Jim Manske has made a lifelong exploration of the types of practices that make peace not only possible but inevitable. Growing up in the 1960s, he heard everybody around him say they wanted peace, “but everywhere I looked, I saw conflict . . . between friends and family, between neighbors, in civil rights battles and the escalating war in Vietnam—it was us versus them everywhere!”

His journey thus began with a sense that the way people speak and listen to one another contributes to either war or peace in each moment. He went on to study and develop skills in communication, psychology, spirituality, personal growth, mediation, facilitation, and peacemaking. Then, in 2000, he attended his first workshop with internationally recognized peacemaker Marshall Rosenberg. “Within fifteen minutes, I knew my life would never be the same.”

Jim has now been learning and sharing Nonviolent Communication for more than twenty years. He is a certified trainer and assessor for the Center for Nonviolent Communication and co-creator of the learning tool Pathways to Liberation Self-Assessment Matrix, which has been translated into more than fifteen languages and is used globally by NVC practitioners working toward trainer certification. He and his partner, Jori, also a CNVC certified trainer, live and work together in Maui. Their goal is to build a global network of friends devoted to practicing peace by fully integrating NVC into their lives and communities.

Puddledancer Press published Jim's book, Pathways to Nonviolent Communication, in 2021. You can see dozens of videos of Jim's sessions on his Youtube Channel.