Basics for Deep Connection and Conflict Resolution:
NVC for You(r Community)

What if compassion, understanding, a sense of possibility, and harmony were a part of your everyday experience? Do you want to experience an environment and relationships that actually care for power/privilege differences?

In this 5 week series, you will learn key skills and concepts to help you navigate your most meaningful and most challenging relationships. We will connect, practice skills, and have meaningful discussions that support us in various parts of our lives, including in our homes, our workplaces, and our broader communities. We are practicing to build loving relationships and de-escalate conflicts. You will get a chance to enjoy a welcoming & adaptive communal environment. After each of these 2-hour workshops, you will feel energized and empowered.

We'll be drawing on the practices and framework of nonviolent communication (NVC) and mindfulness for this series. Whether or not you have read about either or just want a supportive environment to improve your relationships, this is a great chance to learn invaluable skills. You will have a chance to practice with others who are building their foundations of NVC with a facilitator deeply invested in global social equity.

Attendees of past workshops have shared their increased confidence, ability, and success in engaging with meaningful and difficult conversations and relationships in their lives.

Class topics:*

1. Acknowledge harm without blaming others - simple tricks for generative conflict
2. Avoid blow-ups to address conflict with compassion - Pause and exit
3. How to safely ask for what you want - making helpful requests
4. Finding a plan that works for everyone - convergent facilitation
5. Hearing what others really mean when they are hurting - empathy skills

* Class topics may change to meet various needs of participants during the series. All of the material & practices are beginner friendly!

Past participants say:

• "NVC is a skill we all need and I know a really engaging presenter that might flip your switch! Would also pitch this to a client as a possible workshop!"
• "The sessions are a great way to practice NVC and bring ideas you've read about into action. The facilitator is experienced, insightful and respectful. The sessions are lively and can teach you how to connect authentically. "
• "The sessions bring NVC to life in a challenging but facilitated way. The bumbling, clumsiness and knowledge gaps that make it hard for people with no or little experience of NVC to 'try this at home' are skillfully navigated in the sessions."
• "[The trainer] is a wonderful, thoughtful communicator [themselves]."
• "There was a situation with [my friend] where I found myself pulling out my NVC toolbox, and after the conversation she kept saying thank you, and expressing how grateful she was for HOW I was able to make her feel heard. That's what inspired her to join the session."
• "NVC is the best!"
• "[The workshops] helped me so much, in discovering and understanding myself, and even help me realize some gaps in some of the things I might need to learn more."
• "If you're really looking to do effective group work, this is the place"
• "I feel revived after the sessions, unlike after many Zoom meetings, which deplete me."
• "[The workshops] will fulfill your needs for authentic connection, support and empathy"
• "[This is a] warm, welcoming space but also a place to discover new aspects of yourself."

I have taught over a hundred people around the world. No matter the language, culture, or context, there is one thing that makes the most difference in the final outcomes for my students: practice. I can give you the best tools in the world, but if you do not use them and make them your own, then they are useless.

Your willingness and capacity to practice will be immensely improved if you're doing it with others. In ancient times, such a community of practice was referred to as "sangha" by some of my spiritual ancestors. Their teachings continue to influence and shift the world for the better more than 2,600 years later. This is a wonderful reminder to me of the power of practicing together.

This is especially true about communication tools. Your friend or sibling might use that special NVC word when you're feeling tense and you'll suddenly realize that they're doing their best to understand you. You both will fall into a pattern of empathy and care in moments after a heated fight. Even before fights start, when something is bothering you, you'll know that if you ask for 10 minutes of empathy from your loved one, they will understand what you are asking for.

All of us already have relationships before we show up to new classes, courses, and spiritual traditions. However, many of us forget this as we enter these new spaces (physical or online). This offering is an invitation from me for you to go back to your existing community(ies). Bring them together on this journey of life-changing practices. You will leave with new skills and great memories!