Communication Dojo

COMMUNICATION DOJO CLASSES

If you would like to learn connected conversation / NVC skills in a wonderful free/sliding scale class, Newt's Communication Dojo hosts a drop-in workshop every Monday night from 7-9PM.

Some features of the Communication Dojo practice environment:

• Chances to use your real-life situations to guide experiential learning
• Efficient use of group time to maximize learning
• High proportion of practice time in pairs - learning communication by communicating.
• Minimal "jargon" i.e. language that might be confusing or alienating for those not familiar with NVC.
• Little likelihood of people developing any sense of "Doing it wrong" or "Trying to do it right."
• Mixture of experience levels deepens practice and learning
• Communication Dojo Connected Conversation Overview PDF

Practice Exercises

We can practice restorative and connected communication with some exercises designed to simulate real-world situations.

• Observations: Practice making observations in a neutral, descriptive way without including judgements or blame.
• Feelings & Needs: Practice expressing how you're feeling about something and what needs you might feel aren't being met.
• Empathy Guesses: Practice guessing what the other person might be feeling in particular situations and clarifying till you figure it out. This develops familiarity with the Feelings & Needs Inventories and makes it easier to get it right more quickly.
• Making offers & requests: Practice offering and requesting things that would meet both parties' needs for mutual understanding.

Communication Habit Practice

1. List some of your communication habits you use often.
2. List some of the listening habits that often bother you.
   1. Eg. Storytelling. Telling people how you had the same problem or your family member did.
3. List some needs they might be fulfilling by using those strategies.
4. Have someone share a problem they're having and have everyone practice interrupting and using the habits in response to show all the examples.
5. Take turns sharing a non-serious problem scenario and first give habit-based responses for 2 minutes then switch to empathetic listening where you ask questions like "I hear you saying that when you saw X happen you felt Y because you need Z and its difficult to feel like you're getting Z..."

Connected Conversation Practice

Both sharea chunk at a time and reflect before moving on.