Oren Jay Sofer - Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication

By the time we reach adulthood, most of us have learned to operate through such deeply engrained patterns of language and behavior that virtually all of our communication involves projection, assumption, and bias. No wonder we often feel so cut off and all alone! Mr. Sofer deftly weaves together his mindfulness practice and principles of Nonviolent Communication to help us learn how to find one another again. This is a powerful guidebook to thinking, speaking, and listening with authenticity and care. Bravo!

Sharon Salzberg, author of Real Happiness and Real Love

This tremendous book addresses one of the biggest challenges in any relationship: how to combine heart with strength, compassion with assertiveness. Written with great warmth and clarity, it brings together well-researched principles, effective tools and suggestions, powerful experiential practices, and many examples. It is down-to-earth and completely accessible while also being so deep, even profound. If I had just one book to recommend about interpersonal communication, it would be this one.

Rick Hanson, PhD, author of Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness

Oren Jay Sofers eloquent book Say What You Mean could just as well be titled Living What You Mean. Going beyond the surface level of communication, he describes our relational journey together in its inherent connections with how we behave, how we express, perceive, and meet the needs of ourselves and others, how we engage with difference and even conflict, how we negotiate love and angerin sum, how to fully live this complex life. Sofer gives essential frameworks, perspectives, and skills for our shared humanity.

Larry Yang, Buddhist teacher and author of Awakening Together: The Spiritual Practice of Inclusivity and Community

Words have tremendous powerboth to harm, and to heal. In Say What You Mean, Oren shares a three-part process for communicating with mindfulness, clarity, and compassion and creating more connection and understanding in our relationships. In these times of turbulence and conflict, we need this more than ever before.

Chris Kresser, MS, LAc, New York Times best-selling author of The Paleo Cure and Unconventional Medicine

Meeting the enormous challenges of living in these times calls for an integration of inner practices of mindfulness with outer practices of communicating with honesty, vulnerability, strength, care, and empathy. Oren shows us a way to do just that.

Miki Kashtan, Certified Nonviolent Communication Trainer and author of Spinning Threads of Radical Aliveness

Shambhala Publications, Inc.

4720 Walnut Street

Boulder, Colorado 80301

www.shambhala.com

2018 by Oren Jay Sofer

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Ebook design adapted from printed book design by Greta D. Sibley

Cover design by Kathleen Lynch/Black Kat Design

Cover illustrations by Nataleana/Color_Brush/Slavadubrov

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Sofer, Oren Jay, author.

Title: Say what you mean: a mindful approach to nonviolent communication / Oren Jay Sofer.

Description: First edition. | Boulder, Colorado: Shambhala Publications, Inc., [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018009367 | ISBN 9781611805833 (pbk.: acid-free paper)

eISBN9780834841895

Subjects: LCSH: Interpersonal communication. | Nonviolence.

Classification: LCC HM1166 .S64 2018 | DDC 302.2dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018009367

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For the teachers and friends who showed me the way.

And for my mother, my first teacher, who gave me a solid foundation and taught me to write.

The fish trap exists because of the fish;

once youve gotten the fish you can forget the trap.

The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit;

once youve gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare.

Words exist because of meaning.

Once youve gotten the meaning you can forget the words.

Where can I find a man who has forgotten words,

so I can have a word with him?

CHUANG TZU

Returning hate for hate multiplies hate,

adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.