NJ NVC

What attendees are saying…

“Like most people I dislike confrontations and have tended to avoid them, even when I felt there was some problem that really needed to be cleared up. Now I have a method - a completely honest one - of improving relationships without having to endure stress (mine or the other person’s) or the fear of jeopardizing a relationship.”

“With Nonviolent Communication I learned how to interrupt people when they are talking much more than I can enjoy. The best part is that they are usually grateful for the way I’ve expressed my disappointment at not being able to feel connected to them.”

“NVC has given me the tools to approach life with a healthy detachment from the situation, and with a profound connection to the people involved in the situation. NVC has aided me in making the distinction! It has validated that I am a person; I have emotions beyond my previously limited vocabulary of happy, sad and frustrated; I have needs that matter (I previously had no idea that such things existed), and it gives me the tools and responsibility of getting my own needs met via a request! How powerful! It has improved my relationship with my husband, as I don’t get caught up in his strategies - NVC allows me to hear him differently, and with compassion. It has empowered my children, who know that life is not and they have the ability to affect those changes at will. Empathy has worked wonders to stave off tantrums with my pre-verbal toddler. Words can’t do it justice, but it is an incredibly powerful process and I am so incredibly thankful for it.”

NVC in the real world…

“Today I am celebrating. I am thrilled with how I handled a difficult work situation using NVC.
We had a staff meeting today where some difficult interpersonal topics discussed. Tensions around work have been high lately because of these issues. I was a little concerned about how the meeting might go. I really wanted communication and to hear what each person was saying.
I am celebrating (!!!!!!) because I was able to stay connected to each individuals feelings and needs and use empathy to reflect back to them what I was hearing.
I am just thrilled. It went so well. It couldn’t have gone better. Oh, I can’t say it enough - I am thrilled.”

Happier with my new language

Perhaps I would not even have gone to that introductory NVC workshop if it was not that I was new in town. I participated in a role-play and was surprised by the experience of talking as if I were in someone else’s shoes. It was new for me and it was fun! I was convinced enough to buy the book, which I read in one day. I immediately recognized the potential of NVC to help with negative thinking because of its focus on language awareness and the very concrete practical tools it offers to translate judgments in human needs. I started practicing by myself, and noticed feeling more humane.

A month later I went to the biweekly Princeton practice group for the first time, wondering how it would be. I did not miss one of the meetings until I left Princeton years later. As in ‘real life’, with some people I clicked immediately, with others it took months before we really started developing a relationship. These days I keep in touch with all the regulars and value each one of these relationships. I call the group my Princeton family because I experienced there much of what I would have liked to have experienced in my family of birth. I have grown through these interactions and have seen others growing, so there is much affection there.

What I did not know in my earlier days was how much more than the language is in NVC. A year after I started practicing, a friend from England said to me: ‘I am amazed at what you just said. You see so many possibilities where in the past you would have seen walls’. I knew what she meant. I am still excited about the transformation I witness in myself. In the past I have been often seeking new challenges as a means of growing. With the years I started not having sufficient resources to deal with them though. Practicing the idea of human needs is supporting me in experiencing things as if it was the first time and it is enriching. I have new insights, daily sometimes, which give me energy and hope. Particularly in ‘those times’ when ‘the game gets tough’.