NVC Resources on Feelings

This article outlines a four-part transformation process to help us recognize what's giving rise to our suffering and resentment -- and transform it into more freedom, creativity, and choice.

Anytime you create something new in your life, you can fulfill your need for creativity. Expand your concept of what it means to be creative. Read on for examples.

Trainer Tip: Be aware of opportunities today to choose empathizing over arguing with someone who is angry, and notice how it affects your ability to resolve the situation. Read on for more.

Trainer tip: Demands are more likely to limit the possibilities and create distance between people. The trick to asking something as a request is valuing everyone’s needs equally. When you value everyone’s needs equally, then you are more willing to come to solutions that satisfy everyone. It thus opens possibilities and helps build connection.

Trainer tip: In every interaction, we have a choice of responding in one of these four ways: judge/blame self, Judge/blame others, empathize with self, and/or empathize with others. The goal is to make a conscious choice about our response. Notice the choices you have when you receive someone’s communication today.

Trainer tip: The phrase “tragic expressions of unmet needs” is used to convey how often we do things that aren’t likely to meet our needs. It’s not bad, it’s tragic -- because it won’t help us meet our needs. Acknowledging this, we can then consider a different approach that's more likely to lead to satisfying results. Read on for three examples of where this may apply in your life.

Join Dian Killian and discover the power of imagery and metaphor in deepening your empathy practice. This segment from her 6 session course explores how visualizing sensations, emotions, and needs through metaphorical language can enhance the connection during empathy guessing, particularly in somatic-based approaches.

NVC Mingle is a fun group exercise to practice NVC principles and create quick connections with others.

The NVC Circle of Life is a mandala illustrating the process and consciousness of Nonviolent Communication. Mandala literally means "sacred circle" and symbolizes wholeness, balance and harmony.

Trainer Tip: The ways that we interact with our children shape the way they will interact in their world. How do your actions model compassion, tolerance, and love for your children?

Trainer Tip: Have you ever noticed how often we back up when we find ourselves in a conflict? Or how much we try to pull away when someone is angry or in emotional pain?

Does the thought of asking the following question stop you cold? "Would you tell me what you heard me say?" Mary Mackenzie, CNVC Certified Trainer known for her colloquial method of speaking and teaching NVC, offers a simpler method.

In this brief audio, Jim Manske uses a live situation to demonstrate how to use the NVC process in an apology. Jim starts by identifying the four steps to self-connection before expressing your apology.

Ask the Trainer: "A participant in our beginners' NVC practice group asked the co-facilitators if there was a confidentiality agreement that was typically used in NVC practice groups?"

Trainer Tip: Sometimes you might find yourself in a situation where your need for love is not met. Consider ways in which a partner or friend could meet your need for love. Be sure to request something the other person is capable of doing. Whatever the situation, it is our responsibility to clarify how we can meet our need for love, while also considering the abilities of our loved ones to...

LoraKim explores what gets in the way of seeing the inherent worth and dignity of others when there is conflict in congregations. The strategies LoraKim offers can be applied to any spiritual community.

Listen as Mary Mackenzie shares an eight step path to create your own NVC learning activities, based on your own NVC learning experience. In this session, Mary uses the value of requests and observations as teaching examples.

What does nonviolence have to do with group facilitation? Miki Kashtan believes that nonviolence is a way of being and living that orients us in all our thoughts, words and deeds toward the integration of truth, love and courage. All nonviolent individual and collective actions are aimed at preserving what serves life and challenging what does not. Facilitation is one clear path for bringing...

Trainer tip: Do you get into “right fights”? You know you’re in one when you’re arguing with somebody in order to be right or because you want to win. What needs do I hope to meet from winning or being right? Notice if you enter into a right fight today and shift your focus to your needs and connecting with the other person's needs.

Trainer tip: When you want to thank someone expressing what that person did, how you felt about and what needs were met for you, can provide the other person with more information. It can also help her more fully understand how she contributed to you, and deepen your connection with her.