Do the solutions find you?

  "Get connected to the needs, and the solutions will find you." Since 2005, I’ve been living with this idea, a statement I heard Marshall Rosenberg make a number of times during my first two years of training in NVC. At around the same time, I heard

Calling In and Calling Out

In NVC circles, there are several topics that are often raised when someone behaves in a way that’s painful to another person. Discussions come up about the toxicity of shame, about how feedback that’s harsh and judgmental directly counters NVC principles. People dismiss and actively

Reclaiming Anger

Anger. Anger. ANGER. I invite you to notice what happens for you as you see that word on your screen. Is there a warm embrace of it? Is there a contracting, a pulling away? All good either way – just notice. Most of us learned in our early lives that certain

One Next Step

YEARS AGO, WHEN I FIRST STARTED working in Collaborative Communication, I spent a lot of time worrying about my endgame. When I sat down to do a mediation, I thought I should know at the outset exactly how the conflict would be resolved. When I

How to Survive the Holidays: 6 Communication Tips

For many, spending time with relatives over the holidays may be challenging. In addition to the love and care we may feel, family gatherings can bring up old hurts or expose painful differences. How many family meals have been marred by tense silence or devolved

Finding Compassion

Since the other name for Nonviolent Communication is Compassionate Communication, just what do we mean by compassion? For me, as a “word nerd” (translate: delighted when learning word origins, loving to understand), I wanted to uncover the original meaning of “compassion.”  It turns out to be

Learning How to Listen

Listening is a cornerstone of dialogue and a powerful metaphor for spiritual practice. When we’re willing and able to listen, we open a conduit that allows connection and understanding to happen. There are so many ways to listen. We can listen to the content of what

Strike While The Iron Is Cold

Have you ever gotten really angry about something and realized later that the trigger was quite trivial? Have you, in hindsight, asked yourself this question: “Why did that bother me so much, so fast?” Andre Igoudala, basketball player for the Golden State Warriors, was once hit

Climate Control: Turning Down the Heat

FOR MY SOMETIMES SKEPTICAL clients and students: Two stories to prove that yes, Nonviolent Communication works in real life. While we probably won’t use NVC’s formal language (“Are you feeling sad, because you need support?”), as we select our own words, we can still embody

Renewing the Dream

Using Nonviolent Communication to Answer Dr. King’s Call for Social Change How can nonviolent communication help us return to the powerful vision of social change for which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. so strongly advocated and for which he died? How can we inspire ourselves to

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