Nonviolent Communication
is about understanding your needs and discovering ways to meet them.
“Most of us have been educated from birth to compete, judge, demand, diagnose - to think and communicate in terms of “right” and “wrong” with people. At best the habitual ways we think and speak hinder communication, and create misunderstanding and frustration in others and ourselves. And still worse, they cause anger and pain, and may lead to violence. Without wanting to, even people with the best of intentions generate needless conflict”. Marshall Rosenberg
Why would I do an NVC training?
Gain greater self-awareness, and understanding so that you can avoid blaming others, and take responsibility for your own happiness and wellbeing .
Learn empathy skills, and how to remain calm during expression of strong emotions.
Understand the motivation behind blame, judgement, and criticism and learn to respond with curiosity rather than fight/flight or freeze.
Learn to de-escalate conflicts.
Gain confidence in speaking up, expressing yourself honestly, and asking for what you want.
Experience being fully heard and hearing others.
Find ways to communicate more effectively with children, work colleagues and ex-partners.
Identify addictive behaviour patterns and find healthier strategies to meet needs.
“Marshall Rosenberg provides us with the most effective tools to foster health and relationships. NVC connects soul to soul, creating a lot of healing, it is the missing element in what we do”. Deepak Chopra MD
What is Nonviolent Communication?
Communicating from the heart
Nonviolent Communication is a language of Love. A simple method of discovering your feelings and needs, and understanding them better, in order to share them effectively with others. When we can tune in to ourselves, and can articulate what is going on within us, it fosters intimacy creating deeper and more fulfilling relationships.
Self-Connection
It begins with self-awareness and self-empathy. By developing skills to connect in with and understand ourselves, we grow in our ability to have compassion for others. When we are able to understand and take responsibility for our feelings and needs, we become much better at taking care of ourselves and thus are better equipped to care for others.
In turn, self connection supports us to establish clear and strong boundaries, and enhances our ability to make powerful requests in order to meet our own needs.
Connecting with others
Learning Nonviolent Communication skills helps us to connect with others even when there is high emotion and conflict, because we come to understand that it’s not about us, that we can be a stimulus for pain in others, but not the actual cause of their pain or anger. So it frees us up to be fully present to the other, no matter what is going on for them, just being with them, not having to fix or change them.
Connection is more possible when we are clear about our own feelings and needs and take full responsibility, because we then free ourselves from dependency or expectation of others to meet our needs. We can then show up in our relationships with a calm presence, a quiet confidence, and curiosity about others, rather than a guardedness or fear.
Honest Self-Expression
When we have Nonviolent Communication skills onboard, it makes it much easier to express ourselves honestly withot the fear of causing offense or escalating a conflict. NVC also frees us up to express our creativity without fear of embarrassment or humiliation because we learn that we cannot change others, that it’s not our job to make others happy, and we cannot make them proud or upset.
They will probably always be judging us, no matter what we do. When we understand the underlying cause of judgements, it makes it so much easier to express ourselves with courage, confidence and greater freedom.
“If we change ourselves we can change the world and changing ourselves begins with changing our language and methods of communication”. Arun Gandhi
