Browse the NVC Library

This audio training with expert trainer Rita Herzog explores the NVC alternative to family relationships: stay grounded in your own needs and values so you are able to reach out with empathy to family members.

What can we do when someone tells us we're contributing to a pattern we're genuinely not seeing (nor experiencing)? What makes these patterns visible to some people but not others? This article addresses these things by talking about what to factor in when receiving feedback; handling feedback; responding relationally; paying attention to social location; considering impact; plus, broadening our perspective to bring in greater care and awareness.

Trainer Tip: What are your goals, hopes and dreams? For greater success it’s important to make your goals concrete, specific, and focused on what do you want (rather than what you don't want).

Please join veteran CNVC Certified Trainer, Robert Gonzales, to explore how you can embody the consciousness of NVC and live every moment of every day in the fullness of compassion - for yourself and others.

Getting "feel good" empathy can become an addiction. Even to the point of seeing people who don't offer empathy as "not being NVC". Rachelle urges us to notice how this view of NVC can be seductive, and even dangerous. In this article, she explains how we can expand our compassionate awareness when we go beyond equating NVC with harmony and empathy. She asks us to become more open to noticing others' experiences even if it challenges our personal and collective belief systems -- and especially when it upsets us to consider it.

We can ask for what we want but if we repeatedly don’t get it from one source, it's our responsibility to find a new way to get it. We don’t honor our relationships when we insist that people who are unavailable or unwilling to support us meet our needs. Read on for related a parable about a woman persistently asking to get milk from a hardware store.

There are three things you can do to sort inner conflict and make doable, sustainable agreements with yourself. This capacity can build trust with yourself to follow through, and to develop diverse and creative solutions -- thereby increasing confidence and ease.

Anger can alert us that a need may be threatened. When anger lives in someone as a well-worn habit, it arises from a place of dissociation from one’s heart and is entangled with misinterpretations, a deep sense of threat, a history of pain, and social conditioning that isn’t life-serving. Read on for how intention, mindfulness, and specific actions can change that habit.

Often making an apology is not enough because people want greater depth of understanding and empathy. Instead of judging ourselves or feeling guilt we can "mourn" what we did that stirred up pain in others. This can bring about a sweet pain that leads to change. Then we can ask ourselves what we can do next time and make a commitment to do this and/or offer a regrets to the person expressing feelings and needs.