When you need empathy, you cannot give empathy.

Conflicts, even of long standing duration, can be resolved if we can just keep the flow of communication going in which people come out of their heads and stop criticizing and analyzing each other, and instead get in touch with their needs, and hear the needs of others, and realize the interdependence that we all have in relation to each other. 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.

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.

Anger is a signal that you're distracted by judgmental or punitive thinking, and that some precious need of yours is being ignored.

It's really a spiritual practice that I am trying to show as a way of life.

NVC is a reminder; to focus our attention where we are most likely to get our needs met.

Time and again, people transcend the paralyzing effects of psychological pain when they have sufficient contact with someone who can hear them empathically.