NVC Answers the Call

America is amped up on fear and loathing. For some, a natural response to their elevated levels of cultural cortisol might be to seek shelter in a remote cabin. For others, ease from stress might simply involve dialing back the news feeds and seeking the shelter of a loving conversation.

Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is like that red metal box in the hallway with a lever you pull; the box is ignored until there’s an emergency, and then how many forget just where to find it?

Judging from the response to our recent offers for training, perhaps our culture is rushing towards the exits, hoping to find the red box in time to save the structure from collapse.

This month, we started our third year of teaching high school juniors and seniors the basics of NVC, as part of the Behavioral Health/Human Services curriculum offered through the School District’s Career Tech Education Center. These are students whose lives in the digital age have stimulated a raft of questions about social and psychological issues. Sufficient answers haven’t been forthcoming, from parents or from standard high school coursework.

It turns out that the skills they practice here will give them an advantage in almost any career field they choose. Communication skills are an increasingly crucial part of a person’s operating system. Being able to regulate one’s own nervous system is a survival strategy.

Based on the enthusiastic response we’ve received in those classes, we have just started teaching the same basic skills to 80 juniors and seniors in CTEC’s Law Enforcement classes.

Supplementing a basic intro to NVC, we return monthly to every class, facilitating “practice groups”, in which awareness of self and others increases and our tendency to react is replaced with calm observation and response.

Elsewhere, NVC is being built into the structure of organizations. Teams of executives and managers are looking for ways to make the workplace less toxic and more productive. To that end, we have done train-the-trainer introductions in NVC for the following organizations in the past few years:

• Willamette Workforce Partnership
• Willamette Health Council
• Church @ the Park
• Willamette University’s Center for Civic Engagement
• Isaac’s Cafe and Ike Box Coffee House

In the next month, we will begin a similar training for the Oregon Department of Human Services, the state’s largest agency.

Likewise, interest in NVC has quickly arisen in the political arena, where the rivalry and rancor has reached levels not seen in modern times. Both Braver Angels and Indivisible have asked for basic training in NVC. Braver Angels seeks to bring opposite-leaning voters together for respectful conversation. Indivisible’s success depends on the ability of political activists to remain composed and emotionally balanced even when confronted with opposition. The last thing a peace movement needs is to get sucked into violence by those who seek to discredit the idea of change.

We plan to offer basic NVC skills training every few months in the next year, a mix of 3-hour and 6-hour workshops. Please check back here for a schedule, and receive our updates. From there, people are welcomed to join a local practice group, helping to integrate skills into behavior.

Additionally, our team is able and eager to assist others: individuals, couples, business organizations or larger agencies and corporations, any who desire a means to step out the swamp of stress, reduce the level of fear and anger, and usher in a new culture of care.