Bringing ease to fraught relationships, including your relationship with yourself, can be as simple as listening to, and actually hearing, what each of you really needs. That’s how you find common ground—and then restore the connection you long for.
The communication skills that bridge the distance from judgment, blame, and estrangement to understanding and reconciliation can be learned, through NVC Mediation. You start with learning how to connect with yourself, and how to maintain that connection when you get “triggered.” Only then can you begin to hear where a partner, parent, or child is coming from and figure out how to meet both your needs and theirs.
So don’t avoid whatever conflict you’re experiencing. Follow it: straight to a solution.
- Connect with yourself. You’ll learn to notice when you are disconnected from yourself, and then to reconnect with your feelings and needs, and finally to see what you want to do about it.
- Learn to feel calm. During conflict, it’s easy to go into fight/flight/freeze mode. It shows in your voice and body language and tends to make the situation worse. Unplugging from that mode is a huge help.
- Learn how to reconnect. Empathy is not just possible but natural when you learn to identify the universal needs at the root of every conflict.
- Go at your own pace. Our program goes one step at a time, in increasing levels of difficulty, as you’re ready. You won’t be asked to work beyond what you feel able to handle.
- Practice using your own situation. Role-play exercises let you practice the skills you’re learning on a specific conflict, if you like. Many people leave a training already feeling much better.
Let our students tell you about it:
“It’s made a huge difference in my world”
“John and Ike’s NVC Mediation classes are great fun. Every day, I can practice the learning at my family’s kitchen table, at work, on the street, on the phone, but especially within myself. It’s powerful stuff, and it’s made a huge difference in my world.”
—Deborah Goldblatt
“All of my relationships have improved”
“John and Ike’s training gave me the tools to navigate my internal world as I vacillate between times of calm and times of storm. These tools support my self-understanding … and self-growth. They also provide a way into understanding others. All of my relationships have improved. I’ve found this training to be the doorway to understanding the experience of being human, and the bridge that connects us all to one.”
—Joan Judson, 2010 graduate
“I feel way more comfortable having difficult conversations”
“I was feeling stuck in anxiety debating whether I would attend the NVC Mediation yearlong with John and Ike. In the end, I had a phone conversation with John. He helped me mediate my internal conflict with care and respect. I remember him saying at the end of our conversation, ‘That wasn’t so scary, was it?,’ and, to my amazement, he was right. Now, I am attending the program for a second year. I feel way more comfortable being authentic and having difficult conversations. I feel grateful to Ike and John and the whole NVC Mediation yearlong community for providing a nurturing and dynamic cauldron in which we, the participants, have the opportunity to grow and bloom into our fullest selves.”
—Teresa Rose, 2010 graduate
“Profoundly transforming for me and everyone in my life”
“Not only am I able to deal with my own internal and external conflicts in new ways, but I am now supporting friends and family by listening to what is upsetting them, and actually helping them come to a place of peace and understanding about what has been so difficult for them to resolve.… This work is profoundly life transforming not only for me, but for everyone in my life.”
—Punita Greenberg, 2010 graduate
“I felt inspired … and empowered”
“John and Ike’s warmth and infectious humor are exceeded only by their deep and far-ranging skill in teaching and demonstrating NVC Mediation. I watched them meet each student exactly where she was, support her to go farther at her own pace, and lend their vast experience to our collective growth. I felt inspired by their own examples as mediators, and empowered to show up in a conflict with the tools and confidence to help all parties retain their humanity and find common ground. I recommend this course to anyone who expects to encounter a conflict during the remainder of their lives.”
—Jill Nagle, 2010 graduate
“I find myself being compassionate with some very difficult people”
“The NVC workshops with Ike, and also being introduced to Marshall Rosenberg’s book, have been life-changing experiences for me. I am now a true believer in the power of communication to create either violence or peace, and am now committed to learning to use my words in a mindful and productive (as opposed to mindless and destructive!) way. …. I hope to have children in the next five years, and I now have tools to raise them to be peaceful in their words as well as their actions, which gives me great hope for the world of the future! The process of learning to empathize with others’ feelings and needs can melt away anger, and sometimes it works by simply stopping me in my tracks and ending the angry self talk because I simply cannot imagine what the other person’s needs are! …. I have been working on my compassion for years, but none of the books on yoga or Buddhism that I’ve read really gave me tools that taught me how to be compassionate. Thinking about suffering in terms of feelings and needs, however, is more accessible to me, and I find myself being compassionate for some very difficult people in my life without effort. I cannot thank you enough for bringing this into my life!”
—Rachel Ishiguro