How do we foster sanctuary? This question at the heart of things keeps calling me to respond.

For over half my life, Nonviolent Communication (NVC) has served as a map towards sanctuary spaces and interactions. It invites me to practice noticing and honouring needs in me, between us, across community, and humming through creation.

Increasing familiarity with both this map, and the actual landscape I'm travelling, leads me more and more often to:

• Mutual respect,
• Assertive honesty,
• Unflinching accountability, and
• Unconditional compassion.

NVC practice helps me remain intact and connected to Life:
in the depths of broken-hearted grief and fracture, in the expanses of Precious but often overlooked mundane moments, at the heights of whole-Hearted Joy And Communion, And in the practical struggles along the way.

From 2000 – 2009, while completing degrees in Linguistics and Dispute Resolution, I was fortunate to study NVC with psychologist and peacemaker, Marshall Rosenberg; assisting with his trainings in Victoria BC. I’m still deeply moved by his elegant integration of humanistic psychology, Ghandian and Kingian nonviolence principles, core conflict resolution practices, and Paulo Freire’s social literacy.

My academic and independent research assesses NVC training for youth labelled “at-risk” due to marginalization and structural inequity. NVC didn’t solve all their challenges but, in the face of high distress, it empowered them in ways they value: https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/handle/1828/862 . Interdisciplinary studies increasingly affirm that NVC supports what’s now called: Emotional Intelligence (EI), Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), Self-Compassion, Positive Psychology practices, and effective conflict resolution. The youth who contributed to my early learning, including my own dear kid (now an adult), are my all-time greatest NVC teachers.

Several thousand people have attended trainings I’ve tailored for health/ justice/ civil/ social service workers, clergy and faith groups, caregivers, parents, business leaders, professional bodies, Indigenous language revitalizers, community organizations, and schools. We're all learning to be more fully human together.

In the past decade, my training participants have included 3000+ Millennial and Gen Z teens coping with unprecedented social change — they vote with their feet and I’m honoured they show up.

In seeking to foster sanctuary, I’ve become a student of linguistics, communication skills, dispute resolution, Restorative/ Transformative Justice, trauma-informed/ resilience-informed/ anti-oppressive practices, Indigenization efforts, riddles, lists, epic myth, getting comfortable with discomfort, deep listening, breathing on purpose, making peace with myself, and generally holding things passionately but lightly.

These days I’m fortunate to do this work, garden, write, and make art beside a little river on Michi Saagiig Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) territory near Nogojiwanong/ Peterborough ON in Canada.

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I offer

• 1:1 conflict coaching,
• small group facilitation,
• team trainings (incl. ongoing practice sessions),
• conference presentations and key-note lectures

Each is tailored to the Learning needs of participants in terms of personal, interpersonal, professional, and systemic applications of NVC.

I support participants to develop their own practical needs-based strategies to increase mutual respect, collaboration, self-empathy, compassion, assertive honesty, and accountability.