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Started reading
June 5, 2025
The relationship between language and violence is the subject of psychology
His study shows a high correlation between frequent use of such words and frequency of incidents.
Classifying and judging people promotes violence.
Making Comparisons
How to Make Yourself Miserable,
Comparisons are a form of judgment.
Even readers who never emerge from the self-induced misery of this exercise might see how powerfully this type of thinking blocks compassion, both for oneself and for others.
Denial of Responsibility
we are each responsible for our own thoughts, feelings, and actions.
The use of the common expression have to,
Our language obscures awareness of personal responsibility.
We deny responsibility for our actions when we attribute their cause to factors outside ourselves: Vague, impersonal forces—“I cleaned my room because I had to.” Our condition, diagnosis, or personal or psychological history—“I drink because I am an alcoholic.” The actions of others—“I hit my child because he ran into the street.” The dictates of authority—“I lied to the client because the boss told me to.”
Group pressure—“I started smoking because all my friends did.” Institutional policies, rules, and regulations—“I have to suspend you for this infraction because it’s the school policy.” Gender roles, social roles, or age roles—“I hate going to work, but I do it because I am a husband and a father.” Uncontrollable impulses—“I was overcome by my urge to eat the candy bar.”
I just hoped that she might find happier possibilities by learning the language of NVC.
We can replace language that implies lack of choice with language that acknowledges choice.
We are dangerous when we are not conscious of our responsibility for how we behave, think, and feel.
Communicating our desires as demands is yet another form of language that blocks compassion. A demand explicitly or implicitly threatens listeners with blame or punishment
We can never make people do anything.
Thinking based on “who deserves what” blocks compassionate communication.
Most of us grew up speaking a language that encourages us to label, compare, demand, and pronounce judgments rather than to be aware of what we are feeling and needing.
Life-alienating communication has deep philosophical and political roots.
When we are in contact with our feelings and needs, we humans no longer make good slaves and underlings.
One form of life-alienating communication is the use of moralistic judgments that imply wrongness or badness on the part of those who don’t act in harmony with our values. Another is the use of comparisons, which can block compassion both for others and for ourselves. Life-alienating communication also obscures our awareness that we are each responsible for our own thoughts, feelings, and actions. Communicating our desires in the form of demands is yet another characteristic of language that blocks compassion.
OBSERVE!! There are few things as important, as religious, as that. —Frederick Buechner, minister
The first component of NVC entails the separation of observation from evaluation.
without mixing in any evaluation.
When we combine observation with evaluation, we decrease the likelihood that others will hear our intended message.
discourages static generalizations;
observations specific to time and context.
When we combine observation with evaluation, people are apt to hear criticism.
observing without evaluating is the highest form of human intelligence.
For most of us, it is difficult to make observations,
it’s not always easy to shed our old habits and master the ability to separate observation from evaluation.
The first component of NVC entails the separation of observation from evaluation.
NVC is a process language that discourages static generalizations. Instead, observations are to be made specific to time and context, for example,
The first component of NVC is to observe without evaluating; the second component is to express how we are feeling.
Psychoanalyst Rollo May suggests that “the mature person becomes able to differentiate feelings into as many nuances, strong and passionate experiences, or delicate and sensitive ones as in the different passages of music in a symphony.” For many of us, however, our feelings
We are trained to be “other-directed” rather than to be in contact with ourselves. We learn to be “up in our head,” wondering, “What is it that others think is right for me to say and do?”
such statements often lead to self-fulfilling prophecies.
Expressing our vulnerability can help resolve conflicts.
“I am feeling nervous,” I admitted, “but not because you are black. My feelings have to do with my not knowing anyone here and wanting to be accepted when I came in the room.”
the words I feel could be more accurately replaced with I think.
Distinguish feelings from thoughts.
Distinguish between what we feel and what we think we are.
we distinguish between words that express actual feelings and those that describe what we think we are.
Likewise, it is helpful to differentiate between words that describe what we think others are doing around us, and words that describe actual feelings.
Distinguish between what we feel and how we think others react or behave toward us.
Building a Vocabulary for Feelings
How we are likely to feel when our needs are being met absorbed adventurous affectionate alert alive
amazed amused animated appreciative ardent aroused astonished blissful breathless buoyant calm carefree cheerful comfortable complacent composed concerned confident contented cool curious dazzled
