I'm so excited! I just returned from leading a 5-day training with Ike in Germany and had a very profound realization, at least profound for me. If I am angry and upset with someone, and they with me, then we both see each other in some way as the "oppressor" and ourselves as the "oppressed." The tendency is to try to get the other person to see how they have wronged us in some way (which can still be the underlying message even if I say it in terms of "you didn't meet my needs by what you did"). What I now see is that the tremendous power I have is to be willing to reverse the roles, to be willing to put myself into the role of what Marshall Rosenberg would call the "Chooser" and Dominic Barter would call the "Author" of an action that stimulated hurt for the other. The transforming, healing and ultimately liberating power is to see I am both "oppressor" and "oppressed", and in seeing that, and empathizing with both parts in myself and the other, the roles disappear and only connection, compassion and peace remain, only love.

Lori Woodley and I are doing a training for ministers and religious leaders in April in Kansas City, Missouri. This is fulfilling a dream of mine to bring NVC to religious and spiritual practice and make a contribution in these communities who in turn have such impact on the cultures we live within.