December, 2009

The words "happy" and "happiness" come up all the time in Nonviolent Communication, sometimes as feelings and sometimes as needs. Well, recently something happened that made me take a closer look at these words and find some clarity regarding their use. I was coaching an NVC Basics class for Holly, and I told someone that feeling "happy" was just a positive judgment. Now, in the spirit of the moment I could understand that I was looking for more specific and nuanced feelings, and "happy" just seems too broad a description. I wanted tender, openhearted, assured, connected, creative, dazzled, or expansive...feelings that say something about what is happening in our being and in our bodies as we are feeling good, as well as helping us to build a larger vocabulary to describe our feelings. Happiness just seemed like a cop-out.

I realized that I was confused and I needed clarity...and some integrity for what I say in class. It was time for some self connection, and as I observed my judgments about this word "happy" I found that I was actually feeling angry. I heard a nagging Jackal (the image NVC founder Marshall Rosenberg uses for judgmental thoughts and language) voice saying "why aren't you happy?" or "you should be happier," and I felt frustrated, as if I were trapped: there is just so much more to life than this search for "happiness," right? I was thinking that this judgment that we should be happy is truly one of the most alienating thoughts in our society where one is expected not to be a bother: to be "normal," to pretend not to be depressed, be a "good" person and don't show your feelings. Happiness is a mask that we are all supposed to wear to hide the real feelings we may be having, kind of like when someone asks how you are and you just automatically say "fine." Given these thoughts I was having about the word, it was no wonder I thought happiness was a judgment...and a particularly oppressive one at that. My needs were for honesty and authenticity, not to use "happy" as a mask or default positive feeling.

After connecting with why I was averse to the word "happy," I felt liberated because I had managed to distinguish what was going on for me when I said that happiness was a judgment: happy is a perfectly valid feeling and I am totally on board with that, thank god. (It is, after all, on every list of feelings.) But there is a happiness that I hear as judgment too (and I think I may not be alone in this), a sort of "happiness jackal" with a lot of "shoulds," and it has to do with my needs for honesty and authenticity. And now I could move on from "I was wrong" to "What am I needing here?" If I hadn't had the opportunity to connect with this then I might have never been able to say that I do, in fact, feel quite happy much of the time myself. And, as an observation, I can say that I am a happy person much of the time.

Now, back to my needs for clarity and integrity: as with any feeling we don't feel it all the time, and that is okay. We also have different perceptions of feelings and needs sometimes, and it is important, I think, to be sensitive to that. From now on when someone says "I feel happy," then that will be meaningful for me, there doesn't always have to be a deeper feeling there. And my need for self awareness says that I would like to be more aware of my own feeling of happiness without letting my jackal get in the way. As well, I can now have some empathy for those who might offer me their caring thoughts and need for my well being when they say "are you happy?" I can just hear "I'm concerned for your well being and I care" instead of hearing them saying that I should really be better at being happy.