What is Nonviolent CommunicationSM? 
Nonviolent CommunicationSM (NVC) came to me at a time when my mother was dying of cancer.
I felt confused about some of the stories my mother was telling me at the time. I tried to understand what my mother's life was like for her and I took a chance with NVCSM.
I once asked her "When you are at home alone, do you feel lonely and need company?"
That simple question opened both our hearts and paved the way for unconditional love and understanding.
Wow, was I ever surprised by her response to something that was so simple!
Suddenly, she wasn't telling stories, making excuses, or judging how others were treating her.
She began talking from her heart. She shared her deepest fears and hopes.
How surprising for me! Our relationship had been conflicted for many years.
Then to my astonishment, she said that I was the only person who was able to listen to her at that time.
I cried. She cried.
I also helped advocate for my mother, my father, and the medical staff while my mother was facing death in the hospital. She was needing support to reach things near her bed.
After that, my surprised father turned to me and said, "How did you do that?!"
“What I want in my life is compassion, a flow between myself and others based on a mutual giving from the heart.” ~Dr. Marshall B. Rosenberg (author of Nonviolent CommunicationSM)
“The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.”
~ Ralph Nichols
NVCSM is remarkably simple and easy to understand. It involves just 4 simple components:
- Observing without evaluating or using judgements
- Identifying Feelings
- Identifying Needs in a conversation however it is expressed
- making clear, concrete Requests
Conflict Resolution dances with these parts without using blame or criticism:
I express how I am
I empathically receive how you are
NVCSM practice involves shifting the intention you bring to the interaction with your children - to put your primary focus on connection through empathic listening, rather than on behavior management, trying to be "right," or simply "telling your child what to do."
Let me show you how the powerful process of applying empathy to yourself and others will dramatically improve your personal world, even when your family is in the midst of a major event like a birth, death, divorce, or move.
You see, success in relationships has a lot more to do with tuning in to the real feelings and needs that create human dynamics than with making arbitrary rules and forcing everyone -including yourself-to follow them. Shifting your paradigm to connection rather than correction creates emotional safety for everyone in your family.
Right now, you might be thinking, "I can't see myself finding the time or energy to sort out my own feelings and needs, let alone anyone else's!"
You don't have to do it alone.
In a series of empowering sessions, enjoy the safety and support of deep listening and non-judgmental understanding coupled with practical, experience-based coaching in:
- effective communication tools,
- win/win conflict resolution,
- balancing work and family life, and
- co-creating a plan of action that leads to satisfying relationships and confident parenting.
If you're looking for parenting help, managing conflicts or anger, or divorce without war, you've come to the right place.
“We never do anything wrong. We never have. We never will. We do things we wouldn't have done if we knew then what we are learning now.”
~ Marshall B. Rosenberg
“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”
~ Mother Teresa
Here are some more ways to learn.
For more information, please visit the Center for Nonviolent CommunicationSM www.cnvc.org.
Learn more about the life-changing process of NVCSM. Find over 50 articles, a description of the four-part process, key benefits, and more at http://www.nonviolentcommunication.com/aboutnvc/aboutnvc.htm
Learn NVCSM from home with the NVCSM Academy at http://NVCtraining.com/
Read an article called "Blossom at Work" at http://www.yogajournal.com/wisdom/2506?print=1
The following is a description of NVCSM provided by PuddleDancer Press. You can visit them at http://www.nonviolentcommunication.com/
Nonviolent CommunicationSM
Most of us have been educated from birth to compete, judge, demand, and diagnose - to think and communicate in terms of what is "right" and "wrong" with people. We express our feelings in terms of what another person has "done to us," instead of taking responsibility for our feeling independent of another person. We struggle to understand our own needs in the moment, or to effectively ask for what we want without using unhealthy demands, threats, or coercion.
At best, communicating and thinking this way in the home can create misunderstanding and frustration that perpetuate family conflicts. And still worse, it can lead to anger, increased stress for parents and kids, and even emotional or physical violence.
Since developing the Nonviolent CommunicationSM (NVC) process in the 1960's, Marshall Rosenberg's vision has been to teach people of any age, gender, ethnicity or socioeconomic background a much more effective alternative, and in turn to transform our family relationships one interaction at a time.
To date, more than 200 certified trainers and hundreds more teach NVCSM to more than 250,000 people in 35 countries on 5 continents every year. Around the world, NVCSM has been adopted by parent educators, schools, hospitals, Fortune 500 companies, government offices, university MBA and communication curriculum, community mediation centers, anger management programs, peace advocacy and social change advocates, inmate rehabilitation programs, and more.
What Makes Nonviolent CommunicationSM Unique?
While the 4-Part Nonviolent CommunicationSM Process provides a very effective framework to transform the way we parent, it's universal effectiveness lies in the fact that it is far more than a technique.
NVCSM practice involves shifting the intention you bring to the interaction with your children - to put your primary focus on connection through empathic listening, rather than on behavior management, trying to be "right," or simply "telling your child what to do."
While simple, this shift has a profound impact. Even if only one parent in the home engages in NVCSM, they can create an environment of emotional safety for the entire family. With this foundation of emotional safety, tension and conflict can be defused, feelings and experiences can be expressed without blame, anger can find relief peacefully, children can discover their potential, and ultimately your family relationships can thrive.
The Reach of Nonviolent CommunicationSM Around the World
As of January 2008, it is estimated that over 250,000 people are taught Nonviolent CommunicationSM every year. There are more than 200 certified NVCSM trainers, hundreds of independent trainers and practice facilitators, and approximately 30 formal teams and organizations providing access to NVCSM training in 35 countries around the globe.
More than 40 books, and over 15 audio and video training materials have been published on NVCSM. Rosenberg's internationally acclaimed Nonviolent CommunicationSM: A Language of Life has sold over 250,000 copies and has been printed in 20 languages.
Founded by Dr. Marshall Rosenberg in 1984, the Center for Nonviolent CommunicationSM is a global nonprofit peacemaking organization based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Each year the organization coordinates several 9-day NVCSM international intensive training sessions. They also support seven regional and theme-based NVCSM projects around the globe, aimed at improving access to NVCSM training in high-need areas, or to support the integration of NVCSM in certain applications like education, prisons, or social change. They can be found on the web at www.cnvc.org.