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Ask the Trainer: "A participant in our beginners' NVC practice group asked the co-facilitators if there was a confidentiality agreement that was typically used in NVC practice groups?"

Inspired by a talk given by Marshall Rosenberg, Jim offers an interactive exploration of powerful strategies for making NVC an integral part of your everyday life.

When someone responds with painful sarcasm, criticism, or dismissal you can respond with empathy, or with clarity about your intention, need and request. If you're unable to do this, later you can privately write what they said, identify the feelings and needs of both of you, then write possible responses. This can help you remember to stay with your intention and what’s true for you without getting caught in defensiveness or reactivity.

Trainer Tip: We can expand our connection to humanity by considering the many strategies people use to meet our common needs.

Trainer Tip: Thinking someone is bad, wrong, or evil can make it more difficult to connect with them. If we focus on this kind of thinking, we stay in the problem or conflict. The minute we step out of judgement and listen for the needs underlying their actions, we begin working for the solution. Put your focus in the direction of the result you want. Read on for an example.

For many, the word “need” is associated with lack, neediness, and scarcity. These associations are the opposite of the meaning of needs in Nonviolent Communication (NVC). In NVC, needs are the motivational energy of our innate wholeness and desire to grow, like the energy of a plant pushing it up through the soil and toward the sun.

Mourning is not just a process that happens after someone dies: it's an experience we go through with loss of any kind. Here, Shantigarbha offers us seven tips for working with mourning and healing.

Ask the Trainer: An NVC Academy member from Bosnia asks: "Is the NVC process truly effective in places where so much violence has occurred and people's pain is very deep?"