“If I use Nonviolent Communication to liberate people to be less depressed, to get along better with their family, but do not teach them, at the same time, to use their energy to rapidly transform systems in the world, then I am part of the problem. I am essentially calming people down, making them happier to live in the systems as they are, so I am using NVC as a narcotic.” – Marshall Rosenberg, 2005
- Do you want to share NVC in a way that contributes to restoring choice, togetherness, and flow in how we all function?
- Are you longing to see NVC shift from being a self-help approach to equipping all of us with capacities for making a dent in the world?
- Are you excited about connecting everything you teach to what gifts it can bring?
- Are you eager to make NVC relevant to the deep challenges that humanity is facing at this time in our evolution?
For the last number of years, Miki has been offering a mini-intensive every December for people who are deeply committed to living, applying, and sharing NVC principles and practices. In this course, she is offering a comprehensive overview of all that she has learned and developed over years of sharing NVC with others in multiple settings across the globe.
Session 1: NVC, liberation, nonviolence, and the systemic lens
This session introduces and makes tangible Marshall Rosenberg’s vision, including from early writings of his, as an entryway into beholding and stewarding the full range of what NVC can bring to humanity at this time of global crises. Through this, Miki plans to engage with how NVC can support us in bringing tenderness to what has befallen humanity as well as grounding a vision of needs as a core organizing principle for human functioning. As part of this, this session includes a focus on the links between NVC and nonviolence and on the power of integrating the systemic lens into our sharing of NVC with others. Over the course of the upcoming sessions, Miki and others intend to illustrate through direct experience the significance of grounding our sharing of NVC with others in our own experience of liberation.
Session 2: OFNR as practices of liberation
Everyone who learns or teaches NVC comes in frequent contact with the basic building blocks of the NVC practice template with its focus on observations, feelings, needs, and requests. Far fewer of us know how to connect these basic practices in a specific way to what makes them so powerful in integrating the deep principles of NVC. This is what this session focuses on: how to shift from teaching OFNR as “what we do” to tying it to liberation. We do this in the three areas of restoring choice, restoring togetherness, and restoring flow. For example, practicing making requests contributes to self-empowerment in the context of restoring choice, and to conscious care for the whole in the context of restoring togetherness. Similarly, connecting with our needs supports us in finding pathways that work for everyone in the context of restoring togetherness and in reclaiming reverence in the context of restoring flow. When we are able to bring this to our own and others’ awareness, we are already taking steps towards realigning humanity with life.
Session 3: NVC as supporting liberation milestones
The journey of liberation is long and complex, in no small part because it is often a journey that we do in contexts where others aren’t necessarily on the same journey. One of the ways of making this journey more possible and sustainable is to break it down into specific milestones so that we can sense our movement towards vision and liberation even while seeing the gap that remains. This session focuses on working with examples of such milestones to see how NVC can support us in moving in the direction we want to go and in maintaining resilience along the way. For example, NVC can support us in shifting from feelings to needs as a foundation of choice; from getting what we want to dialogue aiming for everyone’s wellbeing, and from fairness to caring for needs within willingness and capacity.
Session 4: NVC as practices for liberation
Beyond the specific examples of the previous two sessions, once we look at NVC as a path of liberation, we easily discover it to be a treasure trove of tools that support us on this path. In this session, the focus is on illustrating this flexibility with a number of examples, including those brought forth by participants. This includes coming back to Marshall’s understanding of social structures, and how NVC can help us in our attempts to transform social institutions; in how we relate with the next generation; in how we function in our relationship with people and within groups and organizations; and in how we think about life and what it means to be human. NVC supports liberation, for example, by overall expanding the range of our options; by making it easier for us to embrace the soft qualities and their power to transform patriarchy; by giving us pathways for living in peace with unmet needs; by making impact sharing possible; and by providing anchors for the difficult task of transforming judgments and enemy images to seeing our own and others’ needs.
Meet Your Trainer and Guest Speakers
Miki is the seed founder of the Nonviolent Global Liberation (NGL) Community, a community of people passionate about transforming our current global crises into a world that works for all, based on principles of collaboration and willingness. In all she does, she aims to support visionary leadership and shape a livable future using collaborative tools based on the principles of Nonviolent Communication.
This course is a culmination of all her years of sharing (and living) NVC with others across the world!
She will be joined by four guest speakers…
Alper Süzer is a CNVC certified trainer, Eddy Quinn, Emma Quayle, and Vesta Kroese are all pursuing certification, and all four of them are part of NGL’s radical experimentation with all aspects of individual and collective liberation, such as purpose orientation and nonreactive discernment, the maternal gift economy, impact sharing, integrative decision making, and the capacity lens. All of them are actively integrating and applying NVC within and beyond NGL.
Not sure if it’s for you?
We want you to feel good about your learning decisions with the NVC Academy.
You can join the first session of this course completely free — so you can try it out before you make your decision whether or not to register for the full course.
