Transform your life with compassionate communication! This weekend introductory workshop will help you to communicate more compassionately with your loved ones, friends and work colleagues.
About this Nonviolent Communication (NVC) Level One Weekend
- Transformational communication tools you can immediately apply in your daily life.
- Learn how to express yourself to others, listen to others, and listen compassionately to yourself.
- Uses experiential learning – working with situations from your life.
- A recognised stepping stone to further compassionate communication courses.
So much that touched me! My need for growth, authenticity, and community with like-minded people, thinking about similar things. Gesine was such a warm and supportive facilitator, I felt so well held in the sessions and really appreciated the structure and flexibility.
Meg, Oct 2024.
What you can expect
Saturday morning
In the morning you will explore what happens in conflict and how NVC can support you to do things differently. You’ll be introduced to the big picture of the Tree of Compassionate Connection, an overview of the intention and skills of Nonviolent Communication. And you’ll explore self-empathy as a way to ground yourself and become present. You’ll develop an awareness of your common trigger reactions: fight, flight and freeze. You will explore them and try out choosing to respond in a different way.
Saturday afternoon
In the afternoon you’ll deepen your ‘Roots’. You’ll explore the process of self-empathy through learning the four ingredients OFNR (Observation, Feelings, Needs and Requests).
Sunday morning
This morning you’ll learn about empathy – Empathy: Connection Before Correction. You’ll explore how to shift from self-empathy to empathy and deepen your empathy skills.
After listening to the other person, at some point you may want to express what’s going on for you. How do you know when the other person is ready to listen? In a role play you’ll practise how to shift from empathy to self-expression.
Sunday afternoon
In this session you’ll practise moving fluidly between self-empathy, empathy and self-expression. After you have expressed yourself, you usually want something back from the other person. What? You’ll explore two types of compassionate requests.
Handout and more
On the first day we will give you a handout plus a Feelings-and-Needs wheel. The handout contains essential information from the sessions, NVC fundamentals, inspiring poems, work-sheets to deepen your understanding and visual aids. You can use the Feelings-and-Needs wheel as a visual reference to check in with yourself and immediately catch when you are in Jackal mode.
Trainer
Gesine Schrader, certified with the Center for Nonviolent Communication. Find out more about the trainer.
When and where
Date: Saturday & Sunday, 7 – 8 November 2026.
Times: 10:00 – 17:00, both days.
Venue: Bristol College of Massage and Bodywork, 109 Guthrie Road, Clifton, Bristol, BS8 3EF. Website.
Preparation
Whether you’re new to NVC or need a refresher, we recommend these resources. NB. Preparation is not required to participate.
Further information
For more information on Nonviolent Communication, see our what is NVC? page, the Centre for Nonviolent Communication website, or you could contact us directly.
Gift Culture
Gift Culture is a new paradigm that moves us away from making money a measurement of worth and value, towards focusing on the sustainability of the community as a whole. More about Gift Culture.
As part of experimenting with this kind of financial-co-responsibility, we ask the following:
- We ask for non-refundable booking fee of £150 to book your place plus a financial contribution of your choosing at the end of the workshop. When you apply, select the £150 booking fee.
- At the end of the weekend, we will have a conversation about Gift Culture and invite you to make a further contribution to help us continue and expand our work. On the booking form, we will ask you to confirm that you are aware of this.
A note on finances
To meet our costs and to ensure the sustainability of the event we are suggesting a total contribution in the range of £220–£495 for a two day in-person workshop. If this would be a hardship for you, please do not let that stop you from attending as we would love to have you there. Please contact us to talk about it.
Book your place now