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The Challenge of Intimacy15—22 August, with Nada Ignjatovic Savic |
£300/€400 |
This is a 6-day workshop for deepening our understanding and fostering our experiential learning of Marshall B. Rosenberg's model of nonviolent communication (NVC). Marshall’s process is a set of simple, effective, do-able steps in giving and receiving messages that are intended to contribute to each persons well-being and growth. This language encourages us to feel the healing power of empathy and to stay in the present moment focused on feelings and needs, thereby facilitating intimacy and connectedness.
Because this process is above all a practical way of communicating, you will be invited and encouraged to explore how to apply it to challenging situations in your own lives. We’ll look especially at how we can transform the quality of our lives with intimate partners, family members, friends and co-workers. The week will also be a chance to make deep connections in a group where different cultures are represented, but where everyone shares a commitment to communicate honestly and compassionately.
Since we will be an intimate group limited to a maximum of 13 participants, everyone will have an equal opportunity to practice. Mutual education will be enriched through sharing playful activities, movements, drawings, stories and poems and through informal sharings during meals and outings to the beach. We will do a lot of work in small groups so as to meet the different needs of people coming with different NVC skill levels. If you have never before been exposed to the language of NVC, I recommend that you at least obtain one of Marshall’s casette tapes, or read his book—Nonviolent communication: A language of Compassion (2001).
Although our actual topics for the six days will be determined by the needs and requests of the participants, here is a outline of what I can imagine enjoying teaching, to serve as a tentative framework from which to expand or modify:
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 | Initiating Meaningful Contact Opening and getting to know each other. Exploring the wasteland (have to, ought to, right/wrong, being nice, judging, labeling, diagnosing, expectations...). Thinking of what we want, not what we are: transforming the images that separate us. |
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 | Love Without Dependency Responsibility to vs. responsibility for. The impact of thinking mistakes—guilt, shame, depression, anger. How to translate the concept of mistake into the language of compassion. Empathizing with another when we haven't acted in harmony with their needs. What to do when our ability to empathize is blocked |
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 | The demons of love How we can translate those demons (fears, betrayal and faithfulness, guilt, jealousy) into life serving energy. Hearing a ‘no’ without taking it as a rejection. Expressing NO without fear, guilt or anger. |
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 | Taming of the snakes Dealing with anger in others and ourselves. Growing through conflicts. Healing our wounds: vengeance, repentance, forgiveness translated into NVC |
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 | So the darkness shall be the light Dealing with pain compassionately. Do requests kill love? Positive action language in intimate relationships. Requesting that which would enrich life. Differentiating requests from demands. |
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| Inviting Miracles How do we express and receive appreciation? Self-appreciation: acknowledging the truth about myself no matter how beautiful it is. Exploring how to make our lives more beautiful—inviting miracles, coincidences, soul moments. |
Born in April, 1947 in Serbia, Nada Ignjatovic Savic has worked for nearly thirty years
as a university lecturer and researcher in developmental psychology
at the University of Belgrade. She has led numerous educational research
and intervention projects (supported by UNICEF), and has published
several books and programs in the field of personal development, communication
and social interaction.
She is co-founder and director of Smile Keepers, an NGO concerned with implementing experiential learning in individuals and groups, and which works to raise consciousness for the reform of educational practices and for humanistic social change. Nada also serves as the Yugoslavia coordinator for both the International Center for Nonviolent Communication and the Earth Stewards Network.
Certified by Marshall B. Rosenberg in 1993 to teach his model of nonviolent communication (NVC), Nada has been giving NVC trainings througout Europe, Israel, and South Africa, as well as assisting Dr. Rosenberg at a number of ten-day intensive NVC international trainings. Since 1996 she has been an accredited Essential Peacemaker facilitator, and feels passionate about essential peacemaking between men and women.
Nada's personal transformation during the treatment of her own cancer lead
her into deeper understanding of some of the core paradoxes of human
existence, and helped her to learn how to make life more wonderful
for herself and others. The photo above shows Nada at one of her recent
NVC trainings with co-facilitator, Dunia Hategekimana.