As an interpreter and translator, I love dissecting language and exploring the meaning of words. How pleasant that finding suitable words is equally helpful in my second passion, Non-violent Communication (NVC)! This time, my explorer’s heart has taken me on a journey to discover what’s behind ‘appreciation’ as a need. There may even be the odd suggestion on how you can have more of it in your life. Curious? Here we go, then...

Appreciation – don’t we all want some of that? ‘What is actually behind this word?‘, I wondered. ‘What do we really mean when we say ‘appreciate’?

When we appreciate a thing or person, we see that they are ‘precious’. We acknowledge this person’s impact on our life, their contribution to fulfilling our needs. We see the person in their beauty and feel happy to be touched by that. We are grateful for having this person in our life and that they have seen us for what we are, perhaps just for one brief moment. When we’ve been given a friendly smile on the tube, train or bus, when a guest rushes after us leaving a restaurant and hands us our mobile phone we left behind, when the border control officer cheerfully wishes us a lovely day.

That’s all very well, but what exactly can we do to fulfil our need for appreciation? After all, we can’t force others to show their appreciation. On top of that, it is not conducive to make ourselves and our wellbeing dependent on others. Whenever there’s appreciation, it is a gift. We cannot expect it or consider it our basic right. If we desire appreciation, just like any other one of our needs, it is up to us to make sure this need is fulfilled.

‘WTF?‘, you may say, ‘How am I to give myself something that I want to get from others?’ More on that later.

So, let’s say we desire appreciation. We may desire all we want. But can we expect it? If so, we should be measured against our own expectations. I personally would really like to be appreciated – and at the same time I can think of a number of examples where I failed to appreciate others. I did not thank the waiter for serving me my drink. I used the supermarket self-checkout instead of giving the cashier a smile. (I’m aware that there isn’t even a choice in most British supermarkets these days, but in Germany, we still have self-checkouts alongside human checkouts for now.) I ignored a cyclist’s right of way. All those things happen to all of us all the time. And they happen for a reason: we are in the process of fulfilling other needs that are more urgent at that particular time. Perhaps I’m deep in the middle of a conversation and meet my need for connection with the people around my table. Perhaps, after a stressful day, it gives me lightness and respite not to have to interact with another human being. Perhaps my need to be seen is so great that I don’t have the energy to consider others.

It becomes clear quite quickly: expectations are ‘life-alienated’, to put it in Marshall B. Rosenberg’s words. We can’t will others to give us appreciation. Nor can we expect them to fulfil any other ones of our needs. That may seem absurd to many of us. After all, there is such a thing as ‘good manners’ or a minimum level of human kindness! And it’s not too much to ask for a thank you if I’m the one picking up the dirty laundry, is it?

Well, that depends on what kind of interactions you would like to have. Would you like a minimum of politeness (that you won’t be able to fulfil yourself at all times), even if it is not genuine? Or would you like to see appreciation as a gift from the heart in authentic interactions?

My vision is a world where I’m given things from the heart and not ‘delivered’ them because ‘that’s what people do’. I don’t like to waste my energy on being constantly upset about how I was not greeted, overlooked, my appointment forgotten. And, yes, that means – watch out, here comes a revolutionary thought – that I take full responsibility for fulfilling my own needs. ‘Heaven forbid!‘, you may think, ‘That sounds like hard work!’ Hm. I remember a time when I found it really hard work listening to myself in my head. All those people who had been ‘impossible‘! ‘The cheek of some people! How can anyone behave like that?‘ etc.

Meanwhile, I’ve made a discovery: assuming responsibility is deliberating. I’m free from my ‘dividing’ fabrications. If I manage to let them go (which is not always but more often than not the case) and take responsibility for myself, I feel an enormous sense of agency. I break free from my samey narratives on who’s fault things are and actually see myself. As a matter of fact, I don’t just see myself and my needs but take them seriously.

In my opinion, therein lies the key to the need of appreciation: start with yourself! It is banal and mind-blowing at the same time: if you don’t appreciate yourself, how are others supposed to?

It's your job now to come up with strategies to give yourself appreciation. It starts with trying to be mindful and noticing how you contribute to your own life. Reread the third paragraph of this blog post once again, this time from a different point of view. Ask yourself: ‘In what way do I appreciate myself? Am I able to see myself as this valued person in my own life?’

In a second step, you can start expressing gratitude for this. There are many ways to do that. You can keep a gratitude journal. You can send yourself a voicemail at moments where you are grateful to yourself. You can tell yourself in the mirror something that you noticed about yourself today that you found helpful. You can make a regular appointment with a friend where you tell each other what you are grateful for to yourself (and perhaps also to the other person). There are endless possibilities, and you are the expert on your own life.

For some more inspiration on how you can show yourself some appreciation, listen to my podcast episode ‘Kingspiration – Practicing appreciation’.

And then, when you’ve taken good care of yourself, you can go out into the world and try to see it with different eyes and be mindful there also. If you feel that something has helped you, made your day easier or simply brought you joy, why not just say it? Why not ask a total stranger: ‘Is it okay if I tell you how grateful I am?’ (At this point, do wait for a response and respect it. If the person is ready to accept your gratitude, continue.) ‘When you just held the door for me, I was so pleased to get noticed. It simply did me good.‘ Why not write to your child’s teacher that you thought the last parents’ evening (or parent-teacher conference) was run with loving attention to detail? Why not say a big thank you from the bottom of your heart to the people at the workshop for fixing your bike so quickly? Since I’ve been doing such things move often, I feel like I make a difference. I don’t depend on or am not helpless in the face of what happens to me but have an active role in my own life, while also contributing to other people’s lives. This, in turn, makes me more ‘visible’, and it may even result in more appreciation for my actions and myself.

What’s crucial in all this is my attitude. If I’m nice to others so they are nice back, that’s not ‘life-connected’ in the sense of life as appreciative interactions with others, as it shows that I view my own needs as superior. Conversely, when you have an attitude of appreciation, you often won’t need many words to express that. A glance, a nod, a smile might suffice. Wouldn’t that be a nice thing to start with? Next time you look in the mirror, show yourself a small gesture of appreciation. How about that?