Compassionate Communication Course Offered at the Orcas Island Public Library

Compassionate Communication:  Eight Week Series Beginning Monday September 13^th

The Orcas Island Public Library will be offering a course on “Compassionate Communication” led by Rena Patty, beginning Monday, September 13^th through Monday November 29^th, from 6-8pm.

Nonviolent Communication (NVC), also called Compassionate Communication, is based on historical principles of nonviolence — the natural state of compassion when no violence is present in the heart. With NVC we learn to hear our own deeper needs and those of others. Through its emphasis on deep listening—to ourselves as well as others—NVC helps us discover the depth of our own compassion.  NVC can be seen as both a spiritual practice that helps us see our common humanity, using our power in a way that honors everyone’s needs, and a concrete set of skills which help us create life-serving families and communities.  NVC creates a path for healing and reconciliation in its many applications, ranging from intimate relationships, work settings, health care, and social services.

This Compassionate Communication eight-week course will cover the basics of Nonviolent Communication (NVC), including learning to clarify what we are observing, what emotions we are feeling, what values we want to live by, and what we want to ask of ourselves and others.  The course will be highly interactive, with opportunity throughout each class for personal engagement and integration of new skills; optional homework with feedback will provide opportunity each week to integrate new skills into life outside of class.  There is a $70 course fee (no one turned away for lack of funds).

Rena Patty is a certified trainer with the Center For Nonviolent Communication (CNVC).  CNVC’s mission is to contribute to more sustainable, compassionate, and “life-serving” human relations in the realms of both personal relationship and social systems and structures, such as business/economics, education, justice, healthcare, and peace-keeping. Rena has worked for two years as an assistant trainer for a San Francisco Bay Area NVC Leadership Program, and has volunteered annually over the past five years as an assistant trainer at NVC and Diversity retreats and NVC Family Camps.  In addition, she is currently serving as a volunteer for the Freedom Project, teaching NVC at the Washington State Reformatory in Monroe.

Registration and information about class dates is available by calling Kathy Lunde at the Orcas Island Library, 376-4985; to inquire about the course fee or the content of the course call Rena at 376-6864.