Marshall B. Rosenberg
Praise and reward create a system of extrinsic motivations for behavior. Children (and adults) end up taking action in order to receive the praise or rewards.Collection: Children
Upset? Ask yourself what this person does that is a trigger for judging them?Collection: Communication
NVC can be effectively applied at all levels of communication and in diverse situations: intimate relationships, families, schools, organizations and institutions, therapy and counseling, diplomatic and business negotiations, disputes and conflicts of any nature.Collection: Communication
Staying with empathy we allow speakers to touch deeper levels of themselves.Collection: Communication
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.Collection: Communication
Focusing on the unmet need (not the judgment) is more likely to get the need met.Collection: Communication
What evidence is there that we've adequately empathized with the other person? First, when an individual realizes that everything going on within has received full empathic understanding, they will experience a sense of relief. We can become aware of this phenomenon by noticing a corresponding release of tension in our own body.Collection: Empathy
A second even more obvious sign is that the person will stop talking. If we are uncertain as to whether we have stayed long enough in the process, we can always ask, "Is there more that you wanted to say"?Collection: Talking
The only time a message (label) can scare us is if we think there is such a thing, and that such a thing is a disgrace.Collection: Communication
We do not look for compromise; rather, we seek to resolve the conflict to everyone's complete satisfaction.Collection: Communication
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.Collection: Block
The key to fostering connection in the face of a 'no' is always hearing 'yes' to something else.Collection: Communication
What all the basic religions are saying is this: Don't do anything that isn't play.Collection: Communication
Behind intimidating messages are simply people appealing to us to meet their needs.Collection: Communication
Have you ever been surfing? Imagine you're on your surfboard now, waiting for the big one to come. Get ready to get carried with that energy. Now, here it comes. That's empathy. No words - just being with that energy. When I connect with what's alive in another person, I have feelings similar to when I'm surfing.Collection: Empathy
We are this divine energy. It's not something we have to attain. We just have to realize it, to be present to it.Collection: Communication
Self-empathy in NVC means checking in with your own feelings and needs.Collection: Mean
Teacher, school administrators and parents will come away from Life-Enriching Education with skills in language, communication, and ways of structuring the learning environment that support the development of autonomy and interdependence in the classroom.Collection: Teacher
We need to receive empathy to give empathy.Collection: Giving
When we fear punishment, we focus on consequences, not on our own values.Collection: Communication
Anger tells us we've disconnected from life. The purpose in anger is to use it to come back to life.Collection: Purpose
Use anger as a wake-up call to unmet needs.Collection: Communication
We are designed for GivingCollection: Motivation
Two questions help us see why we are unlikely to get what we want by using punishment... The first question is: What do I want this person to do that's different from what he or she is currently doing? If we ask only this first question, punishment may seem effective because the threat or exercise of punitive force may well influence the person's behavior. However, with the second question, it becomes evident that punishment isn't likely to work: What do I want this person's reasons to be for doing what I'm asking?Collection: Exercise
This language is from the head. It is a way of mentally classifying people into varying shades of good and bad, right and wrong. Ultimately, it provokes defensiveness, resistance, and counterattack. It is a language of demands.Collection: Communication
I'm going to show you a technology today which takes insults and criticisms out of the airwaves. (Marshall puts on giraffe ears) With this technology, it will be impossible for you to hear criticisms, harsh remarks, or insults. All you can hear is what all people are ever saying, "please" and "thank you". What used to sound like criticism, judgment, or blame, you will see, are really tragic, suicidal expressions of "please".Collection: Communication
My ultimate goal is to spend as many of my moments in life as I can in that world that the poet Rumi talks about, 'a place beyond rightness and wrongness.Collection: Communication
Always listen to what people need rather than what they are thinking about us.Collection: Communication
Empathy: Emptying our mind and listening with our whole beingCollection: Communication
It's harder to empathize with those who appear to possess more power, status, or resources.Collection: Empathy
Public education for some time has been heavily focused on what curricula we believe will be helpful to students. Life-Enriching Education is based on the premise that the relationship between teachers and students, the relationships of students with one another, and the relationships of students to what they are learning are equally important in preparing students for the future.Collection: Teacher
NVC is interested in learning that is motivated by reverence for life, by a desire to learn skills, to contribute better to our own well-being and the well-being of others.Collection: Communication
Needs are never conflicting. When we say that, we are only saying that at the moment we aren't seeing how both needs can be met. That leaves an opening. When you think in the way I'm suggesting, you'll often find a way to get most needs met simultaneously.Collection: Communication
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.Collection: Children
When we express our needs indirectly through the use of evaluations, interpretations, and images, others are likely to hear criticism. When people hear anything that sounds like criticism, they tend to invest their energy in self-defense or counterattack. It's important that when we address somebody that we're clear what we want back.Collection: Communication
When you are in a jackal environment, never give them the power to submit or rebel. We want to teach this to children very early: Never lose track that you are always free to choose. Don't allow institutions to determine what you do.Collection: Children
To be able to hear our own feelings and needs and to empathize with them can free us from depression.Collection: Empathy
In a Giraffe institution, the head nurse job would be to serve the nurses, not to control them. Teachers are there to serve the students, not control them.Collection: Teacher
When we listen for their feelings and needs, we no longer see people as monsters.Collection: Communication
I try never to hear what another person thinks of me. I enjoy life a lot more when I spend as little time as possible hearing or thinking about what other people think about me. I go to the needs behind the thoughts. Then I'm in a different world.Collection: Communication
You can't make your kids do anything. All you can do is make them wish they had. And then, they will make you wish you hadn't made them wish they had.Collection: Children
When I recognize I've got anger, then I realize it's because I have a need that's not being met.Collection: Communication
Intellectual understanding blocks empathy.Collection: Block
If you have an image of someone cutting off a relationship, it's the cutting off that will lead to your suffering. If you see the action as their need being expressed, then the message is within them, not you. Any interpretation you put onto another person's message (such as passive-aggressive, withholding, etc.), you will pay for because of how you took it.Collection: Communication
Let’s shine the light of consciousness on places where we can hope to find what we are seeking.Collection: Light
At the root of every tantrum and power struggle are unmet needs.Collection: Struggle
Needs are the expression of life through us.Collection: Communication
The cause of anger lies in our thinking - in thoughts of blame and judgment.Collection: Lying
Our ability to offer empathy can allow us to stay vulnerable, defuse potential violence, help us hear the word 'no' without taking it as a rejection, revive lifeless conversation, and even hear the feelings and needs expressed through silence.Collection: Silence