[camtarn]

A few examples:

Chatting to somebody about the side effects of the antidepressants we're both on, namely decreased 'filter' when talking. Amusingly, said decreased filter might be one of the contributing factors behind this increased openness :)

Asking a friend who was obviously going through a hard time - "You don't owe me any answers, of course, but I wondered if you'd mind me asking whether you're okay, and what's going on for you?". Plus a lot of follow-up questions, phrased as "here are some things I'm wondering about, with absolutely no obligation to answer them; and of course if you have any questions for me, I'd be happy to answer".

Even just simple stuff like following up on throwaway conversational prompts - "hey, you mentioned as an aside that you'd done horseriding for fifteen years - that sounds like a big part of your life; how did you get into that?"

A lot of it's been about relationships, for various reasons.

[OldSchoolJohnny]

You sound like you might have recently read Nonviolent Communication by Rosenberg. If you haven't you sound like you're in a place where you might really enjoy it and find it useful.

[camtarn]

Hehe... I was given the book a couple of years ago, but it's sat on my desk unread, because I am terrible at sitting down and making time to read.

However, I do have a couple of dedicated NVC practitioners amongst my friends, and a lot of other people who just use variations on those techniques without explicitly buying into NVC.

I've found that the principles behind NVC have helped me massively, even without formally being educated in it. I started using them a lot while I was navigating a very rocky relationship with a lot of arguments, and I guess the habit has just stuck - things like separating wants vs needs, talking about emotional state without using blame language, attempting to understand where the other person's coming from before replying, and so on.