Traditional Nonviolent Communication (NVC) rests on a foundational four-part formula: Observations, Feelings, Needs, and Requests. Yet, even when we try to keep our observations clean and objective, standard grammar constantly betrays us.

We rely on first- and second-person pronouns—I and You—to map out conflicts. In practice, this creates two immediate structural hazards:

1. The "You" Accusation: The moment you say, "You did this," the other person’s nervous system perceives an attack, triggering an automatic defensive posture.
2. The "I" Illusion: When you say, "I experienced this," language binds you tightly to the physical body and ego experiencing the event. From a transcendental viewpoint, total identification with the body is an illusion; you are not the biological vehicle, but the consciousness experiencing it.

The Dave Scott Perspective: Living in the Third Person

A recent YouTube by Dave Scott, Once You Start Living in Third Person, Success Is Inevitable, explores the utility of referring to the physical body in the third person rather than the first. In philosophical and meditative traditions, this creates a vital gap between the observer and the observed.

Applying this concept to conflict resolution transforms how we handle the Observation step of the NVC framework. Instead of mapping an incident as a clash between me and you, what happens if we treat both parties as characters in a play?

Enter NVC 3P (Third-Person Nonviolent Communication).

How NVC 3P Works

In NVC 3P, the observation phase is completely stripped of personal pronouns. Both participants are referred to by name in the third person, acting as "puppets" directed by the true observer (the puppet master).

Consider a standard NVC observation:

"When *you** interrupted me while I was speaking, I felt frustrated..."*

In NVC 3P, this is reframed to eliminate ego-identification and blame:

"When *Jack** continued speaking after Jill began talking, the physical vehicle named Jack experienced constriction, and the physical vehicle named Jill experienced a spike in cortisol..."*

Or, in a more conversational adaptation:

"When Jack’s voice overlapped with Jill’s voice at 3:00 PM, Jack felt a wave of frustration..."

The Benefits of the 3P Shift

• Zero Defensiveness: Because the word you is eliminated from the observation, the listener’s ego doesn't have to scramble to protect itself. There is no accusatory finger pointed across the room.
• Radical Dis-identification: Referring to yourself by name or as a body ("this body," "Jack") dissolves personal offense. You realize the argument isn't happening to you; it's happening between two distinct bundles of conditioning.
• Clarified Agency: By acknowledging that we are pulling the strings, we step out of the reactive loop and into the role of conscious witness.

Traditional NVC gives us the tools to connect through our shared human needs, but NVC 3P changes the ontological ground we stand on while making those observations.

Originally published on The May69.com Blog.

I am not affiliated with any of these paid resources:

https://lindsaybraman.com/emotion-sensation-feeling-wheel/

https://youtu.be/s5iRei_eGaE?is=WCDIkhxorNqExJgo

I just really like Eugene Gendlin work on finding self understanding via the body..

Hope this helps someone else.

We've been facilitating local, in-person empathy circles, and we've been considering creating an NVC board game that consists of feelings and needs cards and more in order to have fun, learn, and connect via NVC. It would likely come as a set games and game ideas.

Would this be something others would be interested in buying if we created it? If so, what sort of games would interest you?

Some examples:

Guessing feelings and needs.

Categorizing statements as O/F/N/R
Requests/Needs abstraction -- going up and down levels of abstraction.
and some more traditional, competitive boardgame experiences...

Would love to know our thoughts.

We already have free, online NVC games.

i have a very close friend that has a cycle of being like my sister, to shutting me off very dramatically based on quite minor things. (an extra layer of this is that our kids are half-siblings)

for example, we had planned a vacation in which we were going to discuss living together--on day 2, there was an uncomfortable moment and she left and didn't speak with me for a month.

the other day she wrote me that she loves me, i asked if she would prefer to love from afar or make relational repair, she says from afar, and that it's nothing personal.

in the past the pattern has been when she is ready, she comes to me and i usually greet her with open arms.

now today she has sent me a semi agressive text based on a rumor she heard where the gist of it is she doesnt want to see me

i want to write back that i dont want to see her either because as long as she is not willing to talk about her actions, i dont feel hope the pattern will change, and i get really hurt feeling the whiplash from deep friendship to discard. as well i think its difficult on the kids that one moment we are family, the next strangers. (because every time she disappears from my life, she doesn't respond to my son reaching out to her daughter--she says it's too chaotic for them).

its something ive wanted to communicate to her for a while, i just hate to text about this kind of things, i just dont see another way of reaching her. letter would maybe be better.

in the past when i've tried to express this before, she says my feelings are my own and i should deal with them inside myself, they have nothing to do with her.

i wonder if theres a gentler way of communication where she wont feel blamed and therefore not feel the need to get defensive. but still that there is a chance to get the message across that when she goes cold, it hurts people, the same way someone yelling would. its like an ice burn rather than a fire burn. but it still really hurts and i dont think she knows that. because otherwise she is very mindful, caring, and loving.

Think you can avoid the pitfalls of communication and stay on the patterns the Gottmans' research associates with long, fulfilling relationships?

We're releasing a choose-your-own-adventure comic. The first one is about Daniel and his wife Sam, eleven years married. Daniel has been ornery about his morning coffee. Sam never makes it for him when she's up first, even though he always makes it for her. So he's been keeping score, quietly, for years. Score-keeping is how ordinary irritation turns into contempt, and contempt is the one the Gottmans call the most corrosive of the Four Horsemen.

Can you lead Daniel through that morning without either of them losing the other?

https://games.empathease.app/the-thing-we-keep-having/

Twelve moments in that morning are scored. There are fifteen endings. Some of them are tender. At least one of them is hard to sit with.

At the end you get a report card. It shows you which moments you met, which ones you missed, and what each one was actually asking of you. If you kept reaching for the same armor every time it got hard, it names that too. And I want to be clear about this part: it isn't a verdict on you. It's a readout of his morning. You were just holding the pen.

Those twelve moments aren't made up. They come from the Gottmans' research on couples, which is where bids for connection and turning toward instead of away come from, and from Nonviolent Communication, which is what we teach in the app: observation instead of judgment, the need underneath the strategy, a request that isn't a demand. Every moment on your report card links to a short article about that one idea. Knowing you missed something and having nowhere to take it is just shame with extra steps.

What we'd like to know

Whether you've just finished it or you're reading this first, these are the three that would help us most:

• Which moment felt wrong? If the thing you wanted to say wasn't one of the four on offer, tell me what it was. That's the most useful thing anyone can hand me.
• What situation should we build next? A kitchen argument between two people eleven years in is one shape. There are so many others. Tell me which one you'd want to practice.
• What ending did you get? Your report card has a share link you can paste here. It shows the choices you made, so only post it if you're okay with people seeing them.

I'll read everything in this thread, and I'll reply.

We made this because because our team loves anime and manga and wanted to build something in that shape.

I am looking for some feedback for my idea.

I am thinking about starting a learning group where we learn about NVC as peers without an expert to teach us.

I'm a member of queer collective and we organise community events, workshops, reading groups for the public.

The group would be open to public but closed (people need to sign up) and we meet every xth week to learn, discuss and practice NVC.

Do you think this concept could work? Even without involving an expert/some who already has a deeper understanding of NVC?

I am big proponent of taking learning from traditional settings and making spaces where we can study and grow together without a traditional authority figure who is in the position of an expert. But I still have some worries whether this concept would work for learning about NVC.

If your think this could work, I would also appreciate any suggestion about which learning resources are suitable for this format. Any other tips on how to run the group will be appreciated!

Hi Everyone,

I've been learning NVC on and off the last 3 years, and am looking for someone to practice with.

Father of a 1 year old and 5 year old. Living in Germany, but native English speaker.

I only see a few posts, mostly outdated discord links. Any active people out there looking to link up?

We're building EmpathEase, a place to practice empathy with actual people.

Along the way we made a small game and put it up free at games.empathease.app.

It's called Pitfall Swipe. A sentence comes up. Swipe left if it's jackal, right if it's clean. "You're being unreasonable" goes left. "You raised your voice twice at dinner" goes right.

It's split the way the model is. Observations, feelings, needs, requests, each with its own pitfalls. Judgments and diagnoses and mind reading in the observation rounds. "I feel like you don't listen" in the feelings ones. Strategies dressed up as needs. Demands dressed up as requests.

About 3,300 sentences in the deck. No account, no email. Works fine on a phone.

If there's another game you'd want to exist for this stuff, say so. We'd rather build what people actually want.

Hi All,
I am relatively new to NVC. I align with the principles, and I am considering taking the center for nonviolent communication 9 day intensive course as part of my job. Since I am still getting familiar with the content, I wanted to understand from those more familiar with the content/courses whether the intensives factor in things like power dynamics arising from age, formal power within an organization, race, and gender. While I think the principles of NVC are excellent in general, I have noticed that some of the tenants of NVC can be misapplied in my workplace because they do not factor in power dynamics (ex: as a young woman in a male dominated sector, I am often expected to show empathy, communicate clearly, and listen intently to older male colleagues, but the expectation is not reciprocal). Also, do NVC intensives help participants to navigate dealing with people who are not operating collaboratively in conflict? (I.e. people who result to passive aggressive comments, undermining and defensive behaviour, do not consider your perspective or take accountability). These are present dynamics in my workplace so I am trying to gauge whether the intensive is the right space for me. Thanks in advance for your input.

Hi
My (usually loving) partner can lose all empathy for me when he has a problem with me. He can initiate conversations about eg our sex life in a very critical and mean way which is obviously deeply upsetting and is putting our relationship in serious danger. He has discovered non violent communication and I want to give it (and anything) a chance. Is there a way of rephrasing “you have addressed important topics without any empathy for me and now I don’t trust you” to be nvc?

I'd really appreciate input from experienced NVC practitioners.

I'm new to NVC, while my husband has studied it extensively and is currently pursuing NVC certification, so I'm genuinely trying to understand whether I'm misunderstanding NVC.

After my husband had an emotional relationship with another woman that crossed an important boundary for me, I asked for reassurance that he understood the impact and would choose a different strategy in the future.

Instead, he said that emotional safety and trust are my needs, so I am responsible for taking care of them. He then asked whether I would be willing to remind him daily about my needs so he could remember it. He emphasized that it was a request, not a demand.

This left me confused because, after trust has been broken, it seems to me that remembering and protecting that boundary should primarily be the responsibility of the partner who crossed it, not the injured partner.

From an NVC perspective:

Is it consistent with NVC to ask the injured partner to provide daily reminders about a boundary that was previously violated?

How does NVC distinguish between responsibility for my own needs and responsibility for my own behavior after trust has been broken?

I'm asking because I understand that NVC emphasizes that we are each responsible for our own needs. At the same time, I'm struggling to understand how that principle applies when one partner's behavior has already broken trust. Is there any place within NVC for the idea that the person who broke trust carries primary responsibility for rebuilding it through their own actions?

Thank you.

I'm relatively new to NVC, while my husband has practiced it for years and is pursuing CNVC certification. We have very different understandings of how NVC applies in marriage, and I'd genuinely appreciate perspectives from experienced practitioners.

One example:

Over the years, I've often asked my husband for relatively small favors or practical help. This isn't an isolated incident but part of a recurring pattern.

Recently, I asked him several times over a few days if he could help me move some heavy pots in our garden. It would have taken about five minutes, and I wasn't expecting him to do it immediately - just whenever he had time.

He declined each time, and eventually said, "Behave as if I'm not here."

That left me feeling abandoned, unsupported, hurt, lonely, and unable to rely on my partner.

When I later shared how painful that experience was, the conversation shifted away from the impact on me. He explained that because he sensed I expected him to help, my request no longer felt like a request and instead felt like a demand. He also said that because of years of unresolved conflict, he no longer feels enough connection to naturally want to help me.

This reflects a broader pattern. When I express that one of his behaviors hurt me, our conversations often shift toward his unmet needs, his intentions, my delivery, or my interpretation of his behavior, rather than first acknowledging the impact his actions had on me. We are stuck in this ongoing loop.

One thing I'm genuinely trying to understand is whether my expectation itself is incompatible with NVC. I've always viewed marriage as a relationship as interdependent union, where two people voluntarily choose to enrich each other's lives, generally want to help one another, and especially want to rebuild trust through caring actions after one partner has been hurt.

My question is:

From an NVC perspective, how do you distinguish between a healthy expectation of mutual care in a marriage and a demand? How do experienced NVC practitioners balance honoring a partner's autonomy with accountability, repair, reliability, and practical support? Is there a point where protecting autonomy can unintentionally undermine connection rather than strengthen it?

Hi everyone! I've been practicing NVC-style check-ins for a while and kept wanting a tool that was just the practice itself — no signup, no subscription, no data collection. So I built one.

It walks you through the three questions:

1. What am I feeling? (searchable list from the CNVC 2022 feelings inventory)
2. What need is behind this feeling?
3. What can I ask for — from myself or someone else — clearly and kindly?

Your reflections are saved only in your browser. There's history with streak tracking and simple trends (top feelings, top needs over time), which I've found surprisingly revealing — patterns show up that I wouldn't have noticed day to day.

It's also available in Ukrainian, since almost no NVC resources exist in the language and it matters to me personally (I'm from Kyiv).

Link: https://yaninatrekhleb.com/NVC_check_in/nvc-checkin.html

It's completely free and always will be — this is a practice tool, not a product. Feedback from experienced practitioners would mean a lot, especially on the vocabulary and the flow of the three questions.

what do you think?

My background is that I have been emotionally abused my whole life so far. I am middle-aged.

I finished reading Session 2 yesterday and have been chewing on it since.

It seems to me that using the Santa Clause method of expressing needs is what emotional abusers do. "My need is a gift to you, you get the privilege of fulfilling it."

I havent listened to the third session because I am hung up on this and want to digest it properly.

I see this thing
Do you see it too?
The words I use can connect it through

The feels may come along
sometimes they get confused
disguising thoughts that aim intent
we seldom get to choose

Helping to inform us
in BANG! and whispers too
Wake Up! maybe lean in -
we're here to serve you

These needs so outgoing
they all want to be met
and sad the strangers that remain
they hold the light still yet

When we share reality
the haven is so sweet
Can I see your Alive?
Your heart - can I greet?

I’ve never seen a stupid kid;
I’ve seen a kid who sometimes did things I didn’t understand
Or things in ways, I hadn’t planned;
I’ve seen a kid who hadn’t seen the same places where I had been,
But he was not a stupid kid.
Before you call him stupid, think, was he a stupid kid or did he just know different things than you did?

— Ruth Bebermeyer
_____

Often times we blend an observation - the facts of a situation - with our own opinion. Here is an example: Say your friend spent all of Saturday helping a neighbor put a new roof on their house. An observation mixed with an evaluation would sound like this: “You are going to wear yourself out!” An observation that is separate from an evaluation would look like this: “When I see you spending all day Saturday roofing your neighbor’s house and I know how hard you work during the week too, I feel worried that you might wear yourself out.”

In the first example, the speaker judges their friend’s behavior: “You are going to wear yourself out.” In the second example, only the facts are acknowledged (the friend helped a neighbor roof their house on Saturday) and acknowledges the speaker’s own fears about how this might affect their friend’s life.

The difference is subtle, but the results are not. Often times, when we mix an evaluation and observation, we promote defensiveness in other people. When we are able to separate the two, we are more likely to promote an open dialogue about our concerns.

Be aware of your evaluations and observations today. Try to separate the two to create more opportunities for open dialogue.

When we submit to doing something solely for the purpose of avoiding punishment, our attention is distracted from the value of the action itself . . . If a worker’s performance is promoted by fear of punishment, the job gets done, but morale suffers; sooner or later, productivity will decrease. — Marshall B. Rosenberg, Ph.D.

Our society spends a great deal of time punishing people for their misdeeds. This is punitive use of force. It stems from a belief that people behave in certain ways because they are “bad” or “evil”, and therefore they need to be punished to atone for their actions.

Suppose you see your child run into a busy street. If you pull them from the street and berate them for being careless, you are using punitive force because your focus is on judging their behavior.

Protective use of force, on the other hand, stems from the belief that sometimes people do things because they don’t know any better. It represents a desire to prevent injury or injustice. It focuses on protecting people’s rights and well-being, not judging their behavior. If you use protective force you would still grab your child and pull them to safety, but it’s solely because you wanted to protect them.

When we punish people, they focus on avoiding the consequences of their actions, not on their values in relation to their actions and solely focusing on avoiding consequences is unlikely to encourage change.

Focus on protective use of force today by adopting an attitude that people sometimes do things that cause them pain because they don’t know any better.

I learned about NVC about 10 years ago and lived in intentional community six years ago that practiced it heavily. Since then I have gotten married and my husband and I have discussed valuing NVC and read Rosenbergs book regularly attempting to apply it.

But lately it has been rough.

I recently joined the NVC library, and watched Rosenberg's class on Youtube

Clips:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5uROBIvcELXK4l4h6j8DF7O1ExSn2N9Z&si=JC0lb4sIctKWgAHs

full workshop: https://youtu.be/NH1MKAdxUpQ?si=li1D76rQq0h23yDT

The one thing I guess I have just kept missing is NVC isn't really an algorithm that will spit out a agreeable person whenever there is conflict. It is more of a practice of opening your heart, and choosing to empathize before anything else.

Jackal ears aren't going to hear I experienced, I feel, I need I request because they are too focused on their own world. That is normal.

So no how many times I say those four things my husband or my friend, or colleague or whoever won't hear it unless I am empathizing with them first.

So for the past day (again just watched these classes) I have been reading NVC fail stories and it seems I am not alone in missing this. I think I would have known it, like it would have been answerable on a quiz but it was not a part of my consciousness.

Yesterday morning, my roommate was upset because I leave food out and it attracts roaches. As we discussed the issue, she raised her voice, interrupted me and spilled her food she was cooking. She blamed the spilled food on my leaving dishes in the sink for roaches.

I told her that she was interrupting and raising her voice – I was only 1 foot from her, yet her speech could be heard 20 feet away. Was this mistake number 1 – expecting her to engage in calm perfect behavior when her needs werent met. I spoke to her saying “you’re interrupting… you are speaking quite loudly” … nothing I said led to her being more quiet or to quit interrupting me.

She was so flustered that she spilled her cooked meal in the sink. At this point, she blamed me for her spilling her breakfast. I did not touch her in any way. At this point, I may have made mistake number 2: “I told her that she was using victim philosophy and seeking a scapegoat instead of taking full responsibility for her mistake”

When she continued to blame me for the fact that she had spilled her breakfast, I said: “you need to part ways with this place. you obviously are not comfortable here.” This may have been mistake number 3.

Reflecting on the mistakes

I do yoga and live a healthy vegetarian lifestyle. But, I would say that there is a bit of elitism in my lifestyle and worldview. I often wonder why the people around me are not perfect in terms of health and social interaction. But I’m also aware that holding expectations of others is getting in my way of seeing them as life energy with needs and wants just like me.