“Don’t power yourself or blast through; rock with the way things are.”

I always have this red nose in my pocket, and if it looks like I’m taking things too seriously, or the person I’m talking to is taking them too seriously, I put the nose on. It doesn’t matter what we’re doing or talking about, it doesn’t matter if we agree or disagree, the nose changes everything.

People get stuck a lot because they’re afraid to act; in the worst case,…we get so attached to some end result that we can’t function. We need help just to move on, only life doesn’t wait.

Sometimes you come to a fall and sometimes you come to white water. Your rowing has to adapt to the situation.

Most important, once we study NVC we can’t ignore the potential for transformation that lies in any difficult relationship – if we only bother to communicate with skill and empathy.

When we bear witness, when we become the situation – homelessness, poverty, illness, violence, death – the right action arises by itself. We don’t have to worry about what to do.

Befriend what’s happening, not just who you’re supposed to be or what the world should be like. This is where you are now. So how do you care for yourself this minute?

The reason we get overwhelmed is that we’re attached to a certain result or taht we want to achieve a certain result or that we to achieve a certain goal.

You can’t do the same stroke coming down a small stream as you would coming down Niagara Falls.

If we weren’t attached we wouldn’t be overwhelmed. It’s endless. And we just take one step after the next

Let me give you a wonderful Zen practice. Wake up in the morning…look in the mirror, and laugh at yourself.

The extraordinary language of Nonviolent Communication is changing how parents relate to children, teachers to students, and how we all related to each other and even to ourselves. It is precise, disciplined, and enormously compassionate.

Even if you’re only rowing down a stream, different things happen: maybe the wind changes, maybe the current, and suddenly everything’s different. So gently is really important.

In that state you’ve immediately raised the mind of compassion, because if nothing is in, everything is in, and you are now free to experience yourself as the world.

I always tell people that if you get upset over what someone says, imagine him or her with a clown’s nose on and you won’t get so angry.

The basic problem, actually, is how to get rid of the idea that we’re going to get rid of our problems. Only then can we relate directly with the real issues of our life.

Don’t make a whole to-do about it. Don’t get down on yourself be- cause you’re not an expert rower; don’t start reading too many books in order to do it right.

I think both of those things should be running at full blast, not less of both so it becomes an easier thing. I think it should be twice as dense. That’s just what interests me.

Pentecost came with the sound of a mighty rushing wind, a violent blast from heaven! Heaven has not exhausted its blasts, but our danger is we are getting frightened of them.

I really had a blast.

It’s a fact of earthly life that when God opens the windows of heaven to bless us, the devil opens the doors of hell to blast us.

But it’s a blast and I wouldn’t trade the opportunity for all the ice cream sandwiches in the universe.

Somehow bad days become a little better with a good playlist and a car to blast it in.

The music is always blasting wherever I am that people always knock on my door and say, “It’s too loud!”

It’s not the absence of fear. It’s overcoming it. Sometimes you’ve got to blast through and have faith.