More than ever, the world needs your aliveness. Gather to learn and practice relating with energy, skill, and effectiveness.
Come Learn and Practice the Foundations of Nonviolent Communication in a beautiful rural outdoor setting at the Center for Belonging Folk School in Decorah Iowa.
We want to know that our collective efforts to bring about needed changes and work toward Just Transition will be fruitful. When we pour ourselves into the things we care about, we want to know it matters. Especially in times such as these, how exhausting to see our hard work melt away as conflict slows down, stalls out, or, worse yet, dissolves our collaborations.
The legacies of a domination paradigm (capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, to name a few) have left us without the skills we need to lean in to interdependence. This makes it incredibly hard to collaborate effectively. It makes it harder still to find generativity in conflict.
But it doesn’t have to be this way! Nonviolent or “Compassionate” Communication (NVC) offers us a toolkit to deepen our own embodied self-connection, build our capacity to reach out for support, and relate to ourselves and one another with empathy so that we can show up more fully to our work in the world. And as we begin to unpack the way that domination culture has shaped our very language, we can learn new/old ways of communicating that bring us more deeply into alignment with our values, our purpose, and into connection with one another.
During this weekend workshop, we will explore practical strategies for undoing domination in ourselves, our communication, our relationships, and our collaborations. The session will include interactive content and practices to engage with real-time examples from your life. You will have the opportunity to be paired up with a buddy for practice beyond the course (if you choose). This course will support you to:
Identify patterns of domination culture and develop a needs-based orientation that can enable you to undo domination
Explore NVC as an embodied mindfulness practice and grow your capacity to tune into body sensations as valuable feedback from your nervous system pointing you towards what matters to you
Grow your awareness of and vocabulary for resonant language including “feelings” and “needs”, and your understanding of the brain science behind why this kind of language works
Develop an empathic listening practice with a buddy following the workshop as a foundational tool for resourcing yourself to show up better in conflict and collaboration