When the mind starts to play games, the voice of the heart, or of reason is drowned in the chaos of the mind. The ice-berg exercise shared in the previous post is a tool to restore balance and calm oneself. This balanced mindset helps us think from the perspective of the other. This equanimity is what comes to our aid in keeping the doors of communication open.
The more we indulge in the mind and its games, the more we lean towards life alienating or disconnecting language. Marshall Rosenberg identifies this language as the four Ds of life alienating communication. Life-alienating language, conditioned by the mind’s games, is judgmental, moralistic, denies responsibility, and is rooted in punishment and reward:
Diagnosis (judgement, criticism) – This is the most common behaviour I fall prey to. Like labelling or diagnosing my daughter as lazy or irresponsible because she did not clean her room. I miss one meditation and I label myself as undisciplined, and judge myself as a procrastinator, irresponsible. This diagnosis results in alienation, disconnection, and violence against me and the other.
Denial of responsibility – Comments like my colleague makes me angry, is a language which facilitates passing the buck. I deny responsibility for my own feelings and needs and blame my colleague. What my colleague did can be a trigger which offsets many feelings in me, but I neither acknowledge nor take responsibility for what caused those feelings. This denial is resultantly taking me further away from my own self. Because I pressurise my daughter, she may start cleaning her room, but it will be under duress. And in future she may deny her own feelings and pass the buck on saying, “I have to, or am forced to clean my room, because of my mum.” She is saying, she has no choice.
Demand – Family and close relationships have unspoken demand ingrained in them. We communicate our desires as demands, like my desire is a clean room, and I demand of my daughter to keep it clean. As a parent my tone naturally changes to that of demand and inevitably, I have robbed my children of the freedom of choice to express their desires or be the way they choose to be. The few times they try to express their needs and feelings, I shoot them down, diagnosing them as rebels, disrespectful or worse, raise my eyebrows and say, “Wonder what has happened to this generation.”
Deserve – As a continuation of the above, if the child goes ahead and does something of their own accord, which unfortunately backfires, then I won’t hesitate to rub it in their face and add to salt to their wounds with, “You deserve to be punished! Face the consequences now. This is what happens if you don’t listen to me….”. Once again, the loss is mine. I have made a wedge between my children and myself. I have shaken their self-confidence, and their self- esteem has taken a bad beating too. I have gained nothing either, a timid child, and pseudo pride of having dominated the child, and proved a point.
All the above result in the same thing, alienation of the self from Self and others. Life-affirming language, which stems from the heart, acknowledges, seeks to understand our needs and the needs of others.
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