NVC Workshops
We offer a variety of workshops on different concepts through out the year. Our 1-Day (or more) Workshops are currently all in person and times are Pacific Time zone.
Expand the sections below to learn more about what each workshop offers and to register for a workshop.
Free Introduction to NVC
Do you long for connection and an experience of belonging, and instead feel confused, hurt and sometimes angry when even your best efforts to connect seem to repeatedly fail? Are you hoping for skills and understanding that can transform your experience?
An ONLINE Workshop (2.5 hr)
During our Free Introduction to NVC (also known as Compassionate Communication) we will explore and learn to:
• Understand how our efforts to connect can be affected by unconscious perceptions of danger that can keep us separate, and how to regain calm and ease.
• Engage others in a way that creates peaceful, satisfying connections especially when they are reacting.
• Experience our true selves; able to address our reactions, confident, present, satisfied, and connected.
• Learn to listen to, and be heard by, others in a way that increases understanding, collaboration and closeness.
We look forward to meeting you and exploring together what brings us all joy, peaceful and cooperative relationships.
Prerequisites: None
Where: Online. Complete registration to receive zoom link and other details.
Organizer: Sandra Amiry
Date: January 6, 2025
Time: 6:30-8:30pm
Cost: This is a FREE introduction. Donations inspired by the difference we make are very gratefully accepted (though not required) following the workshop.
Maximum Class Size: 24
Compassionate Couples Weekend Workshop
An IN-PERSON, Weekend Workshop
It can be heartbreaking at times that the closer you want to get to someone the more reactive you, and your partner, can become. In our Compassionate Couples workshop, you will explore how increasing intimacy can promote reactivity, and how addressing this reactivity can transform your relationships from agonizing to astonishingly beautiful.
In this workshop together you and your partner will get to explore practicing NVC in Coupleship!
We will:
• Explore the different partnership stories that can keep us in reactive loops.
• Learn and practice making agreements to keep you both comfortable and cared for when in conflict in the workshop (and at home).
• Learn to ask and hear the hard questions about your relationship.
• Make requests of each other and be able to trust that you will be heard in good faith – without hearing a demand.
• Practice hearing a “No” from your partner and skills to navigate where to go from there.
• Increase effectiveness around getting each of your needs met with more ease and efficiency.
• Practice challenging interactions with the guidance and support of your facilitator and the group.
• Learn to make repairs even when it seems the most impossible.
• Discover ways to shift overall tone of relationship from one of tension and doubt to one of appreciation, collaboration and mutual support!
Prerequisites: None. However, we recommend participants have taken Rose City NVC’s Foundations Course, our Couples Skill Building Workshop, or have had some prior NVC exposure.
Where: Close in SE Venue. Complete registration to receive address and other details.
Organizer: Sandra Amiry
Dates: February 22 & 23rd, 2025
Time: 10am -5pm (both days)
Cost: $295 –$495 per person, sliding scale
Maximum Class Size: 24
Connecting with Kids – Building Compassionate Relationships
An IN-PERSON workshop.
One of the ways our enculturation into a “power-over” culture shows up in our personal lives and public discussions, is the confusion about relationships with children. Too often teachers, counselors, administrators, parents, grandparents, aunts/uncles, social workers, and everyone who spends time with children are faced with a false dichotomy – structure or connection. Sometimes this comes up in conversation as “people are too permissive with kids these days” and those working with children find themselves flip-flopping back and forth between an empathetic connection where they complain kids are “walking all over them” and a power-over relationship where they are grasping to maintain control but “the kids won’t talk to them” or, when they do, it becomes an exhausting battle. But there is hope.
By applying the spirit of “power-with” that NVC embodies we can create structure and stay in our integrity while growing trust and connection with children. It is not particularly difficult (no harder than the dangerous dance of “fighting” or “giving-in”) and incredibly rewarding. It has been shown in research that one honest empathetic connection for a child can be the inspiration to learn self-connection and have healthier relationships – and it doesn’t have to be someone who the child spends a lot of time with, or a parent (although that sure doesn’t hurt!). When we listen, care for a child’s needs, care for our own needs, model respect and self-respect, and set living boundaries we create an example and environment that can help steer a child toward a richer fuller experience of life. Let’s explore this together and be part of supporting a healthier happier world!
In this workshop you will get to explore kid inspired practice of NVC!
We will:
• Explore the different stories about children and expectations that can keep us in reactive loops.
• Learn to hear the tough messages children share and self-sooth so you can show up in integrity.
• Make requests of children in a power-with way that respects your Needs.
• Understand the importance of taking a “long view” – how the “worst moments” are the best “learning opportunities”
• Practice interactions relevant to your life with the support of worksheets and role plays guided by facilitator.
• Discover new perspectives and strategies from these tools, other participants experience, and learning that arises from the whole group.
Prerequisites: None. However we recommend participants have taken Rose City NVC’s Foundation Course
Where: Inner SE Portland. Complete registration to receive more details.
Organizer: Sandra Amiry
Date: TBD
Time: 10am – 4pm (1 hour lunch break)
Cost: $120 – $320 sliding scale
Maximum Class Size: 24
From Victim to Empowerment; Recovery from the Cycle of Dysfunction
An IN-PERSON workshop.
A one-day, in person workshop: Offering yourself the boundless loyalty you long for from others is a first step to genuinely healthy interactions. Being very conscious about the motivations behind our strategies to meet needs supports us in honoring ourselves and protecting ourselves from harm.
We start out in life without the tools to cope with the intense feelings that emotional withdrawal, violent communication or physical trauma stimulate. Nor do we have the tools to begin to identify our needs and find strategies to meet these needs. Compassionately admitting to myself I was repeating a pattern I learned from my family of origin (reaching back several generations at least) was the first step. That self-honesty started my self-empowered path to connect more authentically to my feelings, identify my needs, and meet my needs.
Learning to set healthy boundaries, including leaving and recovering from an abusive relationship, was one of the greatest challenges in my life. It was like kicking the most addictive drug – avoiding what I felt absolutely compelled to do.
Whether a romantic partner, family member or employer, when I was experiencing repeat abuse in relationships it was because of what I was doing. My actions did not warrant abuse, no one deserves abuse, yet I was making unconscious choices that led me into and kept me in the cycle. My own patterns were keeping me from meeting some of my most essential needs.
In this Introductory Workshop we will:
• Get the empathy, self-compassion, and understanding you need to fight for what you’re most longing for.
• Learn to communicate your thoughts clearly, and understand the difference between requests & boundaries.
• Discover the ability to easily set appropriate boundaries and stick to them.
• Start developing the courage and self-confidence needed to leave an abusive relationship if necessary.
• Learn to take accountability for your actions, and untangle from your partners.
• Get tools to decrease making assumptions and buying into your stories or obsessive thinking.
• Increase your ability to get clarity discerning whether you need to end your relationship or get the help you need to move through and break the cycle.
• Support grief, mourning and healing around losses you have experienced from losing yourself in this pattern.
Prerequisites: None
Where: Inner SE Portland venue. Complete registration to receive address and other details.
Organizer: Sandra Amiry
Date: April 12, 2025
Time: 10am – 4pm (1 hour lunch)
Cost: $120 – $320 sliding scale
Maximum Class Size: 24
NVC Life Applications
Continue learning and practicing in community to further strengthen your current skills and learn new tools.
An IN-PERSON workshop.
Our Life Applications workshop will support you to extend your new skills and understandings into all the areas of your life. We will explore the most common kinds of missed connections that occur in our lives, and practice having successful and satisfying outcomes instead as well as learning some new concepts and tools. In our Life Applications workshop we will:
• Examine what still holds us back when engaging fully both in what can be charged conversations and in all areas of our lives.
• Practice new tools, and tools from previous courses, within a safe supportive space with others in a similar place in the journey.
• Refresh strategies that support us to automatically turn toward self-connection whenever anything appears “difficult”.
• Experience successful outcomes in situations you’ve lost hope achieving satisfying outcomes for through engaging in and observing role plays.
• Learn the power of authentic accountability and how it can support you in whatever circumstances you are wanting to explore.
• Dabble in NVC Mediation and how it may be a tool for us interacting in groups or more than one person.
Prerequisites: Completion of NVC Foundations & Integration Course or equivalent. Have questions about the prerequisite? (Click here to contact us and request details.)
Meeting Schedule: This workshop meets on 2 consecutive days (Saturday – Sunday)
Where: Inner SE Portland. Complete registration to receive more details.
Organizer: Sandra Amiry
Start Date: TBD
End Date: TBD
Time: 10am – 5PM each day
Cost: $295 – $495 Sliding Scale
Maximum Class Size: 24
NVC for Intimate Relationships
An IN-PERSON workshop.
In this workshop you will learn how NVC can enhance communication in your relationships and increase intimacy. With deeper intimacy can come new reactivity – we’ll share some tools to recognize reactive patterns and use vulnerability to grow closer. This workshop is designed to provide skills regardless of experience level. If new to NVC we recommend reading or listening to the book “Nonviolent Communication” by Marshall Rosenburg prior to attending. Those new to Rose City NVC, as well as folks who have attended the full weekend training, are invited to join us in practicing together; to refresh, sharpen skills, as well as get a few new tools.
In this introductory workshop we will:
• Learn how to listen to our partners in a way that meets their need to be heard for what’s important.
• Learn to make requests of each other and be able to trust that you will be at choice without threat of loss of love.
• Discover how to make repairs even when it seems the most impossible.
• Delve into appreciation, joy, and gratitude – using NVC to increase intimacy and excitement.
Prerequisites: None. This is an all levels workshop. However we recommend participants have read book, taken Rose City NVC’s Foundation Course, or have had some prior NVC exposure.
Where: Inner SE Portland venue. Complete registration to receive address and other details.
Organizer: Sandra Amiry
Date: May 31, 2025
Time: 10am – 4pm (1 hour lunch)
Cost: $120 – $320 per person, sliding scale
Maximum Class Size: 24
Improving Family Connection
An IN-PERSON workshop.
Would you like to respond differently to criticism, anger, apathy or general drama from your family members? Want to cultivate relationships where family share more honestly and see you as on their side? Longing for a different quality of connection with your parents, children, siblings, in-laws, or anyone else with whom you have an ongoing relationship?
Developing the practical skills for Self-connection, Listening and Expression can have a profound impact on the quality of connection experienced with our family. Whether you currently talk everyday, a few times a year at holidays and gatherings, or have not been on speaking terms for years, there are tools available within the NVC framework that can shift towards better meeting needs for connection, understanding, belonging and intimacy.
In this workshop we will:
• Learn essential self-empathy tools that can provide a significant amount of relief.
• Develop the capacity to remain grounded so we can better serve family needs (this includes ourselves!).
• Discover the power of silent empathy for others and practice in a safe environment.
• Practice expressing in ways that can be heard by family, including those who “don’t speak NVC.”
• Take steps towards becoming an advocate for peace and connection, even when others in your family are in conflict.
Prerequisites: We ask that participants have minimally taken Rose City NVC’s Foundation course or equivalent.
Where: Close in SE Venue. Complete registration to receive address and other details.
Organizer: Sandra Amiry
Date: December 7th, 2025
Time: 10am – 4pm (1 hour lunch)
Cost: $120 – $320 sliding scale
Maximum Class Size: 24