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...
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...
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...
I’ve been thinking about expectations lately, hearing how often a statement that begins, “I expected...
Where were you born? Q: I just started a new job. When I asked a coworker of Asian descent where they were born, they glared at me and said that was a microaggression. I was just trying to break the ice and don’t understand why they...
Does Nonviolent Communication work when you’re at work? This is a question I’ve been exploring for the last 11 years. I very much enjoy visiting corporations and other organizations as a trainer, and also as a coach. I’ve coached people at every level of organizational hierarchy...
I was originally going to share with you a piece I’ve published here entitled the Skill of Love, about our beautiful capacity as humans to develop the qualities of care and good will. Given Valentines Day's heart-rending school shooting, it would feel out of step...
Valentine's Day can conjure feelings of angst, loneliness, or sadness—or it may simply echo like another commercial holiday full of candy, cards, and gifts. Peering beneath the commercial veneer, we do find a wholesome value at the core of Valentine’s Day. But it’s a value...
Roxy Manning, with Janey Skinner Nonviolent Communication (NVC) was developed, in part, because its founder, Marshall Rosenberg, was inspired by the work of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. King and countless others who responded peacefully, yet powerfully, to vast systemic inequities and abuses. Dr. Rosenberg witnessed the transformative...
SO HERE WE ARE at the beginning of January and the annual question arises: Will we set personal goals for the new year—or just burrow into the sofa with a warm blanket? Resolutions are hard: we love them, we make them, sometimes we don’t keep...
As the calendar year draws to a close, it's natural time to reflect back and look forward. In Nonviolent Communication, we practice seeing life through the lens of human needs. Applying this awareness to our past actions and intentions is one way to develop wisdom,...
There’s a conversation you wish you could have, or that you are going to have, and versions of that conversation just keep spinning around and around in your mind. Perhaps you know that feeling? Maybe you already had a conversation with someone, and it did not go...