We are responsible for what we hear other people say and for how we act.
Empathy before education.
We are dangerous when we are not conscious of our responsibility for how we behave, think, and feel.
Classifying and judging people promotes violence.
NVC suggests behind every action, however ineffective, tragic, violent, or abhorrent to us, is an attempt to meet a need.
All moralistic judgments, whether positive or negative, are tragic expressions of unmet needs.
To practice NVC, it's critical for me to be able to slow down, take my time, to come from an energy I choose, the one I believe that we were meant to come from, not the one I was programmed into.
Be very slow to go into looking for solutions.
Natural Giving: Anything we do in life which is not out of that energy, we pay for and everybody else pays for. Anything we do to avoid punishment, everybody pays for. Everything we do for a reward, everybody pays for. Everything we do to make people like us, everybody pays for. Everything we do out of guilt, shame, duty, or obligation, everybody pays for.
Empathy allows us to re-perceive our world in a new way and move forward.
Don't get addicted to your requests. Your objective is needs, not requests. Because then it becomes a demand.
If we wish to express anger fully, the first step is to divorce the other person from any responsibility for our anger.
Every message, regardless of form or content, is an expression of a need.
NVC enhances inner communication by helping us translate negative internal messages into feelings and needs. Our ability to distinguish our own feelings and needs and to empathize with them can free us from depression.
We can't win at somebody else's expense. We can only fully be satisfied when the other person's needs are fulfilled as well as our own.
You'll find people less threatening if you hear what they're needing rather than what they're thinking about you.
Tragically, one of the rarest commodities in our culture is empathy. People are hungry for empathy, They don't know how to ask for it.
Translate all self-judgments into self-empathy.
Fix-it jackals can't wait to fix it, because they don't know how to enjoy pain. And until you learn how to enjoy pain, you can't enjoy intimacy.
Learning is too precious to be motivated by coercive tactics.
We are compassionate with ourselves when we are able to embrace all parts of ourselves and recognize the needs and values expressed by each part.
I never have to worry about another person's response, only how I react to what they say.
When we hear the other person's feelings and needs, we recognize our common humanity.
Never question the beauty of what you are saying because someone reacts with pain, judgment, criticism. It just means they have not heard you.
We can never make anyone do anything against their will without enormous consequences.
