Speaking Peace: A Compassionate Communication Playshop is an experiential learning playshop introducing the principles and practices of Compassionate Communication, also known as Nonviolent Communication.

Nonviolent Communication®, was created by American Psychologist Dr. Marshall B. Rosenberg. It consists of principles and practices that help us build positive relationships and systems based on trust, autonomy, and care for all. You can learn more about it here and about Dr. Marshall B. Rosenberg here.

Most of us have been educated to compete, judge, demand, and diagnose — to think and communicate in terms of what is “right“ and “wrong“ with people.  We express our feelings in terms of what another person has “done to us.” We struggle to understand our own needs in the moment or to effectively ask for what we want without using unhealthy demands, threats, or coercion. 

At best, communicating and thinking this way can create misunderstanding and frustration. And still worse, it can lead to anger, depression, and even emotional or physical violence. 

Since developing the Nonviolent Communication process in the 1960s, Marshall Rosenberg’s vision has been to teach people of any age, gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic background a much more effective alternative, and in turn to transform relationships, conflict, and violence one interaction at a time.  

“Our survival as a species depends on our ability to recognize that our well-being and the well-being of others are, in fact, one and the same. The problem is that we are taught behaviors that disconnect us from this natural awareness. It’s not that we have to learn how to be compassionate; we have to unlearn what we’ve been taught and get back to compassion.”
~Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D., founder of The Center for Nonviolent Communication, and author of “Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life”