My first contact with NVC came around 2021, via Marshall Rosenberg's book; its results were immediately impactful in my personal life. This throve of tools and protocols was enveloped into very thoughtful realisations about human connection that shone a new light upon the nature of human conflict.

It is not a panacea, of course, but it enables a (theoretical) decomposition of verbal communication (in particular, replies to a particular event) into a four-step process (the fact, my feeling, my need, a request).

I find this the most immediately impactful tool: it requires two intermediate steps of self-awareness that usually provide useful insights into the situation (and our instinctual response!). In the meantime, this time-expensive process of rational self-inquiry helps us avoid a knee-jerk reaction that usually does more harm than good.