Activity

The third component of NVC entails the acknowledgment of the root of our feelings. NVC heightens our awareness that what others say and do may be the stimulus, but never the cause of our feelings. We see that our feelings result from how we choose to receive what others say and do, as well as our p…

The first component of NVC entails the separation of observation
from evaluation. We need to clearly observe what we are seeing,
hearing, or touching that is affecting our sense of well-being,
without mixing in any evaluation.

Observations are an important element in NVC, where we wish
to cl…

Another time, when I was consulting with language that for a school district, a teacher remarked, acknowledges choice. “I hate giving grades. I don’t think they are helpful and they create a lot of anxiety on the part of students. But I have to give grades: it’s the district policy.” We had just be…

Once, during a discussion among parents and teachers on the dangers of a language that implies absence of choice, a woman objected angrily, “But there are some things you have to do whether you like it or not! And I see nothing wrong with telling my children that there are things they have to do to…

Long before I reached adulthood, I learned to communicate in an impersonal way that did not require me to reveal what was going on inside of myself. When I encountered people or behaviors I either didn’t like or didn’t understand, I would react in terms of their wrongness. If my teachers assigned a…