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June 5, 2025
Speak Peace in a World of Conflict.
What You Say Next Will Change Your World.
getting people to exchange words in a way that excludes judgments, blame, and violence.
Everyone clings to their history with a vengeance, because it anchors their identity.
we are not our stories. These stories are self-created fictions that remain intact through habit, group coercion, old conditioning, and lack of self-awareness.
“Do no harm”
In any conflict, he didn’t choose sides or even care primarily what their stories were.
Aggression is built into the ego system, which totally focuses on “I, me, and mine” whenever conflict arises.
The only way to resolve all violence is to give up your story.
No one can be enlightened who still has a personal stake in the world—that
the point isn’t to change your actions but to change your consciousness.
To do that, you must walk a path from A to B, where A is a life based on the incessant demands of the ego and B is selfless awareness.
Ahimsa has to be revived in every generation, because human nature is torn between peace and violence.
If we have true self-interest at heart, we will follow. It’s the only alternative in a world desperately seeking wisdom and the end of strife.
I’m grateful that I was able to study and work with Professor Carl Rogers
search for ways of practicing a different psychology, one based on a growing clarity about how we human beings were meant to live.
Words are windows, or they’re walls, They sentence us, or set us free. When I speak and when I hear, Let the love light shine through me.
What I want in my life is compassion, a flow between myself and others based on a mutual giving from the heart. —Marshall B. Rosenberg, PhD
Believing that it is our nature to enjoy giving and receiving in a compassionate manner,
What happens to disconnect us from our compassionate nature,
what allows some people to stay connected to their compassionate nature under even the ...
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a way of communicating that leads us to give from the heart.
We are led to express ourselves with honesty and clarity, while simultaneously paying others a respectful and empathic attention.
Although I refer to it as “a process of communication” or “a language of compassion,” NVC is more than a process or a language. On a deeper level, it is an ongoing reminder to keep our attention focused on a place where we are more likely to get what we are seeking.
Let’s shine the light of consciousness on places where we can hope to find what we are seeking.
When we give from the heart, we do so out of the joy that springs forth whenever we willingly enrich another person’s life. This kind of giving benefits both the giver and the receiver.
The receiver enjoys the gift without worrying about the consequences that accompany gifts given out of fear, guilt, shame, or desire for gain. The giver benefits from the enhanced self-esteem that results when we see our efforts contributing to someone’s well-being.
First, we observe what is actually happening in a situation: what are we observing others saying or doing that is either enriching or not enriching our life? The trick is to be able to articulate this observation without introducing any judgment or evaluation—to simply say what people are doing that we either like or don’t like. Next, we state how we feel when we observe this action: are we hurt, scared, joyful, amused, irritated? And thirdly, we say what needs of ours are connected to the feelings we have identified.
Four components of NVC: 1. observations 2. feelings 3. needs 4. requests
feel irritated because I am needing more order in the rooms that we share in common.”
This fourth component addresses what we are wanting from the other person that would enrich our lives or make life more wonderful for us.
We connect with them by first sensing what they are observing, feeling, and needing; then we discover what would enrich their lives by receiving the fourth piece—their request.
we establish a flow of communication, back and forth, until compassion manifests naturally: what I am observing, feeling, and needing; what I am requesting to enrich my life; what you are observing, feeling, and needing; what you are requesting to enrich your life …
NVC Process The concrete actions we observe that affect our well-being How we feel in relation to what we observe The needs, values, desires, etc. that create our feelings The concrete actions we request in order to enrich our lives
The essence of NVC is in our consciousness of the four components, not in the actual words that are exchanged.
Two parts of NVC: 1. expressing honestly through the four components 2. receiving empathically through the four components
NVC helps us connect with each other and ourselves in a way that allows our natural compassion to flourish.
reframe the way we express ourselves and listen to others by focusing our consciousness on four areas: what we are observing, feeling, and needing, and what we are requesting to enrich our lives.
fosters deep listening, respect, and empathy and engenders a mutual desire to give from the heart. Some people use NVC to respond compassionately to themselves, some to create greater depth in their personal relationships, and still others to build effective relationships at work or in the political...
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the consciousness and intent that it embraces may be expressed through silence, a quality of presence, as well as through facial expressions and body language.
Certain ways of communicating alienate us from our natural state of compassion.
Moralistic Judgments
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”
In the world of judgments, our concern centers on “who is what.”
When we speak this language, we think and communicate in terms of what’s wrong with others for behaving in certain ways or, occasionally, what’s wrong with ourselves for not understanding
Our attention is focused on classifying, analyzing, and determining levels of wrongness rather than on what we and others need and are not getting.
Analyses of others are actually expressions of our own needs and values.
not to confuse value judgments and moralistic judgments. All of us make value judgments as to the qualities we value in life; for example, we might value honesty, freedom, or peace.