Nonviolent Communication (NVC)
· One min read
Why Nonviolent Communication?
To improve communication quality by ==valuing everyone's needs==. ==Judgments and violence are tragic expressions of unmet needs.==
What NVC is not
- NOT about being nice.
- NOT about making them to do what we want. It's about mutual understanding.
Ways to enhance connection & understanding:
- vulnerably express our feelings & needs
- consciousness of the ongoing feelings & needs
- vulnerability of exposing feelings & needs
- emphatically listen to the feelings & needs of the other.
- Qualities of empathic listening: presence, focus, space, caring, ==verbal reflection of feelings & needs==
- NOT advising, fixing, consoling, story-telling, sympathizing, analyzing, explaining, …
- No matter what is said, hear only feelings, needs, observations & requests
e.g. ==Are you feeling … because you need …?==
Ways to alienate us from one another
- Diagnoses, judgments, labels, analysis, criticism, comparisons, etc.
- Deserve thinking (i.e. that certain behaviors merit punishment or rewards)
- Demands (denial of other person’s choice; intention to punish those who don’t do it)
- Denial of choice or responsibility (had to, should, supposed to, they made me do it, etc.)