NVC: A Language of Compassion
That Can Help Us Walk the Talk of Critical Social Change

Have you ever attended a workshop (NVC or otherwise), noticed that you were not connecting as deeply as you would like with those around you and wondered if your race, ethnicity or economic level was a contributing factor?

Do you ever choose to stay silent when you feel uncomfortable with the behavior or speech of another because that person belongs to a different racial or ethnic group than you do?

Do you ever feel frustrated or discouraged when you hear certain ideas repeated about people from distinct groups, experiencing these feelings and ideas as barriers to connection?

Do you feel hopeless about being able to have effective and honest dialogues with decision makers in larger systems that have power over others (e.g., justice system, educational system, social services, INS)?

Have you ever been in an ongoing group (e.g. NVC practice group) and noticed that the people from a different racial/ethnic background from yours did not come back after one or two sessions?

Do you ever feel torn about opening your heart to a person from a dominant racial, gender, or cultural group who is in pain, because you do not trust that they truly understand and appreciate your experience, your pain?

Have you ever despaired of having your experience deeply understood by someone from a different racial/ethnic/social class than you?

We (Nancy Kahn, Roxy Manning, Kristin Masters and Edmundo Norte) have had these experiences and long for greater connection and understanding among people from backgrounds diverse in race, ethnicity and socio-economic level, both for the sake of enriching the quality of our lives and for creating a more just and humane world. We often feel excited and inspired about the possibilities of increasing such connection with the support of NVC; we have experienced these possibilities in some NVC contexts already. Yet we have also noticed that at the vast majority of trainings we have attended in North America, South America and Europe, there have been very few, if any, persons visibly identifiable as from a non-white racial/ethnic background.

At other trainings, we have heard people from non-white groups express sadness, resignation, or anger because of experiences they have had in NVC circles that did not meet their needs for safety, inclusion and understanding/critical awareness.

We also have been told by some White participants that they were confused and sad because, in spite of their intentions and efforts, they believed something they did stimulated pain in another person and they believed something about their being White was part of what contributed to that stimulation. And they didn’t know how to work with this stimulation using NVC.

We hear many people we meet expressing a desire for critical awareness, for connection, for safety, for communication across group differences.

We deeply believe in the potential of NVC to create connections across social groups, to create opportunities for healing from the pain resulting from the social structures and divisions that currently exist, and to support the development of critical awareness. We are therefore organizing this event - The Diversity Retreat: NVC & Race, Ethnicity and Social Class in North America - to meet our needs for inclusion, connection, contribution and hope.

Join us in developing both greater critical awareness of the impact of race, ethnicity and social class on communities and individuals, and also a greater capacity for compassionate, healing connection with one another across these and other social barriers, as the basis for creating more connected, effective and transformative soical chnge.

Our Goals

Grounded in principles of NVC, at this six-day retreat, we hope to:

explore how existing power dynamics in North American society, including economic and political structures, impact our ability to connect with our own and others' full humanity;
examine, through a new lens, the real wounds and societal messages we've received about our own and others' race, ethnicty and social class and begin to find ways to heal and move past the impact of those experiences and messages;
learn and deepen our practice of concrete communication skills that can support authentic connections across race, ethnicity and class barriers;
understand how to deepen our connections with others, regardless of their background, through authentic, honest and compassionate communication;
identify effective strategies to support engagement with those currently working within the systems of power in North America;
share with each other the practices and strategies that support the building and strengthening of organizations and communities focused on creating transformative social change

At the NVC and Diversity retreat, we hope to create a retreat environment that nurtures, supports and inspires a community process of exploring, examining and practicing tools, based on the principles of Nonviolent Communication, that we believe contribute to greater cultural competency and awareness.

Our Intentions

We are fully committed to introducing NVC to all people, of all races, ethnicities, and economic levels, so that each person can see if living in NVC consciousness is truly life-serving and so that we can move with all people toward a world where everyone’s needs matter. We are also particularly committed to bringing NVC consciousness and skills to bear in supporting both greater critical awareness of how certain institutional/social structures and power dynamics serve to divide and dehumanize us, and also to support the healing, transformation, and strengthening of our compassionate connection with each other, especially across our differences. To this end:

We intend to reach out and invite people from currently underserved communities to attend the NVC & Diversity retreat.
We intend to conduct fund-raising to support attendance at the retreat by people who otherwise would not attend because of financial barriers.
We intend to co-create what happens at the retreat very closely with our participants to be responsive to needs for safety, inclusion and authenticity as they arise.
We intend to provide sessions that recognize the strengths of those who are new to NVC, but who have an awareness of diversity issues, and those who are experienced in NVC, but who are new to an awareness of diversity issues.