ISA NVC

Workshops

Group trainings in Nonviolent Communication principles and skills

A fun, interactive, and transformative workshop or class series can be tailored to your organization’s needs and focus.

On Kauai or Online.

“To some degree you have changed everybody in the room.” – A workshop participant

What is Connective Communication?

This language is not about acting nice or suppressing feelings. It’s not a trick for getting people to do what we want. This work is about changing the channel from what’s wrong with you or me to what we each value and care about. It’s a practice of choosing where we put our attention.
We shift focus from our habitual mental stories of judgment and evaluation to being present with what’s going on inside us. We discover and take direction from what matters to us, what we’re aiming for. Our feelings are valuable indicators conveying this information.
The premise of Nonviolent Communication is that all humans share the same needs, like safety, belonging, and freedom. Everything we say and do is motivated by a desire to fulfill a need.
Our purpose is mutual understanding and consideration of everyone’s needs. Out of this awareness, compassion and creative solutions arise naturally.

Tonight as I reflect on our NVC practice, I feel an overwhelming sense of appreciation for the tools that I have been searching for my whole life. At our gathering today, I felt a sense of cohesion amongst the group. We are getting it, bit by bit. Every part is essential; expressing observations and feelings, leading to the prospect that ‘natural giving is possible’. I’m extremely grateful for your honest leadership in guiding us along in such a graceful, knowledgeable way. The day is done, but my learning has just begun ! Me ke aloha pumehana –Sue B

Workshop Activities

Connective Communication training combines lecture, group dialogue, games, role-play, puppets, exercises with partners, self-reflective writing, and real-life skills practice. We learn to use the NVC tools:
  • Observation: Differentiating between the stories in our heads and our actual experience.
  • Feelings: Paying attention to how we feel, which is caused by our thoughts and our met or unmet needs, not by our outer circumstances or someone’s actions.
  • Needs: Claiming responsibility for living unconditionally.
  • Request: Nonviolence is a shift from submission to choice.
Thank you again for another phenomenal NVC meeting! Each time it truly meets my needs for self-growth, awareness, and intimacy. –J.P.

We practice these skills:

  • Empathy: compassionate presence.
  • Honesty: expressing our feelings and desires instead of our analysis and judgments.
  • Making requests instead of demands.
  • Freeing ourselves of self-violence.
  • Saying no and hearing no.
  • Listening so that the other person feels heard.
  • Speaking so that the other person is invited in, not repelled.
  • Forgiveness
  • Mourning
  • Expressing anger fully
  • Responding to challenging messages like criticism, blame or guilt trips.
  • Using collaboration instead of force to create mutually satisfying strategies.

What I enjoyed most in our exercise today was feeling comfortable even through the difficulty wording my request. It encourages me to keep practicing, and my exercise partner’s presence felt heartwarming. Today met my needs for contribution and challenge. –P.S.