Recently, I discovered that through self-empathy that the abuse I experienced as a child from my Father and Stepmother was that my basic need was to be loved. Looking back at my actions when I was a teenager, I found that because my Father expected me to change my behavior, he was going to use love as a weapon to get me to change.

I realized because of this basic need of wanting to be loved was so powerful I sought out unhealthy ways to meet this need regardless of my Fathers desires to change me, one of these ways in which I tried to meet my need of being loved was abusing my sister. I thought if I could only change my behavior, my Father would love, and honor me as his son he would give me the love that I always craved.

I felt my Fathers heart and in empathy for him, I understood that he needed love too. I now know that I cannot expect him to fulfill his need by me changing my behaviors. That would be the same as asking a gay person to be straight, which would be very unlikely.

The guilt I carried with me since childhood has left me thanks to self-empathy before I believed that I was a great disappointment too my Father, this strategy of self-empathy has changed my view of myself and my guilt I dragged with me through my life.

I am now meeting that need of being loved by accepting the love of my wife and children.

I remember what Marshall Rosenberg said about Adolf Hitler, he met basic needs that served life. Everyone has needs that serve life. It was not Hitler's fault that he used the Jews as a way to meet his needs. It was the 300 years of German history that was taught to the German people that said Jews were evil.

In my case, my Father was taught to be a Father by his Father, and his Father before him going back 300 years of dysfunctional behavior from generation to generation. I am as guilty as my Father was. My job is now to break this chain of behavior teaching compassionate communication to my children and grandchildren. I must be the one that ends this behavior; I am the only one that can do it.

Thanks to Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication, I can break the chain. I break the bad links and repair them with healthy ones. I am connected in a deeper more positive way with my family and have a powerful tool to harness the effects of my schizophrenia. I want to pass a message onto everyone that has emotional issues. Please try the strategy of self-empathy taught by Marshall Rosenberg. It has saved my life and my family of any further hardship that they have experienced through the effects of my mental illness.

With the proper medication, therapy, and support groups including practice groups using compassionate communication techniques and language my mental health has never been better.

If I empathize with you I can love you, if I can empathize with myself I can more fully love myself.

For more information on NVC go to this link:

http://www.cnvc.org/

Blessings

Blake Hayner