Anger is a signal that you’re distracted by judgmental or punitive thinking, and that some precious need of yours is being ignored.
We are responsible for what we hear other people say and for how we act.
What others do may be the stimulus of our feelings, but never the cause.
Blaming and punishing others are superficial expressions of anger.
Always listen to what people need rather than what they are thinking about us.
Imagine connecting with the human spirit in each person in any situation at any time. Imagine interacting with others in a way that allows everyone’s need to be equally valued. Imagine creating organizations and life-serving systems responsive to our needs and the needs of our environment.
How I choose to look at any situation will greatly affect whether I have the power to change it or make matters worse.
Children need far more than basic skills in reading, writing, and math, as important as those might be. Children also need to learn how to think for themselves, how to find meaning in what they learn, and how to work and live together.
Labeling and diagnosis is a catastrophic way to communicate. Telling other people what’s wrong with them greatly reduces, almost to zero, the probability that we’re going to get what we’re after.
To practice NVC, it’s critical for me to be able to slow down, take my time, to come from an energy I choose, the one I believe that we were meant to come from, not the one I was programmed into.
When we judge others we contribute to violence.
Compliments and praise, for their part, are tragic expressions of fulfilled needs.
Our survival as a species depends on our ability to recognize that our well-being and the well-being of others are in fact one and the same.
Fear of punishment diminishes self-esteem and goodwill.
To practice the process of conflict resolution, we must completely abandon the goal of getting people to do what we want.
When we understand the needs that motivate our own and others behavior, we have no enemies.
People heal from their pain when they have an authentic connection with another human being.
Ask before offering advice or reassurance.
Use the words ‘I feel because I’ to remind us that what we feel isn’t because of what the other person did, but because of a choice we’ve made.
Never question the beauty of what you are saying because someone reacts with pain, judgment, criticism. It just means they have not heard you.