Join IN: Immersion in Nonviolent Communication
8-month Online Intensive

with Oren Jay Sofer & Roxy Manning
september 2024 - APril 2025
1 Weekend/month, 9–11:30am & 2–4:30pm PT

Communication is about more than what you say.
Nonviolence is not passivity, but a courageous and demanding way of life.
Nonviolent Communication is a profound and transformative practice.

Nonviolent Communication develops internal resources to realize our potential and live in line with our values. It’s about showing up authentically and compassionately in all circumstances, learning to care fully for ourselves and for others, and transforming moments of immobility and helplessness into experiences of empowerment and choice.

“IN” — Immersion in Nonviolent Communication — will help you to:

  • Deepen your capacity for listening and empathy

  • Enhance your ability to support others

  • Transform recurring conflicts

  • Find more balance and clarity when activated

  • Shift areas of your life that seem stuck

  • Build community focused on nonviolence

““A life changing experience. Oren and Roxy are, hands down, two of the best facilitators I have ever experienced (who complement each other beautifully). I came away inspired and equipped with powerful and effective tools for supporting interactions... Lastly, many of the connections I made with my cohort have continued long past the training. I am glad and grateful for being a member of this new community.””
— Melody Noll, ESL Instructor

About the Program

The Immersion in Nonviolent Communication (“IN” for short) will deepen your understanding and embodiment of key principles of NVC. IN’s core training spans eight monthly weekend workshops, with multiple other components to encourage practice and integration throughout the program. IN asks that all participants have some prior training (including small-group practice) in Nonviolent Communication.

Our Immersion in NVC attracts a range of practitioners: those who are relatively new as well as more experienced students, including alumni of BayNVC’s Leadership Program and previous Immersion programs. Participants find great value in the continuity of the monthly meetings and the opportunity to learn and grow in a lively community. Please download and read the IN info packet here before applying.

““The Immersion Program has been life-changing! I’ve learned skills that have helped me develop deeper self-awareness, express myself more authentically, and connect more compassionately with others. I have so much gratitude for Roxy and Oren, the assistants and this wonderful community!” ”
— Hongxu Liu, Software Engineer, Oakland, CA

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2024 Program Dates:

Immersion in NVC, 8-month program: One weekend program per month, September 2024 through April 2025, 9:00 – 11:30am and 2:00 – 4:30pm Pacific Time; two empathy groups per month; plus an hour-long live coaching call with a lead trainer once per month. Topics may shift; please check back for updates in the schedule.

  • Sept 21, 22: Opening Weekend: A Foundation of Self-Empathy (Roxy & Oren)

  • Oct 12, 13: Living with a Heart of Empathy (Roxy & Sarah Peyton)

  • Nov 9, 10: Authenticity and Vulnerability (Oren & John Kinyon)

  • Nov 24: Bonus Session - Topic TBA (Miki Kasthan and Nonviolent Global Liberation)

  • Dec 7, 8: Power, Resources and Choice (Roxy & Kathleen Macferran)

  • Jan 11, 12: Making Powerful Requests (Oren & Kathy Simon)

  • Feb 8, 9: Mourning, Healing and Reconciliation (Roxy & Ranji Ariaratnam)

  • March 8, 9: Mediation and Difficult Dialogues (Oren & Jackson Lima)

  • April 12, 13: Closing Weekend — Integrated Practice (Roxy & Oren)

Please read the Info Packet here before applying.

What You Receive:

  • Expert training from Certified NVC Trainers

  • Extensive training curriculum and NVC reference materials

  • Monthly coaching calls with lead trainers

  • Monthly practice assignments and journal topics

  • Weekly calls with an empathy buddy

  • Two empathy practice groups per month *

  • Personalized coaching in small groups *

  • Optional small group sessions on specific interest topics *

  • One 45-minute private NVC coaching session *

  • Access to an online community forum *

  • Indefinite access to all program recordings

*Note: offered or moderated by program assistants.

Who's it for?

This program is appropriate for those newer to Nonviolent Communication as well as for experienced practitioners seeking to deepen their practice. Applicants are expected to have some prior training in NVC, including small group practice experience. Past years have drawn therapists, activists, teachers, nurses, doctors, writers, artists, engineers, life coaches, and many more.

Please note: This program does not offer CEs.



Alumni Cohort Option

For 2024-25, as a way to engage in an NVC learning community, we are pleased to offer a special option for IN Program graduates (including the BayNVC Immersion Program, BIP) to participate at a reduced cost. Members of this Alumni Cohort will have access to all core teaching sessions, program materials, monthly coaching calls, and our online community forum, as well as self-organized practice groups, empathy groups, and empathy buddies. (Alumni cohort members will not have access to assistant-led small group coaching). We envision this opportunity as a rich way to refresh, deepen, and further integrate NVC consciousness into daily life, all within a supportive learning community. For more details about what is and is not included in the Alumni Cohort option, please see our info packet here.

““The Immersion Program precipitated a swell of growth in my life that extended to parenting, personal relationships, and professional skill and opportunity. [It]... has made my experience of life more fulfilling on the whole. Roxy and Oren have invited in and held space for a beautiful, vulnerable, imperfect community that I am honored to have been a part of.””
— Emily Smith, Executive Coach, San Francisco, CA.

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Program Leadership

The Immersion in NVC will be led by Certified Nonviolent Communication Trainers Roxy Manning, Ph.D., Oren Jay Sofer, and renowned guest trainers (see below), all of whom will be supported by a team of experienced NVC assistants. Our leadership team is designed to provide significant individualized coaching in small groups, with an average teacher-to-student ratio of five- or six-to-one. Oren and Roxy will lead the opening weekend in September and the closing weekend in April together. For all other weekends, our core trainers alternate leading Saturdays, and guest trainers lead Sundays.

LEAD TRAINERS

Roxy Manning, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist, certified Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC) trainer, and author of How to Have Antiracist Conversations and The Anti-Racist Heart. Since 2004 she has operated a private consulting business and regularly holds international workshops and intensives centered around nonviolent communication and social change issues. She has served as executive director of Bay Area Nonviolent Communication and focuses her outside efforts on working with the homeless population of San Francisco.

Oren Jay Sofer, a CNVC Certified Nonviolent Communication Trainer, teaches workshops and retreats on meditation and communication internationally. His teaching emphasizes how awareness practice and communication training deepen one another in a synergistic manner. He holds a degree in Comparative Religion from Columbia University and is certified as a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner for healing trauma. Oren is a husband, a father, and the author of several books including Your Heart Was Made For This, and the best-selling title, Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication.

GUEST TRAINERS

Jackson Lima is an Afro-Brazilian diplomat, who has a master’s degree in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University. He is interested in working with BIPOC communities in Brazil, particularly with NVC mediation in schools and Favelas (shanty towns). He is also interested in bringing NVC to the diplomatic world to impact on the formation of diplomats in his country. He has been studying NVC since 2019, when he attended an IIT in Spain, and another IIT in Brazil (2023). He has a passion for Buddhist mind training approaches as well.

​​John Kinyon is co-creator/founder of Mediate Your Life international training. He has provided mediation and training to individuals and organizations around the world for over 20 years. His Mediate Your Life approach is based in the work of Nonviolent Communication and integrates a mediation framework, mindfulness, and trauma work. John is a leader in the global NVC community and worked closely with his mentor Marshall Rosenberg for over a decade. John was a co-founder of the Bay Area NVC organization (BayNVC) and has been a certified trainer of the Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC) since 2000.

Kathleen Macferran is an author, facilitator and Certified Trainer for the Center for Nonviolent Communication. She travels internationally working with individuals, families, community groups, businesses, schools, and prison inmates. Kathleen is the author of Calling In the Dawn: Shaping Our Future through Authentic Dialogue, and co-author with Jared Finkelstein of Choice: A Field Guide for Navigating the Polarization of Our World and Living Interdependently. Her two children’s books How Giraffes Found Their Hearts and How Giraffes Got Their Ears, and her CD Giraffe Tales can be found along with her TEDX talks on her website www.StrengthofConnection.com.

Kathy Simon’s teaching incorporates her decades of experience as an educator, non-profit director, and political activist. She works with parents, couples, educators, and nonprofit leaders. Most recently, she has focused on how NVC can help people stay in conversation across political and social divides, applying that work currently to her series of courses with Itzel Hayward, called “Responding to Everyday Racism.”  Kathy has been practicing NVC as a partner and a parent since 1995 and teaching it since 2006, and she is certified with CNVC.

Miki Kashtan is a practical visionary pursuing a world that works for all, based on principles and practices rooted in feminist nonviolence. Miki is a founding member of the Nonviolent Global Liberation community, a co-founder of Bay Area Nonviolent Communication, a certified trainer with the Center for Nonviolent Communication, and has taught, consulted, and engaged with projects globally. Miki has authored many books, as well as hundreds of posts on The Fearless Heart. An Israeli native with significant roots in Mexico and New York City, she lived in Berkeley and Oakland, California, for three decades before choosing to vagabond in search of learning about liberation and community. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from UC Berkeley.

Passionate about healing – ourselves, intergenerationally, and the world – Ranjana (Ranji) Ariaratnam has shared NVC with families, teachers, activists, schools, and social service organizations via workshops, retreats, and mediation since 2009. Ranji worked for years overseas in humanitarian aid with people displaced by conflict. Now she brings together approaches that are very healing in her own life – NVC, painting and writing, somatic practices, and Vipassana meditation – each addressing different layers of our being. She lives on Vancouver Island.

Sarah Peyton, author, Certified Nonviolent Communication Trainer and neuroscience educator, integrates brain science and the use of resonant language to heal trauma with exquisite and warm gentleness. She teaches and lectures internationally, and is the author of the Your Resonant Self series, on the relational neuroscience of self-compassion and making your brain a good place to live. Her latest work is The Antiracist Heart, co-written with Roxy Manning, Ph.D.

IMMERSION PROGRAM cost

FULL PARTICIPANT Sliding Scale Tuition: $4500 - $2000

ALUMNI COHORT Sliding Scale Tuition: $1600 - $800

Our sliding scale is intended to make this program accessible to people of a wide range of income levels. Please choose an amount that reflects your ability to contribute. People who contribute at the top of the sliding scale support our ability to offer spaces at a cost below the bottom of the sliding scale to those who would otherwise be unable to participate.

Scholarships and youth rates (24 and younger) available. Please see details below.

FINANCIAL AID & ACCESSIBILITY

We wish to support all people who are passionate about this work to have access to it, independent of their current access to financial resources. We recognize that, because of various social and economic systems, some people experience financial barriers to participating in events with cost-based attendance.

We are explicitly inviting participation by people who come from any of the following communities. When all people are included, our communities benefit:

  • People with visible or invisible disabilities

  • People who do not have white skin privilege and/or who come from communities who have been targets of racism

  • People who identify as LGTBQIA+

  • Low-income/Poor or Working class people (please refer to this definition as a guideline when self-identifying in this category)

If you identify as part of one of the communities listed above and would like to be considered for a low-cost space, please complete BOTH a scholarship form and a program application (full participant application; alumni cohort application) by June 30, 2024. (Applications will be considered on a rolling basis after this date.) Preference will be given to those who are new to this work and who have not attended past events at reduced or no cost.

Questions about this program? Feel free to email us here.

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“If there is one course I would like the whole world to know about, it is this one. While I was attending it, I could see the changes in my daily life. I stopped being afraid of conflicts because now I can stay in a "difficult" conversation while staying regulated, focused and embodied. There is no fight or flight reaction anymore (or at least not so much) but instead a clear idea and a deep trust in how to navigate through the conflict.”

— Julia Münchbach, Doctor, Germany (Immersion Program 2023-24)

“Over the course of this program, I experienced an internal shift: I started out understanding NVC as a set of compassionate communication skills, and by the end of the program that understanding had transformed into NVC consciousness--that is, a lifelong practice of how I want to show up in the world. This shift has transformed my wellbeing, contributed to deeper relationships, and inspired an expansive sense of what is possible for our world.”

— Em Hammond, Law Professor, Washington, DC (Immersion Program 2023-24)

“If you've ever been curious about a training like this, I can't recommend it enough. What IN was able to pack into an 8-month program with their small, dedicated team was astonishing. Whether I was giving it my all, or even when life sometimes got in the way, the experience was incredibly rewarding. The more you genuinely participate in the program, the more you'll be challenged; thankfully, it's just as true that the more you put in, the more support you'll receive.”

— Digital Marketing Analytics Consultant, Los Angeles (Immersion Program 2023-24)

“I’m leaving the program with many emerging tools: the courage to step into challenging conversations with more groundedness, the gift of moving from judgment to curiosity, specific tools for awareness like slowing down, and the self-empathy that I think will always stay with me and would be something I'd bring into my conversations more globally.”

— Deborah Barnett-Brandt, Mindful Living Mentor, Weston, CT (Immersion Program 2023-24)

“My gratitude for this vibrant, tender, and authentic exploration in community abounds. For me, it yielded a wider sense of choice and enriched my capacity to stay grounded in my own experience, while connecting more deeply with others and the complexities of our world today. As someone who lives with a highly limiting chronic illness, being able to access more inner choice, cultivates a freedom and agency that hadn’t seemed possible before.”

— Rachel Shiyah-Satullo, Williamstown, MA (Immersion Program 2023-24)

"I took what I remembered into my elementary classroom. NVC is a tough practice/discipline to use with 9-12 year olds' conflicts. I was always amazed to witness their bodies (in conflict) drop the tension they carried when we were able to connect/guess our feelings and needs. NVC is counterintuitive to the standard ways of classroom 'management'. We were working toward connection rather than solutions. (If we can't get our need for safety met, it's doubtful any positive learning will occur.)”

— Jonathan Howells, Upper Elementary Montessori Teacher, Philadelphia, PA (Immersion Program 2023-24)

“I'm celebrating a different depth of compassion I feel for myself and others. Just bringing that lens to everyday life has removed a lot of judgment, and I'm so grateful for that.”

— Anonymous (Immersion Program 2023-24)

”This program has changed my life immensely. I can see the benefits for my own inner peace and the effects it has on the people around me. It is a big commitment but worth it.”

— Anonymous (Immersion Program 2023-24)