Fear of punishment diminishes self-esteem and goodwill.

Intellectual understanding blocks empathy.

A difficult message to hear is an opportunity to enrich someone's life.

Punishment is the root of violence on our planet.

If we ask two questions, we will see that punishment never works. First: What do we want the other person to do? Second: What do we want the other person's reasons to be for doing as we request?

By maintaining our attention on what's going on within others, we offer them a chance to fully explore and express their interior selves. We would stem this flow if we were to shift attention too quickly either to their request or to our own desire to express ourselves.

Nonviolent Communication is a way of keeping our consciousness tuned in moment by moment to that beauty within ourselves and others, and not saying anything that we think might in any way tarnish people's consciousness of their own beauty.