I believe the goal of lasting world safety and peace can only be achieved when we create relationships based on recognizing and satisfying our common human needs. My work using Nonviolent Communication is designed to help people peacefully resolve differences by empathizing with one another’s values and concerns. To inspire compassion, NVC guides us to reframe how we express ourselves and hear others by focusing our consciousness on what we are observing, feeling, needing, and requesting.

Through its emphasis on deep listening—to ourselves as well as others—NVC fosters respect, attentiveness, and empathy, and engenders a mutual desire to give from the heart. The form is simple, yet powerfully transformative. And the intent is to remind us about what we already know—about how we humans were meant to relate to one another—and to assist us in peacefully living in a way that concretely manifests this knowledge.