We can't win at somebody else's expense. We can only fully be satisfied when the other person's needs are fulfilled as well as our own.

An important aspect of self-compassion is to be able to empathically hold both parts of ourselves-the self that regrets a past action and the self that took the action in the first place.

When we express our needs indirectly through the use of evaluations, interpretations, and images, others are likely to hear criticism. When people hear anything that sounds like criticism, they tend to invest their energy in self-defense or counterattack. It's important that when we address somebody that we're clear what we want back.

However impressed we may be with NVC concepts, it is only through practice and application that our lives are transformed.

Intellectual understanding blocks empathy.

Most of us live in a Jackal world where we take turns using the other person as a waste basket for our words.

It's never what people do that makes us angry; it's what we tell ourselves about what they did.