Getting Discomfortable with Nonviolent Communication

About a year ago, I listened to an audiobook called Nonviolent Communication, as read by the author Marshall Rosenberg, and it immediately struck a chord with me. So much so that I listened to it twice! (You know, before my free Audible trial ended). In his slow, silky southern(?) drawl, Marshall outlined a very clear and simple structure for communicating in a way that minimizes conflict and maximizes connection (in theory, at least). His ideas dovetailed so nicely with what I was already thinking about shame-free communication, that I immediately wanted to learn more. After some googling, I discovered that there are Nonviolent Communication (or NVC as most people call it) practice groups all over the world and I decided to try one while I was in Vancouver.

And the NVC meetup did not disappoint! It was fascinating to watch these skilled communicators in action. After every session I attended, I left feeling as if I had just had a really great therapy session (while NVC is definitely not a substitute for therapy, if you can’t afford a real therapist every week, attending a free NVC practice group near you certainly wouldn’t hurt)! Check out the Center for Nonviolent Communication to find practice groups in your area.

A year later, I’ve just completed a 9-day NVC Internation Intensive Training (or IIT) on an island off of Stockholm, Sweden. It was a fully immersive residential retreat where I spent every day and every meal practicing and learning surrounded by 50 other Nonviolent Communicators of all ages and skill levels. It was intense, emotionally draining, and highly insightful! I will almost certainly do another IIT in the years to come. 

While I am still very much learning about NVC and how to internalize it and apply it to my daily life, I figured this was as good a time as any to do an episode that tries to explain what NVC is and how it works. Listening back to the episode, I already notice a few things that I mixed up (saying “I feel” when I really mean “I think”, for example), but if any of what I’m saying intrigues you, then I highly recommend you check out the audiobook, a class, or a practice group for yourself.

This episode is also a fitting follow-up to last week’s podcast on Authentic Relating because there are many similarities between the two practices. Both classes made me realize that I haven’t been living my life with the goal of “aliveness” — that exciting, electric energy of really connecting honestly with other humans. That means I’ve mostly been what NVC practitioners might call “nice, but dead”.

Note: this episode makes more sense if you listen to my podcast on Wisdom 2.0 first.