I find that my cultural conditioning leads me to focus attention on places where I am unlikely to get what I want. I developed NVC as a way to train my attention-to shine the light of consciousness-on places that have the potential to yield what I am seeking.

Clinical training in psychoanalysis has a deficit. It teaches how to sit and think about what a person is saying and how to interpret it intellectually, but not how to be fully present to this person.

If you are a czar or a king or a president or someone that wants to control those below them you do not want people to have a consciousness of life, of their needs. Because people do not make good slaves when they're connected to life... That's why in the public schools the primary objective is obedience to authority.

It's harder to empathize with those who appear to possess more power, status, or resources.

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.

Have you ever been surfing? Imagine you're on your surfboard now, waiting for the big one to come. Get ready to get carried with that energy. Now, here it comes. That's empathy. No words - just being with that energy. When I connect with what's alive in another person, I have feelings similar to when I'm surfing.

I think that there is a problem with rewards and consequences because in the long run, they rarely work in the ways we hope. In fact, they are likely to backfire.