_Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life_ by Marshall Rosenberg
Encinitas, CA: PuddleDancer Press, 2015
ISBN 978-1-892005-28-1
(21) We are dangerous when we are not conscious of our responsiblity for how we behave, think, and feel.
(32) The first component of NVC entails the separation of observation from evaluation. When we combine observation with evaluation, others are apt to hear criticism and resist what we are saying.
(40) Expressing our vulnerability can help resolve conflicts.
(41) Distinguish between what we feel and what we think we are.
(49) What others do may be the stimulus of our feelings, but not the cause.
(49-50) Four options for receiving messages:
1. blame ourselves
2. blame others
3. sense our own feelings and needs
4. sense others’ feelings and needs
NB: all at once, one at a time, and in every combination: 6, I think
(51) As we shall see, the more we are able to connect our feelings to our own needs, the easier it is for others to respond compassionately.
(52) The basic mechanism of motivating by guilt is to attribute the responsibility for one’s own feelings to others.
(56) “I have lived for sixty-five years, and if there is one thing I have learned, it is never to give unless I give from the heart.” - a man in a bus station who gives a child an orange after kissing it.
(69) In addition to using positive language, we also want to word our requests in the form of concrete actions that others can undertake and to avoid vague, abstract, or ambiguous phrasing.
(74) My belief is that, whenever we say something to another person, we are requesting something in return. It may simply be an empathic connection - a verbal or nonverbal acknowledgment, as with the man on the train, that our words have been understood.
(97) …I’ve found that people feel safer if we first reveal the feelings and needs within ourselves that are generating the question. Thus, instead of asking someone, “What did I do?” we might say, “I’m frustrated because I’d like to be clearer about what you are referring to. Would you be willing to tell me what I’ve done that leads you to see me in this way?"
(99) As we’ve seen, all criticism, attack, insults, and judgments vanish when we focus attention on hearing the feelings and needs behind a message. The more we practice in this way, the more we realize a simple truth: behind all those messages we’ve allowed ourselves to be intimidated by are just individuals with unmet needs appealing to us to contribute to their well-being.
(104) Empathy is a respectful understanding of what others are experiencing. We often have a strong urge to give advice or reassurance and to explain our own position or feeling. Empathy, however, calls upon us to empty our mind and listen to others with our whole being.
In NVC, no matter what words others may use to express themselves, we simply listen for their observations, feelings, needs, and requests. Then we may wish to reflect back, paraphrasing what we have understood. We stay with empathy and allow others the opportunity to fully express themselves before we turn our attention to solutions or requests for relief.
(135) Don’t Do Anything That Isn’t Play!
(137) After having acknowledged that you choose to do a particular activity, get in touch with the intention behind your choice by completing the statement, I choose to…. because I want….
(139) When we use language which denies choice (for example, words such as should, have to, ought, must, can’t, supposed to, etc), our behaviors arise out of a vague sense of guilt, duty, or obligation.
(142) Where guilt is a tactic of manipulation and coercion, it is useful to confuse simulus and cause.
…. To motivate by guilt, mix up stimulus and cause.
(144) When we judge others, we contribute to violence.
...At the core of all anger is a need that is not being fulfilled. Thus anger can be valuable if we use it as an alarm clock to wake us up - to realize we have a need that isn’t being met and that we are thinking in a way that makes it unlikely to be met.
(147) Violence comes from the belief that other people cause our pain and therefore deserve punishment
We recall four options when hearing a difficult message: 1. Blame ourselves 2. Blame others 3. Sense our own feelings and needs 4. Sense others’ feelings and needs
(151) I’ve learned to savor life much more by only hearing what’s going on in their hearts and not getting caught up with the stuff in their heads.
NB: If you can recognize the difference
(161) Whatever the situation may be, resolving conflicts involves all the principles I outlined previously in this book: observing, identifying and expressing feelings, connecting feelings with needs, and making doable requests fo another person using clear, concrete, positive action language.
(163) They [mediators] are not at all concerned with creating a quality of connection, thus overlooking the only conflict resolution tool I have ever known to work. When I described the NVC method and the role of human connection, one of the participants at the Austria meeting raised the objection that I was talking about psychotherapy, and that mediators were not psychotherapists.
In my experience, connecting people at this level isn’t psychotherapy; it’s actually the core of mediation because when you make the connection, the problem solves itself most of the time.
(164) NVC Conflict Resolution Steps - A Quick Overview
First, we express our own needs.
Second, we search for the real needs of the other person, no matter how they are expressing themselves. If they are not expressing a need, but instead an opinion, judgment, or analysis, we recognize that, and continue to seek the need behind their words, the need underneath what they are saying.
Third, we verify that we both accurately recognize the other person’s needs, and if not, continue to seek the need behind their words.
Fourth, we provide as much empathy as is required for us to mutually hear each other’s needs accurately.
And fifth, having clarified both parties’ needs in the situation, we propose strategies for resolving the conflict, framing them in positive action language.
(165) In order not to confuse needs and strategies, it is important to recall that needs contain no reference to anybody taking any particular action. On the other hand, strategies, which may appear in the form of requests, desires, wants, and “solutions,” refer to specific actions that specific people may take.
(168) So this is our work: learning to recognize the need in statements that don’t overtly express any need. It takes practice, and it always involves some guessing. Once we sense what the other person needs, we can check in with them, and then help them put into their need into words. If we are able to truly hear their need, a new level of connection is forged - a critical piece that moves the conflict toward successful resolution.
(170) We must not assume that when one party expresses a need clearly, that the other party hears it accurately.
(171) People often need empathy before they are able to hear what is being said.
… If we could just say, “Here are the needs of both sides. Here are the resources. What can be done to meet these needs?,” conflicts would be easily resolved.
(183) When we witness behaviors that raise concern in us - unless it is a situation that calls for the protective use of force as described in Chapter 12 - the first thing we do is to empathize with the needs of the person who is behaving in the way we dislike.
(186) Robert Irwin, Building a Peace System
(189) I believe it is critical to be aware of the importance of people’s reasons for behaving as we request.
(198) Focus on what we want to do rather than what went wrong.
(199) Defuse stress by hearing our own feelings and needs.
(203) By showing us how to focus on what we truly want rather than on what is wrong with others or ourselves, NVC gives us the tools and understanding to create a more peaceful state of mind.
(210) The Three Components of Appreciation
NVC clearly distinguishes three components in the expression of appreciation:
1. the actions that have contributed to our well-being
2. the particular needs of ours that have been fulfilled
3. the pleasureful feelings engendered by the fulfillment of those needs
(212) Accustomed to a culture where buying, earning, and deserving are the standard modes of interchange, we are often uncomfortable with simple giving and receiving.
NB: Anthropologists might disagree that there is such a thing as “simple giving and receiving"
… “I would like to thank you in a way that we Sufi Muslims do when we want to express special appreciation for something.” Locking his thumb onto mine, he looked me in the eye and said, “I kiss the God in you that allows you to give us what you did.” He then kissed my hand.
(214) “Dad, are you aware how often you bring up what’s gone wrong but almost never bring up what’s gone right?”
(218) My grandmother loved to dance, and my mother remembers her saying often, “Never walk when you can dance.”
(220) Ruth Benedict, “Synergy - Patterns of the Good Culture” Psychology Today 4 (June 1970): 53-57
(222) Rabindranath Tagore, Sadhana: The Realization of Life Tucson: Omen Press, 1972
