I base this discussion on my understanding of the cassette I mentioned above. It's from 1995, and a few copies may still be available through on-line sources and for those who still have a tape player. The Center for Nonviolent Communication maintains an extensive website with many educational opportunities and learning products for those who want to get more deeply into it. This all goes to say that I discuss my practice and everyday living with Compassionate Communication as a devoted practitioner but not as an expert. I shared what I gleaned with my students through a handout I wrote along with a thorough discussion. They also experienced such language as I practiced every day with them. They also become aware of it when I corrected myself in its use. I feel and think that our awareness of our language means we have a greater awareness of the thoughts and motivations behind that language. Such awareness can lead us to question meaning perspectives that we expose through that awareness. After all, when I want to make free choices in my life and actions, I want as much clear and complete information available to me in order to make those choices freely and honestly. Language awareness helps us find that sort of freedom and honesty. In the end, everyone makes her/his choices. I would like these choices to come as well informed ones.
I offer you the handout here and a discussion to follow just as did with my students.
Principles of Nonviolent or Compassionate Communication
Adapted from—Rosenberg, Marshall. Introduction to Nonviolent Communication. Cassette. La Crescenta, CA: The Center for Nonviolent Communication, 1995.
Living, Speaking, and Writing Compassionately
Inspires compassion toward ourselves
Inspires compassion toward others
Inspires compassion in others
Three Kinds of Communication that Interfere with Compassionate Communication
1. Demands
2. Language that obscures choice
3. Diagnoses and interpretations
Expressing Communication that Inspires Compassion--Four Questions for Ourselves
1. What am I observing? "The highest form of human intelligence is the ability to observe without evaluating." Jiddhu Krishamurti (1895-1986).
Answer in action language with as little interpretation as possible
2. How am I feeling about what I have observed?
Use language that reveals emotions as vulnerably as possible.
Trying to find harmony between what we observe and what we want.
Not what other people do but how we react to it.
3. What are my underlying wants, needs, or values (usually what you wanted to happen or were afraid wouldn't happen) that contribute to our feelings?
Provides an opportunity to identify and liberate ourselves from things we want which may not be in our own interest.
4. What actions would I like to be taken to make happen that I now would like to have happen?
Use positive, action language. Better results come from asking for what you do want rather than what you don’t want: "How do you do a don’t?
These 4 steps are used in 2 different ways depending on:
A. If we are trying to tell another honestly about what is happening with us, or
B. If we are trying to help another tell us what is happening with them.
When we empathize with others who choose not to do as we request, our requests are not coercive. Empathy is the foundation of responding compassionately to the other person. It comes when we ask ourselves, “What are they going through?”