- Today I wanted to bring you a communication concept
that is one of the most important communication concepts
for thriving relationships.
As you and I know, communication is the grease
for relationships, it's what allows it to flow,
it's what makes things easy
and when communication breaks down,
that's what creates friction,
and most fights, most disagreements come from
some sort of communication breakdown,
it's either there was no communication or miscommunication
or it's how we're communicating actually gets in the way.
One of the best communication books I have ever read
is "Nonviolent Communication," by Marshall Rosenberg.
And he talks about a concept
that I wanna share with you today that can be a game changer
and is not easy to do, but when you ultimately execute it,
it's incredibly freeing and nurturing for the relationship.
And so Marshall in this book talks about three stages
to get to what's called emotional liberation.
That when most people start out in emotional slavery,
and in fact we're raised that way,
in emotional slavery states you feel responsible
for somebody else's feelings
and that if you don't act the right way,
you're gonna make them mad,
people might use a guilt trip or fear or shame
to cause you to behave a certain way
because you're responsible for making them happy,
you think about how we were raised as kids,
do this, be a good little boy, so mommy's happy,
don't do that or I'm gonna get really mad,
and so we get conditioned that we are responsible
for how other people feel, and that is emotional slavery.
In fact, stress comes and suffering comes
when we try to control that which we cannot control.
And whether or not you're aware of this,
you have no control over how somebody else feels.
Now you may object to that and say,
well, I can piss somebody off anytime I want,
I can make them happy, I can bring joy to their world,
and lemme argue that point and say, you can,
but only with their permission.
Think about this, if you walk up to somebody
and you try to piss them off but you don't have
their permission, you could say all manner of things
to somebody and try to get them to fight with you
but if they're not willing to engage
and they're coming from this place of centeredness,
it'll just go right by them, water off a duck's back.
Think about two people in the same circumstance
having completely different experiences,
the only thing that's controlling their experience
is their decision, their perspective of that experience.
Two people in cars, in stop-and-go traffic,
rush hour traffic, one person's stressed out, feeling angry,
feeling irritated for the traffic, the other person,
peace of mind, feeling great, listening to music,
same circumstance, it's that person's mindset.
So the first awareness is that you actually
do not have control over how somebody else feels,
you can influence them, but only with their permission.
And so then what Marshall talks about is then
when people become aware of this for the first time,
they'll often swing into the second stage,
which is what he calls obnoxiousness.
And I love that he calls it this
'cause that's kinda what it feels like
where once someone who's really been emotionally enslaved
to other people, I feel like they're walking on eggshells
and it's super stressful to finally free themselves of that,
they get obnoxious, they're like,
I'm not responsible for how you feel
so I'm gonna do whatever it is that I want,
you are responsible for how you feel
and you see this happening, actually
there's a big kind of social movement around this
where take responsibility for how you feel,
like I can say whatever I want,
I can sing as loud as I want in this house
and you shouldn't get annoyed
because you are responsible for how you feel,
that's the obnoxious stage.
And if you're willing to evolve through that,
you get to this place called emotional liberation.
And the way he describes emotional liberation
is that you realize that yes,
you are not responsible for other people feel,
and you're willing to take full responsibility
for how you feel, full responsibility for your intentions
and your actions and at the same time,
you're able to offer up compassion and understanding
for how somebody else feels
and seek to get their needs met along with your needs,
it's not one is greater than the other
but there's this equivalent you want both of your needs met.
And so case in point, just recently I got finished
with a large event and then this next weekend
I've got a business mastermind that I'm attending.
And I don't like to spend two weekends away from home
because my wife and I, we love to have our date nights,
I love to play with the kids on the weekend
and yet this particular weekend coming up
is one of those experiences.
And so my wife was coming to me sharing with me
how disappointed she was and how sad she is
that we're not getting a date night this weekend.
And if I was in emotional slavery,
I would take that feeling on as my responsibility
that I've created the frustration and the sadness
because I'm decided that I'm gonna go
to this business mastermind.
But moving to emotional liberation,
I can have compassion for her frustration and sadness
'cause quite frankly, I feel the same way,
there's a part of me that's frustrated
and sad that we're not gonna get that time to connect
and I know there is a way for both of us
to get our needs met, for us to create extra time,
for us to create possibly a date night during the week
even though we're not gonna have it during the weekend
or extra time on the other end of that
where I take a couple extra days off.
But not feeling responsible for somebody else's feelings
is incredibly powerful because it enables you to think
more clearly, enables you to understand their emotions
and their needs for you to understand your emotions
and needs and where they're separate
and that's key because from that place
you can find out a solution
for how to get both of your emotions and needs met.
So I challenge you, where in your own life
do you feel like you might be an emotional slavery?
In other words, feeling responsible
for how somebody else feels.
It might be with a parent, it might be with a friend
and instead of swinging into obnoxiousness,
swing into emotional liberation
where you honor how they feel,
you're compassionate for how they feel,
and you want their needs to be met
but you're not taking that on as your responsibility
because you cannot control how somebody else feels,
the only thing you can do is control how you feel,
how you act, and the intention and the love
that you are bringing to this world.
So my question for you is, what parts of your life
is this easy to practice?
And where might this be a challenge for you
to practice emotional liberation?
Go ahead and post that in the comment section below
and here is to you living an even more liberated,
even more abundant, even more amazing life,
I appreciate you, thanks for watching
and I'll see you soon.
(gentle uplifting music)