Many years ago, I had just returned home from work, and right away I was mad at my daughter for not doing her homework. She asked me, “Are you mad at me or are you mad about what happened at work today?” The truth was, I was mad about work. That was what had all my attention. In that space, there wasn’t much room for, “Hi Honey, how was your day?”

In my experience, it can be difficult to have an open heart when it’s already too tired, and our focus is on what’s wrong. Neither of these conditions leaves much room for connection. This is a helpful thing to notice. Because, if we notice when we don’t want to connect, we can also notice when we need to rest and reset. …

Need an NVC reset? Here’s an article I wrote for the Changing Self Talk to Self Care class a few years ago that could be helpful.

“When Dr. Rosenberg recognized that judgments and blame were a significant factor in understanding violence, he saw that if we look underneath them, we can find out what is really going on. Knowing this, we could change course and find kinder, more helpful communication solutions. As a result, he developed Nonviolent or Compassionate Communication (NVC).

NVC transforms judgments (including self-judgments) by using them to find the deeper messages expressed by our feelings and needs. It has a gentle yet fierce curiosity that makes acceptance, self-care, and inner peace possible. To figure out how this works we start by looking at the four foundational principles of NVC. …”