Browse by Topic

NVC Resources on Exercises and Practices

Search Terms:

Advanced Search

Select Media Type, Click Search

Neither Rioting Nor Colluding

Young people in Baltimore and elsewhere are continuing to be killed for unfathomable reasons. Hurting people on all sides are roaring out in pain, demanding to be heard, and delivering hostile condemnation of each other’s actions. How do we talk about this? How to we say why the violence isn’t working for us without giving the impression that we’re condoning injustice? And how do we keep the...
Tips for the Road Series Tip 2

There are two types of requests in the practice of Nonviolent Communication: Action Requests and Connection Requests. Both are important when working through conflict or difficult situations and for building connection. As its name suggests, an action request includes a very specific action that someone can perform to meet a need. For example, you might have needs for connection and peace of...
Tips for the Road Series Tip 9

Nonviolent Communication includes a practice of empathy that involves listening for feelings and needs no matter how someone expresses themselves, and reflecting back the feelings and needs when it is helpful to do so. You can reflect back in a traditional NVC manner, or in a more creative way, with metaphors. For example, of traditional NVC reflection, if a friend says, “I hate my job.” • You...
Creating Peace and Change

Why does NVC practice, and NVC training/coaching, appear to be not enough to bridge divides between people? This article takes a look at the trickle down effect of our societal conditioning, what we can add to our NVC lense, and what we can do "upstream" when NVC doesn't seem to be enough. Additionally, the article talks about unseen constraints that men, women and minority groups face in...
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...
Releasing Our Judgments

Trainer Tip There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. —Edith Wharton An underlying theme in a Nonviolent Communication consciousness is to translate our judgments into feelings and needs. It is impossible to value other people’s needs and remain compassionate if we simultaneously harbor judgments. Releasing judgments, however, can feel like a...
We Don’t Need to Fix Other People

Trainer Tip Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced. —Søren Kierkegaard When empathizing with someone, we listen for their feelings and needs and don’t try to fix their problem for them. The very process of giving someone space to talk about their issue without our judgment, to be truly understood by us, and to be deeply heard is very healing, enough so that most...
Empathizing with Someone Who is Silent

Trainer Tip Empathize with silence by listening to the feelings and needs behind it./em> —Marshall B. Rosenberg, Ph.D....
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...