Welcome to the NVC Library

Being put on the spot or confronted in an unexpected way can be an unpleasant experience to have. Even more so during lockdown when meetings are held on Zoom.

In Life Hack 35 we're exploring the feelings that come up from hearing a difficult message as well as ways you can respond. Esme recently had this experience and offered to record a one on one session with Gesine to explore the situation.

You value generosity and you often give easily from the heart. There are those times, however, when you get snagged by a sense of obligation. You feel tense and resentful. You don't want to continue with this attitude, but how can you reconnect with the desire to give from the heart? Let’s touch on three essential elements that support giving from the heart: choice, mourning, and acceptance.

Before entering a family gathering, set your intention to notice reactivity and make a plan for self-care when it comes up. It might also be helpful to imagine repetitive interactions and plan how you will respond; for example with a boundary, honest expression, empathy, or by taking a time-out for self-care. Remember your core values, intention, and how you are committed to showing up in the world.

Hearing actions that lead to living beings' harm, you may notice that some people believe that the needs of some must come at the cost of others. This view arises from fear and an economic system meant to promote and feed off false scarcity. When struggling with this, grieve, receive support, and notice your feelings show you certain values matter to you. From this sense of purpose you can find where you can be of most service.

It can seem like anger protects you. But it's your ability to name your needs, honor your range of feelings, and act on your needs that keeps you healthy and safe. When you remain present for an emotion and allow it to flow, it'll last just over a minute and dissolve, making room for the next layer of experience. Practice noticing any anger you have, without resistance. Set up self-empathy or space be heard empathically.

When you hear yourself saying that you are being abandoned, turn toward your experience with compassion and curiosity. Check in with your interpretations, feelings, and needs. Reach out for support. This can help dissolve feelings of reactivity and allow perspective. You are then able to make requests of yourself about what you’d like to do differently in the future to honor for your needs when making a choice.

NVC is a process. It’s the willingness and effort to empathize with both sides of a conflict, encouraging each side to empathize with the other, and then seeing what solution can arise, working together to meet the needs of both sides. Empathy is the experience of being not separate as well as being an individual. It's seeing we're all part of the one ever-flowing consciousness of being, all unique expressions of this unity.

Even in the face of societal upheavals we can look for what's in our power to change. For example, we can participate in systemic change, and heal whatever we need to heal that which keeps us from living our values more readily. We can take the time to be present to those in pain, and to show up fully in our lives even when we feel stress. We can take strides to make a difference towards creating the world we want to live in.

How to get past the sting of a painful comment? Get empathy from self or another. Then connect with the commenter's feelings and needs. The more you can do this the less personally you may take it. Then work together on specific, do-able, authentic agreement about doing something differently next time, the kind that will enable you both to shift out of reactivity. Three things need to be in place for that to work.

Trainer Tip: The better you connect with your child’s needs, the more you will defuse the power struggle. If he wants to behave in a way you don't like, start by understanding what's going on with him by making empathic guesses. Doing this out loud can expand your child’s emotional vocabulary and show that his needs matter to you, and build his trust. Once you learn what's going on with him, create a strategy that values both your needs.

When we feel pain about humans relate to, and conflict with, one another on Earth what can give us capacity to transform it? Perhaps in connection to the formless consciousness of unity we may relax, open, expand -- and connect to formless human needs, a sense of universal well being, benevolence and good will. Loving action flows from here. Suffering shifts into deep healing, grace and new possibility.

Most people want to punish perpetrators of sexual violence. Unfortunately, punishment doesn’t lead to lasting widespread change. Rather, we can identify root causes and conditions that sustain violence. That means shifting from individual to systemic lenses, and from punitive to restorative responses. It means collective learning about how such acts are nurtured and persist. This can reduce the chance of it happening again.

The regeneration movement employs practices for healing our planet from damage, and boosting Earth sustainability. Environmental and social degradation is deeply connected -- as it comes from the same extractive, exploitive mindset of economic and related systems. Connecting with universal consciousness and needs underlying conflicts, we connect with commonality of all planetary life. This helps tap new abilities for working together. This can contain power to regenerate and heal ourselves and Earth.

Whether privileged or not, its not easy to see the humanity of others in different social locations, especially if their actions have unwanted impacts and have left behind our humanity. Aiming for “both sides hearing each other” empathically, and to focus on effect rather than intent when we have more privilege, may theoretically lead to liberation. Yet, in practice it can reinforce rather than transcend power differences -- unless there's specific ways to focus attention and choice. Here, its important to transform expectations into working with willingness, and within our own terms and timetable.

Trainer Tip: Are you meeting your needs for exercise? Consider which activities would help you meet your needs for physical and emotional health and fun, rather than focusing on what expert opinion says. If you feel overwhelmed and had a hard time sticking to the program feel free to tweak your program so that you enjoy it more.

Confidence, flexibility, creativity and equanimity may become more possible when you would like someone to meet a particular need, can trust that you can meet that need with someone else, and can accept a “no” to your requests. You can allow grief or disappointment to arise, and naturally turn towards a relationship in which those needs can be met. In some cases this may lead to the dissolution of a partnership or friendship.

Trainer Tip: Notice when you're tempted to wield physical, emotional, and intellectual power to get your children to do what you want. This coercion or force may bring short term ease, but long term it can be counterproductive. Ask yourself “What do I want my child to do?” and “What do I want my child’s reasons for doing it to be?”. Then consider ways to help them connect to their intrinsic motivation for doing it.

The word "privilege" signifies the benefit to the person having it, and the relationship between that person’s benefit and others' lack of benefit. When privileged, there are incentives to not see this interdependent link. For instance, it's easier for the wealthy to think of the poverty of many and the wealth of some are unrelated. If the wealthy want to keep wealth they would need to continue with approaches rooted in this separation.

Part of making your relationship a priority while maintaining autonomy means you consider the impact your actions may have on your relationship and look to negotiate ways all needs can be honored. To do this while not losing yourself, practice writing down your needs and guessing their needs beforehand. Make an upfront request to create a shared understanding about what’s most important, before discussing strategies or decisions.

Trainer Tip: Punitive use of force stems from a belief that people behave in certain ways because they're bad, and that they need to be punished to mend their ways. One way to punish is to judge them. In contrast, protective use of force stems from a desire to prevent injury or injustice. It focuses on protecting people’s rights and well-being, not judging their behavior.