Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships
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About this ebook
What is Violent Communication?
If "violent" means acting in ways that result in hurt or harm, then much of how we communicate—judging others, bullying, having racial bias, blaming, finger pointing, discriminating, speaking without listening, criticizing others or ourselves, name-calling, reacting when angry, using political rhetoric, being defensive or judging who's "good/bad" or what's "right/wrong" with people—could indeed be called "violent communication."
What is Nonviolent Communication? Nonviolent Communication is the integration of four things:
• Consciousness: a set of principles that support living a life of compassion, collaboration, courage, and authenticity
• Language: understanding how words contribute to connection or distance
• Communication: knowing how to ask for what we want, how to hear others even in disagreement, and how to move toward solutions that work for all
• Means of influence: sharing "power with others" rather than using "power over others"
Nonviolent Communication serves our desire to do three things:
• Increase our ability to live with choice, meaning, and connection
• Connect empathically with self and others to have more satisfying relationships
• Sharing of resources so everyone is able to benefit
Read more from Marshall B. Rosenberg
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Reviews for Nonviolent Communication
76 ratings12 reviews
What our readers think
Readers find this title to be a life-changing book on communication. It offers techniques for understanding and decoding messages, recognizing feelings and needs, and improving relationships. The book is praised for its practicality and heart-touching storytelling. Readers believe that these communication strategies should be widely used, even by leaders to prevent conflicts. Overall, the book is seen as a paradigm shift and a necessary tool for compassionate and non-judgmental communication.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Amazing book, highly recommended for anyone who is curious about how to communicate effectively and resolve conflicts.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Life changing learning - very well told, touching the heart and very practical.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rosenburg shows us world-changing relationship skills, first to apply personally, and then to help others find better ways to communicate.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A paradigm shift for me. And so necessary, to learn to communicate well. And with compassion and non judgment.
2 people found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A revolutionary way of communicating that will blow your mind!
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fantastic read with communication strategies we should
all be using. I think wars could be prevented if leaders read this book.2 people found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I have the benefit of reading this book in conjunction with a class. Had I not had a weekly practice session, to discuss various chapters, I may not have gotten as much out of it, but I am incredibly grateful that I have had the chance to read (and understand at least a portion of) this book.There are basic steps, as there are in any self-help book, on how to better navigate your life, and while I am not yet a natural at NVC, I hope to become a more frequent user of it. In the driver's seat (that of the speaker), the form of 1)Observation 2)Feeling 3)Unmet Need 4)Request is helpful, though difficult to make fluent (especially when trying to not put any of the true power of your feelings into the other person - ie not "When you do W, I feel X, because I need Y from you. Could you stop being an asshat (Z)?)Perhaps more important for me in this book though, is the exploration of empathetic listening. Working to truly understand the other person's feelings and unmet needs is what I hope will make me a better mother, friend, and partner.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The book has everything you need: poems written by the author, Phd., stories about forgetable people in abstract situations, word-to-word cheetsheets teaching you how to speak like a robot.
And even though I lacked method here - instead I got humblebrags about the proven track record of NVC efficiency - the book came in handy. The techniques it offers, especially about paraphrasing, and elements of recognizing the feelings/needs of your partners were interesting to remind myself about. It should be common knowledge though, and I hope it will be very soon.
Overall, this all book can be summarized into simple mantra of "Don't be a dick". Or, to put it into it's own terminology:
When I didn't finish reading this book because at page 224 I started spacing out and wishing to read just about anything else,
I was FEELing that it is because the book is overrated but has too much of a hype from previous years.
And yet, I NEED it to be based on something else than author's observations, because with the current structure it is more about the storytelling than about facts.
Would the author consider being less new-agey?1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The best book I have ever read. Life changing for me. With these techniques, I am saving my romantic relationship, lifting myself from depression, and finding renwed energy and hope for making a lasting positive change in this life.
My communication started evolving after only the first couple chapters. Never would I have guessed at the start how far I could come. Now I am constantly looking forward to using these techniques with my loved ones, who I now realize I had let down in so many ways communicating in the past. Instead of regretting past communication blunders with no tools to improve, I can now redeem myself and uplift my loved ones, as I always wanted to. Practicing these techniques will release you and those around you from so much pain in communication.
I can not speak highly enough of this book and Dr. Rosenberg. I will go so far at as to say that I believe there would be no world conflict if all people read this book. For now let us each start with changing what we can.. ourselves.1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I found this book in a moment of inner appraisal as to my ability to properly communicate with others. I had a feeling, frustration, of not being understood and my feelings being neglected which led me to believe, in my own arrogance at different times that either I was to smart or emotionally dumb to understand other people. I learned that I have to understand a little about myself and educate how to decode other people's messages and what they really mean. This is the Rosetta Stone to decoding what other people are saying to you when you or them feel frustrated. This is not only a new perspective on communication and the thought process but a new way of being human. If someone opens their mouth to say something as opposed to being silent it means that it is of importance to them that you somehow resonate to that thought and it also means that you are important enough to deserve their effort, otherwise they would have been silent. Make the effort to read this book as it would conceptually change your view as why people communicate with you, what they are trying to say as well as how you should react, say, and be more clear about your feelings that you want to be communicated.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Marshall Rosenberg's basic insight is that communicating clearly and compassionately takes practice. He has developed a technique called Nonviolent Communication, based on mindfulness of the feelings and needs of yourself and others. His ideas have a strong Buddhist flavor and offer an explicit technique for practicing the Buddhist precept of Right Speech, but they universal in application. Anyone in a committed relationship will benefit from reading this book.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5There's no "there" there.I'm sensing that you're frustrated.Well, yeah! I mean, Nonviolent Communication is a great title. I think about the kind of inspirational shit your neighbour has on a magnet on their fridge, that could maybe benefit from being expanded into a whole program. Like, my friend talks about trying to only say things that are "necessary, true, and kind." I have some questions about exactly what that means in practice, but it sounds great as a principle from which to pursue nonviolence. And, like, yesterday I casually referred to a person of my acquaintance as a Nazi, and it's maybe a little bit brutalizing to your interlocutor to do that, right? Like, reserve that term for actual members of the National Socialist party? This is where the idea of "violent communication" takes me, and I think it's worth talking about how to avoid that stuff.So if I hear you, you feel like Dr. Rosenberg's book doesn't help you avoid that kind of thing.Thing is, like with so many of these self-help things, he doesn't give people credit for being able to keep two ideas in their head at one time. All the world's problems are due to people not feeling like they're heard. If we hear them, there's no limit to what we can accomplish. It's like that old joke: step 1--"implement the NVC process"; step 2--?????; step 3: profit! We all know listening is important--and while of course there is no the difficulty, at least one of the major difficulties, which isn't even touched, is the difference between listening, understanding, and agreeing, which makes it all the more unfortunate and egregious that Rosenberg leans so heavily on his work with Israeli and Palestinian negotiators for examples. Haven't really fixed that problem, have you, Marshall?So you're feeling like you don't know how to engage with the process in a useful way.The process doesn't know how to engage with me. And if it can't handle me, I'd love to see it handle scumbag investment bankers or Tamil refugees or, fuck, Joseph Kony.It seems like you're feeling discouraged. How about a poem?And this is the other thing. You can't take a platitude, pop it into rhyme, and present it as poetry. I recognize that I'm the one who's risking coming across as the anger bear here, but this process just seems so dishonest. Suffering people often need to hear that someone understands how their feeling--yes. And we're all suffering--yes. This is the truth at the core of the book. But Rosenberg seems to want us to posit a world where nobody is going to engage insincerely in a way that can't be brought down by some good ol' NVC TLC, where our only disputes come from an inability to remember our common humanity, and crucially too, where if you guess wrong about what someone is feeling--and this is a process where for it to mean anything you sometimes have to guess in detail--it doesn't stymie the process. Everyone likes to be understood, but the more you leap out into someone else's headspace, the more you run the risk of getting it wrong.It seems like you're worried about being misunderstood when you try to use the process, and feeling like you don't know how to communicate with people in a reliable way.Well, we all face death alone, but no, I do okay at bridging the gap--as okay as the next guy. I just think that it's an art not a science let alone a management process, and I am highly suspicious of the fact that so many of your clients are Fortune 500 companies and MBA programs and shit, and nothing I've seen convinces me that this is anything more than understanding as manipulation. Empathy emerges between two people through a sort of alchemy, and both need to be open, and defusing someone's anger by parroting them back at themselves is doing them a sort of violence, even, and you're just teaching people to fake it. You're creating Mitt Romneys.And I dunno, I think we do a decent job at hearing each other, mostly, I just think that's not the main issue, and if you presented this as a first step to dialogue in the spirit of "nothing ever changes unless you get the shitheads on board," I might be inclined to listen, but instead you treat the story like it's done when understanding is reached, sometimes explicitly dismissing the problems that remain and stem from systematic inequalities, like the woman who still couldn't go back to school or change her life but it didn't matter because she understood better why she blamed herself. But no! We don't blame ourselves because we haven't thought it out! We blame ourselves despite knowing better, because of human maladaptive things. Quit fucking us around, Marshall Rosenberg. The only people who need to be told what's in your book would never read it.I'm sensing that you're frustrated.Yup.
Book preview
Nonviolent Communication - Marshall B. Rosenberg
Bebermeyer
1
Giving From the Heart
The Heart of Nonviolent Communication
What I want in my life is compassion,
a flow between myself and others based
on a mutual giving from the heart.
—Marshall B. Rosenberg, PhD
Introduction
Believing that it is our nature to enjoy giving and receiving in a compassionate manner, I have been preoccupied most of my life with two questions: What happens to disconnect us from our compassionate nature, leading us to behave violently and exploitatively? And conversely, what allows some people to stay connected to their compassionate nature under even the most trying circumstances?
My preoccupation with these questions began in childhood, around the summer of 1943, when our family moved to Detroit, Michigan. The second week after we arrived, a race war erupted over an incident at a public park. More than forty people were killed in the next few days. Our neighborhood was situated in the center of the violence, and we spent three days locked in the house.
When the race riot ended and school began, I discovered that a name could be as dangerous as any skin color. When the teacher called my name during attendance, two boys glared at me and hissed, Are you a kike?
I had never heard the word before and didn’t know some people used it in a derogatory way to refer to Jews. After school, the same two boys were waiting for me: they threw me to the ground and kicked and beat me.
Since that summer in 1943, I have been examining the two questions I mentioned. What empowers us, for example, to stay connected to our compassionate nature even under the worst circumstances? I am thinking of people like Etty Hillesum, who remained compassionate even while subjected to the grotesque conditions of a German concentration camp. As she wrote in her journal at the time,
Iam not easily frightened. Not because I am brave but because I know that I am dealing with human beings, and that I must try as hard as I can to understand everything that anyone ever does. And that was the real import of this morning: not that a disgruntled young Gestapo officer yelled at me, but that I felt no indignation, rather a real compassion, and would have liked to ask, ‘Did you have a very unhappy childhood, has your girlfriend let you down?’ Yes, he looked harassed and driven, sullen and weak. I should have liked to start treating him there and then, for I know that pitiful young men like that are dangerous as soon as they are let loose on mankind.
—Etty Hillesum in Etty: A Diary 1941–1943
While studying the factors that affect our ability to stay compassionate, I was struck by the crucial role of language and our use of words. I have since identified a specific approach to communicating—both speaking and listening—that leads us to give from the heart, connecting us with ourselves and with each other in a way that allows our natural compassion to flourish. I call this approach Nonviolent Communication, using the term nonviolence as Gandhi used it—to refer to our natural state of compassion when violence has subsided from the heart. While we may not consider the way we talk to be violent,
words often lead to hurt and pain, whether for others or ourselves. In some communities, the process I am describing is known as Compassionate Communication; the abbreviation NVC is used throughout this book to refer to Nonviolent or Compassionate Communication.
NVC: a way of communicating that leads us to give from the heart.
A Way to Focus Attention
NVC is founded on language and communication skills that strengthen our ability to remain human, even under trying conditions. It contains nothing new; all that has been integrated into NVC has been known for centuries. The intent is to remind us about what we already know—about how we humans were meant to relate to one another—and to assist us in living in a way that concretely manifests this knowledge.
NVC guides us in reframing how we express ourselves and hear others. Instead of habitual, automatic reactions, our words become conscious responses based firmly on awareness of what we are perceiving, feeling, and wanting. We are led to express ourselves with honesty and clarity, while simultaneously paying others a respectful and empathic attention. In any exchange, we come to hear our own deeper needs and those of others. NVC trains us to observe carefully, and to be able to specify behaviors and conditions that are affecting us. We learn to identify and clearly articulate what we are concretely wanting in any given situation. The form is simple, yet powerfully transformative.
As NVC replaces our old patterns of defending, withdrawing, or attacking in the face of judgment and criticism, we come to perceive ourselves and others, as well as our intentions and relationships, in a new light. Resistance, defensiveness, and violent reactions are minimized. When we focus on clarifying what is being observed, felt, and needed rather than on diagnosing and judging, we discover the depth of our own compassion. Through its emphasis on deep listening—to ourselves as well as to others—NVC fosters respect, attentiveness, and empathy and engenders a mutual desire to give from the heart.
We perceive relationships in a new light when we use NVC to hear our own deeper needs and those of others.
Although I refer to it as a process of communication
or a language of compassion,
NVC is more than a process or a language. On a deeper level, it is an ongoing reminder to keep our attention focused on a place where we are more likely to get what we are seeking.
There is a story of a man on all fours under a street lamp, searching for something. A policeman passing by asked what he was doing. Looking for my car keys,
replied the man, who appeared slightly drunk. Did you drop them here?
inquired the officer. No,
answered the man, I dropped them in the alley.
Seeing the policeman’s baffled expression, the man hastened to explain, But the light is much better here.
I find that my cultural conditioning leads me to focus attention on places where I am unlikely to get what I want. I developed NVC as a way to train my attention—to shine the light of consciousness—on places that have the potential to yield what I am seeking. What I want in my life is compassion, a flow between myself and others based on a mutual giving from the heart.
Let’s shine the light of consciousness on places where we can hope to find what we are seeking.
This quality of compassion, which I refer to as giving from the heart,
is expressed in the following lyrics by my friend Ruth Bebermeyer:
I never feel more given to
than when you take from me—
when you understand the joy I feel
giving to you.
And you know my giving isn’t done
to put you in my debt,
but because I want to live the love
I feel for you.
To receive with grace
may be the greatest giving.
There’s no way I can separate
the two.
When you give to me,
I give you my receiving.
When you take from me, I feel so
given to.
—Given To
(1978) by Ruth Bebermeyer from the album Given To
When we give from the heart, we do so out of the joy that springs forth whenever we willingly enrich another person’s life. This kind of giving benefits both the giver and the receiver. The receiver enjoys the gift without worrying about the consequences that accompany gifts given out of fear, guilt, shame, or desire for gain. The giver benefits from the enhanced self-esteem that results when we see our efforts contributing to someone’s well-being.
The use of NVC does not require that the persons with whom we are communicating be literate in NVC or even motivated to relate to us compassionately. If we stay with the principles of NVC, stay motivated solely to give and receive compassionately, and do everything we can to let others know this is our only motive, they will join us in the process, and eventually we will be able to respond compassionately to one another. I’m not saying that this always happens quickly. I do maintain, however, that compassion inevitably blossoms when we stay true to the principles and process of NVC.
The NVC Process
To arrive at a mutual desire to give from the heart, we focus the light of consciousness on four areas—referred to as the four components of the NVC model.
First, we observe what is actually happening in a situation: what are we observing others saying or doing that is either enriching or not enriching our life? The trick is to be able to articulate this observation without introducing any judgment or evaluation—to simply say what people are doing that we either like or don’t like. Next, we state how we feel when we observe this action: are we hurt, scared, joyful, amused, irritated? And thirdly, we say what needs of ours are connected to the feelings we have identified. An awareness of these three components is present when we use NVC to clearly and honestly express how we are.
Four components of NVC:
1. observations
2. feelings
3. needs
4. requests
For example, a mother might express these three pieces to her teenage son by saying, Felix, when I see two balls of soiled socks under the coffee table and another three next to the TV, I feel irritated because I am needing more order in the rooms that we share in common.
She would follow immediately with the fourth component—a very specific request: Would you be willing to put your socks in your room or in the washing machine?
This fourth component addresses what we are wanting from the other person that would enrich our lives or make life more wonderful for us.
Thus, part of NVC is to express these four pieces of information very clearly, whether verbally or by other means. The other part of this communication consists of receiving the same four pieces of information from others. We connect with them by first sensing what they are observing, feeling, and needing; then we discover what would enrich their lives by receiving the fourth piece—their request.
As we keep our attention focused on the areas mentioned, and help others do likewise, we establish a flow of communication, back and forth, until compassion manifests naturally: what I am observing, feeling, and needing; what I am requesting to enrich my life; what you are observing, feeling, and needing; what you are requesting to enrich your life …
NVC Process
The concrete actions we observe that affect our well-being
How we feel in relation to what we observe
The needs, values, desires, etc. that create our feelings
The concrete actions we request in order to enrich our lives
When we use this process, we may begin either by expressing ourselves or by empathically receiving these four pieces of information from others. Although we will learn to listen for and verbally express each of these components in Chapters 3–6, it is important to keep in mind that NVC is not a set formula, but something that adapts to various situations as well as personal and cultural styles. While I conveniently refer to NVC as a process
or language,
it is possible to experience all four pieces of the process without uttering a single word. The essence of NVC is in our consciousness of the four components, not in the actual words that are exchanged.
Two parts of NVC:
1. expressing honestly through the four components
2. receiving empathically through the four components
Applying NVC in Our Lives and the World
When we use NVC in our interactions—with ourselves, with another person, or in a group—we become grounded in our natural state of compassion. It is therefore an approach that can be effectively applied at all levels of communication and in diverse situations:
intimate relationships
families
schools
organizations and institutions
therapy and counseling relationships
diplomatic and business negotiations
disputes and conflicts of any nature
Some people use NVC to create greater depth and caring in their intimate relationships:
When I learned how I can receive (hear), as well as give (express), through using NVC, I went beyond feeling attacked and ‘doormattish’ to really listening to words and extracting their underlying feelings. I discovered a very hurting man to whom I had been married for twenty-eight years. He had asked me for a divorce the weekend before the [NVC] workshop. To make a long story short, we are here today—together, and I appreciate the contribution [NVC has] made to our happy ending…. I learned to listen for feelings, to express my needs, to accept answers that I didn’t always want to hear. He is not here to make me happy, nor am I here to create happiness for him. We have both learned to grow, to accept, and to love, so that we can each be fulfilled.
—a workshop participant in San Diego, California
Others use it to build more effective relationships at work:
Ihave been using NVC in my special education classroom for about one year. It can work even with children who have language delays, learning difficulties, and behavior problems. One student in our classroom spits, swears, screams, and stabs other students with pencils when they get near his desk. I cue him with, ‘Please say that another way. Use your giraffe talk.’ [Giraffe puppets are used in some workshops as a teaching aid to demonstrate NVC.] He immediately stands up straight, looks at the person toward whom his anger is directed, and says calmly, ‘Would you please move away from my desk? I feel angry when you stand so close to me.’ The other students might respond with something like, ‘Sorry! I forgot it bothers you.’
I began to think about my frustration with this child and to try to discover what I needed from him (besides harmony and order). I realized how much time I had put into lesson planning and how my needs for creativity and contribution were being short-circuited in order to manage behavior. Also, I felt I was not meeting the educational needs of the other students. When he was acting out in class, I began to say, ‘I need you to share my attention.’ It might take a hundred cues a day, but he got the message and would usually get involved in the lesson.
—a teacher in Chicago, Illinois
A doctor writes:
Iuse NVC more and more in my medical practice. Some patients ask me whether I am a psychologist, saying that usually their doctors are not interested in the way they live their lives or deal with their diseases. NVC helps me understand what patients’ needs are and what they need to hear at a given moment. I find this particularly helpful in relating to patients with hemophilia and AIDS because there is so much anger and pain that the patient/health care-provider relationship is often seriously impaired. Recently a woman with AIDS, whom I have been treating for the past five years, told me that what has helped her the most have been my attempts to find ways for her to enjoy her daily life. My use of NVC helps me a lot in this respect. Often in the past, when I knew that a patient had a fatal disease, I myself would get caught in the prognosis, and it was hard for me to sincerely encourage them to live their lives. With NVC, I have developed a new consciousness as well as a new language. I am amazed to see how much it fits in with my medical practice. I feel more energy and joy in my work as I become increasingly engaged in the dance of NVC.
—a physician in Paris, France
Still others use this process in the political arena. A French cabinet member visiting her sister remarked how differently the sister and her husband were communicating and responding to each other. Encouraged by their descriptions of NVC, she mentioned that she was scheduled the following week to negotiate some sensitive issues between France and Algeria regarding adoption procedures. Though time was limited, we dispatched a French-speaking trainer to Paris to work with the cabinet minister. The minister later attributed much of the success of her negotiations in Algeria to her newly acquired communication techniques.
In Jerusalem, during a workshop attended by Israelis of varying political persuasions, participants used NVC to express themselves regarding the highly contested issue of the West Bank. Many of the Israeli settlers who have established themselves on the West Bank believe that they are fulfilling a religious mandate by doing so, and they are locked in conflict not only with Palestinians but also with other Israelis who recognize the Palestinian hope for national sovereignty in the region. During a session, one of my trainers and I modeled empathic hearing through NVC and then invited participants to take turns role-playing each other’s position. After twenty minutes, a settler announced that she would be willing to consider relinquishing her land claims and moving out of the West Bank into internationally recognized Israeli territory if her political opponents could listen to her in the way she had just been listened