Life-Enriching Education: an education that prepares children to learn throughout their lives, relate well to others, and themselves, be creative, flexible, and venturesome, and have empathy not only for their immediate kin but for all of humankind.
When it comes to giving advice, never do so unless you’ve first received a request in writing, signed by a lawyer.
Time and again, people transcend the paralyzing effects of psychological pain when they have sufficient contact with someone who can hear them empathically.
Keep in mind that other people’s actions can never ‘make’ you feel any certain way. Feelings are your warning indicators.
NVC shows us a way of being very honest, but without any criticism, insults, or putdowns, and without any intellectual diagnosis implying wrongness.
The more we use words that in any way imply criticism, the more difficult it is for people to stay connected to the beauty within themselves.
Make your goal to attend to your underlying needs and to aim for a resolution so satisfying that everyone involved has their needs met also.
With empathy we don’t direct, we follow. Don’t just do something, be there.
To be able to hear our own feelings and needs and to empathize with them can free us from depression.
When we are depressed, our thinking blocks us from being aware of our needs, and then being able to take action to meet our needs.
NVC is founded on language and communication skills that strengthen our ability to remain human, even under trying conditions.
However impressed we may be with NVC concepts, it is only through practice and application that our lives are transformed.
I have tried to integrate the spirituality into the training in a way that meets my need not to destroy the beauty of it through abstract philosophizing.
It’s really a spiritual practice that I am trying to show as a way of life.
What I want in my life is compassion, a flow between myself and others based on a mutual giving from the heart.
We only feel dehumanized when we get trapped in the derogatory images of other people or thoughts of wrongness about ourselves. As author and mythologist Joseph Campbell suggested, “‘What will they think of me?’ must be put aside for bliss.” We begin to feel this bliss when messages previously experienced as critical or blaming begin to be seen for the gifts they are: opportunities to give to people who are in pain.
My theory is that we get depressed because we’re not getting what we want, and we’re not getting what we want because we have never been taught to get what we want. Instead, we’ve been taught to be good little boys and girls and good mothers and fathers. If we’re going to be one of those good things, better get used to being depressed. Depression is the reward we get for being “good.” But, if you want to feel better, I’d like you to clarify what you would like people to do to make life more wonderful for you.
Don’t mix up that which is habitual with that which is natural.
In this stage, which I refer to as emotional slavery, we believe ourselves responsible for the feelings of others. We think we must constantly strive to keep everyone happy. If they don’t appear happy, we feel responsible and compelled to do something about it. This can easily lead us to see the very people who are closest to us as burdens.
Perhaps you are surprised that I regard praise and compliments to be life-alienating. Notice, however, that appreciation expressed in this form reveals little of what’s going on in the speaker; it establishes the speaker as someone who sits in judgment. I define judgments – both positive and negative – as life-alienating communication.