Hatred as an obstacle to connecting honesty and empathy

Being able to listen to others empathically doesn’t come naturally. With some people it’s easy, with others it seems impossible to put yourself in their shoes. What makes empathy harder with certain people?

The same goes for connecting honesty. With one person, you can naturally say what bothers you without making accusations, while with another you can’t seem to say anything without a reproachful or cynical undertone. To listen empathically, it’s important that you can see the other person as a valuable human being who is OK. Listening to someone you regard as an equal, someone you appreciate, is easy. You can direct your attention without being hindered by judgments or blame. Empathy becomes difficult or even impossible when you can no longer see what’s human and valuable in the other person. When you see or hear the other person as not OK, everything you hear gets filtered through the lens of the judgments you’re wearing. The same applies when expressing your frustration in an NVC way: it’s important to see the other person as a human being who is OK.

Holding persistent judgments about someone is what we call having an “enemy image” in NVC. The enemy image blocks every form of compassion and empathy. Enemy images are sometimes deliberately cultivated. By loading someone up with negative judgments, the capacity for human contact with that person becomes virtually impossible. Everything the other person does or says is seen as bad, not OK, wrong.

What can you do when you notice that an enemy image or hatred is getting in the way of communicating in a connecting way?

1. First, try to relax into the fact that you have this enemy image. Don’t blame yourself for having feelings of hatred toward the other person. It is what it is. And it’s probably the best way you’ve had so far to deal with the situation. Try to look at it with mild acceptance. “What I’m going through is something very human.”
2. Make an inventory of the judgments you have about the other person. Look at them with some mildness: “Well, look at all these judgments sitting in my head…” Write the judgments down if you like, leaving white space so you can add things later.
3. Turn the judgments around so you can see the needs that are going unmet. Write the needs you discover in the white spaces next to the judgments. For example, judgment: I think that man is terribly cynical! Underlying need: I need friendliness, contact, equality. Another judgment: I think she’s terribly sneaky. Underlying need: I need sincerity, openness, honesty.
4. Direct your attention to what you feel when these needs are not being met. You may notice the primary feelings that were overshadowed by the judgments you had about the other person. Allow the primary feelings in and feel them. You’ll probably feel a mix of sadness, frustration, concern. Take time to feel. Feelings mainly want to be felt. This feeling may bring a kind of inner calm.
5. The feelings of hatred will likely dissolve gradually. Especially through feeling the primary feelings in relation to the unmet needs, the enemy image gradually fades. As the hatred disappears, you may gain a new perspective on the other person.
6. To check whether all traces of hatred are gone, you can try to empathically listen to the other person in your mind. If that doesn’t work, you probably need a few more rounds of self-empathy to consciously experience your own feelings and needs. This process takes time. The unfelt feelings are comparable to a perfume that wants to be noticed. Only by consciously making time to experience these signals and give them meaning do they find a place that no longer gets in the way when you’re in contact with the other person.