Self-empathy in NVC means checking in with your own feelings and needs.

NVC enhances inner communication by helping us translate negative internal messages into feelings and needs. Our ability to distinguish our own feelings and needs and to empathize with them can free us from depression.

We can never make anyone do anything against their will without enormous consequences.

Fear of corporal punishment obscures children's awareness of the compassion underlying the parent's demands.

We only feel dehumanized when we get trapped in the derogatory images of other people or thoughts of wrongness about ourselves.

Interpretations, criticisms, diagnoses, and judgments of others are actually alienated expressions of our unmet needs.

At the core of all anger is a need that is not being fulfilled.