Ali Miller on Nonviolent Communication (NVC) & Navigating Couple and Co-Parenting Dynamics

gender nonconformity kids

Excited to share this conversation with Ali Miller on how nonviolent communication (NVC) can help navigate co-parenting dynamics and couple relationships. When raising a neurodivergent child, there are often many opportunities for parents to disagree — the therapies to explore, whether or not to disclose a diagnosis to family members, or even if a diagnosis exists at all. These discussions can be tough and can definitely place a strain on the relationship. But with nonviolent communication, we can learn how to have conversations that feel like a win-win for everyone involved.

In this conversation, Ali and I discussed what NVC is and why it’s a comprehensive model that supports all kinds of relationships. We explored how understanding our feelings — and more importantly, the underlying needs behind them — is crucial for effective communication. Ali also emphasized the importance of empathy and self-empathy in the NVC model, as well as how to express our needs to our partners without blame or judgment (while also acknowledging that this doesn’t absolve our partner of responsibility).

 

About Ali Miller

Ali Miller, an expert in Nonviolent Communication (NVC), has been a Marriage & Family Therapist for over twenty years. In 2021 she became certified as a Clini-Coach® specializing in Couples Communication. As an online coach, she helps couples all over the world level up their communication + conflict navigation skills so they can experience more peace, passion, and possibilities in their relationship.

 

Things you’ll learn from this episode

  • What nonviolent communication (NVC) is and why it’s a comprehensive model that can support any and all relationships
  • How understanding feelings, and more importantly, our underlying needs, is crucial for effective communication
  • The importance of empathy and self-empathy in the NVC model
  • Why recognizing universal human needs can bridge gaps in understanding and foster true compassion and understanding
  • How to express our needs to our partner without blame or judgment (and why it doesn’t mean our partner bears no responsibility)

 

Resources mentioned

 

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Episode Transcript

Debbie:

Hey, Ali, welcome to the podcast.

Ali Miller:

Thank you, Debbie. So good to be here.

Debbie:

I’m really, really excited to get into this topic today. This is another kind of fresh conversation for the show, which after 400 episodes doesn’t happen every day. Thank you for agreeing to join me to get into this today. And I always ask my guests at the beginning to tell us a little bit about themselves kind of beyond the bio. And as part of that, the personal why for the work that you do in the world. So would you mind starting there?

Ali Miller:

Sure. So the personal why. So I guess just to share what it is that I do. So I’m a therapist. I have been my whole adult life working with individuals and couples. And then during the pandemic, I became a coach also, certified coach so that I could reach more people, work with more people around the world. And early on in my therapy career, I discovered nonviolent communication, developed by Marshall Rosenberg. A friend was like, Hey, this book is really good. You should check it out. And the book is called nonviolent communication, a language of life. And I had already been through grad school for therapy and I was starting to see clients and, and when I read the book, it was one of these, life -changing books, life -changing moments where I like underlined pretty much every sentence and like dog -eared almost every page, which made that kind of pointless. But it was like every word was resonating so much. I think because it’s such a comprehensive model and framework for life, like for all relationships, romantic relationships, friendships, colleague relationships, know, parent, child, boss, employee, like kind of every relationship it’s so useful for.

But it also has this bigger kind of philosophy kind of perspective on what’s going on in the world in terms of power and privilege and domination culture. And so I was a psychology minor and a sociology major in college. And I just always had this interest in like why humans do what they do and how we’re influenced by our upbringing, but also how the larger cultural culture affects us. I just found that so much of that was addressed in nonviolent communication. And so I just became super passionate about it and then started sharing it as much as I could, learning as much as I could, sharing it as much as I could. And now here I am almost 20 years later, like sharing it mostly with couples, helping them improve their relationships, helping people learn how to stop fighting and have productive and connecting conversations. So, yeah.

Debbie:

So I will say the first time I heard about NVC, one of my close friends was navigating a divorce and it was something she was studying and just kind of knowing that she was using the principles of NVC to help with her communication with her, you know, husband or now ex -husband that she was going through that with and how it really gave her such a powerful way to communicate and just be in that situation.

And then I had, I’ll just mention this, because I want listeners to check it out, Zach Morris, who’s one of the parent coaches who works with me here at Till Parenting, he did an episode with me where we touched upon NVC and working with our kids. But we have not talked about NVC, nonviolent communication, and relationships as its own episode. So I’m so excited to get into this. And I was hoping … of course, I’m not going to ask you to summarize the entire philosophy of nonviolent communication, but if you could kind of give us the overview of what is really behind it, what makes it such a powerful tool for people.

Ali Miller:

One of the fun things about teaching something that’s so dynamic is that every time I talk about it, I have different ways of talking about it. So just before we got on this to record today, I was thinking about a new way of talking about it. So I’m excited to try that out, which is, so when we talk, we want to be heard, right? Especially when we’re trying to talk about something that’s important to us. And whenever we’re fighting with anyone, it’s because there’s something that’s important to us. And if it’s a fight, it’s usually because there’s something important to me and something important to the other person. So if it’s my partner, there’s something really important to me, something really important to my partner. And instead of talking about what it is that’s important to us, we tend to try to state our case or make our position. We try to be right. We try to prove the other person wrong. We get defensive. We get righteous. Or we just get quiet, right? Like we have these kind of default habitual ways of showing up in conversations and in conflict that don’t get us heard. And so the brilliance of nonviolent communication is that it’s like a mechanism for increasing the likelihood that you’re going to get heard. And so what that involves is really three main skills.

One is first hearing yourself, knowing what it is that’s important to you, knowing what it is that’s going on inside you. What are your feelings? What are your needs? What are your values? What are you trying to get heard about, right? Knowing inside yourself. The second is being able to express that without blame, without judging the other person, without criticism, without being like super intellectual or analytical, like the way you express what’s important to you is gonna impact whether or not the other person hears you, right? So there’s the skill of tuning into yourself, which we call self empathy, knowing what’s going on inside you. And then expressing that, you know, clearly, non -judgmentally, not without blame, that’s the skill of self expression in NBC. And then the skill of empathy or empathic listening. If we can hear others, like if it’s someone you’re in conflict with, if it’s your partner you’re in conflict with, if you can hear your partner first, it’s gonna make it so much more likely, so much easier for them to hear you. So when you put these three skills together, the skill of self -empathy, the skill of self -expression, and the skill of empathy or empathic listening, you’re monumentally increasing the chances that what’s important to you is actually gonna get heard and that you can then have a connecting and productive conversation about it. And NVC teaches us exactly how to do that.

Debbie:

I love the way that you broke that down and explained it. And gosh, it’s sparked so many questions in me already. Because one of the things I talk about when this idea of how do I get my partner on the same page, you know, I get this question a lot, my husband and I have done a couple of episodes where we talked about how our process to get on the same page. But the challenge is that we can kind of already be like in our fiefdoms almost, right? And so I talk about compassionate education or like compassion is kind of my go -to. How can you see the other person compassionately as you navigate this? Because you’re both going through it in different ways, but what you just described is like such a deeper, deeper process. And it seems like, my understanding is that there are very kind of specific ways to navigate those three steps that you just talked about.

Ali Miller:

Yeah, and it’s all about compassion, Debbie. But it’s like how to get compassionate so that it’s not just this abstract ideal of like, we should be compassionate. It helps you actually find that compassion that’s in you. And one of the ways that NVC helps us access compassion is through this principle that everything we ever say or do is an attempt to meet needs and that we all have the same needs. We all have the same universal human needs. Things like connection, belonging, affection, meaning, purpose, fun, play, things like this. Things that everyone you talk to would agree like, yeah, that’s important to me. And so when we can connect on that level of like, okay, if we can understand all behaviors through the lens of we’re all always trying to attempt to meet needs. That is what opens the heart to compassion.

Debbie:

Yeah, I want to explore this concept of meeting needs a little deeper because I had some aha moments in listening to an episode of your podcast, which by the way is called Love Each Other Better listeners. It’s a really thoughtful, interesting show. I’ve listened to a bunch of episodes and got a lot out of that. So one of the things that I had an aha moment about when I was listening to this episode of your podcast was you said, in terms of feeling empathy for our partner having compassion for them is that they are doing what they’re doing for some reason. And I was like, mind blown. I, of course, I kind of knew that, but just hearing you say that there’s a reason why they’re doing that. could you talk a little bit about that? Cause I think it’s really important to keep that in mind.

Ali Miller:

Yes. And isn’t it crazy how easy it is to forget? I mean, even for me, you know, practicing this for almost 20 years, teaching it every day, I still forget. So it’s bonkers how self -absorbed we can be. I mean, and I don’t mean that in a judgmental way, but just kind of like how we’re, I don’t know if it’s how we’re made or what, but we’re so focused on ourselves in a way that it can be really hard to remember, yeah, there’s this other human being and just like me, they’re having feelings in every moment. They’re trying to get their needs met in every moment, right? It’s hardest to really see that when we’re triggered by what they’re doing. And that’s not any fault of ours. It’s really just, I think it’s just what happens probably neurologically. Like when we’re triggered, our world becomes small and all we can really see is like what is happening, like what we’re experiencing. It’s very hard to have a broad view when we’re triggered. And so this skill I was talking about earlier about self -empathy is what is so helpful. Like when your partner does something that pisses you off and you’re not in a compassionate space about it, right? You’re in a judgmental space about it.

The skill here is to pause and before you open your mouth and say what you’re thinking, which is not gonna create connection, you ask yourself, okay, what am I feeling? I’m feeling enraged or I’m feeling disappointed or I’m feeling discouraged or I’m feeling hopeless. And we have these lists of feelings that can help you identify what you’re feeling. And then you can ask yourself, okay, and what am I needing? Because a key principle in NVC is that anytime there’s a feeling, it’s a messenger alerting you to needs. So anytime you feel any difficult feeling, you wanna get curious about what need that feeling is alerting you to. So, okay, I’m feeling, you know, I see my partner do this annoying behavior. What am I feeling? I’m feeling enraged. What am I needing? I’m needing support. Like stop leaving your socks, you know, in the middle of the living room floor. Can you just be more considerate, right? That’s like my first thought, right? You’re so lazy. You’re so inconsiderate. You don’t care about anybody, about yourself. Right? These are the initial judgments that arise in my head. And then I want to ask, am I feeling? And then connect those feelings to my needs. Right? So, I’m needing support in keeping this home in order so that I have some semblance of peace in my life. Right? Some place that’s a sanctuary, some tranquility, some help regulating my nervous system so that when I look around I’m not bombarded by all the things that are out of order. Something like that, right? Of course it’s gonna be different for everybody, but I know this is a common one for parents of small kids, would have messy places. So we want support, right? And so those socks, you see the socks on the floor, for example, and it’s like, you think it’s just the socks, but it’s like your need for support to create some peace in the home, right? So you kind of try to get to like what’s at the heart of your reaction before you try to talk about it. Because again, that’s going to make it easier for your partner to hear you. Yeah.

Debbie:

Yeah, because it takes the edge off, right? It takes the emotional piece or at least lowers that, lowers the volume down on that a bit. Is that the way it works?

Ali Miller:

Yeah, because it’s like it starts out as like I feel enraged and then when I connect with, it’s about my need for support, like something softens inside me towards myself. And then that it’s not like it’s less emotional, but it’s going to be less like ragey, right? And it’s a little bit softer or a lot softer. It’s like, yeah, I need support just like all humans do. I need peace at home just like all humans do, right? There’s nothing wrong with me for needing that or wanting that.

Debbie:

Right. Right. And what I like about what you’re sharing too is, we were talking before we hit record about Dr. Ross Green and his work with collaborative and proactive solutions. And it’s all about identifying the unsolved problems or the unmet needs. And so I love that this is very, it’s the same thing, but it’s within ourselves as opposed to identifying our kids’ unmet needs. It makes so much sense. And when we’re really triggered, I imagine that there’s some skill building that has to happen to be able to take that pause and to give ourselves that, that self -compassion and self -empathy.

Ali Miller:

Yes, there is skill building and there’s a kind of mindset shifting. And one of the major mindset shifts is that it’s okay to have feelings and your needs matter. Like your feelings are valid, your needs are valid. There’s nothing wrong with you for feeling mad or jealous or hurt or sad. Like all your feelings are okay. And they’re all actually like gifts because they’re letting you know about your needs and your needs are okay. And that’s hard for a lot of people. A lot of communication goes awry because we have been taught, probably as kids, most of us, that our needs don’t matter on some level. And so it’s really hard to claim our needs, not in a “my needs matter and yours don’t” kind of way, which is not gonna be connecting in a relationship, but in a “my needs matter and your needs matter” kind of way. And that’s the foundation for collaboration, right? Like knowing that my needs matter and your needs matter. And let’s try to find solutions that work for both of us.

Debbie:

I’d love to talk a little bit about the power of NVC within a couple. So I know that this is kind of your focus and working with partners and who might be really having a hard time collaborating or might not be communicating well. So can you kind of like explain or show us what this can do for a couple who is not seeing things eye to eye or who really is struggling. How can NVC kind of change the dynamic in their relationship? What do you see in your work?

Ali Miller:

Yeah, yeah. So there’s a lot to say here. So I’m just gonna take a pause and kind of see where, would make sense to start. So when a couple isn’t seeing eye to eye, I think what that means, and tell me if you mean something different, but I think what you mean when you say that is like they have different perspectives or they maybe have different opinions on how to do something. Like for example, like how to parent. Is that what you mean? Yeah. Yeah. So the good news is if that’s what we mean by seeing eye to eye, that’s not a requirement for peace and harmony or collaboration. We don’t have to see eye to eye. We don’t have to have the same perspective. And in fact, most of the time, or a lot of the time, we’re not going to because we’re different people with different histories. We might have, yeah, different opinions, right? But so what MVC helps us do is get under that, like get under the opinion to the needs. So whenever we’re talking about NVC, we’re always trying to get to like, what are the underlying needs? Because that’s where human beings find connection. Because like I said earlier, we all have the same needs. We definitely don’t all have the same opinions or the same strategies for meeting our needs, but we all have the same needs. So when we can look at an opinion, like for example, just to take a really stark example, like say one parent believes in spanking and the other partner, the other parent doesn’t, right? That’s going to be a difficult one to navigate for most couples, right? So you can stay on the surface level of the behavior, right? Spanking and not spanking. But if you take an NBC approach, you’re asking, okay, so spanking is a strategy. It’s an attempt to try to meet needs. What are those needs you’re attempting to meet when you spank a child, right? It might be a need for trying to have some sense of influence or impact. Or we talk about this need for power in your world, right? Not like the kind of power that’s like power over people, but like to just feel like you have power in your world, like you can actually influence things and make an impact, right? could be, spanking could be an attempt to meet a need for order or you know, it could be an attempt to support your child, right? There’s all different needs that might be met by spanking. And then you would want, so you’d want to understand, like, okay, what is this about for you? Like, why do you want to spank? What are you going for? Where is this coming from? What are the underlying needs? And then you would want to hear from the other person who doesn’t believe in spanking. What is it that matters to you here, what’s important to you here. It might be a value or a need for gentleness or respect or compassion or empathy or, you know, it could be various needs. And so you want to try to bring the conversation to the needs level as soon as possible so that the way I talk about it is you’re getting to the heart of it as quickly as possible.

And then it’s like, I see your humanity. I can see why this matters to you. And you can see why this matters to me. And then when we’re in that more heart -connected place, then we’re in a much better place to be able to find strategies that address all of the needs that we’ve identified, as opposed to getting stuck in where most couples get stuck, like whose way is the right way and whose way is the wrong way and whose way is gonna win out and who’s gonna lose. And if anyone’s losing, it’s not going to be satisfying for either partner.

Debbie:

Okay, so you’re just sharing so many great, I’m taking so many notes. I think that’s why I’m having a little trouble thinking, where do I go from here? Seeing the humanity in our partner, it’s just sounds so good, right? It seems like goals, like that’s where we want to be. And one of the things I’ve heard you say is that being empathetic or feeling empathy for our partner, having compassion for our partner when they’re doing something that we don’t like, it’s not releasing them from responsibility for their actions. And so I wanted to just highlight that because I think, you know, if it’s especially with the neurodivergent kids, sometimes parents can be on such different pages and that they they don’t even they’re not in alignment about whether there’s neurodivergence at all, they’re not in alignment about what the approach is, or they might be taking action that the other parent perceives as harmful, or it might be harmful indeed. So can you talk a little bit about that, that we’re not kind of giving them a pass on everything, that’s not what this is about.

Ali Miller: 

100%, I’m so glad you’re raising that, because that’s such an important piece. So, all right, so we take this principle that all actions are attempts to meet needs, all behavior is an attempt to meet needs, and that can sound like, okay, so then everything’s fine. No, because our actions are gonna impact other people, right? And so your actions that you take to attempt to meet your needs are going to impact me and might not meet some of my needs. And I need to be able to talk to you about that. So it’s not that your actions are wrong or bad. That’s the conventional way of holding it. It’s that your actions, while they are attempts to meet needs, they’re also not meeting some needs. those are my needs. And my needs matter too. So I want to be able to tell you when your actions are impacting my needs. And I want you to be able to tell me when my actions are impacting your needs. But what happens is instead of saying, these are the needs that are being impacted and this is what I would like you to understand and I’d like to find a solution that actually meets your needs and my needs. Instead of saying that, which is the NVC approach, we say, you’re a jerk or you don’t care or your way is stupid, right? We come at them with some sort of judgment, even if it’s subtle, and then our needs don’t get heard. And that has to do partly with how we’re expressing ourselves, right? The more we can just own it as like, this isn’t meeting some of my needs and I know you’re trying to meet needs, can we have a conversation about what your needs are, what my needs are, and what would actually work for both of us? What would actually help address all these needs? Not just yours and not just mine. So it always comes back to that.

Debbie:

Yeah, that’s great. And so I’m wondering then, and I imagine you work with couples, I’d love to know more about what this looks like when one partner isn’t on board, even with the approach of NVC. Is that a requirement? Can one partner be fully using NVC and the other parent’s just kind of, I don’t know. What does that look like?

Ali Miller:

Yeah, I mean, it definitely can help when at least one person in the couple knows NVC. It’s going to help even more when both people do. What I see happen is somebody gets interested, you know, here’s about NVC on a podcast like this or, somehow, and then they get really excited about it and then they want to get their partner on board. Well, a couple of things happen. One partner learns about it, gets really excited about it, and then is doing a lot more emotional labor because NVC requires emotional labor. It requires self -awareness. It requires pausing and really like rewiring your brain, changing the way you deal with your triggers, changing the way you listen, changing the way you think, changing the way you speak. Like you’re changing a lot and it’s labor to do that, right? So a big reason I love sharing this with couples is because I want to have that be as balanced as possible. I don’t want one person in the couple doing all the emotional labor because it’s hard work and it’s not as successful. It’ll help, right? It’ll help when one person is doing NBC because that person’s going to be less reactive. That person’s not going to be adding fuel to the fire as much, but it’s so much easier when both people are because then it’s like you have this shared language and this shared framework and it’s like, you can be fighting and you can just stop and either one of you can stop in your tracks and be like, it’s because we’re not talking about feelings and needs. it’s because we’re making demands instead of requests. it’s because I’m only focused on my needs and I’m not focusing on yours, right? You have this shared awareness and it’s so much more potent. So when people ask that question, I’m like, yeah, you’re gonna make it, your relationship is gonna shift if one of you learns NVC, but it’s gonna shift so much more if both of you do.

Debbie:

Yeah, that makes so much sense. So, okay, I’m going to ask you kind of like the big question that I know my listeners want to hear from you on, and we’ll kind of wrap up after this. I, again, based on the questions that I get from audience members, people in my community, there is often an unevenness in terms of who is kind of, you know, maybe doing all that emotional labor with the parenting who is tracking all the therapies and doing the research. That can be a real imbalance. And then also I hear from a lot of parents where, they’re just, again, going back to that idea of not seeing eye to eye, they both have very distinct ideas about how a behavioral challenge should be responded to about what whether or not therapy should should be happening, whether or not a diagnosis is accurate. And so for listeners who are kind of in that dynamic right now and feeling like they’re not in alignment with their partner, and it’s, you know, maybe they are like doing what I used to do, like leaving books on the bedside table or recommending podcasts to listen to, like, what would you recommend they do as a way to kind of start to make little shifts and maybe incorporate a strategy or two from NVC as a way to move things in a better direction?

Ali Miller:

Such an important question. So one question that can help move things forward is something like this. Hey, I noticed we’ve been disagreeing about, you know, the diagnosis, for example. Could we sit down? Would you be up for sitting down for 20 minutes and trying to talk and listen to each other about where we’re each at with that? And then in that process, instead of just having like a regular conversation where it’s like a back and forth doing a very intentional kind of thing that I teach couples, which is taking turns speaking and listening. So one person, you could even set a timer. One person speaks for three minutes while the other person just listens with the intent of trying to reflect back what they’re hearing. this is what I’m hearing you say, this is what I’m hearing is important to you, did I get it? Until the first person feels like, you got it. And then switching so that both of you get a chance to kind of like state your case or speak your piece or say what’s on your mind and in your heart and not have to deal with like the, you know, the constantly being interrupted or having to prove yourself or, you know, respond to what your partner says. Just having the space to be able to just get it out and then have your partner while they’re listening, not listening to respond, right? Not listening to refute, not listening for where they disagree, but to just listen to try to understand your partner. Like, that’s it. It’s so simple that it’s so hard. We don’t like simple. you know, we’re very, we have complex brains. We’re averse to simple. But if NVC is anything, it’s simple. It’s like, and it’s very hard for smart people to do because we’re so analytical and so, you know, like good at arguing. It’s like we have so much to learn from our little kids. Like just simple. I’m sad. I’m hurt. I’m scared. Do you know how hard that is to do for smart couples? It’s so hard. So it’s just as simple as possible. This is what’s important to me. Can you hear what’s important to me? And switching, right? So that you’re both just getting heard. That’s like the number one thing I would recommend if you’re wanting to start to connect more around the things you disagree on.

Debbie:

So good. Okay, Ali, I think we’re gonna wrap this up, but I hope that this is the start of a beautiful friendship and that we can continue this conversation down the road because I’d love to explore NVC more also just in terms of how we communicate with our kids. But I think this was such a first step for really helping listeners better understand how they might apply the principles in their relationship. and you have a lot of resources, would you take a minute and let listeners know where they can connect with you and learn more about your work?

Ali Miller:

Absolutely, yeah, and I hope it’s the beginning of a new friendship too. I would love to talk to you more about this. So yeah, people can find me. My website is AllymillerCoaching .com. I’m on Facebook and Instagram at AllymillerCoaching. I have an awesome free resource. Well, two actually. One is if you want feelings and needs lists, like lists of hundreds of words of feelings and a bunch of universal human needs. You can download those for free at alimillercoaching.com/feelingsandneeds. And then I have a great free mini course. It’s just seven minutes and it’s called The Four Steps to Stop Any Fight Without Giving In. So that’s a good introduction to this work. If you download that, you’re going to be taught a process that you can use anytime you’re fighting with your partner and don’t want to be, you just stop the fight and you do this process and it’s going to completely change the conversation so that it’s a more heartfelt, heart -to -heart productive conversation.

Debbie:

That’s so great. So listeners, as always, I will have links to those resources in the show notes page. So you can just go to this episode and easily find all of that, including Allie’s website and her podcast, which again is definitely worth a listen. So Allie, thank you so much. I learned so much. took like three pages of notes and I really appreciate everything you shared with us today.

Ali Miller:

Thank you so much Debbie, it was a pleasure to be here and to talk with you.

THANKS SO MUCH FOR LISTENING!

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