But I'm not Violent!

I’m not a violent person, so what can the NVC process offer me?

This is a common question when people read the term “Nonviolent Communication.” 

The word "nonviolent" in Nonviolent Communication refers to the term as Gandhi used it when he spoke of the absence of violence in the human heart. In Nonviolent Communication or NVC, we recognize that certain language dehumanizes other people, or disconnects or dissociates us from those people. NVC seeks to keep us connected to what is alive within us and other people.

NVC allows us to:
Value everyone’s needs equally.
Know that every action or word is an attempt to meet a need.

Most people refer to violence as physically trying to hurt another. In the NVC process we also consider violence to be any use of power over people, or trying to coerce people into doing things. That would include any use of motivating others by fear of punishment and promise of reward, or any use of guilt, shame, duty or obligation. Violence in this larger sense is defined as any use of force (verbal or physical) to get people to do things, or any system that includes structures that support this “power-over” paradigm.