NVC gives us tools and understanding to create a more peaceful state of mind.

When people hear needs, it provokes compassion. When people hear diagnoses, it provokes defensiveness and attack.

NVC suggests behind every action, however ineffective, tragic, violent, or abhorrent to us, is an attempt to meet a need.

The Indian philosopher J. Krishnamurti once remarked that observing without evaluating is the highest form of human intelligence. When I first read this statement, the thought, 'What nonsense!' shot through my mind before I realized that I had just made an evaluation.

If you have an image of someone cutting off a relationship, it's the cutting off that will lead to your suffering. If you see the action as their need being expressed, then the message is within them, not you. Any interpretation you put onto another person's message (such as passive-aggressive, withholding, etc.), you will pay for because of how you took it.

Violence in any form is a tragic expression of our unmet needs.

If we want to be compassionate we must be conscious of the words we use. We must both speak and listen from the heart.