I'm the Pachshopra, this is daily breath.

Today I want to share four basic steps to nonviolent communication.

These steps are derived from Marshall Rosenberg's work and his excellent book, Nonviolent Communication.

These steps involve four questions you ask of yourself whenever you find yourself becoming defensive.

So let's start by a simple meditation.

Either observe breath or use mantra. Do that for a few minutes. And now think of a recent

situation that irritated you or upset you. Step one here is to separate observation from evaluation. So mentally

ask yourself what actually happened?

Be as objective as possible.

Ask yourself, what am I actually responding to?

What did I see?

What did I hear? What actually occurred? Just the facts please. And now try to make a

distinction between evaluation or observation.

One of the examples I've used in the past and I'll use it again is let's imagine that your partner, your spouse, your significant other came home late from work yesterday

or what you perceive was late. and you asked your partner shall we go to the movies and the partner said

go to hell or something like that, which totally offended you.

The observation is not in the description of what I said right now.

The observation is the partner came at 7.43 p.m. the exact time. That's the observation,

without evaluating it as late. The second observation is you asked the partner

shall we go to the movie? The third observation is the partner made a fist, raised the volume of his voice,

and pronounced the following words, go to hell. That's the observation without the evaluation. Now once you've

seen what the observation is ask yourself how did I feel and try to avoid words like I was abused, I was insulted, I was disappointed,

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