The only time a message (label) can scare us is if we think there is such a thing, and that such a thing is a disgrace.
Focusing on the unmet need (not the judgment) is more likely to get the need met.
NVC can be effectively applied at all levels of communication and in diverse situations: intimate relationships, families, schools, organizations and institutions, therapy and counseling, diplomatic and business negotiations, disputes and conflicts of any nature.
NVC gives us tools and understanding to create a more peaceful state of mind.
Clinical training in psychoanalysis has a deficit. It teaches how to sit and think about what a person is saying and how to interpret it intellectually, but not how to be fully present to this person.
My need is for safety, fun and to have distribution of resources, a sustainable life on the planet. NVC is a strategy that serves me to meet these needs.
Plans to exact retribution are never going to make us safer.
NVC helps us connect with each other and ourselves in a way that allows our natural compassion to flourish.
They have most likely said it because they have an unmet need.
Never connect yourself with the other person's pain. Just hear their need. Leave yourself out of the other person's feelings and needs.
Every time I mess up is a chance to practice.
We're not taught to think in terms of needs. We don't make nice dead people when we're in touch with needs. Domination structures cannot maintain themselves when citizens are educated to be alive.
NVC is a reminder; to focus our attention where we are most likely to get our needs met.
However impressed we may be with NVC concepts, it is only through practice and application that our lives are transformed.
We give empathy to others for our own benefit.
Not getting our needs fulfilled is painful - but it's a sweet pain, not suffering, which is what comes from life-alienated thinking and interpretation.
Before we tackle the gangs and the basic story, we have to make sure that we have liberated ourselves from how we have been educated and make sure we are coming from a spirituality of our own choosing.
Any time you throw pain at a Jackal without a clear present request, within a millisecond he'll jump in.
Once you can clearly describe what you are reacting to, free of your interpretation or evaluation of it, other people are less likely to be defensive when they hear it.
All that has been integrated into NVC has been known for centuries about consciousness, language, communication skills, and use of power that enable us to maintain a perspective of empathy for ourselves and others, even under trying conditions.
In our culture, most of us have been trained to ignore our own wants and to discount our needs.
As soon as you say, "are you feeling X because I ..." Then the Jackal starts to salivate because he can educate the person that he's the cause of his pain.
Never hear what a jackal-speaking person thinks, especially what they think about you.
Thinking based on who deserves what blocks compassionate communication.
If we want to make meetings productive, we need to keep track of those whose requests are on the table.
