By  Darya Jones Darya Jones
For Karla M. and Kevin H.

Even after many years of learning Nonviolent Communication (NVC), having a masters degree, and building my capacity in my own agency, a question still kept me up at night: “do I really have the power to do something about this?” “This” being anything and everything that came to mind. I often felt powerless to change my circumstances — even though I understood NVC’s empowering framework of ‘power with’ versus ‘power over’ (see: Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, 2015).

I knew intellectually that I had agency, but I couldn’t feel it…at least not all the time. What I learned is that I was trying to operate from a motivational system that didn’t align with my values. As a person on the Autism Spectrum, I don’t function well with obligation-based, extrinsic motivation (‘I have to do this to hit a number’), despite the supposed structure that may provide. I need intrinsic motivation — connection to immediate need-meeting in the process itself. This was one reason among many that drew me to frameworks like NVC.

Before ever knowing anything about Dr. Rosenberg’s work, I read all of Dr. Temple Grandin’s work. Although most often, I could be found reading her book Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism (1995, 2006). Grandin showed that autistic people can thrive by deeply understanding how we work (in jobs) and building around our brain’s actual metacognitive-architecture, not by forcing ourselves into neurotypical frameworks. She illustrates this by writing about how the autistic brain works (also see: The Autistic Brain, 2015). I read her book many times over, seeing parallels to my own thinking, feeling more and more empowered by the day. While Grandin unlocked how our brains work, I decided to ask myself, “how do I apply what I’m learning from Grandin to my own life?” Theories mean little if not applied to reality in concrete ways.

It would be a few years later that I would learn about Rosenberg and his compassionate communication model based entirely on empathy for oneself and others, and the incredible “life-serving” change that makes in one’s life. It wasn’t just about learning what empathy is or how one person defines it, it was about trusting ourselves through a discovery of our needs, values, and wishes. That discovery allows us to then “request that which would make life more wonderful” (see: Nonviolent Communication, ch. 6). Dr. Carl Rogers, who taught Rosenberg, believed in trusting the actualizing tendency — that people have innate wisdom and capacity that emerges when we’re connected to our genuine needs and desires (see: Client-Centered Therapy, Rogers, 1951). Rosenberg called this self-empathy: we get to ask ourselves, in real time, “what is alive in me and what needs are being met or not being met?” Self-empathy continues to “and how do I want to meet this need?” Self-empathy is a form of radical autonomy that leads to a sense of security and/or trust in oneself.

What I finally came to was this: both Grandin and Rosenberg understood that real security comes from self-directed action, not from waiting for external approval or permission. I very often experienced having people tell me what was “right” or “enough.” Like so many other people on the spectrum, I thought all I had to do was trust what the neurotypical ‘agenda’ was, even when deep down, I knew the agenda had nothing to do with my own discoveries. I needed a new framework and Grandin and Rosenberg offered that.

Once I had the framework, I knew I could find ways to apply it. Thanks to Grandin, I could trust my own intelligence. I put that to good work by getting degrees. I went to graduate school for many reasons, but one was to learn metacognitive skills. I knew that if I could unlock how thinking works (beyond what I had already learned from reading Grandin), I could unlock how I then take action. As Rosenberg often taught, our thoughts have tremendous power over how we interpret reality and thus how we respond to it — our chosen actions (see: The Surprising Purpose of Anger, 2005).

Once I got the metacognitive skills down, I began to trust my thinking to the point where I decided I was going to build my own business based on how I thought I could contribute to our world. I finally decided to ‘hire myself’ and become a communications consultant where I use my NVC skills. It took me many years to trust my own abilities to see this through. There were many times in the past where I could have started this work, but my old habits of waiting for approval kept nagging me. And then I happened across Rosenberg’s book on spirituality and he asks a very poignant question: “does this work for me?” The context of Rosenberg’s question was about his belief in God, but he also had a deeper point: developing one’s own thinking and ideas about things requires that we ask ourselves if something works for us (see: Practical Spirituality, 2004). Be it belief, or be it how we build our lives, we must be willing to ask if the way something is presented is what we genuinely want. This wasn’t meant in a selfish way, but rather a discerning way that allows us to decide if we fully understand something in the way that aligns with our values. I decided to apply this question to everything and my business finally got started.

It’s common among business owners to think in terms of hitting numbers, meeting bottom lines, and determining quarterly goals where particular outcomes are achieved. This is an extrinsically motivated way to run a business, and while it has its merits for some, I knew I wasn’t going to run my business on this model as it wasn’t as Rosenberg would say, ‘life serving.’ I needed a new way to do things. I wanted to build a business from a model that I had spent time thinking about and digesting for myself. One built on my own designs born from my own synthesis of business models that worked in alignment with my values.

I then discovered my fuel: I love seeing how my knowledge could serve what someone is already doing or exploring. The joy isn’t in ‘getting a client’ — it’s in recognizing the potential fit and reaching out to explore what’s possible. That creative matching is intrinsically rewarding, whether they say yes or not. For instance, it didn’t help me to think of “reaching out to 5 people” that week only to see it as a number I check off. I needed to find clients through my own curiosity in their work and how my NVC knowledge could potentially contribute to them. The process of outreach becomes something curiosity-driven, and very “life serving” (Rosenberg).

My new model is in sharp contrast with the way things are usually done for those on the spectrum. Here’s what happens to many autistic people: loving, well-intending helpers arrive with agendas. They see us struggling and decide we need to be more productive, more motivated, more organized — in neurotypical ways. But obligation-based motivation doesn’t work for many of us on the spectrum. It just creates resistance.

I know this because I lived it. For years I would stall and avoid tasks, and people assumed I was unmotivated or lazy. But I wasn’t lacking motivation — I was rejecting someone else’s framework being imposed on me. What I needed was what Grandin showed was possible: understanding how I actually work and building my life around that, not forcing myself into structures designed for neurotypical brains. Grandin was my North Star. NVC gave me the tools to trust my own process.

So who is this blog for? I offer this blog to everyone on the spectrum and anyone learning, teaching, mediating, facilitating, or consulting in NVC. Grandin was clear: she knew it was all within her power, and her agency if she was going to be successful. Rosenberg taught that we have ‘power to’ — capacity to act, to meet needs, to create change. I learned that both of their frameworks aligned with my own values. Security doesn’t come from someone hiring you. It comes from hiring yourself and trusting your own process. Maybe even more crucially, trusting your own process to build what you envision. For people on the spectrum especially, this isn’t just a nice idea — it might be the only sustainable path. Grandin shows us how our brains work. Rosenberg shows us we can stay innately curious about ourselves and others. So my final question to you is this: what are you curious about building? What do you envision?