Nonviolent Communication - Dean Amory:
We are all living our lives the best way we can, trying to fulfill our needs as good as possible, trying also to do this without hurting others. And yet .... Often we feel miss interpreted, not understood, talking to walls, finding it impossible to convince others of our good intentions. That's where Marshall Rosenberg steps in with his longtime famous, but always very needed theory of NONVIOLENT COMMUNICATION.
We are all living our lives the best way we can, trying to fulfill our needs as good as possible, trying also to do this without hurting others. And yet .... Often we feel miss interpreted, not understood, talking to walls, finding it impossible to convince others of our good intentions.
That's where Marshall Rosenberg steps in with his longtime famous, but always very needed theory of NONVIOLENT COMMUNICATION.
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Template for writing public policy letters<br />
1. Objective Observations<br />
Write your observations of what your issue is, what other people (this may include research<br />
reports) are saying about the issue, without analyzing and without judgment. Inform your reader as<br />
clearly and precisely as possible as to what the issue is, without interpretation or analysis<br />
2. Feelings and Needs<br />
Divide into triads. Read your description of your issue to two other people. Obtain any feedback<br />
about clarifying your observations so that they are free of interpretations and analysis. Ask your<br />
two partners to "guess" what you might be feeling and needing in relation to the issue: " Are you<br />
feeling ______ because you are needing ______?"<br />
Even if they are wrong in their guess, they will help you clarify what you are feeling and needing.<br />
Spend about 5 minutes per person on clarifying feelings and needs. Refer to appendices if<br />
necessary.<br />
3. Requests<br />
In triads, try to formulate clear, specific doable<br />
requests of the person you are writing to<br />
- the more succinct these requests are, the<br />
better! Acknowledge that you understand the<br />
organizational network the person is<br />
embedded in and that your request is made<br />
cognizant of this. You may also request a<br />
written response by a given deadline, to make<br />
sure you can conclude your work within the<br />
planned timeframe. A valuable request might<br />
be: asking to consider a specific alternative<br />
plan or proposal.<br />
4. Expressing Appreciation<br />
On your own time, as you work on the draft<br />
of your letter, experiment with a closing<br />
paragraph based on expressing appreciation<br />
for how the person you are writing to is<br />
already doing something to enrich your life or<br />
the life of your community. Rosenberg's<br />
model of expressing appreciation involves:<br />
a. The actions that have contributed<br />
to our well-being<br />
b. The particular needs of ours that<br />
have been fulfilled<br />
c. The pleasureful feelings engendered<br />
by the fulfillment of those needs<br />
In writing these letters, you have the ability to write, rewrite and edit to make your writing really<br />
clear and focused. You should write your letter in a narrative flow in which the sequence of<br />
observations, feelings, needs and requests are embedded. Speaking NVC is even more<br />
challenging, as it requires being very aware of how one responds in the moment. The power of the<br />
model is from communicating observations, feelings, needs and requests as a coordinated flow of<br />
communication consistently in both expressing and empathically receiving communication.
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