NEUROCIÊNCIA E COMUNICAÇÃO NÃO-VIOLENTA | Diálogo com Flavia Feitosa e Claudia Feitosa-Santana

Nonviolent communication is a practice, it's a process of mutual understanding which improves the quality of our relations. Nonviolent communication is a process of communication developed by Marshall Rosenberg. It provides more effective and empathetic relationships.

Where we can empathize with the need of the other. We can understand or focus better on what motivates the person to act the way they do. It is a process of understanding that goes through a few steps which, with practice, we acquire a better way, a more automatic way, to look at the other, looking at the needs of others, for what is good in the other instead of what is bad in them.

What neuroscience teaches us today, mainly the studies in neuroeconomics It is that we have a system of reasoning that is an automatic system, it is a fast system, unmediated by our consciousness but it influences our actions. So what we realize when we begin studying this we overvalue our intuitions that go well and we undervalue our intuitions that go wrong, and if we stop to realize and observe in our lives, our intuitions that go wrong are much more present than our intuitions that go well And the same thing is true for judging. Most of the times our judgments are wrong.

Neuroscience can help us to think the non-violent communication itself because in that way the non-violent communication has its step by step We can not think a walkthrough in a mechanical way, but we have some things that need to be understood so we can develop a process of nonviolent communication or be more non-violent automatically speaking, right? And the steps are observing instead of judging, the feelings, differentiating feelings from non-feelings, empathy - which is an ability to understand the needs of the other and knowing how to make requests. Then, observation, feelings, needs, and requests are the four steps.

Now how can neuroscience help us understand why the Nonviolent Communication makes so much sense? Because we, differently from other animals on the planet, we are aware that we are naturally violent, and with that we can transcend this nature in order to be better. We could say that we are naturally violent, but potentially non-violent.

We coexist with this violent nature constantly. And this is a possibility that we have to break with. With the studies of neuroscience, we have the consciousness that we are born judging.

Judging is innate for us. We only got this far because we judge all the time because if we didn't We would not have survived. But today, in a urban setting, in the civilization that we live in, this judgement took proportions that some times are exaggerated.

And then we only judge, we judge automatically, and we do not observe. Both our observation, and our judgement, because the two depend on the insight, they depend intrinsically, necessarily, on the experience of each person. And each human being has a unique experience.

This experience will influence you way of perceiving the world. Then we'll observe the same object or the same event, but we'll have different conclusions. Because they rely heavily on its context, you always look with your perspective, and you have very little condition to understand what may actually be going on with that person.

And we confuse a lot when we judge. So what do we need? We need to learn how to identifying our automatic judgment, and try to give more emphasis on observation, learn how to use more our ability of identifying from those wrong automatic judgements and this is very difficult.

It's possible, but it's difficult. When we speak of feeling in non-violent communication, for one of the most important things that I heard until now, one of the most impactful things in my experience studying this subject was the differentiation between feelings and non-feelings. When I understood the difference of feeling criticized of feeling sad, of feeling betrayed or of being angry.

The non-feelings are the moments I I am empowering the other of how I'm feeling. So what do I do when I am empowering myself, or what do we do with the other, when we're empowering them of how they feel, it is about looking at myself, closing my eyes, and observing: What's happening to me? And then I connect with the goose bumps, with pain, with tightness in the chest, with a very strong heat, Heart pounding, these are the clues, they are great clues, that allow me to better understand what I'm feeling.

And then when I have a clearer picture of my feelings I have better conditions to understand what motivates me, what are the needs behind my behavior. So, these clues from my body are nowadays, in neuroscience, what we call emotion. Emotions are innate they are physiological.

And these emotions, they generate feelings. Sometimes the emotion itself is feeling in itself, and since we have a sophisticated language, we can identify these emotions with some other feelings but they are all exclusively ours. This physiological question It is what we call emotion, and the feeling is the interpretation of that emotion.

It's an easier way for us to observe our body and realize which clues it's giving us so we can better understand what we're feeling. And what are the needs? The needs are what is good that beats inside of me what makes me behave the way I'm behaving.

Marshall says that our conflicts They are in the field of our strategies, and that in the field of needs It is where we meet, where we are equal. Because it is when I look at the other with greater capacity for empathy, with understanding, that I can understand which in fact they want. And that makes us avoid a number of issues.

Yes, and contrary to what people think empathy is not exclusive to humans. We are born knowing how to empathize. We are empathetic.

So in fact, it's even easier to train our empathy than even to be completely non-violent. Empathy is in the animal world as well as in humans. The more you practice exercise of empathy with the needs of the other it gets easier and easier.

Well, and then when we passed through the first step, when I observe better what's happening, when I empower myself of my feelings and don't confuse myself with the other, I know what's going on with me, I look at the others with more caring eyes then I can take the fourth step of nonviolent communication which is the request. Yes, but the request is very difficult because the request must be specific and since our language is something recent in our evolution It is much easier to be generic than to be specific. It is much easier to talk all the time than to talk in the last three days about that same thing that happened.

So when we're doing the practice of requesting, we need to be able to combine it with expressing our feelings, our needs, in order to make the other clearly understand what it is that we want. To clearly understand why it is that we're asking, and what we want from them. And what you're telling me is that that is not easy because we do not have all that training of language in the same way that we have a bit of difficulty with our feelings.

A process of understanding that goes through some steps that with practice we aquire a better way, a more automatic way to look at the other, looking at the other person's needs, for what is good in them and not for what is bad. So, I change a relationship of distrust a relationship of power, of dependency, for more autonomous relationships, with more trust, with the possibility of building win-win relationships. We learn from Nonviolent Communication, to be more sincere with ourselves.

After all, if it was not for the arduous and difficult practice of non-violent communication, the two of us would not be sitting here today. Yeah, for sure . .

. I think that it has been a journey of few years and we can still evolve a little more, right? Absolutely.

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