What We Say Matters

What We Say Matters Plot Summary

Introduction

Sara's family dinner was headed for disaster. Her teenage son had just slammed his bedroom door after a heated exchange about his messy room. Her husband was sighing loudly, clearly annoyed by the conflict. In that pivotal moment, Sara faced a choice: continue down the familiar path of escalation or try something different. Taking a deep breath, she remembered the communication skills she had been practicing. Instead of banging on her son's door with demands, she waited until she felt centered, then knocked gently. "When I see clothes on the floor, I feel concerned because I value cleanliness and order," she said. "Would you be willing to talk about how we can both have our needs met?" Her son's surprise was evident—this wasn't the argument he expected. Within minutes, they were problem-solving together rather than fighting against each other. This simple yet profound shift in communication illustrates the heart of mindful speech. The words we choose and how we express them create either connection or distance with those around us. Through conscious communication, we can transform our relationships, deepen our understanding of ourselves, and create more compassionate communities. By combining ancient wisdom from yoga philosophy and Buddhism with modern communication science, we learn that speaking our truth doesn't have to harm others. In fact, when we speak from a place of self-awareness and empathy, our words become a powerful force for positive change. As we explore the principles of Nonviolent Communication and apply them in our daily interactions, we discover that what we say truly matters—not just for the moment, but for creating the kind of world we want to live in.

Chapter 1: The Power of Truth: How Satya Transforms Communication

The ancient teachings of yoga and Buddhism share common ground when it comes to speech. In yoga philosophy, satya (truthfulness) is one of the five yamas or restraints recommended for practitioners. The Yoga Sutra teaches that when one is grounded in truthfulness, their words naturally align with reality. Yet satya is secondary to ahimsa (non-harming), suggesting that truth should never be wielded as a weapon. Similarly, Buddhism's eightfold path includes "right speech"—communication that furthers the speaker's practice and contributes to others' well-being, rejecting gossip, slander, and untruths. For Judith and Ike, understanding these principles was easier than applying them. How could they determine if they were practicing "right speech" when there was no clear measurement? Unlike mastering a yoga pose like Headstand, which has observable indicators of success, the practice of mindful speech seemed subjective and elusive. This changed when they discovered Nonviolent Communication (NVC), which offered concrete techniques to embody these ancient values. The power of speech lies in two dimensions. First, how we phrase our thoughts reflects our deeper beliefs about the world. Our words mirror our thoughts, our thoughts mirror our beliefs, and our unexamined beliefs control our reality. If we continually tell ourselves we're worthless, we begin acting accordingly, and others respond to that energy. The second dimension is even more profound: what we say literally changes the world. Our expressions affect not only our thinking but how we connect with others. When connection is prioritized, communication transforms. Consider what happens in a typical disagreement about tardiness. One person might say, "Where were you? Why are you so late?" expressing anger instead of their underlying concern or fear. This approach typically triggers defensiveness rather than connection. The conversation becomes about who was "right" instead of addressing each person's feelings and needs. Both parties suffer in this exchange. Through mindful speech practices, we learn to pause before speaking, connect with our authentic feelings, and express ourselves in ways that invite understanding rather than opposition. This internal shift of awareness allows our words to flow from a place of truth and compassion. When we speak from this centered space, we're more likely to create the connection we truly desire and contribute to a world where communication heals rather than harms.

Chapter 2: Nonviolent Communication: The Four Essential Components

On her first day attending Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication workshop, Judith found herself squirming uncomfortably in her seat. She watched as Rosenberg engaged with various participants, each interaction resulting in laughter, tears, or profound connection. "How does he do that?" she wondered. It seemed like magic. Years later, after extensive training, she came to understand that what appeared magical was actually a learnable process—one that offers practical applications of satya and right speech. The four basic steps of NVC provide a framework, though not a rigid formula. The first step is making observations—describing what happened without judgment, like a camera recording events. For example, saying "John arrived ten minutes after our agreed meeting time" rather than "John was late." This distinction matters because judgments often derail conversations into arguments about who's right. When parents tell teenagers "Your room is a mess," the typical response is defensive: "It's not a mess!" Rather than connection, this creates opposition. The second step involves naming feelings. Feelings are emotions connected to bodily sensations that signal whether our needs are being met. If we feel happy, content, or energized, our needs are likely being met. If we feel sad, lonely, or irritated, our needs may be unmet. An important distinction: saying "I feel abandoned" isn't expressing a pure feeling because it involves judgment about another's actions. Instead, "I feel lonely and afraid" expresses the actual emotion without attributing blame. The third step is expressing needs—what arises naturally when life expresses itself. All humans share needs for survival (food, water, shelter), connection (touch, understanding, respect), and meaning (creativity, purpose, spiritual connection). Needs aren't the same as strategies for meeting them. For instance, wanting a specific job is a strategy that might meet needs for security, creativity, or contribution. When couples argue about vacation destinations—beach versus mountains—they're arguing about strategies while sharing the same underlying needs for rest and enjoyment. The final step is making a request—asking specifically for what would meet our needs in the present moment. Effective requests are concrete, doable, and present-focused: "Would you be willing to make your bed within the next five minutes?" rather than "Would you show me that you love me?" The key difference between requests and demands lies in how we respond when someone says no. If we react with pressure or punishment, we were making a demand. True requests leave space for authentic choice. While learning these components may initially feel mechanical, the syntax eventually becomes second nature, allowing for more natural expression that maintains the intention of connection. As Marshall Rosenberg reminds us, the underlying purpose isn't perfect word choice but connecting with ourselves first, then with others, to create mutually satisfying outcomes.

Chapter 3: Self-Connection: The Foundation of Authentic Speech

Early in her NVC practice, Judith struggled with a statement Marshall Rosenberg made: "Never do anything that doesn't give you the joy of a three-year-old feeding a hungry duck." Her immediate reaction was resistance: "Well then, I wouldn't do half my life. We have to do things we don't want to do, or life would fall apart." This triggered a cycle of internal judgments—judging herself for judging herself—a common pattern that shapes how we relate to our inner dialogue. Growing up, Judith absorbed messages from family, culture, and religion that taught her to deny her own needs. She learned to get her needs met through the strategy of not asking for what she needed, fearing judgment for being "needy" or demanding. Her motto became "I live to serve." Many people, especially women, are conditioned this way—trained to attend to everyone else's needs while denying their own. The problem with this approach is that it sets the stage for self-violence. When we act from this place, we're not contributing to the peaceful world we want to create. To develop greater self-awareness, Judith created what she calls the "duck index"—a scale from 1 to 10 measuring her enthusiasm for activities. She decided not to do anything below a 6 on her index. When her husband Ike invited her to a movie she didn't want to see, she checked in with herself and responded, "That's a 3 on my duck index." But rather than ending the conversation there, she added, "But seduce me with your needs." This acknowledgment opened space for negotiation. When Ike expressed his needs for fun, entertainment, and companionship, Judith's internal rating shifted from a 3 to a 5—not enough for her to attend, but enough to inspire them to brainstorm other ways they might both get their needs met. The entire conversation took just ten minutes and left them feeling connected rather than frustrated. This approach demonstrates that honoring our own needs doesn't make us selfish—it actually creates clearer, more authentic relationships. Another powerful practice involves hearing everything others say as either "please" or "thank you." When a pedestrian yelled at Judith for driving into a crosswalk, calling her a "stupid driver," she translated his words into "Please hear how afraid I was that you might have hit me." This translation generated compassion rather than defensiveness or shame. Similarly, when people offer compliments, hearing them as "Thank you for meeting my needs" removes the burden of maintaining a "good" identity and creates partnership instead. Through these practices of self-connection, we become more present with ourselves and others. This presence is the hallmark of spiritual practice and the foundation for speech that creates true connection rather than conflict.

Chapter 4: Communication Choices: Navigating Difficult Conversations

During an international trip near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in 2002, Ike and his colleague John found themselves negotiating access to a refugee camp housing 1,100 families who had fled violence in Afghanistan. Lieutenant Colonel Abdula Hafeez, the skeptical security chief, resisted their request to offer conflict resolution training. After ten minutes of unsuccessful attempts to "sell" their program, they shifted strategies—they began guessing what the officer might be feeling and needing. Within minutes, the colonel's demeanor transformed. He leaned forward, wrote out a comprehensive access pass, and arranged for the camp elders to meet them. This encounter demonstrates the power of empathic connection, one of four fundamental communication choices we can make in any interaction. The first choice is silent self-empathy—connecting with your own feelings and needs before engaging with others. When judgments arise, asking yourself what you're feeling and needing creates space between reaction and response. The second choice is self-expression—stating aloud what's happening within you using observation language, feeling words, and needs statements, followed by a clear request. The third choice is giving empathy—either silently or aloud—to the other person. In the refugee camp, Ike and John offered empathy to tribal leaders who expressed pain about unfulfilled promises and years of displacement. With each empathic guess about feelings and needs, they witnessed remarkable transformations—the speakers would fall silent, eyes lowering, muscles relaxing, tears glistening. After cycles of empathy, one elder remarked, "If we could do this, we would have no more war." The fourth choice is making a request—asking specifically for what would meet your needs. Requests come in two forms: action requests (asking someone to do something specific) and process requests (asking for reflection on what was said or how it was received). When teaching yoga, Judith realized that every instruction is essentially a request. Saying "Utthita Trikonasana" is asking students to move into Triangle Pose. But the effectiveness depends on how the request is made—with demand energy or with respect for autonomy. Navigating difficult conversations becomes more manageable when we consciously choose which communication approach best serves the situation. When conflict arises, we might begin with silent self-empathy, shift to empathic listening to understand the other's perspective, express our own feelings and needs without blame, and finally make a clear request that could meet everyone's needs. This choreography of connection requires practice but yields profound results. The communication choices we make aren't just techniques—they represent a fundamental shift in how we view human interaction. Rather than trying to control others or protect ourselves through habitual patterns, we learn to dance between self-awareness and empathic understanding, creating genuine connection even in challenging circumstances.

Chapter 5: Relationship Communication: Partners, Children, and Colleagues

"Are you thirsty?" Judith asked Ike during a car trip. When he simply replied "No," she felt irritated. Why? Because in her family culture, asking if someone else was thirsty was an indirect way of saying "I'm thirsty." Her irritation stemmed from a pattern of disguising her needs by making them seem about others. Through NVC practice, she learned to say directly: "I'm thirsty. Would you be willing to stop for water? Anyone else want some?" This shift represented the essence of truthful speech. Intimate relationships provide our greatest opportunities for communication growth. Women often absorb the cultural message that they shouldn't have needs, while men learn to suppress feelings. This creates a challenging dynamic: we feel safer when our partners reveal their feelings (since unexpressed feelings register as aggression), yet many of us hide vulnerability to protect ourselves from judgment. Breaking this pattern requires consciously creating safety for emotional expression. When asking partners to meet our needs, Marshall Rosenberg suggests a powerful reframe: what if we viewed our requests as gifts rather than burdens? Instead of believing our needs inconvenience others, we can offer them as opportunities for connection. This "becoming Santa Claus" approach transforms how we ask for what we want. Rather than manipulating or demanding, we invite our partners to contribute to our well-being, which can be deeply satisfying for both parties. Parenting provides another arena for communication practice. When Judith's teenage daughter wanted to attend a late-night concert, her initial reaction was "In your dreams!" Recognizing that power struggles would only damage their relationship, she instead said, "I hear you're excited about the concert, but I have concerns. Would you spend ten minutes brainstorming ways we could both get our needs met?" By acknowledging her daughter's needs for adventure and fun while expressing her own need for safety, they quickly reached a solution that satisfied both—her older brother would accompany them, and they'd return by midnight. Interestingly, her daughter came home earlier than required because the concert was too loud—she felt free to choose rather than compelled to rebel. In workplace settings, communication challenges take different forms. Ike recalls cross-examining a government witness in federal court using traditional adversarial techniques, which backfired spectacularly. The witness began seeing him as "a sexist pig trying to control and demean her." The next day, he tried a different approach: "I'm concerned about the time it's taking to complete your testimony. Would you be willing to just answer my questions and save explanations for later?" Despite his racing heart—fearing someone would object to this unorthodox approach—the witness agreed, and the examination proceeded smoothly. Whether with partners, children, or colleagues, mindful communication involves seeing beyond immediate conflicts to the underlying needs. When we focus on connection rather than control, our relationships transform from battlegrounds into opportunities for mutual growth and understanding.

Chapter 6: Dealing with Anger: Transforming Reactivity into Connection

One day, Judith decided to count every instance of frustration, irritation, or anger she experienced. Using a handheld counter, she tallied an astonishing sixty-seven episodes by day's end. This experiment revealed how pervasive anger is in daily life, often operating below our conscious awareness. According to Marshall Rosenberg, anger—along with shame, guilt, and depression—belongs to a special category of feelings that arise from judgments about how the world should be. Unlike emotions such as joy or disappointment, which exist on their own, anger typically masks other feelings—usually hurt, fear, or frustration. To test this theory, Judith recalled something that had angered her and noticed she was mentally repeating, "How could he say that to me? Who does he think he is?" When she shifted attention to sensations in her belly, she discovered what was really alive in her: hurt. Moving between her thoughts (which triggered anger) and her bodily sensations (which revealed hurt) several times, she realized anger was serving as a protective strategy, a wall against vulnerability. This pattern plays out universally. At a seminar, Judith noticed a man across the room whom she immediately labeled "the angry man" and deliberately sat far away from him. Ironically, he came and sat beside her, becoming her partner for several exercises. This illustrated another truth about anger: if we're living with unresolved anger, we tend to attract it in others and scan our environment looking for it—and we always find it. A Buddhist story illuminates this dynamic. A monk meticulously restored an abandoned rowboat he found by a lake. One misty day while rowing his beautiful boat, another boat crashed into it, damaging the prow. The monk became furious, thinking, "Who would be so careless?" But as the boat drifted closer, he saw it was empty—it had simply drifted into his boat. Immediately, his anger dissolved. There was no one to blame. As the story teaches, "Everything is an empty rowboat." Another obstacle to connection is what NVC calls "enemy images"—moralistic judgments about ourselves or others being evil or wrong. These judgments inevitably leak into our interactions through body language, expression, and tone, even when we don't verbalize them. Carrying enemy images into conversations virtually guarantees disconnection. The practice isn't to abandon our values or pretend harmful actions aren't harmful, but to see beyond behavior to the human being who, like us, is suffering. Even our response to interruption can reflect reactivity or connection. Rather than feeling disrespected when someone speaks while we're talking, we can choose to hear their enthusiasm to share something. Similarly, sometimes interrupting others can be an act of honesty—if we're no longer able to listen attentively, it's more truthful to say so than to pretend engagement while mentally checking out. Through practices of self-awareness and empathy, we can transform anger from a wall that separates us into a doorway that leads to deeper understanding. When we hear the needs behind our own and others' reactivity, we create possibilities for genuine connection that weren't available before.

Chapter 7: Speech as Practice: Creating Positive Change in the World

The day after 9/11, Judith and Ike held their regularly scheduled NVC practice group. Participants arrived feeling a range of emotions—anger, fear, sadness, shock. In a powerful exercise, Judith was asked to empathize with Osama bin Laden by guessing his potential needs. As she identified needs for power and respect for his religion—needs she also recognized in herself—something remarkable happened. Her anger began to dissolve, replaced by compassion. While still believing bin Laden's actions were unacceptable and deserving of consequences, she realized that hating him would make her no different from him. As Buddha taught, "Hate never dispels hate; only love dispels hate." This principle was dramatically demonstrated when Ike encountered an aggressive panhandler on a city street. Following their safety plan, Judith moved across the street with their friend while Ike engaged with the man. When the tall stranger leaned in demanding money, Ike chose empathy rather than fear or aggression: "I'm feeling afraid with you so close; would you be willing to step back?" With each round of empathic guessing about the man's needs for respect and acknowledgment, the stranger's posture visibly shifted—leaning back, standing taller, becoming more centered. After the fourth exchange, the man leaned forward with tears in his eyes and put his head on Ike's shoulder. Only then did Ike offer money, now feeling it was a choice rather than coercion. A potentially violent situation transformed into connection and compassion in just minutes. These experiences demonstrate how conscious speech can create profound change in the world. Two practices are particularly important in this process: mourning and celebrating. When we've contributed to someone's suffering through our words or actions, traditional apologies often focus on guilt or self-punishment. NVC suggests a different approach: mourning with awareness by acknowledging what happened, connecting with the needs we were trying to meet through our actions, and committing to different choices in the future. Similarly, celebration isn't about bragging but about recognizing when our needs for cooperation, connection, or contribution have been met, and sharing that joy with others. The work of social change through mindful communication can be challenging. A story illustrates this dilemma: A man standing by a river notices a baby floating by. As he rescues it, he sees more babies in the water. Soon the river is filled with babies needing rescue. He faces a choice: stay where he is saving as many as possible, or run upstream to stop whoever is putting babies in the river. This reflects the question many face: Do we help individuals in immediate need, or work to change the systems creating suffering? The answer is that we can do both. By practicing awareness in our own speech, we create ripples of change that extend far beyond our immediate interactions. When we connect with ourselves and others at the level of feelings and needs, we contribute to a world where conflicts are resolved through understanding rather than violence. Our words matter not just for the moment but for the future we want to create—a world where communication builds bridges rather than walls, and where our shared humanity is recognized even in our deepest differences.

Summary

The journey through mindful speech reveals a profound truth: our words create our reality. When we speak from reaction, judgment, or unexamined beliefs, we perpetuate cycles of disconnection that leave everyone suffering. But when we pause to connect with ourselves—identifying our observations without judgment, recognizing our feelings, honoring our needs, and making clear requests—we transform not only our conversations but our relationships and communities. The practices shared throughout this exploration offer a pathway to authentic communication that honors both ancient wisdom and modern psychology. By distinguishing observations from judgments, feelings from thoughts, needs from strategies, and requests from demands, we create space for genuine connection even in challenging circumstances. Whether navigating difficult family dynamics, workplace tensions, or societal conflicts, the core principles remain the same: connect with yourself first, seek to understand others, express your truth without blame, and make requests that invite collaboration rather than compliance. These skills aren't merely techniques for better conversations—they're practices that align our speech with our deepest values and contribute to the world we wish to create. As we become more conscious of how our words shape our connections, we discover that each interaction offers an opportunity to practice peace, one conversation at a time.

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Judith Hanson Lasater

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