Comments on: Start with an observation: how to connect with anyone by turning your opinion into an observation https://cupofempathy.com/start-with-an-observation-how-to-connect-with-anyone-by-turning-your-opinion-into-an-observation/ Nonviolent Communication Online Courses Wed, 19 Mar 2025 10:59:53 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Marianne van Dijk https://cupofempathy.com/start-with-an-observation-how-to-connect-with-anyone-by-turning-your-opinion-into-an-observation/#comment-2218 Thu, 09 Apr 2020 08:13:54 +0000 https://cupofempathy.com/?p=5285#comment-2218 In reply to Christine.

I fully agree Christine!! And thanks for sharing my videos with your students!

]]> By: Christine https://cupofempathy.com/start-with-an-observation-how-to-connect-with-anyone-by-turning-your-opinion-into-an-observation/#comment-2217 Wed, 08 Apr 2020 23:16:15 +0000 https://cupofempathy.com/?p=5285#comment-2217 Hi Marianne, Thanks for some amazing videos. I’m sharing a few of them with my university students who are learning NVC. One comment I have about this video is the use of the word “opinion” as the same as “judgment”. I personally make a distinction between judgment (which can universalize someone’s evaluation), observation, and opinion. To me, an opinion is “I like…..” or “I don’t like….” So I will often tell students to turn their judgments into opinions. For example, instead of saying “Your hair looks really fantastic”, consider saying “I like the way you styled your hair today”. While many trainers use evaluations and judgments interchangeably, they also use sub-category words that represent judgments like: labels, comparisons, analysis, psychoanalysis, perceptions, and interpretations. While you could say an opinion is a judgment, the person saying it usually owns it as their opinion. I do think opinions is a category unto itself and I don’t discourage it. Just my opinion… :~)

]]> By: Marianne van Dijk https://cupofempathy.com/start-with-an-observation-how-to-connect-with-anyone-by-turning-your-opinion-into-an-observation/#comment-1822 Thu, 28 Mar 2019 13:19:48 +0000 https://cupofempathy.com/?p=5285#comment-1822 In reply to Nicole Petrichor.

Hi Nicole, in that case I would listen to your feelings first! You could even express them, as long as they are pure feelings and not pseudofeelings. Google my video about that if you don’t know what those are. So you could say:

I feel disappointed! There is really a sadness in me..my chest hurts…And after a while go to the observation: it has something to do with what you said..maybe it was that sentence about X..

Get it?

]]> By: Marianne van Dijk https://cupofempathy.com/start-with-an-observation-how-to-connect-with-anyone-by-turning-your-opinion-into-an-observation/#comment-1821 Thu, 28 Mar 2019 13:17:09 +0000 https://cupofempathy.com/?p=5285#comment-1821 In reply to Gloria.

Hi Gloria, so happy to hear it was helping you. Also I LOVE how you make yourself the request of cultivating the habit this very week! I hope you can be soft with yourself if it’s not entirely changed within these 7 days, my experience is it takes a few months. And you would also want to express your need, but Ill soon have a video ready about that too 🙂

]]> By: Nicole Petrichor https://cupofempathy.com/start-with-an-observation-how-to-connect-with-anyone-by-turning-your-opinion-into-an-observation/#comment-1820 Tue, 26 Mar 2019 18:41:57 +0000 https://cupofempathy.com/?p=5285#comment-1820 Hello!

I enjoyed this video. It’s reallu hard for me sometimes to see the observable action, because the emotions that whatever action triggered in me seem to overshadow it.

How does one take a step back to see the observation when the emotions are so strong? I really liked the reminder that observable things are things that a camera could capture.

Thank you very much for this upload!

]]> By: Gloria https://cupofempathy.com/start-with-an-observation-how-to-connect-with-anyone-by-turning-your-opinion-into-an-observation/#comment-1819 Tue, 26 Mar 2019 15:52:26 +0000 https://cupofempathy.com/?p=5285#comment-1819 Very, very useful video! I find often, when I’m upset with someone, I speak automatically from arrogance and righteousness with judgements. This video is an inspiringly clear wake-up out of that habit into reality: What literally happened? I intend to cultivate this in a big way this week to shift out of that destructive pattern. Thank you!

]]> By: Marianne van Dijk https://cupofempathy.com/start-with-an-observation-how-to-connect-with-anyone-by-turning-your-opinion-into-an-observation/#comment-1817 Tue, 26 Mar 2019 09:17:03 +0000 https://cupofempathy.com/?p=5285#comment-1817 What did you think of this video? Share underneath!

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