Free NVC Learning Resources

For many, spending time with relatives over the holidays may be challenging. In addition to the love and care we may feel, family gatherings can bring up old hurts or expose painful differences. How many family meals have been marred by tense silence or devolved into harsh argument?

Trainer Tip: Here are some options for tense moments in conversations: try a "redo", understand and recognize your habits, pause to regroup, empathize with the person so they feel heard, check your mind frame before speaking, and name some appreciations about one another.

What's my intention? What needs am I trying to meet? What do I want the other person to know or understand? How can I say it in a way they are most likely to hear? These are four questions we can use in preparation for an important conversation. Read on for more on this, plus four accompanying practices.

What have you lost this year during this COVID-19 pandemic? Are you grieving too? Recognition of loss can helped contextualize our emotions. When we can meet grief with understanding, patience and tenderness, when we create space to mourn our losses -- and to begin to process, heal and metabolize loss. This can help us make sense of change and orient to a new reality. Grief is a longing for what we love.

So many of us have been taught to solve conflicts by what is “fair.” However, Miki Kashtan states that fairness is a separating concept. In this video, she describes how when we do not have the conditions to care for all needs involved, when we live within separation, fairness is second best.

Less than 2 weeks ago from the time I’m writing this letter, Hamas militants crossed from Gaza into Israel and killed more than 1,300 people, most of them civilians. Israel then retaliated and killed over 3,000 Gazans, most of them civilians. The death rate continues to increase every day.  

October always makes me think about Marshall Rosenberg, the founder of Nonviolent Communication. He was born October 6, 1934. If he were still alive today (he died February 7, 2015), he would be 89 years old!

Mary Mackenzie dives into the heart of change with an explanation of the 3 Phases of Transition. We have all experienced changes in our families, communities, work, and the world. How is it impacting you? How are you coping? Learn about the 3 Phases of Transition: the ending, the neutral zone, and the new beginning— and how this process can support you in navigating change.

Sophie Docker shares how, through dialogue, we can start developing more consciousness, skills, and capacity for embracing conflict as a way to move beyond separateness and restore our interdependence. The way we engage with conflict can support us in finding our way to interdependence.

The season is changing. What have you done to nurture yourself these past several months? It has been summer in my part of the world and moving into fall. 

I ended last month’s Growing Roots letter with a question to you: “Do you remember that you are a gift?” I hope you had moments throughout July that reminded you of this! I am still thinking about it, actually.

Roxy Manning shares some strategies to support a child's natural curiosity when asking questions about physical differences using NVC skills.

Sarah Peyton uses Brene Brown's definition of vulnerability and expands to offer additional precision in her own definition. She explores the concept of vulnerability and its relation to the instrumental brain.

I want to report that after writing last month’s Growing Roots letter, I did indeed employ my tried-and-true method of moving past inertia: First step time limits. In doing so, I  made progress on planting my vegetable garden.