Nonviolent Communication How To: Notes on Marshall Rosenberg
If you have ever searched for Nonviolent Communication how to use it in real life, that is exactly the gap this book keeps showing me. I’ve read Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg three times.
Once in English in 2020, when I was desperate and raw and needed anything that could help me feel less lost with my children. Once in French a year later, because I wanted the vocabulary to sit in the language I was actually speaking every day. Once more in English in 2025, after an intensive six-day NVC course in Montpellier.
And still, I keep noticing that understanding Nonviolent Communication is not the same as being able to use it in the exact moment I need it most.
That is not a criticism of the book. It is the whole point. Rosenberg’s work goes much deeper than a tidy four-step formula. It asks you to notice what is happening underneath the words: the feelings, the needs, the fear, the defensiveness, and the longing to stay connected.
Nonviolent Communication How To: What Is It?
Nonviolent Communication — NVC — is a framework developed by psychologist Marshall Rosenberg for expressing yourself and listening to others in a way that creates genuine connection rather than defensiveness, blame, or shutdown.
The word “nonviolent” doesn’t mean shouting. It means communication that doesn’t do violence to the connection between two people. That doesn’t create walls, resentment, shame, or judgment.
Rosenberg’s thesis is this: most of the conflict in human relationships comes from something surprisingly simple — we don’t know how to express what we need, and we don’t know how to hear what others need. We’ve been taught to moralize, judge, diagnose, and demand instead. And those habits, however normal they feel, disconnect us from the people we most want to reach.
NVC offers a four-step process:
- Observation — What did I actually see or hear? (Without evaluation or judgment)
- Feeling — What am I feeling in response to it?
- Need — What need of mine is not being met?
- Request — What do I want the other person to do? (A clear, specific, doable request — not a demand)
That sounds simple. It is not. Trust me! It’s much easier to put into practice with students and people you don’t know, but your family and friends, wow, that’s a whole new level of work on knowing yourself…
What Made Me Pick It Up in 2020
I was in the middle of one of the hardest periods of my adult life. Three kids. A new country. Qualifications not recognised. Dark thoughts. And every time I tried to have a difficult conversation — with my husband, with my children, with myself — I felt like I was making it worse.
I didn’t have the language.
I had the intention. I wanted calm. I wanted connection. But when stress hit, I defaulted to what I’d learned growing up: attack, defend, withdraw. The three least useful options.
Michelle, my Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner, mentioned NVC. I ordered the book immediately.
The first thing that hit me was the idea of “life-alienating communication” — Rosenberg’s term for all the ways we speak that create distance rather than connection. Diagnosis and judgment. Comparisons. Demands. “Should” statements. Denial of responsibility (“I have to…” instead of “I choose to…”).
I recognized myself on almost every page. Not because I’m a bad person or a bad parent. But because I’d been swimming in this language my whole life without knowing it was water.
The Feeling I Keep Coming Back To
There’s a chapter in NVC about the difference between what you feel and what you think you feel.
“I feel that you’re ignoring me” is not a feeling. It’s a judgment disguised as a feeling. The actual feeling might be: hurt. Lonely. Unimportant. Afraid.
Most of us — especially those of us who grew up in environments where big emotions weren’t welcomed — never learned to name the feeling underneath the story. We learned to tell the story. To build the case. To explain why the other person is wrong.
Nonviolent communication asks you to stop at the feeling.
This sounds incredibly simple. It is one of the hardest things I’ve ever tried to do consistently.
In my teaching — with all my students across all the schools I taught in and different age groups — I use NVC more instinctively now. When a student misbehaves, I’ve learned to get curious rather than combative. “I notice you’ve been quiet today — is everything okay?” instead of “Why aren’t you participating?” The conversation that follows is completely different.
With my kids — especially my daughters navigating all the usual teenage intensity — NVC has been the framework that helps me stay in the relationship rather than winning the argument. Well…sometimes I manage connection and sometimes I don’t and this blooming autopilot response kicks back in…I’m human and learning, not perfection, remember!
I don’t always manage it. But I understand what I’m aiming for now. That’s different.
Three Principles That Changed How I Communicate
1. Every action is an attempt to meet a need
Rosenberg argues that every behaviour — even the most difficult, the most frustrating, the most hurtful — is an attempt by a human being to meet a legitimate need. Not necessarily in a wise way. Not in a way that works. But the need underneath is real.
Understanding this doesn’t mean excusing behaviour. It means you can address the need rather than just the behaviour, which is far more likely to lead somewhere useful.
2. Feelings signal needs
Your emotions are data. When you feel angry, it’s because a need for respect, justice, or safety isn’t being met. When you feel scared, a need for security or protection isn’t being met. When you feel resentful, something you deeply value isn’t being honoured.
Instead of acting from the emotion, Nonviolent communication teaches you to trace it back to the need — and then communicate from there.
3. Requests, not demands
A request is something you ask for that the other person is free to say no to. A demand is something where “no” has consequences — punishment, withdrawal of love, guilt.
Most of us believe we’re making requests. Many of us are making demands dressed in polite language. The difference lies in how you respond when the answer is no.
This one is uncomfortable to sit with. I’m still sitting with it!
Why I Keep Coming Back to It
Nonviolent communication doesn’t get easier because you’ve read the book. It gets slightly less impossible because you’ve internalized a few key moves. The gap between understanding NVC intellectually and living it under pressure is enormous.
Parenting is the ultimate test. Parenting is where all your theories about yourself go to die and get rebuilt.
But I keep coming back to this book because it gives me a framework when I’ve lost the thread. When I’ve defaulted to the old patterns and I want to find my way back to the relationship, I go back to Rosenberg.
What am I observing? What am I feeling? What do I need? What do I want to ask?
It’s a map. Even if I’m not always on the path.
What to Take From This
- Notice “you” statements — Any time you start a sentence with “You always…” or “You never…” or “You make me feel…”, pause. Try to convert it: what are you actually feeling, and what do you need?
- Learn your feeling vocabulary — Rosenberg includes a list of feelings and needs in the book. Read them. Many of us have a vocabulary of about 12 feelings. The full human range is much richer.
- Try observation without evaluation — Just for one day, notice how often you describe what happened by mixing in judgment. “She was rude” vs “She walked past without saying hello.” The facts and the story are different things.
- Distinguish requests from demands — Ask yourself: if they said no, how would I feel? If the answer is angry or hurt, it may be a demand in disguise.
- Apply it to yourself first — The most radical thing in this book, to me, is using NVC with yourself. Giving yourself the same compassion you’d offer someone you love.
Why This Belongs in “Purpose”
My blog is organised around my Tree of Life: Roots, Body, Mind, Heart, Soul, Purpose. Each section represents a part of my life that needs attention.
This post belongs in Purpose because communication is at the heart of everything I do professionally. I’m a teacher. My entire classroom runs on the quality of the relationships I build with the people in it. Nonviolent communication gave me a framework for that work that I use every single day — not as a rigid system, but as a set of questions that help me stay connected instead of reactive.
It also belongs here because Purpose, for me, is about living in alignment with what I value. And what I value, above almost everything, is connection. Real connection — with my students, my children, my husband, my friends, my extended family, myself.
Nonviolent communication is the most useful tool I have for that work.
Read it once. Then read it again.
Related Notes on NVC and Communication
If this is your starting point, these are the companion notes I would read next:
- Marshall Rosenberg’s French title: words as windows or walls
- Speaking Peace by Marshall Rosenberg: empathy before technique
- The missing piece between knowing NVC and using it
- Thomas d’Ansembourg on being honest instead of just nice
Notes from Soph | Learning, not perfection.
Have you tried NVC — in your parenting, your teaching, or even just with yourself? I’d love to hear how it landed for you. Leave a comment or reach out.
Book Details:
Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life — Marshall B. Rosenberg
Published 1999 (3rd edition 2015) | PuddleDancer Press
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