NVC Life with Rachelle Lamb

Within the NVC framework, being right is not a need. But it sure feels like it doesn’t it! It can feel like there’s absolutely no other option, and in that sense it can feel very much like a basic necessity in the same way the need for food, air and water are needs. Mention: Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ, by Daniel Goleman (1995) If you have comments about this episode or...

Tune into Part 2 of a conversation I had several months ago with Melissa Schwartz from The Shift Network and  ⁠https://leadingedgeparenting.com⁠ . Part 1 of the conversation was posted last week on April 18th. If you have comments about this episode or topics you'd like me to explore in future episodes, please submit them here:   https://www.rachellelamb.com/contact-rachelle

Tune into Part 1 of a conversation I had several months ago with Melissa Schwartz from The Shift Network and https://leadingedgeparenting.com . Melissa invited me to be a featured speaker in the 2022 Empaths, Sensitives & Intuitives Summit. We had a lively conversation about Nonviolent Communication which I thought subscribers to my podcast would enjoy hearing. The conversation kicks off with...

This episode examines "enemy images" and how the practice of Nonviolent Communication is so effective in transforming those negative and destructive images into a language that can facilitate connection across differences. "To create the world that exemplifies our values, we need to liberate ourselves from enemy images — the thinking that says there is something wrong with the peopl...

This episode explores the impact of questions in a relationship .. how we ask questions, how we respond to them, how we welcome or resist them. Some questions to reflect on: Where is my question actually coming from? Do I really want to better understand the other person? Or do I really want empathy? Do I want to make them wrong? Or do I want to experience greater control and less uncertainty to l...

This week’s episode explores this years Oscar winner for Best Documentary Short Film: The Elephant Whisperers streaming on Netflix. Why this film is so important: in only 40 minutes, this film invites us into the world of 2 individuals who live a life of devotion and service to the land that they have been born to, to the creatures that live there and in this case specifically, to 2 elephants who...

Welcome spring! Some thoughts on belonging to a place and what that means in the context of our human needs. Mentions: "The word  irreality  in this book is not intended to signify what is usually meant by  unreal , not  real , or  ethereal . Irreality is used to denote the very common strange and unfortunate collective condition whereby an utterly unhealthy, non-same, unnatural, totally synt...

This episodes explores the importance of becoming aware of negative patterns of relating.  Questions for reflection: What am I afraid of? What am I trying to protect? What is familiar to me about this exchange? What early memories are stirred? What really matters to me? What do I ultimately want?  Mentions: Eckhart Tolle: How the Pain-Body Affects Relationships  https://youtu.be/5jS...

We live in troubled times and it's hard to know what to do in light of such many personal, inter-personal and collective concerns. This episodes offers a few concrete things to consider and put into action. Links: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jan/29/pete-seeger-hudson-river-new-york If you have comments about this episode or topics you'd like me to explore in future episodes, please subm...

Russ Roberts, is the host of EconTalk: Conversations for the Curious. His recent guest was Marco Ramos, MD, PH.D, Historian of Medicine, and Psychiatrist at Yale University. This episode contains a brief segment of their important discussion. Some things to wonder about: What is it in this culture that is making people ill? .. the idea that we don't look at the underlying problem, it is bizar...

This episode explores authenticity and what it means to be authentic at the best and worst of times. And what does it actually mean to be truly authentic in a way that serves the world? Mentions: Communicating During Conflict: 4 Key Steps (available from https://www.rachellelamb.com when visitors join my mailing list) The Journey by Mary Oliver (https://poemotopia.com/best-poems/mary-oliver/#the-j...

An episode devoted to the exploration of romantic love. "The ideal relationship is the equivalent of the snow leopard; our loyalty to it as a realistic possibility cannot be based on the evidence of our own experience. Instead it derives from a range of reckless ideas circulating in our societies about what sharing a life with another person might be like." Alain de Botton, The Sorrows of Love Res...

Today marks the anniversary of beloved Marshall Rosenberg's death in 2015. This episode honours his work and explores how we might keep his work alive. Resource: https://www.rachellelamb.com/blog/keeping-marshall-rosenbergs-work-alive If you have comments about this episode or topics you'd like me to  explore in future episodes, please submit them here:   https://www.rachellelamb.co...

An episode that explores love as action (original blog:  https://www.rachellelamb.com/blog/2015/3/23/love-and-the-wisdom-of-erich-fromm ). Inspired by the work of  Erich Fromm the  German  social psychologist  and  humanistic philosopher  who authored many books. Quotes in this episode are from his book The Art of Loving. “Love is an activity, not a passive affec...

This episode explores the overlap between the Gottman Method's 4 Horsemen and NVC's 4 D's of Disconnection The Gottman Method's Four Horsemen: Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, and Stonewalling https://www.gottman.com/blog/the-four-horsemen-recognizing-criticism-contempt-defensiveness-and-stonewalling/ Nonviolent Communication 4 D's of Disconnection: Diagnosis, Demands, Denial of Personal Respon...

"You’ve heard it many times.  “Don’t take it personally” .. a modern day aphorism commonly espoused in personal and professional development trainings and spiritual teachings intended to remind us that the things other people say and do are more ostensibly a reflection of who they are than they are a reflection of who we are, particularly when objectionable words and actions are aimed at...

In Marshall Rosenberg's book Nonviolent Communication: A Language Of Life , the book opens as follows: Believing that it is our nature to enjoy giving and receiving in a compassionate manner, I have been preoccupied most of my life with two questions: What happens to disconnect us from our compassionate nature, leading us to behave violently and exploitatively? And conversely, what allows some peo...

Happy New Year friends! For the past 7 years I have posted the following New Year's Blessing to social media: May you fall madly in love this year .. in love with someone who unhinges your tired trajectory, in love with a spouse of several years who might be aching for lightning, in love with demanding children and crazy relatives .. in love with the particular pedigree of genius insanity that has...

This episode is a personal story about my mother's death on Christmas Day several decades ago .. a death that continues to inform my life deeply. 

This episode is devoted to winter solstice and making a proper place for darkness.

The Nonviolent Communication process describes empathy as a quality of presence in how one listens to another. This episodes explores the subject of empathy through some of Marshall Rosenberg's earlier writing. "I can testify then when you are in psychological distress and someone really hears you without passing judgment on you, without trying to take responsibility for you, without trying to mol...

This episode explores NVC in the context of social change which was something Marshall Rosenberg was very passionate about. "It is hard to separate meeting  human needs from the needs of the environment: They are one and the  same. Meeting the needs of all the phenomena on the planet. Seeing the  oneness of it all. Seeing the beauty in that whole scheme, that whole  interdepend...

There are a lot of people who express a deep desire to be in a significant relationship and yet it eludes them. This episode explores the challenging landscape of finding someone to share one's life with. Mentions: 1) Indian Matchmaking (available on Netflix); 2) author/psychotherapist Esther Perel (Mating in Captivity). If you have comments about this episode or topics you'd like me to explore in...

This episodes explores the intricacies of deepening our capacity to be vulnerable in intimate relationships. It also touches on the wisdom of protecting each other's respective solitude. " .. once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between th...

What do we ultimately mean when we ask other to stop coming from their heads? Tune into this episode as we explore head, heart, thinking, feeling, judgemental assessments, rigidity, curiosity .. and deep listening.  Mentions:  The Exquisite Risk: Daring to Live an Authentic Life by Mark Nepo (https://marknepo.com/books_theexquisite.php)