Today, my whole life circles around leadership. I support leaders of the new time to strengthen their own leadership — in a needs-based and embodied way. I create space for connectedness in all possible layers.

But let us look back first:

Finding NVC

My first contact with Nonviolent Communication (NVC) was in 2010 during a leadership training where Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life was on the book table. While I took notice of the book, it remained at that time a loose encounter.

It took another five years until our paths met again, in 2015 in the context of a lobbying training. I had recently started my own business. Times were also characterized by the huge number of refugees coming to Austria and overall to Europe. I was part of a movement to organize housing for refugees in communities. During a training for this movement, I realized I was going to encounter the need to facilitate intense and emotional discussions. In the training, NVC was recommended as a valuable technique to deal with this challenge. So I set out to find an introductory seminar. However, the NVC training that best suited me was a facilitator training for practice groups. It was January 2016, and I registered on very short notice, when after a phone call with the trainer it was clear that I was very welcome to join.

NVC Goes Far Beyond Language

For me, I first understood NVC as a linguistic addition to a mindful and appreciative attitude that I was already living. Quite quickly, though, I realized that NVC goes far beyond language, and that it in fact complemented, even refined, my previous attitude like golden dust. With NVC, I discovered areas in myself that had been hidden from me. My “inner walls” broke down, and I got to know more and more of myself. Over the years I slowly and often very tearfully peeled myself out of old conditionings. I discovered the magic of empathy — how this intensifies life and allows me to fully take a place in my being. I especially remember how amazed I was at being allowed to speak the language of the wolf, as I had not allowed myself this language out of supposed appreciation. With time, I learned to know and love the treasures of the wolf. More and more peace spread within me. In 2017, I held my first NVC introductory seminar in a large company.

When people are with me, they experience NVC:

• In individual coaching
• In group coaching
• In mediation
• In the facilitation of work meetings
• In NVC seminars
• In my courses for students
• In the moderation of family conferences

I am very much looking forward to all that may come and emerge and I thank all who have prepared this way.