I am passionate about using all necessary means to support us to tune into the song of our shared humanity. My goal and practice are to marry NVC with mindfulness, Somatic experience, and coaching. I formally began using mindfulness over four and a half years as a sangha member living and practicing in a Buddhist temple. I have practiced Somatic Experiencing (SE - the study of trauma healing and nervous system resilience) through a certification program and with clients for a decade. I earned certification as an International Coach Federation and as a Co-Active coach so that I could listen at deep levels and support others to attune to and hear their own deepest motivations. The thread that weaves these practices together is NVC.

I have watched countless others in “helping” professions struggle to contribute their gifts because they did not have the basic language of NVC. I see this everywhere, including the corporate world that employs me and where, daily, I strive to bring the NVC ethos that emotions are life-serving and everyone’s needs matter. It is my goal to bring NVC to corporate circles so that it is emotionally safe to bring one’s whole authentic self to work, to have a healthy conflict that supports the best and brightest ideas to surface, and to put the care and connection with colleagues squarely back in the work world.

As a servant leader I have been fulfilling my desire to bring this blend of potent support to the world to varying degrees, most recently at world-leading pharmaceutical company where I help teams to communicate effectively and perform at the highest levels to bring life-saving medicines to the world. I designed and conducted NVC & Somatic Experiencing workshops for the Bay Area Nonviolent Communication’s (BayNVC) year-long committed practitioner, Leadership and Living Peace intensive immersion programs with certified trainers Kathy Simon and Roxy Manning, whom I assisted in those programs and who are trusted mentors who inspire and support me in living NVC.

I’ve offered NVC to support East Point Peace Academy members dedicated to social justice work; students and monks at The Tassajara Zen Mountain Monastery, congregants at the Universal Unitarian Church; and struggling neighbors through SEEDs (in Oakland) and Community Boards (in San Francisco) neighborhood mediation programs and via a Superior Court of Northern CA’s alternative dispute resolution program.

I have worked internationally, sharing NVC with NGOs in Thailand. I was thrilled to join a tight team of four who traveled to Accra, Ghana in West Africa to share and teach NVC to representatives of six African nations as part of the inaugural African Alliance for Peace Regional 2008 Summit and seven-day Non-Violent Communication Training. The International Centre for Conflict & Human Rights Analysis organized the event in the hope of establishing Departments and Ministries of Peace and to explore partnering with the United Nations in establishing the Department of Peace.

It is my goal, pleasure, and passion to continue to listen deeply to myself and others and to do my best to weave a connection with NVC as my primary love and loom.