NVC Resources on Exercises and Practices

Trainer Tip: To reduce defensiveness and hurt feelings when talking to your partner about your sexual needs that haven't been met, keep the conversation focused on your needs, not her lack of skill, and make a very specific request. From there, you can both explore any shared needs, blocks, or support needed to bring you both closer to your needs.

Shared vulnerability can build more intimacy, mutuality, being seen and heard, empathy, or community. Inviting shared vulnerability means earning another’s trust that you can consistently offer attentive, curious, and compassionate listening. Here are four strategies to invite shared vulnerability.

Trainer Tip: One of the basic philosophies of Nonviolent Communication is valuing everyone’s needs equally. That means that you consider your needs to be equal to another person’s needs. If someone asks you for empathy, and you choose to empathize at you own expense, you're not living in a Nonviolent Communication consciousness. Be aware of your own needs today when someone asks you to be their...

Trainer Tip: We often find ourselves slipping into old behaviors that we would rather change. This is because we don’t have a new plan for responding to the same old situations. In that case, notice whether you are slipping into old behaviors today. Connect to your unmet needs and then identify a new strategy for the situation.

Trainer Tip: Discovering the unmet needs is only a starting point. The other part is to understand what it will take to meet that need, and make a request that will accomplish this. This way, we can resolve situations before they escalate. Everyone benefits when we are clear about what we would like.

In general, criticism is a reactive response discomfort. When someone criticizes, they are not yet able or willing take responsibility for their needs. All criticism is a tragic expression of feelings and unmet needs. When you meet that criticism skillfully you not only care for yourself, you can facilitate clarity, and constructive communication, about what the other person is truly asking for.

Trainer Tip: Our inner critic judges ourselves and other people; and it is the most likely to get scared when we begin to make a change. It holds wisdom for us if we are willing to listen. When we acknowledge our inner critic and empathize with its need, we gain insights into ourselves and we clear the way for resolution.

Trainer Tip: If we're deflecting an appreciation or letting it expand our ego, we're missing a chance to truly connect to what's important. A more satisfying way to receive appreciation is to connect to how we've contributed to another person’s life, rather than our own.

Trainer Tip: When there's conflict if you set the intention to connect and build trust first, you're more likely to move towards resolution. This can be built through offering reflections that captures essence of what's important to each party. Once connection and trust is established, then begin the process of creating strategies and solutions.

Trainer Tip: People’s choice of words may be difficult to hear. In fact, we may feel downright aggravated by them. Whether we enjoy these statements or not, we can begin to recognize that behind each statement is a desire to meet needs, either by saying please or thank you. In this way, we are more likely to feel compassion because we have connected to their humanness. Listen for the please or...

Trainer Tip: Notice an opportunity today to use honesty as a means to connect with someone else. Consider what type of honesty might stimulate pain in others.

Trainer Tip: Today, identify the facts, without adding your ideas about why people behave in certain ways. Then consider connecting with the person about what was going on with them. You will find that the more you observe life without judgment and evaluation, the more open you will be to hearing and connecting with other people.

Trainer Tip: Commit to doing one thing right now that will bring you closer to meeting a need today. Do it today. Don’t put it off. This is your life.

If you're stuck when making a decision with someone, it's likely that you've skipped hearing and connecting to one another's needs. Slow down and listen for what's really important underneath the content. This allows you to make decisions that are more fulfilling and harmonious.

For each reactive pattern there is a perceived threat to a tender need. Knowing these tender needs helps us figure out how to interrupt these patterns and creating new ways of perceiving and relating to life. In addition to knowing the need, knowing the healing response and the primary reactive behavior helps with transformation.

Trainer Tip: When we try to make another person fit into a reality that we prefer in order to meet our own needs everyone suffers. Instead, bring your focus back to yourself. Notice which of your needs are met or unmet when you spend time with someone. Don’t judge them; just focus on your feelings and needs. Then, decide whether continuing the relationship will meet them

Trainer Tip: Asking for support may feel awkward and uncomfortable. In these moments, we may forget that everyone needs support. We may also forget that there may be many options available to us, even if what's available isn't our preferred source of support.

This guide features three activities that use feelings and needs cards: two verions of "Feelings and Needs Poker" and one for "Self-Empathy". Great for practicing alone, with a partner, or in a group.

Find renewed aliveness and connection in your daily life through NVC and Buddhist Mindfulness practices. NVC can be lived as a Mindfulness Practice and consciousness that helps us be more present, open and loving to the flow of life within ourselves and in relation to others. Buddhist principles and practices can add depth and insight to NVC practice and consciousness.

Let's look at the resources, awareness, and skills needed to ask for emotional attunement, celebration, relatedness, perspective, understanding, advice, and information. This includes expressing appreciation for what's supporting your needs, strengthening a sense of worthiness, and awareness of your reactivity and intention. Plus, making requests that are clear, specific, doable and creates a...