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NVC Resources on Feelings

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Every Angry Message is a "Please"

Trainer Tip The only way to master love, is to practice love. —Don Miguel Ruiz Sometimes it is hard to remember, but every time someone speaks or acts in anger or frustration, he is saying "Please!" Consider the please when your child says, "We NEVER get to do what I want to do!" The child is saying, "Please, I want fairness and fun. I want to know that you care about my needs, too." How about...
Tips on Making a Request

Trainer Tip Minor things can become moments of great revelation when encountered for the first time. —Margot Fonteyn Many of us have rarely asked for what we want, so a few tips on how to do this are in order. Tip number one: Ask for what you want, not what you don’t want. One time I was in a car with two young boys. One of them kicked his brother, so I said: “Jake, when you kick your brother I...
Persisting vs. Demanding

Trainer Tip The art of love . . . is largely the art of persistence. —Albert Ellis Persisting is the active attempt to meet our needs by continuing to connect with another. Demanding is the insistence that someone do something to avoid negative repercussions. Let’s imagine that you want to go on vacation with a friend. She says she doesn’t have enough money. A demand would sound something like...
Improving Relationships as a Primary Goal

Trainer Tip I am not easily frightened. Not because I am brave but because I know that I am dealing with human beings, and that I must try as hard as I can to understand everything that anyone ever does. —Etty Hillesum, Holocaust victim Compassionate Communication suggests that improving the quality of our relationships is a primary goal. Indeed, that connection with ourselves and other people...
Considering the Needs of Other People

Trainer Tip If you are all wrapped up in yourself, you are overdressed. —Kate Halverson If you only focus on what you want, you are only halfway there. One of the basic principles of Nonviolent Communication is valuing everyone’s needs equally. Remember that needs are the underlying reasons why we do things. You might go to the store to pick up food to feed your family. Your need is to feed...
Integrity

Trainer Tip The time is always right to do what is right. —Martin Luther King Jr. What does integrity mean to you? Each person has a different definition. For me, integrity means that I live in harmony with my values. If you value freedom of expression, working for a bureaucratic organization will probably not meet your need for integrity. If you value predictability, you might not want to play...
Why Don’t They Get It?

Does this seem familiar? You're in a meeting. Maybe it's a workshop around equity and social justice issues, maybe it's your community group holding a planning meeting for their next event. Pat makes a suggestion, and folks keep talking, ignoring the suggestion, proposing others. When Riley makes a similar suggestion, suddenly everyone is excitedly discussing the idea and expressing gratitude...
Making Sure We Are Heard

Trainer Tip Love involves a peculiar unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding. —Diane Arbus Isn’t it amazing how people can witness the same thing, but interpret it differently? I used to marvel at this, get into arguments about how others didn’t hear things correctly, or feel angry because I thought they weren’t being honest. Now, I accept the fact that we all hear things...
Punitive Use of Force

Trainer Tip "Think for yourself and let others enjoy the right to do the same" —Voltaire Punitive use of force takes place when we punish people because we deem their behavior to be bad or wrong and the only way to change their behavior is to make them ashamed about doing it or feel afraid of doing it again. This consciousness arises from the belief that people do things that are dangerous to...
Receiving Appreciation With Grace

Trainer Tip "Never bend your head, always hold it high. Look the world straight in the face" —Helen Keller Many of us struggle with receiving appreciation. We either belittle our accomplishment by saying things such as “Oh, it wasn’t that big of a deal,” or we let our ego expand by thinking that we are better than other people. Sometimes we show this by saying something like, “Yeah, these...