need our help to spread the word now more than ever! Please click on the National Domestic Violence Coalition website to the right on my blogroll for more information about the very important work they do.

Thanks!
Denise

Emotional Intelligence, NVC, Conflict Resolution and Anger ~ What Have We Learned?

We’ve learned many things and we can look at these and see which of these helps us most.

In Emotional Intelligence, we see anger as an adaptive and intelligent emotion, letting us know that something is wrong or perhaps even threatening to us. We can choose to use anger as fuel in situations of injustice. We’ll want to do so as skillfully as possible, ofcourse. But what does that mean? Certainly yelling at a child to stop running into traffic is a skillful use of anger (and fear), so we can’t say that all yelling is bad. Some yelling is useful.

However, we’ll want to know how our choice of expression falls on those we aim it towards and we’ll want to know if their experience of our expression will meet our objectives or not. If only the moments during which we experience anger happened more slowly so we could strategize toward that goal! All we can do is practice, build our skills, learn, read, surround ourselves with others who are also practicing, and do our best with support.

In NVC, we look at anger as an emotional signal that a crucial need of ours is not being met. Often we realize that we are looking for this crucial need to be met, as the song goes, in all the wrong places. The very good news is that once we’ve identified our needs, we can set about having them met in all the right places.

NVC does give us formulaic communication tools to help us express our anger in more constructive ways–without the need for the fantasy time slow-down mentioned above. We can observe, state our feelings, state our needs, and then make a request. This will sound absolutely ridiculous in the example I’m about to provide, but it really can work. I do this to make a point, however.

I’m noticing that when you punch me in the face, I’m feeling really angry.
I’m feeling angry because I have a need to be treated with respect and have my well-being protected.
I’d really like it if you would punch that bag over there instead of my face.

There are a bunch of aspects of NVC that I am still learning about, but which I currently call the “crucial invisibles”.
Or, as my wonderful trainer, Thom Bond might make into both a joke and a new word: “the crucibles”.

So, the point, which the forumla doesn’t point us to is: are we looking to have our needs met in all the wrong places?

Are we in a relationship while we value mutuality, respect, kindness, care, consideration, yet we do not get these needs met?
Are we in a job while we value competence, effectiveness, ease, respect, and integrity, yet we do not get these needs met?
Are we living in a place while we value peace, nature, rest, ease, and community, yet we do not get these needs met?

I asked Thom Bond if there had been any studies done on people who study NVC and whether or not they wind up making massive changes in their lives after learning these simple yet profound truths about feelings and needs, and he said he knew of no studies but that yes, people do tend to make life changes.

Are you in a workplace or relationship where your experience is that you’re banging your head against a wall? Your needs are probably not being met and you are probably having alot of unpleasant feelings about that. Is it realistic for you to get your core needs met in this relationship or in this workplace? These are very important questions for all of us to ask ourselves.

When we combine EI and NVC, we come up with a number of tools to help us deal with our anger. Sound Conflict Resolution methods can also help. NVC and EI have contributions to make to conflict resolution as well.

In EI we look at assertiveness, flexibility, self-awareness, and a number of other important factors. The expression of anger is allowable in EI and certainly encouraged so long as it is productive and not violent.

Let’s say the conflict is that one person is punching another in the face (as above) and they’ve met to resolve this conflict.

If the person who is unequivocally punching the other person is the face is unaware that s/he is doing this, s/he is lacking in sufficient self-awareness. If the person being punched in the face is unaware that s/he is being punched in the face, s/he is lacking sufficient self-awareness.

(Bear with me, the face-punching is just a symbol of anything you’d like to substitute).

If the person being punched in the face is aware of this but is low in assertiveness, this could go on forever without ever being addressed.
If the person doing the punching is lacking in flexibility, s/he may not change the behavior and this could go on forever.

In NVC terms, we understand requests as things that can be responded to with a yes or a no.

So, if I ask Joe to please punch that punching bag instead of my face, he might say yes or no.
If he says, yes and his actions then follow through, we have success.

If he says, no, however, NVC teaches us that a NO is really a yes to something else. Maybe Joe will say that he has a medical problem, a spasm and he cannot control where he punches and he is very sorry that his hand keeps hitting your face. He’d like to punch the bag instead, but he needs a doctor’s help. Problem sovled!

However, what if Joe’s response is “Yeah, i’ll punch that bag instead of your face, sure!”
But, then Joe continues to punch you in the face with no further discussion.

NVC teaches us that this is a NO disguised as a yes. It is still a NO. The person being punched in the face has a crucial invisible:

Getting punched in the face sounds pretty horrible, and it probably is causing alot of unpleasant feelings and creating alot of unmet needs. What will this person do? Will they believe the yes that was spoken or the NO that is actually happening?

Will this person choose to stay far away from Joe? We can only hope.

In Conflict Resolution, we do our best to look at conflict as inevitable among humans and so an opportunity to get more information about the many possible solutions that exist and how anyone in the conflict can probably contribute. We also see the value of anger in conflict resolution and we encourage the expression of it. Again, we see anger as an important signal that something is very wrong.

We do our best to use behaviors such as inquiry so we can better understand the other’s position.
We do our best to use a measured amount of advocacy so we clearly state what we need and want; keeping in mind that needs are very different from positions. We may think we MUST have the window closed, when really we are cold and putting on a sweater may solve the problem.

We also do our best to look at unifying responses and remember that we are on the same team–if, in fact, we are. In many conflicts, we are not on the same team, and it’s important to recognize this.

Frequently in conflicts, we are the recipients of information we don’t really want. We learn about ourselves, how we come off to others, how we’ve been misunderstood, how we may have contributed to that, and how we have harmed others and made mistakes, sometimes very grave mistakes.

We also may learn that the other with whom we have a conflict doesn’t really meet our needs, doesn’t really care as much about the conflict or about fairness as we had hoped or thought, and we may find ourselves with difficult decisions to make:

Should I leave this job?
Should I leave this relationship?
Should I distance myself from this painful family relationship for my own well-being?

When conflicts become particularly difficult, it’s a great idea to involve a skilled mediator. However, not everyone is open to that. So what do you do when that happens?

In NVC, we say that if someone doesn’t want to connect with you, why would you want to connect with them? Ofcourse, this very reasonable question can feel glib if we’re talking about an important relationship such as a parent, sibling, spouse, or child. Sometimes, just a cooling off period is needed–but it needs to be a real cooling off period and not complete avoidance of attempts to connect and resolve.

In Conflict Resolution, we call this impasse, and there are many helpful ideas about how to address impasse.

In EI, we look at how a number of skills can be developed to increase the likelihood of each person’s ability to resolve conflict by being aware of self and others.

Perhaps most importantly, NVC addresses that we all have a right to have our needs met and that we never want to meet our needs at the expense of someone else’s, which is a huge point in many conflicts.

We also know that anger frequently masks hurt. There is a great deal of anger in the world. What are we angry about? What are we hurt about? What needs of ours are not being met? What are you angry about? What are you hurt about? What needs of yours are not being met? Are you looking for your needs to be met in all the wrong places?

Thanks
Denise

What Does It Mean To “Fight Fairly”?

When we think of conflict, do we think of fighting and arguing? Some of us do. Sometimes we do. Do we think of yelling? Some of us do and sometimes we do. It really depends on who we are, how we handle conflict, and with whom we are having our conflict.

In sound conflict resolution methods, we approach the conflict as an opportunity for learning, growth, resolution, and perhaps even a more positive outcome. However, we know this works best when both or all parties are using sound conflict resolution methods. If both or all parties are NOT using sound conflict resolution methods, it is very easy for the one or ones who are trying to use them to become “de-skilled”.

This is also true of learning and developing EI and NVC (non-violent communication). If we are the only person in the situation or conflict using and trying to integrate our study into real life, it is very easy to become de-skilled. NVC groups often offer practice groups because practice is necessary to be ready to use these skills in real life.

They ARE skills, and they are also muscles that most of us have never or rarely used. It makes an awful lot of sense to practice with others who are also studying, learning, growing, and practicing so that we are all speaking the same language and can provide informed and helpful support to each other as we practice, make mistakes, make progress, and improve.

It is said that the more one practices NVC, the easier it gets. This is great news and not always true of the multi-faceted development of EI skills and learning and practicing of sound conflict resolution skills.

When we talk about fighting fairly, we are talking about the golden rule: doing unto others as we would want them to do unto us.

We are talking about being honest, not omitting information even if it makes our “adversary” look good or ourselves look less than great. It means saying things like, “well, to be fair, it is true….” That’s it, BEING FAIR.

It means being intellectually honest. It means not fudging facts or details. It means admitting when you’ve made a mistake or an incorrect assumption. It means getting out of any emotional grooves you may be stuck in (see my previous post about being stuck in emotional grooves), and it means telling the truth.

It means NOT playing television (or real-life) lawyer and spinning the facts in your favor. It means telling the real truth, the real whole truth, and the real nothing but the truth. That is fair fighting.

It also means expecting the very same from others that you would allow of yourself behaviorally. This is huge. This is about having behavioral standards. If you are allowed to have a bad day, then so are others. If you are allowed to become de-skilled but then catch yourself and do better, then you must allow others these same imperfections and treat them as learning moments with graciousness. If you are allowed to totally blow it with your communication skills for an extended period of time, then so are others.

If you are allowed to slip and yell but then calm yourself down, then you must also allow others this same imperfection. If you are allowed to slip and curse, then you must allow others this same imperfection and learning moment.

This is very much about trust, fairness, and mutuality.

You cannot very well go around saying that it is not acceptable for others to curse but it is acceptable for you to curse. You cannot go around and say it is not acceptable for others to yell, but it is okay for your to yell. You cannot go around and say it is not okay for others to get worked up and have a hard time calming down if you yourself do or have done this same thing.

If anything, you now share even more in common and can choose to use these moments as mutual learning opportunities so you can share greater understanding, empathy, shared-reality, and compassion.

There have been lists written about “fighting fairly” and sometimes these lists include well-intended suggestions such as:
No yelling
No raising any other issue
No name-calling
No walking away

And many of these can be very useful and very good suggestions in certain situations.

However, there are times when it is okay and even necessary to say “I really want to connect with you, and I really want to continue this conversation with you but right now I am afraid of what I might say; I need to cool down and take a break. I can talk to you about this in a couple of hours. How about 4pm?”

The very important message here is not just that it’s okay to do this, but that you are not completely walking away. You are STILL committed to connecting, having the discussion, and resolving the conflict. If you think this is a free pass to get out of the discussion entirely, you are mistaken; as that is the complete opposite of connecting and resolving and is a statement on the value you place on the relationship.

When someone tries to get out of the discussion entirely and does not want to continue it, they are no longer participating in the relationship. This is simply not acceptable within important personal relationships. For work relationships, it is also not acceptable; however, whoever has the greatest authority (unless there is a conflict resolution policy), will call the shots on this kind of issue in the workplace.

So, if you are having a conflict with someone, AND WE ALL WILL–SINCE CONFLICT IS INEVITABLE, it is best for us all to:

1. Learn as much as we can about Emotional Intelligence and our own personal development of our own EI.
2. Learn as much as we can about sound conflict resolution methods and find others who are learning these same methods and practice.
3. Learn as much as we can about NVC (non-violent communication) and find a practice group in which we can practice, grow, and learn.

Why do athletes practice? Why do we practice public-speaking? Why do we ask children to practice learning the ABC’s?

Because that is how we learn. With the ABC’s it is using an easy-to-remember song.

With athletes, it’s learning to respond to any number of situations using the skills, muscle, endurance, memory, and clear head needed to succeed.

With public-speaking, it’s about knowing one’s topic, being prepared for questions, and knowing our speech well enough that we’re not just reading it.

With conflict, we are using EMOTIONAL and INTELLECTUAL MUSCLES that many of us have never ever used. It’s alot like trying to wiggle your ears or roll your tongue when these are new things for you. You may be looking for and trying to physically feel a muscle you’ve never used before, and it may be hard to even find the muscle to begin with. In moments of frustration, you may ask yourself if you’re even capable of this and if you even have this muscle!

Once we find the muscle, once we know what it is to give and receive empathy, once we know what it is to approach someone else’s anger with curiosity and not a blast of anger or defensiveness back at them, we begin to develop incredibly powerful and useful muscles that become easier and easier to use each time we need them.

Once we find others with whom to practice, we’ve found a safe community of others to become better and better at this with.

Ideally, we’d have everyone on earth learning and practicing EI, NVC, and sound conflict resolution skills. Someday, I believe we will. Imagine a world in which all schools, houses of worship, workplaces, athletic teams, families and other groups regularly practice and then use in real-life conflicts all of the excellent skills in these disciplines!

What a world!

Fighting fairly means allowing others to be as imperfect as you allow yourself to be in your processing of, responses to, and expressions of feelings. It is also a commitment to addressing all feelings, needs, and issues. Many times a fight will include overlapping issues, and that is okay. Fair-fighting also means a commitment to always working to doing better and always connecting and resolving when the relationship matters.

Fair-fighting also means having as much awareness as possible about how we have tended to handle conflict in our past and making a commitment to never using methods of coercive control, power-over others, or any other behavior that is found on the Power and Control Wheel that is used by professionals who research and work with issues of relationship violence.

Relationship violence is not just physical; how we handle conflict can easily become violent and unhealthy if either partner responds with behaviors that meet the definition of coercive control, emotional abuse, psychological abuse, verbal abuse, or emotional blackmail. These behaviors are not limited to conflicts that occur between romantic heterosexual partners; these abusive behaviors can occur between homosexual partners, between family members, between friends, in the workplace, on sports teams, in houses of worship, or within any group or people that numbers two or more.

Please keep reading as I explore how issues of unhealthy and abusive issues of power and control can affect us in every area of our lives – UNLESS – we choose to consciously recognize them, name them, address them, disconnect from persons who behave in these ways, and do everything we ourselves can do to ensure that we conduct a fair self-examination and get whatever training, therapy, education, and practice we can to ensure that we do not engage in these behaviors and consciously choose to replace old dysfunctional behaviors with new healthier behaviors such as NVC, emotional intelligence skills, and sound conflict resolution skills.

Thanks,
Denise

NVC, EI, and Conflict Resolution – Looking at When They Can Work and When They Can’t

In NVC (non-violent communication), we learn that NVC is not for every situation. For example, you may not want to connect with someone. You may want to resolve something with them, and there are many ways to do that, but connection isn’t always necessary.

For example, look at bullying or harassment in the workplace. If you learn that persons with whom you work take pleasure in ridiculing employees, perhaps even you, how do you address this? Smart Workplaces have policies prohibiting such conduct even if it is not “unlawful harassment”, however many corporations still do not have these rules in place.

Do you really want to connect with someone who finds ridiculing others enjoyable? Probably not. But you can still resolve these issues by complaining to an appropriate person who will share your understandable outrage, take the matter seriously, and has the authority to take swift and appropriate action. If there is no such person at your workplace, you may want to speak with a counselor or someone at your city or state Human Rights Commission just to ensure that your legal rights are not being violated and to protect yourself from the very real harm that results from any form of harassment.

We can use NVC in such situations, however, to generate self-empathy and to give empathy to those who have been harmed by such reprehensible conduct. We can use Emotional Intelligence to manage our emotions through the complaint process. We can use conflict resolution and NVC skills if we have to write a written or official complaint or participate in any kind of mediation.

Harassment in the workplace is a serious issue. What is extremely disturbing is when workplace leaders allow harassment to happen and to continue. Retaliation is also of great concern. When there is increased scrutiny on an employee’s job performance, when an employee’s job performance is held to higher or different standards than other similar employees, and when for example an employee is singled out for discipline and given much more harsh discipline for something like a few errors but someone else in the organization who has engaged in harassment, policy violations, and/or ethical violations is not disciplined or is not given any real consequences or is not documented in performance evaluations, then there is disparate treatment and it certainly appears to be retaliation.

Many employers sadly do not understand their compliance responsibilities. Shockingly, they don’t understand what retaliation is.

There definitely ought to be a licensing exam for anyone running a corporation, government entity, educational entity, or non-profit organization. It would save a lot of grief.

MHS is developing an instrument that measures integrity. This will be a fascinating new development.

Wouldn’t it be great if it really worked?

HR/OD professionals must be aware of their own personal legal liability exposure. When business leaders or corporate attorneys engage in, sanction, or knowingly look the other way when unlawful harassment, discrimination, and/or employment retaliation occur, many HR/OD professionals believe they should be fined; and in egregious cases, lose their positions and/or their legal licenses.

Many state Bar Associations do not have clear enough codes of conduct for lawyers in employment situations. Certainly, employees and former employees who are experiencing retaliation or who have experienced harassment, discrimination, and/or retaliation from attorneys in the workplace may consider the option of filing formal ethics violations complaints about any attorney who participated in unlawful harassment, discrimination and/or retaliation with their state bar association’s professional responsibility division.

Retaliation is a primitive abuse of power. It says: “I have more power than you do and I have the power to make you suffer because even though you just filed a complaint or brought a concern to my attention and you are well within your rights to do this; I don’t like you doing this and therefore I don’t like you. So, I’m going to get rid of you and cause you stress and grief because I can.”

Retaliation often takes the form of increased scrutiny, such as the use of video and/or audio recording equipment for surveillance of someone who has made a legitimate EEO complaint. Retaliation can also take the form of holding job performance and interpersonal behavior to standards that others are not held to around those things, which is “disparate treatment”. Retaliation should be documented by any employee experiencing it and witness statements should be obtained whenever possible. Complaint options are many for people experiencing retaliation: EEOC, State or City Human Rights Division or Commission, and other options if you work in government: Public Integrity Commission, Inspector General’s office, Attorney General’s office, etc.

This is a very disturbing problem because of what is at stake and because it’s so unnecessary. What is at stake? Everything!
The company’s corporate culture
The tension every employee will feel as they witness this happening
The stress on the employees being retaliated against which will become contagious
The rumor mills
The complaints that may be filed against the company
The trust other employees will now not have in the company’s non-retaliation policies
The trust other employees will now not have in any grievance or complaint procedure
The company’s reputation as employees talk to their friends and family
Wasted energy and time on retaliation efforts
Excellent employees either quitting or being wrongfully terminated
The possibility of negative media attention
The possibility of extremely expensive lawsuits against the company
If there is a group of harassed employees, there may also be the possibility of a class-action lawsuit against the company

For HR professionals, this is particularly alarming as it is our job to raise certain issues and concerns with our corporations. But, what is an HR-person to do when the people they are earnestly trying to warn and educate about not retaliating or looking the other way when unlawful harassment and discrimination occur don’t want to hear it?

CEO Consultant, Heather Anderson says, “if your fly was down or you had spinach in your teeth, wouldn’t you want to know?”

Believe it or not, there are some business leaders who do not want to know. OR, they are willing to hear it from others, but not their HR person.

This is just like someone you happen to dislike for whatever reason who calls you up or rings your doorbell and says, “Hey! Your house is on fire!” and you ignore the message because you do not like this person and you give no credence to anything they say. So, you stay home, watching tv, as your home burns down.

Then, a neighbor of yours whom you like tells you “Hey, Your house is burning down!” And you look around and say, “My house is burning down!” and you run out and call the fire department. Think of what could have been saved had you listened to the first person who told you this! Why would you refuse to hear a crucial message from one person but not from another?

Why is this? It is very destructive. It’s also an extremely fascinating workplace dynamic called “power-sharing”–or, in many cases–”Refusal to Share Power”.

Look for my new book which will discuss many solutions for HR Professionals around this issue of “refusal to share power” and other HR/OD challenges!

Thanks
Denise

Integrating EI, NVC, and Conflict Resolution Skills ~ Practice Is Important!

I knew that I would eventually be tested, as we all are regularly, by something that would test my emotional sanguinity and groundedness, but I had no idea it would be so soon.

I had a very unpleasant conflict with someone very dear to me, and we both lost it. We both yelled. All of my good intentions to use all the amazing EI skills I’ve been working on developing and all the critical NVC skills I’ve been learning for the past nine weeks just evaporated. We know this is called becoming “de-skilled” and we know it can happen to almost any of us.

I’m thrilled to attend a 4-day NVC Empathy Intensive with Thom Bond from NYC NVC in the Hamptons this coming week. I cannot wait and am almost completely packed!

Thom’s email announces: “Camp, Swim, Eat, Hike, Snorkel, Row, Laugh, Cry – Amazing New July Empathy Intensive Info -

Living from Within – 4-Day Empathy Intensive
July 16th – 19th on Long Island
This intensive offers an opportunity to understand and practice empathy and self-empathy at a new level and identify practices you can use for the rest of your life.

This intensive is open to anyone who seeks to understand and practice NVC empathy. No one will be turned away for lack of experience. We are offering tracks for folks with levels of experience from beginner to intermediate to advanced.

Thom adds this:
“Most of the people I’ve worked with over the years, myself included, get to a point (or have gotten to a point) where we know what NVC is, yet struggle to “integrate” it at the depth we know is possible.

I have found, time after time, that it is our ability to internally empathize and selfj-empathize that is a key to being compassionate with ourselves in our significant relationships and in our professional lives. Through empathy and self-empathy we can understand what we want and how to get it in a way that is in harmony with our values. We can hold a more compassionate view of the world more often. We can practice NVC.

These intensives are intended to support and inspire participants in breaking through and having a deeper and more sustainable integration of empathy and self-empathy than ever before. In a supportive, community environment, we experience challenge, guidance, nurturing, and support in all the pieces that go into empathy, self-empathy and seeing the world empathically.

Throughout our time together, we will deepen our capacity for being present, being aware of our focus, and our own capabilities and willingness, moment by moment.

Going Deeper:
Feelings and Needs are the heart of empathy.
So, our relationship to them directly influences the quality and depth of our empathy.
At these intensives, through practice and exercise, we will broaden and enrich our understanding and experience of feelings and needs (our own and others’) and thereby deepen our practice of empathy and self-empathy.

Throughout the intensive, we will build on that work with well-defined empathy and self-empathy processes to get immediate and fruitful practice

As an NVC trainer, I (Thom Bond) am committed to supporting myself and everyone in sharing a level of connection that transcends conflict and enriches our lives, our relationships, and our world.

It’s a great time in history when we can so clearly identify, learn and practice the skills of making peace within ourselves and in the world. I am profoundly grateful to be a part of that. These intensives offer a new way to contribute to a more wonderful life and world for generations to come. Plus they are alot of fun!” (Thom Bond).

I can’t wait! I look forward to learning more and to having experiential practice in a supportive community learning environment.

I already know that I want to do my best to learn as much as I can about NVC and become a certified trainer.

EI theory is wonderful. Reading about EI and NVC is wonderful. Conferences, books, and classes are wonderful.

To have the opportunity to practice with others is amazing.

We all need practice. We need to unlearn so much of how we’ve been taught to understand our feelings and needs. We need to forgive ourselves and others when we don’t do our best. We need to promise to do better. We need to take action to ensure we’ll do better. My action is to attend this practice intensive.

What will your action be?

Thanks
Denise

Rage Versus Healthy Anger: How Can We Help Ourselves by Using NVC and EI?

Note on Authorship: this post was created by a recovering addict and survivor; the author is “Will H. – RecoveryMan.com Webmaster” . He has a website at: http://www.recovery-man.com

There is also an article below on NVC and Additiction written by Wayland Myers, Ph.D., (c) 1997.

What is Raging?
Rage is a shame based expression of anger.
Rage is by definition abuse. Ragers react to strong emotions with rage. (i.e. feelings of fear, sadness, shame, inadequacy, guilt or loss convert to rage.)

Ragers were typically shamed or punished by their caretakers for expressing emotion when they were young; i.e.: “Be a man and don’t cry”, “Nice girls don’t get angry” or “I’ll give you something to cry about”.

Raging gives the rager a feeling of power – offsetting their shame and feelings of inadequacy.Rage sets up a neurochemical reaction in the brain that can be addictive, producing what is known as rageaholism or ragaholics.

What Rage Looks Like: Screaming, physical expressions of anger, violence or threats of violence, sulking, manipulation, emotional blackmail, silent smoldering, and anger used to punish.

What Healthy Anger looks like:
Healthy expression of anger involves confrontation of what makes you angry and an effort to set boundaries. (What you will do in response to what makes you angry.)

i.e: When you (a behavior), I feel (a feeling) , and to protect myself I will _________.

Healthy anger is not used to punish, is not violent, and isn’t used to intimidate, control or manipulate. It is expressed, discussed, and moved through.

Healthy anger is not stuffed down and ignored. (Stuffed anger created resentment and a wealth of physical / mental and emotional problems.) Healthy anger is not expressed in passive aggressive and manipulative ways.

Unhealthy Anger is component of Alcoholism, Addictions and Abusive Relationships. Anger management is critical to recovery from addictions and trauma, childhood sexual mental or physical abuse, and relationship recovery. Addictions are in part a coping mechanism to deal with feelings by masking them.

Alcoholics and Addicts often “use at” the source of their anger. (i.e.: I’m angry at ______ so I’ll have a drink, take a drug, or act out sexually. Obviously this is a highly self destructive response to anger.

Unexpressed anger related to childhood abuses often results in addictive problems later in life. (To stuff down the feelings of shame, anger, isolation, fear, sadness and loss the abuse creates.) Very often chronic relapsers in recovery programs, or chronic addicts are survivors of childhood abuse.

The sad irony is that by pushing feelings down alcohol and drugs make it impossible to work through our feelings and move past them, keeping the survivor trapped in a downward spiral. This is part of why even moderate drug or alcohol use in non addicts severely compromises their progress in therapy. (If you are stuffing down your feelings how can you work on them?)

Regarding anger, the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says:

“It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feeling we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.

If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison.”

Thank you very much to Will H. for these poignant teachings which he has learned from personal experience. Thank you, Will H. for the courage to be honest and share your learning with us. These are great gifts and we appreciate them.

So, how can NVC and EI help us deal with healthy anger, unhealthy anger, and rage when we either experience or encounter them in others?

www.NonviolentCommunication.comArticle reprinted by PuddleDancer Press with permission from the author.

1 This definition is adapted from one I heard from author John Bradshaw years ago. I believe he said that he got it from some international
health organization’s diagnostic manual.
(c) 1997 Wayland Myers, Ph.D.An Attempt to Define a
Nonviolent Communication
Approach to Addictive
Behaviorsby Wayland Myers, Ph.D.

Introduction
One of the many ways the Nonviolent CommunicationTM (NVC) process has blessed my life is that it has helped
me learn to relate to an addictive substance user in a clearly non-shaming, non-coercive manner. This has been
hard for me. I have experienced great pain loving and living with people caught in destructive substance use.
I have been afraid to give up the option of coercion. But, I have persevered to learn and embrace an NVC
approach because it appears to me that one of the primary emotions which drive addictive behavior is shame.
People using addictive substances often suffer from a great sense of unworthiness and self-loathing. In fact,
shame is such a disruptive part of their lives that the famous 12 steps devotes steps 4 through 9, half of the
steps, to helping people resolve shameful feelings. I find that an impressive and enlightening commitment.
For many substance users, NVC’s approach to their problem may be experienced as a surprising breath of
fresh air because it views their substance use as an understandable strategy for meeting certain of their
needs, and it expresses a compassionate curiosity about which needs those might be. For those who love the
substance user, the tools of NVC can help them express their feelings and needs in ways most likely to be
heard non-judgmentally by the user. That is, NVC can help the dialog between all parties to be conducted
in an atmosphere of curiosity, compassion and discovery, rather than criticism, contempt or coercion.

A Proposed NVC Definition of Addictive Use
I find it helpful to think about what differentiates simple substance use from addictive substance use. Here
is my working definition of addictive substance use: Addictive behavior is a discomfort reduction/pleasure
seeking strategy characterized by1:

1. A compulsive need,
2. to engage in mood enhancing behaviors,
3. whose long-term practice causes a decline in the quality of one or more areas of the practitioner’s life
(health, relationships, finances, etc.).

(c) 1997 Wayland Myers, Ph.D. www.NonviolentCommunication.com

Addictive Behaviors, page 2

I view a “compulsive” need as one whose push for fulfillment is very strong and whose non-fulfillment causes
us significant distress.

“Mood enhancing behaviors” are activities which move us from distress, to comfort or pleasure states. There
are many: alcohol/drug use, food, sex, religion, work, etc.

Differentiating constructive pleasure seeking behaviors from addictive behaviors:
The third part of the definition helps me differentiate constructive pleasure seeking behaviors from those
that I see as reaching the level of being addictions. With addictive comfort/pleasure seeking behaviors, their
long-term practice causes a decline in one or more areas of the practitioner’s well-being.

Guiding Beliefs
The following are based on personal experience and current addiction research and theory.

1. Atypical Brain Biochemistry: Addictions appear to be largely the result of atypical brain biochemistry,
but they are also partly learned behaviors. Addictive practitioners, whose brains have been studied, show
a pattern described as “reward deficiency syndrome” which involves difficulties metabolizing dopamine
(a pleasure producing neurotransmitter). The result is that the daily experiences which move a “normal”
person from distress states to comfort/pleasure states do not do so for those prone to addiction. So, these
people may seek other means to increase their dopamine.

2. Hard to see: The addictive substance user has a very hard time seeing his/her mood altering strategies,
and the resulting consequences, for what they are – compulsive and destructive to their personal and
communal well-being.

3. Tough to change: Because the drive to engage in the mood altering behavior is powerful, and that
behavior has become a strong habit, it is very hard for the user to resist and change it.

4. The help of supportive, enlightened others is often needed: Addictive substance users often
find their mood altering behaviors hard to change by themselves, and the help/support of others with
addiction recovery experience is often empowering.

Marshall Dialogues with a Substance User
In various workshops, Marshall has spoken about the approach he likes to use when talking to an addictive
substance user about their use of those substances. Neill Gibson, of PuddleDancer Press, extracted many
quotes from workshop transcripts and I have mildly edited and woven them together in a way that I believe
presents the essence of Marshall’s philosophy and experience. Here is Marshall in his own words(mostly):

I don’t like the concept of addiction.

First of all, I think the whole concept of addiction is destructive. Let me show you what I mean.

Upon first meeting with an alcohol user, I might ask, “Can you tell me what needs of yours are being met by
drinking? I understand you’ve been drinking a fifth of whisky a day.”
“Yeah.”
“Can you tell me what needs you’re meeting?”
“I’m an alcoholic.”

Do you see the difference between the question I asked and the answer I got? I asked what needs are being
met, he tells me that he is an alcoholic.

I say, “Excuse me, but I’m not asking what you think you are.”

“No, I know I’m that. The doctors told me I’m an alcoholic.”

“Yeah. And I’d suggest that it’s not going to help us to label you. In fact, it often leads to self-fulfilling
prophecies.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I ask you why you drink; you say you’re an alcoholic. So, why do you drink?

‘I’m an alcoholic.’ It’s a circle. You didn’t answer my question. What needs of yours are being met?”

“But, I’m an alcoholic.”

“I know that’s what you think.”

“It’s what the doctors told me.”

“It’s what others have told you. I’m not sure it’s going to get your needs met to keep thinking that. I’m asking
you what needs of yours are being met by drinking a fifth of whisky a day?”

“Are you saying its right to do it?”

“I’m not saying its right. I’m not saying it’s wrong. I’m saying you wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t meeting needs.”

“It’s killing me. The doctors say it’s killing me. I’ve lost two jobs. I had a divorce.”

“So, a lot of your needs are not getting met by drinking, which means you must be meeting some needs that
are pretty important to you or you wouldn’t be doing it. So, I’m confident if we identify those needs, we’ll
find other ways of meeting those needs that are more fun and less costly, that will meet all of your needs, like
your needs for physical health and others as well. You tell me you keep drinking even though you know
you’re an alcoholic, so I think that it doesn’t help to label yourself an alcoholic.

So, let’s look at what needs of yours are being met and then I’m confident we’ll find other ways of meeting
your needs.

“Now, when I say we’ll find other ways, nothing is going to be easy, because in our culture it isn’t easy.

Many of our basic needs are pretty hard to meet. For example, one of our needs is for community, a supportive
community. I know how to get it met. Go into any bar, any neighborhood tavern, and buy a round for people
the first day you’re in there. And the next day you go in, you’re part of the community. It might be more of a
feeling of community than you’ve ever experienced. People know your name, they recognize you. And when
you sit there and talk about your rotten boss they say, ‘Yeah, that guy’s an asshole,’ and you come as close to
empathy as you’ve ever been in your life. You don’t know the difference between people agreeing with your
judgment and empathy, but it feels damn good. And you get some relaxation from all the tension and so it
meets a lot of needs. Am I right?”

“Yeah.”

[Marshall doesn’t conclude this sample of dialog with a summary of how it represents why he thinks the whole
concept of addiction is destructive. I believe his point is that when people think about themselves as “being
addicts,” it can prevent them from seeing how their use of the substance is an attempt to get important needs
of theirs met.]

I don’t try to get them to stop using.

A second point: When I work with drug addicts, I don’t try to get them to stop taking drugs. I start by empathically
connecting to what needs of theirs are being met by doing drugs, and then I let them know what need of mine
is not being met by how they’re doing that, the fear that I feel at how they behave, or the discomfort I feel.
And we explore other ways of meeting both of our needs that are more effective and less costly. I don’t
ever want a person to give up something that’s meeting their needs until I can help them find something
that’s more effective and less costly. It is also important to me to maintain the awareness that all blame, all
judgments – like I’m dirty, like I’m an alcoholic, I’m an addict – these self-judgments get in the way of learning.

They make it hard to learn more effective ways of living at less cost.

I often start by asking, “What do you need to hear from me in order to trust that I’m not here to get you off
drugs?” The response I usually get goes something like this,

“Huh?”

They just can’t imagine that anybody working with them doesn’t have that objective. I have learned that the
more the other person’s behavior is scaring the hell out of me, the more important it is that I make sure that my
objective is not to change this person, because then I’m going to contribute to violence rather then eliminate it.

I might follow up by saying, “I’m starting with the impression that you already know that the drugs are not
meeting your needs in some ways. You wouldn’t be taking them if they weren’t meeting some needs. So, I’m
not here to get you off drugs. I’m here to help you get clear what you’re needs are and to examine whether
there are other ways of meeting those needs that are more effective and less costly.” Then, I often end with
the request, “Can anybody tell me back what you just heard me say?” The problem I usually encounter is that
not one in the group has heard me the way I intended. It might take maybe an hour for them to really hear
the difference, but it’s important to me that they do.

An example from my life:

I went totally jackal one day when I was looking for something and saw a pack of cigarettes in my daughter’s
drawer. I forgot everything I preach about giraffe. It all went out the window, and I was a total maniac jackal
which is why it took her four months to find another way of getting her needs met rather than four days.

One reason; much of that time she needed to protect herself from this mad person.

So if I’d really wanted to have shortened the time, I would have gotten the empathy I needed before I went in
and made a difficult situation even worse. And I would have gotten myself clear that my objective wasn’t to get
her to give up cigarettes. My objective really was to create the quality of communication that would allow both
of us to get our needs met, without any commitment. Maybe I would end up not only with her smoking, maybe
I’d choose to smoke too. So it’s not easy when you care for somebody to have that perspective.

An appropriate way would have been for me to have about 5 hours of giraffe about my fear, I would have
had to cry, beneath that anger at first was fear, and anger at the tobacco companies, anger at everybody in
the community that allowed this to be sold, I had rage, I had fear all mixed together, so I would have needed
about 5 hours of empathy first. Then I might have even needed somebody to help me by empathizing with
the question, “What need could anybody possibly have to use that shit?”

That question would reveal to me that I hadn’t had enough empathy for my needs. So I would have liked
to have started this way, “Marla, are you smoking because you’re nervous and it helps you relieve tension?”
I would have tried to empathize.

“A little, Daddy, but not just that, but all of my friends do it.”

“Oh, so you really have a need for companionship, and when everybody else is doing it, it meets this need for
companionship?” And whatever it was, I would have liked to have started with a respectful empathy for what
needs were being met by doing it.

And then I would have liked to have been enough in touch with my own needs, needs that weren’t mixed
up with all this rage and judgment about our society allowing people to do this, encouraging it, and letting
people advertise it. I would have liked to have had enough empathy for that that I could just talk to her
about the need that directly involved us. And I’d say, “Marla, I’m confused and scared. I’m confused because

I’m guessing you know what this could do. Do you know that, what cigarettes could do?”

“Yeah, Daddy, I know it can be bad for your health.”

“Oh, thank you. I’m glad. I just wanted to check out that you knew that, but I’m also scared then at, how
knowing that, you’d still do it. I have a strong need for your safety. Can you tell me back what you hear?”

“That I shouldn’t smoke.”

“Thank you for telling me that’s what you hear. I’m not trying to tell you that you shouldn’t do it. I just really
need you to hear what my feelings and needs are.” See, the more she hears the should, she’ll end up like
many people do for 30 years, every day they’ll say, “I shouldn’t smoke, I know it,” and they’ll smoke. That’ll
just contribute to it. I don’t want her to hear she shouldn’t smoke. I want her to hear how scared I am, and
what my needs are.

“You’re scared, Daddy, and you need to be sure of my safety.”

“Thank you for hearing that sweetheart. And would you be willing to explore with me a way to get those
needs met you were talking about, about reducing the tension that you’re under, and connecting with your
friends in a fun way? Would you be willing to explore with me another way that we could get those needs of
yours met, and meet my need for your safety?”

So that’s how I would have liked to have done it, which is where I got to after about four months of anguish
and fighting and preaching.

The protective use of force.

If, as a parent, I wanted to protect the other children in my family from getting exposed to this (the drug
use), my own self from the anguish, and if the person was saying, ‘Look it’s my life, I choose to get my needs
met through the use of drugs,’ I can see that I might chose to practice the protective use of force. I might say,

“I agree that it is your life, but if you chose to do that, then I chose not to live in a house where I have to deal
with it,” and I might start locking the person out of the house.

That wouldn’t meet all of my needs, obviously, but it would meet my needs to protect the other children in the
family, myself from anguish, and all of us from a lifestyle where drugs are involved. I might get so desperate
that I would use force in this way. But, here again, I think if we are really conscious, I would want to be really
sure I had looked at all ways of resolving this without force. But that’s what it might look like, perhaps, in that
situation.

An NVC Approach to Classical Intervention Methods

In addiction treatment, there is a procedure called “intervention” that is used to help inspire a loved one to
seek help. An intervention is an orchestrated meeting with the addictive practitioner that consists of the
nonjudgmental, loving, brief, clear presentation of the experiences and dreams of a core group of people
who love or work with that person. These experiences and dreams are usually read from letters written
beforehand.

Here are some examples of how I might present these experiences and dreams in a
NVC fashion:

When I learned of a possibly impaired driving episode with children:

1. When I heard that you had driven the children home after drinking three pints at the pub . . .
2. I felt afraid and disappointed . . .
3. because our children’s safety is very important to me and I want them to be transported under the very
best conditions possible.
4. Would you be willing to call me the next time you’ve had more than one pint so I can drive them
instead?

Let’s imagine that the drinker objects and says, “Are you saying that I was too drunk to drive the kids safely?
That’s totally not true. I would never do that!”

An NVC response might be, “No. I’m saying that if I had the choice to send the children home with someone
who has consumed a pint or less, or someone who has consumed more, I’d chose the one-pinter just to be
most sure.”

Notice that parts 1 and 2 of the dialog orient my listener as to what it is that has happened that I am reacting
to and how I am reacting emotionally. I stick to pure descriptions of what happened and what I feel, and
avoid using judgmental or moralizing language.

I find the third part to be the most valuable. This is where I reveal the deep, easy to identify with needs which
are producing my emotions and leading me to make the specific requests that I make. My listener gets to
know precisely where I am coming from and why.

When I discovered that the mortgage had not been paid
1. When I found the delinquent notice from the mortgage company . . .
2. I felt sad and very afraid . . .
3. because I love our home and I want our lives to continue to be lived here, and because I want to feel
relaxed and confident, trusting, that my partner is doing what she agreed to in order to make that happen.
4. Could you tell me what happened that prevented the mortgage from being paid on time?

When I was embarrassed in response to my partner’s behavior at a party

1. When I heard you begin to use rough and loud language at the party last night, and noticed that others
were staring at us . . .
2. I felt disappointed and embarrassed.
3. That happened because I want to feel proud, warmed and delighted by what my partner contributes to a
party, and last night, when you got rough and loud, I didn’t. I would also like to be recognized by others for
having a partner who is not only fun, but is also respectful of the needs of others to enjoy their part of the
party in peace and social comfort, and when people stared at us I didn’t believe that was happening.
4. Could you tell me what you hear me saying?

Let’s suppose my partner answers, “You’re saying that you are uptight and can’t stand for me to have a little fun.”

An NVC response might be, “I appreciate that it might sound that way to you, but I’d like to clarify. I love and
enjoy you. I find you to be great fun at parties and really enjoy that. I am saying that when I hear you use loud,
rough language at a party, and we subsequently receive long stares from people, that I feel awkward and
embarrassed because I like to remain just a fun, regular party member and not be singled out for long, enigmatic
stares. I just want to have fun with you and be nobody of special note. Does that make sense to you?

“Yeah, I guess so.”

These are just a few examples of what might be said at an NVC styled intervention meeting. I hope they
convey not only the spirit, but also some useable ideas.

In a typical intervention format, the meeting ends with a specific request for the addictive practitioner to
commit to receive help right then. Something like this is said,

“We would like you to come with us right now to enroll in XYZ rehab (or whatever). Are you willing?”
Conclusion

From an NVC perspective, addictive behavior is rational: The substance user is trying to take care of themselves
in important ways via their using behavior. An NVC practitioner has the means to compassionately help
the user take a detailed look at which needs he or she is trying to meet. I know of no treatment approach
that includes this willingness to take a look at what is fulfilling and helpful about the addictive behavior
before asking the person to consider changing it.

The second benefit I see in an NVC approach is that it can help the substance user and their loved ones
communicate about this condition, and its impact on their lives, in ways that create a deeper, fuller, more
respectful joining between them. I believe that two people, feeling connected, heard, and valued by each
other, possess a far greater power to achieve a life enhancing outcome than two who are scared and feeling
alone.

Wayland Myers, Ph.D. is a psychologist in private practice in the Northern part of San Diego County (USA).
He has 15 years of in-depth personal and professional experience in living with those who struggle with
addiction. Myers has also written a book, Nonviolent Communication: The Basics As I Know and Use Them,
which is published in English, French and Spanish and has sold 18,000 copies. He uses NVC extensively in his
life and work with individuals, couples and families. If you have questions about this article or would like
to speak with Wayland Myers about the application of NVC in addiction or recovery, please contact him at
waylandpm@cox.net

For more information on Nonviolent Communication visit the PuddleDancer Press website at www.NonviolentCommunication.com

For more information about the Center for Nonviolent Communication please visit www.CNVC.org
www.NonviolentCommunication.com

About Nonviolent Communication

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Layers and Layers and Layers of Emotional Intelligence ~ It Seems to be Everywhere!

Having just returned from the third International Emotional Intelligence Conference (IEIC), I am inspired, amazed, and feeling very sanguine.

My flight was delayed more than seven times, my gate for my flight was changed three times, I was charged $15 by American Airlines just to check my normal-weight bag, my flight finally took off five hours after it was originally scheduled to, and my luggage was lost.

Unlike the very understandable response from Ben Stiller’s character in a “Meet the Parents” clip shown at the conference by David Caruso, Phd, I managed to remain calm, happy, and enormously appreciative of the truly inspiring scholars, researchers, practitioners, coaches, trainers, and consultants who presented at the IEIC.

There is enormous hope for the world, I think. I’m sure there will be moments when I don’t feel or think this way, but for now, I do.

William Blair, the Chief of the Toronto Police gave a keynote speech that brought tears to my eyes, a lump in my throat, a more palpable heartbeat, and goosebumps on my skin. Chief Blair has transformed his entire police force into a learning organization that encourages the development of emotional intelligence, embraces diversity, and is an open system that flexes, changes and learns as necessary.

Heather Anderson is doing compelling work with CEOs and other business leaders, convincing them of the critical importance of Emotional Intelligence and how their own EI directly impacts every aspect of their businesses.

Annahid Dashtgard and Shakil Choudhury from Anima Leadership have some important national partners in Canada; The Canadian Race Relations Foundation, the Crown Corporation with a mandate to fight racism, and the Canadian Policy Research Networks, a National think tank with a specialty in public policy development through deliberative dialogue processes. Shakil and Annahid’s presentation was powerful, inspiring, contemplative, and transformative. Their work is exceedingly important and valuable. And I now understand why Shakil said that as they do this work, he feels more hopeful about the world.

Mark Skalski, PhD from England, gave a brilliant and stimulating talk on how change is difficult for humans, why that is, and yet how vitally important it is in the workplace to make the business case for the development of EI, for the budgeting towards improving EI in serious way, and ultimately for the bottom line of business.

The IEIC is a conference that I wish happened regularly so I could take everyone I know both personally and professionally to experience at least parts of it.

Change is hard. People – WE – can be resistant. But we can also bring awareness to ourselves, we can ask what we want to be different and better, we can explore what is in our power to adjust, change and improve. We can make changes. We can define what our gold medal is.

Some trainers asked about winning. Do you want to win? We have to understand that “winning:” is different things to different people. What is winning to you?

We also had the opportunity to see the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum. When an exhibit draws you into it so deeply that you imagine yourself as a part of history tens of thousands of years ago, you’re in a zone of contentment and learning, and it’s a wonderful feeling.

When you see how far we’ve come from the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls until now, you realize just how much change, growth, and development are possible. Skalski points out that with more options, we get more stress, which we need to be aware of and manage.

I’m typing this on a computer while I have a gorgeous view of Manhattan. I can see the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building. Tomorrow night, I’ll be able to see the July 4th Macy’s fireworks over the Hudson River.

I have all the food and drink I need, and am taking a break from writing a book. My dreams are coming true. We have so much to be grateful for.

Where is evidence of emotional intelligence in your life? In yourself? In your family? in your workplace? Among your neighbors and friends? I am very grateful for those around me who work on self-development. And for those who don’t, I am grateful for my own self-development to help me deal with those challenging moments, situations, and people I encounter.

I still don’t have my luggage. I am optimistic (though grounded in reality-testing – Thank you Dick Thompson!) that I will get it back. And if I don’t, I will survive.

There are those moments, days, situations, and people who challenge us to bring awareness and regulation to our emotional responses. There always will be those. The practice is never-ending.

There will be those leaders who don’t want to hear Henry L Thompson’s brilliant message on “Catastrophic Leadership Failure” and who don’t want to understand how it is they wound up there. There will be those business leaders who are too frightened or ashamed to acknowledge that they’ve mishandled something important. They will keep it a secret. They will view all those around them who try to do things differently than them as their enemy.

Employees who are hard-working, innovative, creative, ethical, but who aren’t “yes-men” or “yes-women” will either grow bored and leave or they might even get fired for not being “yes-people”. Leaders who fail will exclude quality staff from meetings, decisions, and processes because they don’t want to share power, to share success or to share failure – they don’t want to share learning. They may continue to make quite bad decisions and not even be aware if they are violating the law or creating more and more serious problems for themselves because they only want to be surrounded with those who agree with them – or – because they will only accept disagreement and critical thinking from a select few. Catastrophic Leadership Failure can be a downward spiral. Those who don’t want to allow others into an in-group that for whatever reason needs an out-group wind up cutting themselves off from valuable resources in their own midst–on their own team. But leaders who fail do not see those who think critically of their decisions as team-members but only as enemies and threats. Perhaps someday they will be willing to examine why that is and make different and better choices. We can only hope.

There will be those business leaders who refuse to share organizational power and consider that the skills, knowledge, and abilities of someone else on their staff may actually be exactly what they need in order to handle something well. There will be those business leaders who keep glass ceilings and walls firmly in place as they remain unaware of or unable to acknowledge their overwhelming shame or disgust or anger or threat of allowing appropriate others truly INTO processes, C-Suites, decision-making meetings, and other critical operations. Becoming overwhelmed by primal brain, as Skalski puts it, is how this happens and is something EI development can explore, examine, and prevent.

Inclusion and Exclusion are hugely significant in every aspect of the operation of an organization and are also very related to emotional regulation. Most leaders will say they are not racist, sexist, ableist, ageist, or otherwise bigoted, however, a closer look at exclusion and inclusion can show otherwise. There is hope for those who are willing to regularly look honestly at their practices, at who they exclude, at who they include and to honestly ask and answer the question: WHY? Once there is awareness, a rational cost/benefit analysis can be done and better choices can be made that will not create liability exposure, fraud, civil rights violations, retaliation claims, unlawful privacy invasions, and a lack of integrity in chosen actions – all symptoms of leadership failure with great consequences financially, publicity-wise, and operationally.

It is about willingness. It is not about ability. It is about either being willing or refusing. EI is now proven to be a hard skill. It is far from a “soft skill” or a fun work-shoppy diversion from work. Development of EI IS the work in every moment, in every decision, in every interaction or non-interaction. It is the work in performance evaluation. Rater-bias is a huge problem in organizations whose leaders are in a downward spiral of failure and who are not bringing critical awareness their decisions with the knowledge that all decisions are driven by EMOTIONS. Emotions – an extremely important part of the workplace. There is now agreement that not only do emotions belong at work but they are THERE whether we like it or not. Every decision is made using emotion whether we realize this or not.

I am personally fascinated by workplace systems in which only certain people are allowed to express certain emotions or allowed to express them in certain ways. Why is this? Have you seen this? Where have you seen it and who was or wasnt’ allowed to express anger? What happened if someone who wasn’t allowed to express anger did so? Why do you think some organizational systems try to limit who can and cannot express anger?

Skalski talks about expressing anger as being related to POWER. This is why. It is an issue or organizational power. What happens when those who aren’t supposed to express anger or aren’t supposed to express it overtly do so? What is the response of those who try to make rules about who can and cannot have or express emotions in the workplace? How many of you have actually seen a performance evaluation that instructs a person to only express positive emotions?

How is employee A thought of and how is employee B thought of? And why? What is the criteria? What are the standards? Are there conflicts of interest? Are there ethical issues to be addressed? What are the emotions that are affecting these performance evaluations and why?

Steve Stein, Phd. announced that MHS will soon have a measurement instrument for testing INTEGRITY! How exciting is that? Should the Dow Jones require leadership Integrity test scores to be on the CNN and MSNBC crawls? Shall we require the public integrity test scores for our elected and public officials?

I am still feeling extremely joyful and with a cup that runneth over with inspiration, knowledge, teaching, hope, tools, research, and incredible passion for and commitment to the developing field of EI. Mark Skalski taught that joy is elusive and is only in existence when fear, anger, sadness and disgust are NOT present. I guess I’m in one of those rare moments!

Given how life is, it is only a matter of time before I am confronted with my own or someone else’s fear, anger, sadness, or disgust, and when that moment comes, I will dig deeply into my EI skills and find that self-awareness, practicing the skills, exercising these brain muscles, and hoping I do my best.

What a privilege to be part of a self-reflective community that values integrity, scholarship, solid research, and an impressive spirit of generosity of ideas and learning.

“Let us all do something today to make someone else’s life better “(-Bob Anderson)

Thanks!
Denise

Respecting Our Own Needs AND the Needs of Others

We all have needs. I think we can agree on that. In NVC – Non-Violent Communication – we learn how to be aware of what our needs are and we also learn to be aware of all the feelings we have as a result of our needs. In studying Emotional Intelligence, we also strive to have greater self-awareness and to express our feelings and needs and wants in ways that are fair for ourselves as well as for others. In learning sound conflict resolution methods, we also learn the difference between needs and wants.

One of the most wonderful aspects of NVC – Non-Violent Communication – is that we say that we want everyone to get their needs met. We want to get our needs met, but not at the expense of anyone else’s needs. And, we expect and hope for the same strategy from others, though we realistically know that there are people in the world who, for various reasons, only care about their own needs and even get those met at the expense of others’ needs.

A very simple example of this is here:

Imagine there is a disaster and two people are trapped in an elevator. They’ve been told they will not be rescued for 3 days. One of them has a fresh meal he just got from a nearby deli as well as a bottle of water. The other person has no food or drink on him. What are some possible outcomes?

One outcome is that the person who has the water and food says he will share it with the other person.
Another outcome is that the person with the water and food says he doesn’t care about the other guy’s needs and he eats all the food and drinks all the water himself.
Another outcome is that the person without food negotiates or trades with the other person to get some of the food.
Another outcome is they fight each other for all of the food.
Another outcome is they agree to flip a coin to see who gets all of the food or which parts of the food.

There are probably many other possible outcomes to this situation.

The bottom line is that we all have needs – and there are many ways to get them met and many ways in which we respond to our own and others’ needs.

I had a great party to celebrate my non-fiction book contract with McGraw Hill. Many of my closest friends were there. It was a wonderful night. One of my closest friends, Vicki, was unable to attend because she had an emergency – a flood in her apartment. She kept saying how sorry she was that she was missing my book party because she knows how important this book is to me. She also sent a beautiful Edible Arrangements fruit basket that was also delicious. When we emailed each other the next day, she was still apologizing to me that she couldn’t go. I told her that I completely understood her need to be home and attend to her flood. I knew she was there in spirit, and it was okay.

I would not want anyone I care about or love to deny their own crucial need to meet my own less crucial need or want. We must respect each others’ needs.

A few years ago, my sister scheduled her wedding for a date during a time period when she knew I would still be recovering from a major surgery I was planning to have during that time. The surgery required a 2-month healing process and had been planned for a day as of yet to be determined within the first two weeks of January. It was planned and approved by my two bosses, with my surgeon, with my parents who agreed to care for me during the post-operative period, and also with a federal judge, who was presiding over a federal medicaid fraud trial in which I was the whistleblower and main witness; there would be a subpoena for me to be present at the entire trial. The judge had been changing the trial date every few months based on requests from both sides in the case for about two years at that point, so I had to let him know through my lawyers that there would be a two-month period during which I would be unable to attend a trial.

I would up changing my surgery date when my sister set her wedding date as I was Maid of Honor, and I didn’t want to miss her wedding. Because I changed my surgery date, that meant I was now free for my 40th birthday and could plan a trip with my then-boyfriend. We planned a trip to Mexico. I had to squeeze this trip into a very crowded schedule, in between required work trainings, legal obligations having to do with the federal lawsuit, many doctors’ appointments, and work events. My trip was set! I was excited about my upcoming surgery and hoped it would solve a chronic health problem, I was excited about my 40th birthday trip, and I was excited about my sister’s wedding.

Then, my mother scheduled my sister’s bridal shower for the day after my 40th birthday and told me that they would be using my birthday as the excuse to get her to the restaurant and surprise her. I said it was fine with me if they used that excuse to get here there, but that I would not be able to attend, as I would be in Mexico.

Instead of understanding my need to make the many obligations in my very busy life work and work well – my mother went ballistic. She could have said what her feelings were about the fact that I couldn’t go, realized that she had forgotten to check with me to see if i was available, and just accepted the situation. But that is not what she did.

She yelled at me and told me I was a bad sister and a bad Maid of Honor. She told me I was selfish and self-centered. She yelled at me and hung up on me. Before she hung up on me, I very consciously used my calmest voice and reminded her that she knew my life was very complicated and that she had not checked with me.

Each time I tried to reason with her, she had an even larger emotional response. She could only focus on her own needs and she refused to consider that I also had needs. She also was so overwhelmed by her own needs that she frankly didn’t care about my needs.

I would say, “Mom, you didn’t check with me; how can you be angry at me that I’m not available’. And her response would be “But I thought you’d be there”. Or, her response would be, “But I thought you were happy for your sister”. I was happy for my sister, but that didn’t mean I did not also have my own needs and a very complicated life.

What she was really saying was that she thought I would be there NO MATTER WHAT. Meaning, no matter what else I had scheduled in my own life AND NO MATTER WHAT MY NEEDS WERE.

She of course denied that she meant those things, but that is what she meant. Her actions and words proved it.

I would say, “Why are you angry with me? You can be angry at yourself for not remembering to check with me and you can be angry at the situation, but it is not reasonable for you to be angry at me”. She knew she was angry, but she was unable to examine her anger and understand who or what she was angry at. Many times it’s easier for someone to be angry with someone else than with themselves. That was certainly the case in this situation.

There is yet another layer to this. My mother would insist that she was not angry at all. She was so unaware of her feelings that she refused to acknowledge that she was even angry even though she yelled and screamed at me on the phone, told me I was selfish, slammed the phone down several times on me when I tried to discuss this with her, and then proceeded to not invite me to one family holiday or gathering for 3 years straight (as of today). She and my sisters and my father also stopped telling me family news such as when my sisters became pregnant, when they had babies, when my aunt was diagnosed with terminal cancer, when my cousin was in a nearby off-broadway show, and various other things.

They also chose to ignore events in my life – such as when I became very ill and was hospitalized and home from work for six weeks, when I got my first book contract with a major publisher, when I had very difficult work stress, when I slipped at work and broke my elbow, when I met my new boyfriend, and my entire second whistleblower lawsuit which was a dramatic four weeks in court. This, apparently, is their idea of “punishment” for my inability to attend a bridal shower. They actually believe that I deserve to be cut out of the family for having had my own needs and for having missed a bridal shower.

I would say, “Please explain to me why you remain angry about this”. And at one point she said “It’s a generational thing”. Meaning, that people of her generation believed that I should be willing and able to cancel anything I already had planned or needed to do in my life so that I could attend a bridal shower that nobody checked my availability for.

I said, “Don’t I get any credit for having moved my major surgery so my recovery would not interfere with the wedding date? Isn’t that the important day? I’m going to miss a bridal shower. A bridal shower. This is not a tragedy. Terminal illness is a tragedy. People killed by drunk drivers are tragedies. World hunger and starvation are tragedies. Missing a bridal shower is not a tragedy”. My mother said, “I just thought you would be there”. She was unable to get past this thought and feeling. She was unable to allow new information into her mind. She was stuck like a needle in the scratch of a record. She was unable to feel anything else besides anger and disappointment (which she wrongly displaced onto me instead of placing on herself) because she was unable to allow new information into her mind. She was unable to feel anything else because she was unable to be concerned with my needs and was only able to be concerned with her needs.

The word “able” in the two sentences above is one I am not completely comfortable using. Should the word be “willing” instead? I will not say I know for sure. Was my mother unable or unwilling to think and feel anything else? What do you think?

She also wrote to one of my best friends who is a licensed clinical social worker and insisted to me that this friend told me what she wrote to her. However, this friend did not tell me what she wrote to her, except for one sentence. My friend told me that my mother wrote to her and said “I am a good mother”. This was very telling. Apparently, my mother believed that my inability to attend the bridal shower somehow reflected on her goodness as a mother – OR – that she believed that she was such a good mother that I somehow “owed” her this because she wanted it. It’s hard to know, because my mother is unwilling to discuss any of it.

Sometimes in families, the group dynamics are such that someone is scapegoated as a way for the family system to respond to and deal with stress. This is what happened here. My father and other sister both insisted to me that I had to change my vacation. They wanted to know if I had purchased my tickets yet. They wanted to know why I couldn’t just reschedule it. The answer was no; I had an impossibly full schedule – the only other time I could go was the date of the wedding itself. As it turned out, I slipped at work and broke my elbow two days before I was supposed to leave for my birthday trip. I wound up working from home for three weeks because it was very icy and slippery outside and I could not slip again.

My father angrily asked me “If you didn’t go on your trip, why couldn’t you go to the bridal shower?’ He wasn’t really asking me the question which his words asked; he was really saying “I’m still angry at you that you didn’t attend the bridal shower and I think you could have because you didn’t go to Mexico!” When I told him I was under doctor’s orders to not go out on the ice because I could not slip again, he very quietly said, “oh”.

Again, he and they had no regard for my needs. They only knew that they wanted me at the bridal shower and that was it. That was the only acceptable outcome for them. My father also angrily told me that I should tell the judge to “shove it”. Nice. I told him that people do not tell federal judges to “shove it” unless they want serious consequences. I explained to him that I had a legal obligation. My father insisted that my family obligation came first above anything else.

Again, this is a very interesting layer to this whole conflict and to the subject of Needs. My father – and my mother and two sisters – actually believed they had a right to determine for me what my priorities were, which needs were more important than others in my life, and – in essence – to impose their will upon me, regardless of my needs, wants, obligations, health, job, lawsuit, etc.

This is an extreme form of unhealthy control – and their response with cutting me out of the picture as my “consequences” and “punishment” is very telling. Do these people love me? They probably think they do. Do they understand what healthy love is? No. Do they love in a healthy manner? No. What they did is what Susan Forward describes in her books Emotional Blackmail and Toxic Parents..

When I told my father that his response was emotionally unhealthy, instead of wanting to learn what that meant or learn how to have healthier emotional responses to the situation or to learn how I was being hurt in the situation, he angrily said “Then, I’m emotionally unhealthy!” He dug his feet into the ground and would not budge.

When I mailed my mother and sister Virginia Satir’s wonderful book, Peoplemaking, they refused to read it. Virginia Satir’s books are amazing tools for healthy parenting and improving families. I also sent my two sisters and my parents a very good small book on Catholic Conflict Resolution, which they all refused to read. They are not “unable” to read; they were UNWILLING to read these. They were unwilling to read, they were unwilling to learn, and they were unwilling to resolve the conflict.

When someone does not want to resolve a conflict, there is a tragedy and there is not much you can do about it. This was extremely disturbing to me. I even wrote to the pastor of their catholic church in Hicksville, NY, Father Mannion at Holy Family Church, and implored him to speak to my family, since I believed they would listen to him. He never responded to my letters or my phone calls even though I mailed him a detailed description of the conflict and a copy of the catholic conflict resolution book. His bio on the archdiocese homepage says he has a graduate degree in social work and that his goal at Holy Family is to bring people together. As far as I’m concerned, he is a failure as a priest, as a professional and as someone who claims to have a social work degree. He had an opportunity to mediate a severe conflict and he chose to do absolutely nothing.

The scapegoating took the form of projecting all of the anxiety and tension about planning a large wedding in 4 months (which is going to be stressful) onto me. All of the frustration and anger was pointed at me. Because I could not attend a bridal shower that nobody asked me if I was available for when they knew my schedule was extremely demanding and complicated.

Again, I reminded them that I had a very complicated schedule, that I had already moved my surgery for the wedding date, that I had work obligations, that I had legal obligations, and that I had obligations to myself that related to my own health.

Instead of hearing this and understanding it, they became angrier. They echoed my mother’s angry judgments of me that I was selfish, self-centered, a bad sister, and a bad Maid of Honor. They also embellished these with pronouncements that I was jealous and that I was trying to sabotage my sister’s wedding. My sisters even went so far as to say that my surgery was never actually scheduled for a date, therefore I did not move it. It didn’t matter that I pointed out to them that no surgery is scheduled four months in advance but that it was as planned as it could be with everyone in my life who mattered and depended on me: my two bosses, my parents who agreed to care for me afterwards, my surgeon, my surgeon’s office, the hospital, my then-boyfriend, and the federal judge and my many lawyers. However, this did not matter to them because they were too angry to see straight, to allow information to affect their feelings, or to acknowledge that they were insisting that their own needs were the most important thing in this conflict and that my needs were not important at all. My mother referred to my surgery as “facial surgery” as though it was some needless cosmetic procedure when in fact it was a necessary surgery that was hoped to cure my severe sleep apnea, which is a very serious condition which I’ve had for decades and which worsens over time.

My mother said “this is an elective procedure”. I reminded her that I had very stressful work situation and needed to do this NOW for my health and because I was not sure how much longer I would have this job and this health insurance. She didn’t care so much about that. She and they kept looking for arguments that would somehow prove their position that I should be at this bridal shower no matter what – regardless of what my needs were. None of them heard my needs. None of them seemed interested in my needs at all. If you have ever been in this position, you know how very painful it is to realize that people who are your family, to whom you have given greatly, do not care one iota about your needs; you exist for them in this situation only to fulfill their needs and nothing else matters to them. It is extremely painful and disturbing.

I reminded them that I had been minding my own business when these bridal shower plans were made by people other than me. I had been simply living my life, planning a surgery around a busy work schedule a federal trial. None of this mattered to them. When I asked my mother why my recovery time had not been worked around, she said it was because the groom wanted to be married as soon as possible.

Again, this is another very odd prioritization. In a healthier family, a statement would have been made by my sister or my mother that Denise was recovering during this period and so the wedding should be after that. In a healthier family, there would be scapgegoating. In a healthier family, it would not be an issue at all that I could not attend a bridal shower. There would be no “consequences” or cutting off. But there was here.

Why? Because they were completely focused on their needs and had zero regard for my needs. Why does this happen? How can this possibly happen? How can people who are family members and claim they love each other refuse to acknowledge and respect another’s needs?

Clearly, there was a conflict and a disagreement about what was a need and what wasn’t. When do people – family or not – believe they are entitled to define for someone else what their needs are and how serious those needs are? When do people believe they are entitled to tell someone else their own needs are more important than that other person’s needs are?

What happens when, as in family situations, many people gang up on one person and all agree that the one person’s needs do not matter, are not real, or do are not as important as the needs of the group?

Why do people try to control each other in these ways? There is nothing healthy about this. This is most certainly about power and control. Though, it is also very much about gender issues in the current US. Specifically, it is about gender issues within a specific culture that still exists on Long Island, NY and probably in other parts of the US. It is actually very similar to the control and abuse of power one finds in destructive cults. Healthy families do not respond to a family member in this way, but destructive cults do.

If I had been a man and had the same issue, it probably would not have erupted into the intense conflict that it became. Men are not really expected to attend bridal showers. If I had been married and my husband and I had already planned a trip somewhere or my husband had surgery planned and I had to care for him, I’m guessing that this intense conflict would not have erupted. It would have been acceptable for me to have to need to care for my husband. But it was not acceptable for me to have to care for myself – for my own need to take a vacation before my vacation time would expire at work and during a time when I could fit it into a very complicated schedule.

If I had a child and could not attend because my child was sick or had some other obligation, that need would have been accepted and respected.

But, I am a single woman with no children and my own personal needs were not considered important enough to count for anything. I was expected to change my plans again, even though I had already changed them.

Another piece of this is cultural – a very antiquated and no longer healthy or useful mindset that the most important thing is the bride during the time preceding the wedding planning. Nothing else matters; the idea is that anything related to this upcoming wedding and this bride’s desires trumps anything else – including – apparently – major surgery and federal lawsuits.

We see this all over the world as the root cause of conflicts large and small. Whether the conflict is over food, water, healthcare, equal rights, voting rights, race, ethnicity, color, religion, land, land use rights, what is considered acceptable or unacceptable – etc. – we see cultural issues and issues of identity intensifying conflicts in several ways:

1. When people confuse their wants with their needs. Nobody was going to die if I didn’t attend the bridal shower. It was a want; not a need. But it was reacted to as though it was a need. It was reacted to as though a tragedy would occur if I didn’t attend the bridal shower, i.e. if I didn’t do what they wanted me to do and essentially insisted that I do. The result was that I was severely punished by this group, who happens to be my family. There was an intense scapegoating operation that included essentially very consciously cutting me off from communication and inclusion in family events. We see this same dynamic played out in cultural issues in the US and in other countries; divisions between the Catholics and Protestants with the punishment for non-compliance being violence and even death. We see Tibetan Monks arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and killed by the Chinese government for defying discriminatory rules against their right to practice their religion in certain parts of China. We see women beat by the Taliban if they try to meet their own needs for education, having careers, educating their daughters, or not covering themselves up from head to toe.

2. When people identify their core selves with what they consider to be their needs, even if their needs are NOT needs and are merely wants. All of the examples above can be used here as well. The Taliban do not NEED for women to have no rights; they just prefer it that way. No Taliban men will die if women suddenly begin going to school, having careers, not covering up from head to toe, or start voting. They may be uncomfortable and it may not be what they prefer, but it is not a need.
The very flawed thinking is “I am a man; she is a woman. This is intolerable to me. I have a right to now beat her”.

Similarly, if the catholics and protestants wind up marching in each other’s territory, nobody will die from that alone. What they die from is the violence that ensues because someone there becomes so enraged that someone else is doing something that he doesn’t like or approve of or prefer, that he feels he has the right to kill them. The very flawed thinking here is “I am Protestant. That catholic is marching in my street. This is intolerable to me, so I have a right to shoot him.”

Similarly, my family members thought “A good sister goes to her sister’s bridal shower no matter what. It doesn’t matter if she already moved her surgery. It doesn’t matter if he life is complicated with a federal lawsuit and a demanding job and health problems. She needs to do what we want her to do and if she doesn’t, we’re going to punish her by not speaking to her, not including her in anything, not sending her photos of the kids, and not inviting her to holidays. We have a right to deny her needs and to determine that our needs are more important than hers. Plus, she is outnumbered.”

These are all examples of very flawed thinking. Whenever we think our own needs are more important than someone else’s and we have a right to tell someone else what to do or not do or to somehow control someone’s choices, we need to examine whether or not we are being fair and reasonable. We need to stop and remind ourselves that we cannot know someone else’s needs and priorities. We can only guess.

Do you really think your needs are more important than someone else’s? Do you really understand the difference between needs and wants? Do you understand how your definition of yourself affects how intensely you respond to a conflict and determine whether something is a need or a want?

I encourage you to keep these questions fresh in your mind when conflicts with others inevitably emerge so that you do not make the very grave mistake of over-reacting due to confusing needs and wants or wrongly thinking that your needs have a right to be met at the expense of someone else’s.

This takes further introspection and awareness and touches all of our interpersonal interactions – at work, dating, in relationships, with family members, with groups of friends or activity groups, in worship or congregational situations, and with children.

We are capable of fine-tuning our internal self-awareness to measure our current feelings so we can accurately assess our current needs and determine where our needs fall on the urgency or importance scale as compared to the needs of those around us. We can calculate this in a split second as we become more and more skilled.

This is a skill to develop; we can become aware of this skill, learn it, practice it, catch ourselves, improve, stop ourselves before we complete errors, and generally decide to do better. As a result, all of our relationships will improve. Stretching ourselves in this way improves our interpersonal interactions and thus the quality of our relationships.

Stress and discomfort between people often emerges due to misunderstandings about perceived conflicts or actual conflicting needs. Either way, we can stop, check in with ourselves, see and assess our current feelings and needs and then proceed in the way that is best for all involved, whenever possible.

As for the wedding, I wound up not attending it at all. Since I broke my elbow and had to move my trip, that was the only time I could go within my extremely busy schedule. Before I had been treated this way by my family, I would have considered my attendance at my sister’s wedding to be more important than losing two weeks of vacation time because it was about to expire. However, since I had been treated this way by my family, I decided that I was not going to reward their behavior, I was not going to deny myself anything for people who had zero regard for my medical, legal, and professional needs, and I was not going to be physically near them until they somehow got healthier.

It has been painful, but sometimes we have to protect ourselves from very unhealthy family members by keeping a distance. Luckily, I have always had amazingly healthy and wonderful friends. It is possible to create your own family out of healthy people to whom you are not blood-related. And, often it is the best thing you can do for yourself.

During this time, I have had important support for coping with the pain of an unloving and very unhealthy family. I have also accomplished a great deal during this time; I have written two and a half books, got my first non-fiction book contract with a major publisher, outlined eight more books, invested money wisely, nearly completed mediation certification training, and did complete Emotional Intelligence Testing and Training.

I am open to having healthy relationships with my family, however they must be healthier than what they’ve been before, because I will not expose myself to the previous abusive treatment I’ve received from them. It is not worth it. I have a need to be valued and respected and to have my needs valued and respected. People who think they have a right to overrule my needs, control my choices, deliver extremely unhealthy “consequences” when I make choices they don’t want me to make, or who otherwise disregard my needs are not people I am emotionally, physically, or psychologically safe with, just as I – or anyone – would be unsafe in those same ways in a destructive cult or in an abusive relationship. All of these are examples of abuse of power and control.

If there was room here, I would post the power and control wheel and explain how all of my family’s behavior can be found on that wheel. It is extremely important to break free of groups, families, and “lovers” who wish to control you in any way. Control is abuse and can take many forms. There is very little difference between a family who does this, an abusive boyfriend or husband who hits you if you don’t do what he wants or the way he wants it, and a destructive cult group, which will try to control your Behavior, Intelligence, Thoughts, and Emotions (BITE). This is the hallmark of an abusive situation whether it’s with a group, a family, or in a relationship.

It can be control of money, control of time, control of food, control of friendships, control of your choices, control of your needs, or definition and control of your priorities, etc. Knowing your needs is an extremely important skill to develop.

Do not allow anyone or any group to control your needs or determine what your needs are. Surround yourself with people who understand, know, value, and support you. If someone loves you, they will not punish you for not attending a bridal shower; they will understand you have needs and they will want you to meet your needs and they will respect you enough to value the choices you need to make for yourself. Understanding needs and understanding the importance of respecting needs is to understand love.

Understanding and valuing our own needs helps us know and love ourselves, which is crucial. Understanding and valuing the needs of others is how we love others.

When we want everyone to get their needs met – but not at the expense of anyone’s needs, this is healthy love and healthy relating. In essence, this is heaven on earth.

Please feel free to share your own stories of family scapegoating, unloving families, destructive cults, and abusive relationships with me. Please feel free to share with me how learning about EQ or NVC has helped you make wiser choices in terms of who you will share yourself, your time, your body, your mind, you emotions, your life with.

Thanks!
Denise
www.LoveAndWorkCoach.com

Using EQ to Respond Internally and Externally to Hate

If you’re like me, you feel very sad and also angry about the hate-induced shooting of a security guard at the DC Holocaust Museum.

How can we respond to such incidents? How, if at all, can we comfort ourselves, comfort children around us, and do something to make such things less likely to happen?

I think we have to bring it home to ourselves, to our hearts and minds. We have to remember that hatred is borne of ignorance; this means we must confront it when we can. Do you have a racist or otherwise hate-filled relative? Do you say anything to him or her? Is there an unspoken rule that nobody in the family confronts this hate? Is this hate spewed around children for them to absorb and perhaps grow up believing? Are racial, ethnic, or other kinds of epithets used regularly as though they are acceptable?

The cost of hate is paid by everyone, not just those who are offended by it. As an HR/OD professional, I am often amazed at how many people apparently still use words at home with their families that are not allowed in the workplace or in schools. My question is why use them at all?

I have had uncles, cousins, and a grandfather who used hateful words about people of different races and ethnicities, and I found it reprehensible. As a child, I found it disturbing and also confusing. I remember asking my mother when I was around 12 if my uncle was the same religion we were. When she said that he was, I was further confused. How can a person who uses such hateful language about other human beings and who means it call themselves a christian? This was a man who went to church daily.

It is time for us to confront hatred in those around us. Not just in workplaces and in schools, but in our families and with our friends. Sometimes this hatred shows up in language and sometimes it shows up in forwarded email jokes.

How can we do this? We can say, “I need to let you know that I’m really uncomfortable with what you just said (or with that email you sent me). I think that making racially-based jokes only perpetuates hate and ignorance, and I don’t think they’re funny.”

Try it and see what happens. If people who speak like this hear this enough, it may occur to them that it isn’t just their speech or jokes that are problematic but their thinking that is problematic – which IS the case.

Racism, Sexism, and other “isms” are based in ignorance and selective data-collection. They are also based in fear: fear of difference, fear of the unknown, and fear of humanity and connection with others.

The Unitarian Universalist Church has a long history of anti-racist work. See the UUA website on this blog’s blogroll. What are other religions doing to address these issues? Something? Nothing? These are core issues for humans everywhere. Churches, schools, workplaces, and families MUST address the issue of hate, hate-speech, and hate-actions.

Does your child’s playmate use hate speech? Say something to the child and to the child’s parent(s). If the parents are not appalled, allow the child to play with your child, but only at your home. Do not allow your child in a home that accepts hate. And make it clear to the child that hatred is not welcome in your home or around your family.

Does a relative use hate speech? Say something to them privately. Write a letter or have a conversation. Ask that it stop. Ask to listen to this person’s feelings and thoughts on the matter, and do your best to educate this person out of the ignorance they are in.

Does someone at work use hate speech? Let them know it bothers you and is not allowed at work.

Does someone send you hate-based emails or “jokes”? Ask them to not include you in such topics.

Are you dating someone who uses hate-speech or tells racist, sexist, or otherwise hateful “jokes”? Tell them you can’t be involved with someone who thinks that way.

When more people take a direct, assertive stand against hate, those who do hate will see just how unwelcome and unacceptable it is.

If you hate or find yourself laughing at a racist joke, talk to a counselor and challenge yourself to understand how hate harms everyone of us. Imagine if you were dying and needed an organ donation and a person of another color or race wound up being your donor. Imagine if the only doctor who knew how to save you was of another race or color or religion. Imagine if someone of anther race, religion, or color saved the life of someone you love. Actions like these happen every day.

What can you do to address and stop hate around you? What WILL you do?

Thanks,
Denise
www.LoveAndWorkCoach.com

How Small Changes Can Result in Big Positive Changes

When we are courageous enough to be willing to be aware of our feelings, something big and very positive happens. It’s like a switch gets turned on, and it can’t be so easily turned off. And that’s a good thing.

Sometimes people fear feelings either because they were raised in families that didn’t express feelings or because they are afraid that if they allow themselves to feel even a little bit of feelings that a tidal wave of feelings will rush forward and drown them in uncontrollable emotions, which they imagine will be bad.

The good news is that isn’t what usually happens. And the even better news is that when we allow ourselves to have awareness of our feelings, we are even MORE in control of ourselves, not less in control. Losing control of oneself is a legitimate and common fear when someone considers increasing their own awareness of their feelings and then others’ feelings. There are fears of the above-mentioned mostly-fictional tidal wave, fears of being unable to remain poised, fears of becoming “soft” or a “doormat” or losing the ability to be assertive and strong in the world when necessary.

These are all understandable fears. However, this is what we know from decades of solid research, practice and observation: The more aware of our feelings we are, the better control we have over our lives, the better our interpersonal communications are, the better our relationships with others at home and at work are, and the better use of our own time, money, and other resources we make.

Think about it: Your spouse does something that annoys you. Instead of harshly snapping at him or her, you say to yourself, “I feel really annoyed by that. I know s/he doesn’t mean to annoy me. This is really about us sharing this space together. I do love him/her. However, it’s also really important to me that I tell her/him that I need more space in this closet, not today, but by the end of this week, if possible. I’m going to find the right time to say this and I’m going to say it in a way that will be best for our relationship because my only intention and need here is to have more space in the closet. I do NOT intend to make him/her feel badly, start a fight, or upset him/her. I will say something today, after breakfast, in a direct and gentle way”.

Similarly, this can be used at work, with friends, with kids – with anyone. Snapping at others can be an ingrained habit. But we can change our habits. We can choose to. We can tell those close to us that we’ve decided to change a habit and we can let them know we’re working on it, we may slip back, but we want them to know we’re trying and we’d like their support. Then, we can tell them what “support” means to us. Does it mean just smiling lovingly at us when we backslide? Does it mean gently pointing out to us that we slid back into the habit we’re trying to break in case we didn’t notice? Does it mean just remaining silent and letting us work on it but with us just knowing this is important? Does it mean just having them tell us they appreciate that we’re working on this and maybe why they appreciate it?

The other side of this is that we can make requests of others. We can request that our partner become more aware of his or her feelings. We can request that they support us as we become more aware of ours. We can request a 5-minute check-in time once a day or once a week. We can choose how we’ll deal with our feelings and their feelings.

We can then realize that all of these feelings require room. We must make room for these feelings, which may at first sound like a chore of some kind. However, once we realize that making room for these feelings – yours and those of others – prevents arguments, conflicts, and misunderstandings, you realize that it’s not a chore at all. It’s prevention. It’s a deepening of the reality and experiences you share together in this thing called life which is made of smaller moments all linked together – eating breakfast, taking the recycling out, having time apart and together and with friends, keeping the house orderly, deciding how to spend money or leisure time, organizing a trip, negotiating use of the computer or the bathroom or the tv. This is life. When we can do all of these things with greater awareness of our feelings, we simply do all of these things in ways that are better for ourselves and better for our partners and families.

When we are smart enough to refine these skills and bring them into the workplace in appropriate ways, we are more likely and able to get our workplace needs met also – enough time to complete projects, the schedule we need, the support and collaboration from others we need, the trainings and tools we need to be successful, and anything else we may want or need. There is no guarantee we’ll get all we want and need, but knowing that we’ve identified our needs and wants and have skillfully asked for them to be met is a very good way to make peace with our needs whether they’ve been met or not.

This one tiny change – I commit to being aware of my feelings and to expressing them skillfully – at the right time and in the best way for everyone – will yield HUGE positive changes in our lives.

If you want to know more about further developing these skills, read about Emotional Intelligence, Non-Violent Communication, and Conflict Resolution. Some recommended books are:

When Anger Scares You, Getting to Yes, The EQ Edge, Non-Violent Communication, and Coach Yourself to Success

Until next time,
Denise
www.LoveAndWorkCoach.com

The Gift of Feelings

Most of us do not receive training in how to deal with our own feelings – or should I say – most of us do not receive SKILLFUL training in how to deal with our feelings.

Feelings are a gift – they are happening all the time inside us in reaction to everything within and around us and they are like a constant temperature reading for our internal state.

We also know that feelings are very influenced by thoughts. If I believe the world is flat and not round, I will have many different feelings about alot of things than someone who believes the world is flat. I may be hesitate to go on a boat ride, I may be hesitant to fly, I may also disparage or be confused by or angry with others who disagree with me. I would find myself in a very small minority, which is often a difficult experience.

Feelings are not good or bad. They just are. When we learn how to skillfully handle our feelings, we decrease the likelihood that we will mishandle them. But what does it mean to skillfully handle feelings?

In simple language it means that we can all express our feelings when it’s our turn in a way that has integrity, has processed the feelings, and has integrated thought and knowledge into the feeling.

If I believe the world is flat but then I am exposed to undeniable proof that makes sense to me that the world is round, I will very likely change my mind and my thoughts. I will also have accompanying feelings: Shame that I was wrong for so many years, curiosity as to how this round globe works, and wonder at what else I can learn about it.

A person who refuses to open him or herself to new information or incontrovertible proof might become just angrier or argumentative. Another person may go a step further and try to convince as many people as he or she can that the world is indeed flat.

What makes us have variety in the strength of our emotional reactions? Many things.

When our physical or other sense of security is threatened by someone else’s thoughts, ideas, words, or actions, we tend to have larger reactions.

When something related to our self-definition of ourselves is threatened by someone else’s thoughts, ideas, words, or actions, we also tend to have larger emotional reactions.

Of course, we’re all very different and one person’s mild annoyance is another’s ruin of his or her day.

Notice your emotional reactions. Notice the intensity of them. Notice how small, medium, or large they are. Ask yourself why you’ve had the reaction you did.

Ask yourself how someone you admire would have reacted? Are there any differences? Do you know why?

Consider this scenario;

What if you are in a foreign country and you are accused of a minor crime which you did not commit?
How strong will your reaction be?

What if the country is known for having an unfair, corrupt judicial system very different from that in a democracy?
How strong will your reaction be?

What if the country denies you access to assistance during your accusation?
How strong will your reaction be?

What if news reports are published about this and you are interviewed? What might you say?

What would you feel and what would you say and express if you are told by a kind-hearted person who wishes to help you that your best chance for avoiding 20 years in a horrible prison is to plead guilty even though you’re innocent?
What would your feelings be? What would your actions be?

Whether we realize it or not, we are confronted with less intense forms of these questions several times a day.

Do we say something to the father we see abusing his young child in the subway or do we keep walking?
Do we tell our boss what we really think of a situation or do we remain silent?
Do we tell the truth about wrongdoing we’re aware of or do we not say a word?
Do we tell our partner we need a change in the relationship because our needs aren’t getting met or do we not say anything?
Do we try to discuss a conflict with a family member or do we drop it and hope it goes away?
Do we ask a friend for greater boundaries around an issue between us or do we not mention it?

All of these situations are inevitable conflicts we all encounter in life.

Wouldn’t it be great if as children, from grades K through 12, we were all annually taught Emotional Intelligence and Non-Violent Communication skills so we would learn how to skillfully be aware of our many feelings, learn how to be aware of our needs, learn how to communicate those at the right time and in the right way and lastly, but not least, always seek solutions for our own feelings and needs that did not do any harm to anyone else’s feelings or needs and supported the fulfillment of those for others as well.

Imagine such a world!

Start today making this a reality in your own world!

Denise

www.LoveAndWorkCoach.com