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NVC Resources on Shame

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Understanding How Shame Hinders Clear Requests

It may be challenging to hear or make requests when you feel shame regarding anyone's feelings and needs. Without support, shame could be debilitating, so you may feel resistant and become defensive, hear threat, or criticize others. Instead, be with people who allow space for vulnerability. Find ways to celebrate, negotiate, be mindful, accepting, and creative. Read this article Keywords:...
Dialogues with Our Shame

Shame is often an invisible companion that travels along with you in your journey, influencing your choices and how you experience life. Often without clear, outward signs, shame can be the unconscious power that prevents you from living life fully — or propel you towards reactivity, alienation, and violence both on a personal and a social level. Unmasking shame can be a surprisingly...
Finding Agency and Seeing Shame

is one way to define agency. Access to agency is complex and varies widely from person to person. Access to agency depends upon a variety of conditions. For example, if you struggle with agency, shame may tell you that you're broken in some way. If agency comes easily in an area, then you may view others who struggle with it, as lazy or stubborn. Read on for more. See this article Keywords:...
From Obedience and Shame to Freedom and Belonging

matrilineal matrifocal matriarchy history patriarchal patriarchy connection intention leadership social change community culture global warming climate change parenting childrearing obedience shame freedom belonging Humberto Maturana Romesin domination submission safety Miki Kashtan
Accountability, Love, Shame, and Working for Transformation

How can we hold love, understanding and compassion -- and still confront people about the harmful impact of their actions, hold them accountable, take action, speak truth and advocate for change... all in a manner fully aligned with our values and vision? Read on for how we can do accountability; what kind of action we take and with what motivation; and what our movements for change can look...
NVC Life Hacks 21

When was the last time you were in a situation with an overwhelming feeling of shame or an unnerving fear of 'doing it wrong'? Sometimes we get sweaty palms or a dry mouth, maybe we freeze on the spot or start an unhelpful internal monologue that makes the situation feel even worse. In this months NVC Life Hack Gesine takes a closer look at her own experience with shame and the fear of doing it...
Alarm Feelings

Anger, guilt, shame, and shutdown are often based on reactivity and “should” thinking. They narrow and distort perceptions, which can bring more suffering. So instead, feel them without resistance, nor acting on them. Bring clarity by naming your observables and thoughts, plus your underlying vulnerable feelings, needs and self-responsibility. Then mourn what needs were, or are, unmet. Only...
Evaluating Ourselves with Compassion

This can be a message you give yourself, such as “Well, that was stupid.” Or “I know better and I did it anyway!” Or “I am so fat.” Every time you criticize yourself, you cause yourself to feel shame and guilt, which promotes depression and stagnation. When you think about it, how likely are you to promote positive change if you are feeling shame? Another way to look at your foibles is to...
Enriching Life

heart. —Marshall B. Rosenberg, Ph.D. In Compassionate Communication, we believe that enriching life is the most satisfying motivation for our actions. If you are motivated by fear, guilt, blame or shame, your actions will usually be motivated by avoiding pain. The best way to experience permanent, lifelong change is to focus on how your life will improve when you make a change. For example, you...
Beyond the Limits of Empathy

near-lethal electric shocks despite suffering tremendously. Nazi executors early in the war wept while killing Jews. And yet those strong feelings didn’t stop them. Why does this happen? Empathy, Shame, and Fear I have been haunted for years by this great puzzle, reading, thinking, and writing about it. Brooks suggests that “People who actually perform pro-social action don’t only feel for those...