Nonviolent Communication

Occasionally reGeneration sponsors scholarships in Nonviolent Communication training.  Nonviolent Communication treats empathy as a teachable skill and places empathy at the heart of its communication process which is centered on learning to recognize and honor the feelings and the universal human needs that are active in oneself and others.

Learning the skills of Nonviolent Communication strengthens the ability to inspire compassion from others and to respond compassionately to others.  This is done by learning how to reframe how we express ourselves and how we hear others.  Conflicts are resolved by learning to focus on what we are observing, feeling, needing, and making a request of the other.

Similar to how objective observation is taught through science experiments in a Waldorf classroom, in Nonviolent Communication students are trained to make careful observations of behaviors free of evaluation.  Once one is trained to distinguish the observations free of evaluation, then behaviors and conditions that affect the student are specified.

Nonviolent Communication teaches that many times our cultural conditioning often leads our attention in directions unlikely to get us what we want, Nonviolent Communication serves as an ongoing reminder to focus our attention on places that have the potential to yield what we are seeking.  They learn to hear their own deeper needs and those of others, and to identify and clearly articulate what they are wanting in a given moment,

Through its emphasis on deep listening – to themselves – as well as to others – Nonviolent Communication can foster respect, attentiveness and empathy and engender a mutual desire to give from the heart.