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Dear Friend,
Recently, I talked with a friend who shared with me how she's finally learned to let go of what she now sees as the illusion of reaching a place beyond crises, where things are finally stable and she can relax. Instead, she wants to learn to live life in full even during times of crisis.
Times of crisis are not the only times we back away from life. We often do the same when people do things that aren't working for us, big or small. More often than we want, we pull back, we judge and separate, and in some significant way are no longer present to live life.
As you all know, this has been a time of crisis for me, for all of us at BayNVC. I am celebrating how we've opened ourselves to engage with the challenges we are facing, so that we are learning and deepening a sense of community and seeing the power of our togetherness. A number of us are excited about what that increased togetherness can create in the world, how we can increase our contribution to the world at a time of larger crisis to all life.
One key that NVC provides at such times is the capacity to learn how to bring tenderness to everyone, self and others, in times when judgments can easily emerge. In my recent blog post I describe how I supported one individual to find that tenderness through shifting the frame from "something wrong happened" to "a tragedy happened". This journey is one way that we can embrace more and more of life.
Another way of meeting crisis and challenge is to expand another capacity: to experience gratitude and appreciation for life, and to remain open to the mysterious way in which the painful and glorious, the beauty and the devastation, the love and the separation, are so inextricable.
And so it is that in looking back at the last couple of months since I last sent my newsletter I see just how much beauty, creation, and investment has happened alongside the difficult organizational structure we are facing.
Please click here to read more about where I have been putting my attention and what I am celebrating from this period. Below in this newsletter you can read more about what's coming.
I am sitting here wrapping up my writing, and listening to music I love, European classical music from the 17th century. Once again, the paradox of life is present with me. This beauty comes from the culture that was at that same time colonizing the world. Nothing can be separated out neatly. Another source of nourishment I've had was a recent backpacking trip with my 14-year-old nephew. In the mountains of Northern California I had amazing conversations with him that reminded me of what's possible in some future he is already living with his family. I am absorbing the beauty, part of what sustains me through the recent challenges. I wish for everyone affected by what's happening in the world, by the BayNVC crisis, or by any personal challenge in life to have beauty and the kind of empathic support, love, and vote of confidence that I've received in this last period. -
In hope and peace,
Miki Kashtan
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Principle-Based Teaching
Friday to Monday, September 7 - 10, 2012
BayNVC Office, Oakland
Register Here
Bring your sharing of NVC to a new level with Miki. This 4-day intensive focuses on shifting from "how" to "why" while embodying the principles and practice of NVC every step of the way - from planning to delivery. Instead of viewing NVC as a formal process of communication, and the OFNR components and the dialogue template as the centerpiece of your teaching, the premise of this approach is that these are practice tools that help us deepen and integrate a transformation of consciousness.
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Leveraging Your Influence
One Sunday a month in Oakland, BayNVC Office
Aug 12, Sep 23, Oct 28, Nov 18, and Dec 9
Register Here
The West Coast program has turned into a concentrated community effort in supporting each person to become the biggest and fullest person they can imagine, living the most alive life they could have, and radiating outward as fully and widely as they can envision the results of their learning and integration. Anyone who is attracted by this description will likely find a welcoming home in this group or in the East coast version (see retreats, below).
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The Power of Requests
Saturday, September 15, 2012, 9:00am-5:30pm, BayNVC Office, Oakland
Part of the Creating The Life You Want series. Register Here
Many of the people I meet in my workshops have a pervasive experience of life as happening to them instead of being shaped by them. Far too many of us perceive ourselves as having less ability to affect outward reality than we might actually have. Even when it comes to our own actions and reactions, we often feel unable to create significant or lasting change. The Power of Requests provides a path for engaging with others co-creatively to ask for all we want and be open to others' requests with the ultimate goal of making life work for everyone.
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East Coast August & November Retreats - Still Open!
Leveraging Your Influence
August 13-18
November 9-14
For some years now I've been trying to find a way to clarify what kind of community I want to support people in creating, and what I can offer people who want to move the consciousness of NVC into the world. In this program, rather than focus on specific skills to teach NVC formally, we focus on all the real-life situations in which using NVC can move us and our environment closer to the dream of a needs-based world. The retreats will be at the Abode (pictured here), New Lebanon, NY. Details are here.
To register or learn more please email Karen Murphy.
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Nashville, TN in August: Two Workshops
Friday, August 24th, 2012
Peace Starts at Home: Dialogue As A Way Of Life
Saturday, August 25th and Sunday August 26th, 2012
NCV Nashville will be drawing on several states for people to attend these workshops. They do their best to enable out-of-towners to stay in local homes.
Find out all about it and register at nvcnashville.org.
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From Your Home
Courses Offered By NVC Academy
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Naturalizing the Language of NVC
Fridays, 10/26/12 - 12/14/12 (midday West coast, mid-afternoon East coast)
Learn to speak NVC using your own voice and increase ease and flow in all your personal and professional conversations. This 6-session telecourse with senior CNVC Certified Trainer Miki Kashtan is designed to help you integrate NVC into all aspects of your life by gaining fluency in your practice of NVC and by embodying the principles regardless of the words you use. This course is based on intensive practice and coaching with real-life examples from participants' lives.
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The Fearless Heart: An Intensive Study with Miki
Registration remains open for the duration of the course!
And listen to the first full session (click green bar halfway down this page)
For the first time ever, we are excited to offer you an opportunity to engage in deep, intensive and ongoing study with renowned CNVC Certified Trainer, Miki Kashtan. This weekly course is based on closely following her blog, The Fearless Heart, which blends theory, deep spiritual wisdom, vulnerable sharing of personal insights and experiences, radical vision and practical tips for everyday living. With the range of topics and approaches Miki uses in her writing, coming to this year of study with her can support you in catapulting your NVC practice and life to a new level of integration and mastery, whether you are new to NVC or a seasoned trainer.
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Two Days in Munich, Germany
Two day-long workshops that can be booked individually
Saturday, September 29: The Power of Choice
Sunday, September 30: The Power of Requests
Event description and details are here. For information and registration email Sabine Geiger at MikinGermany@gmail.com.
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A Workshop in Warsaw, Poland
Naturalizing the Language of NVC - Living and Sharing NVC Beyond the NVC Community
Saturday and Sunday, October 13-14, 2012
With this workshop Miki takes one the major themes of her current teaching to Europe, invited by a group with whom she has greatly enjoyed working via teleclasses last year and this. The workshop is open to all. See here for a description of its content.
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