Nonviolent Communication (NVC)

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:

1. vulnerably express our feelings & needs
   • consciousness of the ongoing feelings & needs
   • vulnerability of exposing feelings & needs
2. 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.)