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Creativity – The Needs’ Year (Week 4)
Starting this project This blog post and this project – the Needs' Year – is an expression of my own creativity. I've had the idea of the Needs' Year for about six months. Sometimes I am very quick in turning ideas into action, but this time I was preoccupied with...
Rest – The Needs’ Year (Week 3)
Rain and exhaustion "Fucking hell!" I had just got my third flat tyre in less than 24 hours. It was raining and I sought shelter under a pedestrian bridge along the river Schelde just outside Gent, Belgium. I was soaking wet and even though it was not so cold, my...
Community – The Needs’ Year (Week 2)
My life in community "Who in the collective house would you most like to eat?" We were sitting around one of the tables in the dining hall engaged in a conversation. We stuck to the adult community members and most of us chose one of the young women from our house. To...
Acceptance – The Needs’ Year (Week 1)
It started with goosebumps on the forearms. Soon the whole arms began to tremble and the trembling eventually turned into shaking and spread to the shoulders and the upper body. It lasted for about 20 minutes and then began to subside. In the end, it was just like an...
Introduction to needs
Intro In this blog post, I will mainly reflect on needs from the perspective of us humans. My thoughts about needs are based on my understanding of what Marshall B. Rosenberg - the founder of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) - has written about needs. I have also...
How to change a habitual way of communicating?
As you are reading this article, I guess that you want to, just like me, develop your ability to listen to others, to cooperate, to express what is important to you - simply to create connection with people. Almost no matter what we are interested in in life, there...
Beginner’s mind
Beginner’s mind The power of not knowing all So many times I attended workshops where I had some prior knowledge, with the attitude: “I doubt that I can learn anything new!”. So many times I dismissed the arguments of political opponents before I even heard them! And...
Our biased mind
In the beginning of my NVC experience When I started learning NVC, I was very passionate. At last, I had discovered a way to communicate where connection and the needs of everyone matter. I could both listen with empathy to what was important to others as well...
Smart Decision-Making: Systemic Consensing for Managers – book review
Making decisions Has it ever happened to you that you regretted the decision that was made? Or that you and your team decided about something and then one of you started rebelling against it…? Or you were about to take a decision and then someone questioned it...
Blind Spots
Why are they behaving like that? Do you sometimes wonder why others are so angry? Or you might be wondering why people are so nasty? Perhaps you are annoyed that some people are so stingy? Now and then, judgements of others appear within us. We lose our balance...
The four NVC steps in practice
The four NVC steps The four steps of Nonviolent Communication (known also as four components) help us to consciously use words in order to clearly express what we want. Using the four steps increases the chance of establishing contact and mutual understanding. They...
Free from a guilt trip, at least a bit… An example of one mother
Flavours of parenting Parenting can have different flavours. Sometimes sweet, and let's have it this way most often, sometimes bitter, difficult to swallow. Working with parents, and being one too, shows us that there are some moments when we do things that do...