What a great way to start the new year by learning something new that will enhance the quality of our life and by definition the quality of our communication with others too. “What others do may be a stimulus of our feelings, but not the cause.” If you’re interested in adding NVC – nonviolent communication skills to your tool kit in 2019, you can find out more here from the founder, Marshall B. Rosenberg, Ph.D. (1934-2015) who wrote Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life – 1,000,000 copies sold worldwide and translated in over 30 languages.
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.”
Nonviolent Communication is the integration of 4 things:
- Consciousness: a set of principles that support living a life of empathy, care, 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
“Nonviolent Communication shows us a way of being very honest, without any criticism, insults, or put-downs, and without any intellectual diagnosis implying wrongness.”
To find out more about adding NVC to your tool kit this year see https://www.nonviolentcommunication.com/aboutnvc/aboutnvc.htm