The definition of connection that I like to use is that connection is the flow and ease that occurs within you and between people when they experience being seen, heard and valued without judgment.
Key Points Discussed:
- When I'm teaching NVC, I like to bring up this difference between observations and evaluations and let people become very clear on them, and it's not necessary to make that distinction, and every time you open up your mouth and when you're in a casual conversation with someone (2:42)
- What happens is we see something and often we have another layer of thought that happens over the thing that we say, so for instance, a dog crosses the road and we have an idea of that dog went really fast across the road, or that's such a cute dog crossing the road. So the fast part and the cute part are all this layer of evaluation, and it happens throughout our conversations, throughout our thinking over and over again, and again, it's not that big of a deal when... It's just a neutral conversation, but when you are in the midst of a conflict, it's really helpful just to stick to observation. (4:13)
- Absolute terms, any time you say things like, you never listen to anything that I say, never is an absolute term, more than likely, something isn't always... never or always. When you use those absolute terms, especially when you're in conflict, more than likely that it's going to cause more disconnection. (6:28).
- When you were in the midst of a conflict with somebody, it's probably going to cause more disconnection in the connection. Now that we know all of this, why is it so important when you want connection. I think there's one obvious reason why it's important, which is when you say something evaluative to somebody, it's going to be off-putting to them, they're not going to hear you, especially if somebody has had trauma. (9:02)
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