Stop Being Nice

This is an English summary of the Dutch book: “Stop met Aardig Zijn” by Thomas D’ansembourg. It is about recognising your feelings and underlying needs, and finding ways to communicate them in a non-violent way.

We have taught ourselves that in order to be with someone, we have to be someone else, i.e. not ourselves. A central question in this book is therefor how to be yourself without losing presence of the other. How to be with someone without trying to be someone else?

Why we are disconnected from ourselves, our feelings and needs

We can identify a number of different ‘parts’ of ourselves, each with its own function and methods.

Mind or consciousness

This part’s has four characteristic behaviours, which are often the cause of violence to ourselves and others.

1. Judging, labelling and categorising: we judge people and responses on very limited observatory proof.
2. Prejudges: by thinking of patterns or stereotypes, we disconnect ourselves from others and put others in an equally separated space.
   1. We don’t dare to say or do things, even though they might be important for us.
   2. We do things we don’t like because we ‘simply have to,’ not questioning if this is really true.
3. Binary system, duality: we think in black-and-white terms, it is either one or the other. Similarly, we are used to thinking either choosing for yourself or for the other, without thinking of a way that can work for both.
4. Language to rid ourselves of responsibility: we do not take any responsibility for our feelings. We blame the way we feel on something, or someone external, refusing to look deeper within ourselves for causes and possible solutions.

Feelings

Our main mode of operation prefers mind-based thinking and disconnects us from our feelings. We are taught to respond by what is rational, rather than by how something makes us feel.

Our capacity to act is based on our ability to read and describe the situation. Since we spent so little time reading and interpreting our feelings, we are little equipped to act on them.

Needs

Needs should not be confused with desires. Needs are the basic necessities that require fulfilment in order for us to be at peace. Some important examples that hold true for everyone include a sense of identity, respect, acknowledgement, acceptance, space and reciprocal support. Our needs teach us about our underlying values.

What happens when we are disconnected from our needs?

1. We are uncapable of making decisions that are important to us, and hope someone or something else makes the decisions for us. We are often better equipped to do this in our work, but we become paralysed when the decision concerns an important relationship or ourselves.
2. We are addicted to other people’s gaze. Because we are unable to recognise our own needs, we base our worth on the opinions others have of us. Even worse is our effort to try to be the that we think the other person would want us to be.
3. We feel like the other’s needs trump our own, and that we’re not good enough to voice our own.

Even when our needs aren’t met, it’s still desirable to recognise them. The most painful suffering is not knowing where we suffer from.

Communicating our needs in a way that isn’t clear and concise will be interpreted by the receiver as a threat to their ego. When someone invites you to do something you’ve always been enthusiastic about and you answer with “no, I have no time,” will be perceived by the other as not being important—not being good enough. Instead, explaining that you’ve had a rough week (O), that you feel tired and worn-out (F) and really need a weekend off for some peace of mind (N) with the request to do something else, or something another time (R), you clearly that the response because of you, and not the other.

Working from observation (O), to feelings (F), rooted in needs (N) and formulating a clear request (R) is a method often used in this book.

When we feel like our needs are not recognised, we often blind ourselves from seeing that they are. By consistently thinking that we are not understood or appreciated we give ourselves a victim identity.

The request

When we are able to voice our needs in a concise manner, we are no longer dependent on others to perceive the need and fulfil it. Here it is important to make a distinction between the need from form. The latter is the way through which the need is fulfilled, rather than the need itself.

By communicating the need beyond the request, beyond the form, we give ourselves and the other space for alternative solutions. Reason being that needs can usually be fulfilled in multiple, alternative ways, while a form-request is already pre-defined.

We avoid misunderstanding by both the other and ourselves about the situation from which a need is produced.

Becoming aware of what you really feel

People that radiate ease and joie de vivre (zest for life) do not prioritise more or more intense activities or connections, but rather in nurturing the quality and attention to the things they are doing and the relationships that they maintain (starting with themselves).

Reasons why such a mindset is uncommon and hard to develop:

1. We rarely perceive reality as she really is, but rather as how we fear or hope it would be.
2. We base our responses on impressions and presumptions and don’t even try to see what we actually feel We don’t allow ourselves space to be.
3. We act on the basis of external criteria: habits, traditions, (self-)imposed obligations and fear of other’s opinions about us.
4. Due to our lack to recognise and acknowledge our needs and our capacity to deal with them in a proper way, we disown our needs to pleasure others—to be nice. Because we do not take responsibility for our own needs, we expect someone else to recognise them, even though we ourselves might not know what they are. When our needs are not fulfilled, we blame others.

This book teaches us to formulate concise requests that allows us to take the fulfilment of our own needs as our own responsibility. This process has four steps or phases, elaborated below.

Observing without judgement or interpretation

Fundamental to non-violent communication is to observe things as they are, i.e. as a camera would see them. Become aware of how you are interpreting the things you see, and learn to translate them to objective observations.

Feeling without judgement or interpretation

Feelings are the doorway to our needs. However, we should realise that we are the ones responsible for our feelings, and their interpretation, not someone else. If we hold the other responsible, we will never be the ones to act upon it.

It is important to distinguish genuine feelings from quasi-feelings, i.e. feelings that have an implicit interpretation of the situation. E.g., you feel like you’ve been abandoned by someone (quasi-feeling) or you might simply feel alone (feeling). Because the former makes the other responsible, you will see them as the person responsible for resolving the feeling too. Journaling is an effective endeavour to do this quality-check, and to confirm weather or not the feeling is genuine.

Recognising and acknowledging our feelings without projecting them on someone else

Becoming aware of our needs helps us to acknowledge they exist, whoever we are with.

The core question here is “how can I be with the other without losing myself, without trying to be someone else for that person?” We think that to be there for ourselves we have to distance ourselves from others, and that to be there for others we have to temporarily let go of ourselves.

Needs are different from desires. It is important to acknowledge our needs for three reasons:

1. It enables us to take matters into our own hands, instead of ‘being lived.’
2. It opens our mind to solutions, and stimulates creativity.
3. By becoming aware of our needs, we give it space to exist. It gives us positive energy when we allow parts of ourselves to exist.

For us, it is more important to acknowledge our needs than to fulfil them.

Propose something concrete, realistic, positive, that is up for discussion

A request to fulfil your needs should be concrete in that the other understands where it comes from and what it (exactly) entails. It should also be realistic. We often want something too big, so start by asking what the smallest thing would be that would help you in the right direction. Requests should be positive and negotiable.

Becoming aware of what the other really feels

Many troubles in relationships can be prevented by checking if the other person was properly understood. By repeating the other’s needs or rephrasing them we can assure we understood them correctly.

Many of us are positioned in the area of mistrust. Here, we are afraid to express ourselves, to be who were are, with our insufficiencies and our talents, with our contradictions, weaknesses and vulnerabilities. We are scared to develop our talents, creativity, identity, fantasy and versatility. We wear a mask to hide ourselves from others.

Similarly, we are afraid to really listen to others, to hear their problems and stories. We cut ourselves off or reduce our ability to listen and open up. The fact that the other is different from us makes us uncertain and vulnerable. We give ourselves the idea that we can no longer be ourselves or that we need to meet the other’s expectations, or what we think their expectations would be.

Many of our relationships are therefor guided by fear, which takes a tremendous tole on our mental capacity and well-being.

Our escape lies in the ability to convert this fear into trust and curiosity.

Ask yourself; am I acting from the desire to love (liked) or the fear of not being loved (liked).

We often say we look for a partner who can cover our deficiencies, while in reality, we look for a partner with whom we can share our brilliances.

The best way to move past negative emotions is to allow yourself to experience them fully; to go through them. By avoiding to confront it, being hard on yourself about it (saying that you shouldn’t feel this or that) or thinking that you can get over it you let these feelings dictate your life.

We should look at suffering as an opportunity to learn something about ourselves and about how we want our lives to be, not as something to fight or renounce.

Four steps are described to engage in a relationship with the needs of ourselves and of others:

1. Learn to be. In the case of yourself, allow yourself to experience what you are feeling without judging or looking for solutions or next steps. When with others, sometimes all they needs is someone that just listens—truly listens, without giving advice or other responses.
2. Give attention to the feelings and needs that emerge.
3. Speak needs aloud. In order to see if the need was interpreted correctly, we should speak them out loud, both for ourselves as for others.
4. Observe the peace of mind that emerges from the acknowledged needs.

We do not take the time to understand each other, but we do take time for misunderstandings.

The encounter

Before we can reach the other, we first need to be able to come to ourselves. It’s impossible to really reach out to the other when you neglect yourself.

We have gotten used to spend more time and energy on our material life rather than our emotional life.

When we don’t really know ourselves and when we our out of touch with our internal experience,, we start being afraid of intimacy, with ourselves and with others.

Security and purpose, two keys to freedom

We have learned to do, not to be We want to do everything in our power to please the other, but we’ve forgotten how to simply be ourselves. We are convinced that we are responsible for the other’s well-being and are incapable of simply being there for them.

Essentially, to help someone, all we need to do is be there, and give attention to, and trust the other’s own power and capabilities to relief their pain or solve their problem. Its impossible to have such kind of trust when we lack self-confidence.

When we think we are being there for someone, most of the time, we are actually busy with ourselves.

Because we have learned to meet another’s expectations and be there for them, we expect others to do the same for us. Because of this, we don’t learn to love others for who they are, but for who we think they should be.

Because we don’t allow ourselves to be ourselves, we likely impair the other to do the same.

We experience our differences with someone else as a threat or risk. We are doubtful and distrustful, rather than curious.

Because we have learned to please others we are never, and can’t ever be convinced to be doing the right thing, at the right time, at to the right extent. Because of this, we risk living in a constant mode of fear. We are scare about the other’s reaction and uncertain about out own competences and qualities. Distrust and doubt become our mode of life. The other becomes the judge whose judgement determines our happiness.

‘Being nice’ out of fear for loss, rejection or criticism is a mask that constricts the truth and dries up vitality. By constantly being nice, some people lose touch with who they are, they become a nice dead person no identity, no personality and no life that’s their own.

Often, in the short run, it is easier to be nice than to be real.

Coming to yourself takes time and energy.

Engaging in a relationship with such a nice person is exhausting and frightening, since you constantly have to think what their real intentions, needs or desires would be. To be in a comfortable relationship, we need to be able to trust that yes means yes.

Ask yourself or the other “are you being nice or are you being real?”

Since we experience a clash in opinions as something negative and threatening, and since we perceive obedience as a virtue, we not only find it hard to say “no,” but also simply to observe that we disagree.

Hence, we often say “yes” to be nice, and to avoid conflict.

The ability to say “no” originates from a number of core values that resonate with most of us:

1. respect for feelings and needs of both the other as ourselves.
2. autonomy to make space and take the time to inquire what you really feel and need.
3. responsibility to listen to different concerns and carefully consider the needs at play; not the other at the cost of my own, not myself at the cost of the other.
4. power to disagree and propose a solution. The power to be yourself when this might not be what’s expected of you.

By getting used to saying “no” in ‘safe’ situations, we make it easier for ourselves to say “no” in situations that are more difficult. By recognising and acknowledging our needs we get better at knowing what things we say “yes” to. As a consequence, we get more comfortable with saying “no” in a more constructive and creative way. We learn that saying “no” is not something against the other (or ourselves) personally.

Saying “no” to something is always implying saying “yes” to something else. Saying “no” to a night’s out with friends is saying “yes” to a night’s good sleep. It’s important to recognise both the ‘no’ and ‘yes,’ both for ourselves and others.

Fear of conflict is the reflection of a desperate search for another’s approval, even though conflict can become a chance to grow.

Informing others and sharing values

It is a good idea to re-evaluate the things with which we fill our lives. When a ‘I need to’ is not supported by a strong ‘I want to,’ you should reconsider why you are allowing this thing to take up your energy and time. Equally, we might be doing things with strong reluctance, but realising which values are behind them can make doing them much more enjoyable. E.g., you shouldn’t take out the trash because you ‘have to,’ but because you value order, tidiness, hygiene, comfort, health and beauty. It’s hard to justify why we do what we do to others when we have never reflected on this ourselves.

Most of us are actually more comfortable with coercion, and uncomfortable with freedom. Freedom is new and gives rise to fear of the unknown.

It’s an unhealthy not to allow ourselves to express our vitality and share our discontent or disagreement.

The model

The book proposes two practical tips to put the previous theory in practice.

Three minutes, three times a day

Learning a new language, sports or skill requires a method, dedication, precision and discipline. The method proposed in this book is ‘three minutes, three times per day.’

What it entails: Three times a day, for three minutes, listen to yourself, without judging, blaming, advises or solution-seeking. Three minutes to get in tough with yourself, to see what is going on.

When we do this regularly, we learn to know where our life spirit is, what our body tells us, which needs are met and which needs aren’t.

Consciousness-hygiene

When we cherish the energy we get from what is going right in life, we find the force to deal with the things that could be better. I.e., acknowledge what is going well or better so that we find the energy to keep at it.