Nonviolent Communication: A new way of communicating and resolving conflicts

‘What I want in my life is compassion, a flow between myself and others based

on a mutual giving from the heart’- Marshall Rosenberg.

Imagine connecting with the human spirit in each person in any situation. Imagine interacting with one another in a way that allows everyone’s needs to be equally valued. Imagine creating organisations and environments that honour and respond to your needs.

Nonviolent Communication is sometimes referred to as compassionate communication.

Its purpose is to strengthen our ability to inspire compassion and to respond compassionately to others and to ourselves. NVC guides us to reframe how we express ourselves and hear others by focusing our consciousness on what we are observing, feeling, needing, and requesting.

During NVC training, participants are taught to make careful observations free of evaluation, and to specify behaviours and conditions that are affecting us. We learn to hear our own deeper needs and those of others, and to identify and clearly articulate what we are wanting in a given moment. When we focus on clarifying what is being observed, felt, and needed, rather than on diagnosing and judging, we discover the depth of our own compassion. Through its emphasis on deep listening — to ourselves as well as others — NVC fosters respect, attentiveness and empathy, and engenders a mutual desire to give from the heart. The form is simple, yet powerfully transformative.

Two trainers from the Bristol based organisation, Seed of Peace, will lead a weekend level one training course in Okehampton on Saturday March 17th and Sunday March 18th

For information and to book a place on the course contact Kate Dixon:  01837 840959,

email: forestchi@btinternet.com

For more information on Seed of Peace visit www.seedofpeace.org