What is NVC?
NonViolent Communication (sm), also known as Compassionate Communication and/or NVC, was developed by Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D. during the Civil Rights period and is
based, in part, on Gandhian principles of nonviolence and the
humanist psychology of Carl Rogers. The practice of NVC offers
learnable skills to support mind-body awareness and self-connection,
deep listening, mediation, and peacemaking. NVC is now practiced
around the world, in schools, families, workplaces, and
organizations. It encapsulates many different skills and practices, such as Empathic Presence, Needs-based consciousness, self-empathy and inquiry, working on our beliefs, healing past pain, etc.
Have you dreamed about living in a world where people are connected in a pragmatic, alive and dynamic way to the things they value the most and want to embody in the world? Do you want to contribute to creating a world where everyone's needs matter and people have the skills for making peace? Then I invite you to discover for yourself and deepen with others around you the many skills and consciousness of Nonviolent Communcation shared by dynamic, genuine, authentic and mature NVC trainers.
John Powell says in his book Fully Human, Fully Alive: "All change in the quality of a person’s life must grow out of a change in his or her vision of reality." In NVC we recognize that we need to embrace all the aspects of ourselves through deep empathy in order to access this day to day practical change of our visions; learning to live out of the fullness and radiance of the life that we express as needs, and carefully attending to the places we are living out of our fear based, shame based societal conditioning.
For more about the NVC model and the global reach of the work, see CNVC.org
Self Empathy and Self Accompaniment with NVC
The first step in using NVC as a self accompaniment/self empathy deeply transformational practice is to cultivate awareness of our thoughts: that is – to differentiate our thoughts from the external (and internal) triggers - from what happens out there around which the feelings, reactions and stories in us revolve. (These thoughts are named “Alienated thinking” or “Jackals” in NVC)
I am largely unaware of the thoughts, stories, beliefs my mind is operating from until I hear a jackal (part of my personality) chatter on about something. It is therefore a precious aid to become aware of a stressful thought/story/belief, so that I can choose to stay in this state, or inquire into these thoughts and find myself again, using a self empathy process.
The essence of self empathy to me is an open, curious, loving, non judgmental, focused attention from my inner awareness that extends towards parts of me that are holding any stories, beliefs and thoughts that are disturbing my inner state of peace.
This enables the inner transformation from contraction and fear, into a more spacious expanded state of being. Through this capacity and intention to listen deeply to that voice (something in me is very upset, sad, distressed, frustrated) and to BE WITH it, whatever it is, I accompany myself through pain.
The awareness (or presence) inside of me is listening to the voice, the feeling, the thought, the physical sensation. That is how I know I am not ONLY my thoughts and/or my feelings. I listen to whatever the voice has to say with presence and empathy, not believing it, not denying it, not getting suckered into it, just being with it. If I am thinking that my reaction, jackal voice, belief, feeling, is all of me; then from where can I sit with empathic presence and listen to what this story is telling me? There has to be another part of me (which is my consciousness, spirit, awareness or however you like to call it) that holds, is WITH, the part of me that is reacting.
This is how I have always understood Self Empathy to be experienced and practiced, day-to-day, deepening the Holding of presence for any parts of myself with a grounded loving kindness that is all accepting.
My prior experience with Pyschosynthesis, Buddhism, Focusing and other modalities brought me to this understanding long before I learned NVC. In my understanding this is an ancient process that I experienced with many teachers such as various Focusing teachers, Eckhart Tolle, Adyashanti, Tara Brach and others…
I have provided a French and an English language downloadable audio of approx. 20 minutes of a basic self empathy exercise that you can access in the audio/visual section of my website. Know that this is only one way in, and that your capacity to BE WITH, allow and deeply accept everything inside will grow with practice. I highly recommend empathy buddies, and especially empathy circles to practice this Focused aware Empathic Presence.