Compassionate Communication is a tool that supports both inner and outer peace

Sarah-Jane Cobley
Mar 11, 2024
3 min read

Here's why I love it...

One thing I love about NVC is its roots. It grew out of one person’s desire to create peace in a neighbourhood. This person was a clinical psychologist named Marshall Rosenburg and he called the process Nonviolent Communication, (NVC). This was because he worked with violent street gangs.

Through the process of NVC he helped gang members understand themselves better, express themselves more effectively, and be received with understanding. Marshall was very touched by what he witnessed. The NVC process expanded their capacity to empathise and to feel compassion. He decided to extend its scope of practice to include couples, until he later concluded that we all benefit from processing our issues with empathy and compassion.

I wholeheartedly agree that a process which grows our muscles of compassionate understanding has the power to transform situations. Not only tension and conflict between people and groups, but also our inner conflicts and tension.

Violent?

Violent is a word that not a lot of people would want to relate to. It’s a word associated with anger, aggression, harm and shame. However, in terms of NVC it’s more encompassing. It is seen as any way we use words, (either inwardly or outwardly), in a way that is not life-giving, i.e. doesn’t promote life, but diminishes it.

Like the inner critic that batters us down or keeps us small, or bully-banter and one-up-manship. Judgements and blame that uphold a divide and block progress and collaboration. That leave no room for compassionate understanding.

An alternative name

Since it’s birth in the 1960’s, an alternate name for NVC has come into use which is “Compassionate Communication”. One that says what we’d like and gives us something to move towards. I like this as a term as it’s softer and more inclusive.

I heard a friend of my son’s say once that “Daddy said we don’t need to go and learn how to communicate without violence because we aren’t violent.” It’s easy to misunderstand what NVC is, and it’s easy to box up the “violent people” from the “nonviolent people”, however, in reality it is our culture that has been promoting life-diminishing language in us all for centuries.

A cultural shift

A culture that fosters judgement and blame, even in our systems. From schools to judicial. In our media, from fashion to food. It’s no wonder our inner critic has a mountain of unhelpful phrases to draw from.

NVC draws light on how we speak to ourselves and others in a way that helps or hinders. It lends a very simple process to transform feelings of guilt, anger, grief and shame so that we can be more free to live and express from an authentic heart-filled space.

It strengthens connections, not walls, and leads to more peace, freedom, creative flow and collaboration. This is the kind of movement I want to be part of. This is why I love returning year after year to the NVC Community Camp, Southwest.

A growing community

We’re a growing community of people who want to live in a space of kindness, reciprocity and trust, and know that this involves a cultural shift from the current status quo. For one week we get to live together in community within a culture of compassion. Seeding within us the capacity to go back to our everyday lives with more authenticity and care, (both inward and outward).

It’s not always easy to hold compassion in every moment and so returning back annually to camp has been a bit like a ‘spring clean’. Dusting out the corners of my inner world where unhelpful phrases and tensions still reside. With this new degree of spaciousness and clarity, I feel more free to be me!

On top of that, it’s been a wonderful place for my children to play in safety among a small community where we share, support, and celebrate together. This is my 9th year of camp attendance, however, the benefit to my relationship with my partner, my children and myself were apparent on the first one in 2016, which is why I encourage more people year after year to come along and spread the joy.

NVC is so simple and effective when we learn it together in community, and it’s really nice to spend a week relaxing and having fun in a beautiful Somerset valley with beautiful people!

If you'd like to find out more or book a place please visit:

www.facebook.com/groups/nvccommunitycampsouthwest