Compassionate Communication

I am teaching classes in Compassionate Communication, also known as NonViolent Communication created by Marshall Rosenberg.

Classes are offered in a weekly format in Helena and in a weekend format in other locations. I am also consulting with businesses bringing these communication techniques into the workplace.

See the bottom of the page for currently scheduled classes.

Here's some basic information from the CNVC website:

Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is sometimes referred to as compassionate communication. Its purpose is to strengthen our ability to inspire compassion from others 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.

We are trained to make careful observations free of evaluation, and to specify behaviors 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.

While it is taught through the use of a concrete model, and is referred to as “a process of communication” or a “language of compassion,” Nonviolent Communication is more than a process or a language. As our cultural conditioning often leads our attention in directions unlikely to get us what we want, NVC serves as an ongoing reminder to focus our attention on places that have the potential to yield what we are seeking—a flow between ourselves and others based on a mutual giving from the heart.

Here are some notes on NVC from a retreat I attended.

I look forward to the opportunity to work with you in this valuable modality.

 

	Patrick,
	Thank you for such a kind note, and for sharing the NVC material with  
	the staff, faculty, and students at Montana Western. Your  
	presentation was professional, highly informative, and thoroughly  
	engaging. I have spent the last few days reading and reviewing the  
	information you shared, as each section is a blessed gift that shows  
	me how to treat myself and others with more compassion. This material  
	offers practical guidance for how to be more loving, how to enact the  
	Buddhist principles of "right thought, right speech," and "right  
	action" in my daily life.  I look forward to learning more, and to  
	inviting you to visit us again so we can continue this journey of  
	remembering and awakening the potential for loving-kindness that  
	exists within each of us.
	Many blessings,
	Rebecca Knotts
	The University of Montana Western