May 23, 2018
What Do You Expect?!
I’ve been thinking about expectations lately, hearing how often a statement that begins, “I expected
April 23, 2018
Unpacking Microaggressions
Where were you born? Q: I just started a new job. When I asked a coworker of Asian descent where they were born, they glared at me and said that was a microaggression. I was just trying to break the ice and don’t understand why they
March 22, 2018
NVC in the Workplace?
Does Nonviolent Communication work when you’re at work? This is a question I’ve been exploring for the last 11 years. I very much enjoy visiting corporations and other organizations as a trainer, and also as a coach. I’ve coached people at every level of organizational hierarchy
February 24, 2018
Broadening the Conversation: Gun Violence, Masculinity, and Being Vulnerable
I was originally going to share with you a piece I’ve published here entitled the Skill of Love, about our beautiful capacity as humans to develop the qualities of care and good will. Given Valentines Day's heart-rending school shooting, it would feel out of step
February 12, 2018
The Skill of Love
Valentine's Day can conjure feelings of angst, loneliness, or sadness—or it may simply echo like another commercial holiday full of candy, cards, and gifts. Peering beneath the commercial veneer, we do find a wholesome value at the core of Valentine’s Day. But it’s a value
January 25, 2018
NVC – Changing Consciousness, Relationships & Systems
Roxy Manning, with Janey Skinner Nonviolent Communication (NVC) was developed, in part, because its founder, Marshall Rosenberg, was inspired by the work of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. King and countless others who responded peacefully, yet powerfully, to vast systemic inequities and abuses. Dr. Rosenberg witnessed the transformative
December 27, 2017
Life Hack: Resolutions That (Really) Work
SO HERE WE ARE at the beginning of January and the annual question arises: Will we set personal goals for the new year—or just burrow into the sofa with a warm blanket? Resolutions are hard: we love them, we make them, sometimes we don’t keep
December 17, 2017
Ending the Year with Wisdom
As the calendar year draws to a close, it's natural time to reflect back and look forward. In Nonviolent Communication, we practice seeing life through the lens of human needs. Applying this awareness to our past actions and intentions is one way to develop wisdom,
November 25, 2017
Running an Imaginary Conversation In Your Head?
There’s a conversation you wish you could have, or that you are going to have, and versions of that conversation just keep spinning around and around in your mind. Perhaps you know that feeling? Maybe you already had a conversation with someone, and it did not go
October 21, 2017
Finding Our Voice, Transforming Helplessness
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. My parents tell me I was a gregarious child. “E-A-T-O-R-E-N,” they would spell aloud at the dinner table, trying to redirect the stream of questions that bubbled
September 26, 2017
Why don’t they get it?
Does this seem familiar? You’re in a meeting. Maybe it’s a workshop around equity and social justice issues, maybe it’s your community group holding a planning meeting for their next event. Pat makes a suggestion, and folks keep talking, ignoring the suggestion, proposing others. When
September 3, 2017
When Curiosity Killed the Rat
RECENTLY I PRESENTED a workshop on Collaborative Communication to an organization wanting to learn how to talk across the political divide. During Q&A, the participants cut straight to the chase: “What is the one most important thing to know about effective communication?” they asked. “What