Nonviolent Communication.

Over the last couple months, I haven't written much about music. I haven't had much time to think about music and even the band practices have waned in my busyness and lack of clearheadedness. I am not "thinking music" right now; between work, my schooling, my children, my partner, and various other relationships, I have little to no room to get passionate about music.

But I have written a couple times about my first wading steps into Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication. So here are some of the resources I've been using.

I first read about Nonviolent Communication when I first read More Than Two: A practical guide to ethical polyamory two summers ago. (Embedded below is the summary of NVC as described by Franklin Veaux and Eve Rickert).

To be honest, however, I didn't take it to heart two summers ago because I thought I was a good enough communicator. I mean, as a teacher I have to be a good communicator, amiright?

Apparently I'd self-deceived myself, however; when I have three different people in a three-month window send me to the same resource, you think I'd get the hint. So I'm doing my best to take the hint—​despite my continuing busyness. And as my fits of anxiety around communicating my needs and desires have grown more frequent and humiliating, I think it worthwhile to do some deliberate self-help.

As I posted last week, about a month ago I started working through the following workshop (below):

I'm now about halfways through this audio course (below), which I listen to on my walks and when I'm alone in the car.

And today I tracked down a copy of the book (right). Despite the dreadful choice of typefaces on the cover, I'm looking forward to reading it. Possibly for the first time in my life, I'm actually looking forward to reading a self-help book.

I'm also happy to have the second edition because the third edition features a "New Forward by Deepak Chopra," and Chopra's a charlatan. 

I'm glad I was able to find a copy of the book in Chilliwack because I recently lost all my ID (perhaps a symptom of my busy brain) and I haven't received my new credit card in the mail; I picked it up at Nuggets Used Books at their comparatively new location on Wellington.

I look forward to trying it out a little bit, if only for myself and maintaining my own relationships positively. As I grow older, I see myself becoming more pathetic. I'd like to change all of that and be better to the people around me.

But all this communication stuff still doesn't make sense. 

After numerous recommendations from disparate sources and six hours of audio and video #NVC workshops, I've finally bought the #book: Nonviolent Communication. #nonviolentcommunication #selfhelp #bookstagram #books #marshallrosenberg #communication

A photo posted by Jeffrey Nordstrom (@jeffnords) on Dec 13, 2015 at 3:28pm PST

So far, I feel an affinity to the program for a rather English teacherish reason: I appreciate its focus on behaviour and discouragement of lazy "to be" verbs. This might be a step 1.