Feeling Alive
in Family Life

I offer communication training to help people speak openly, clearly, and kindly to themselves and to each other so they can feel more alive and happy.  What happened? How are we affected? What do we need (vs. what’s wrong with you)? It’s amazing what change we can create, one conversation at a time, when we see each other’s humanity.

I can set up a training for your group of friends, faith group, or family, or you can sign up for a public intro or the monthly series, “The Practice.” One-on-one custom training support is also available. 

Excited to get started? To find out more, Book Now to set up a free, no-pressure 20-minute question and answer session.

Mother hugging teen-aged daughter. Daughter smiling.

Even in tough environments, we can find ways to feel alive

  • Hear your family members and be heard
  • Be honest and feel good about how you connected
  • Know how to clean up  messy conversations
  • Have more fun together
  • Feel more alive together and alone
Session participant with Elke, with giraffe and jackal puppets

You can show the way by modelling it

  • Get clear about the needs driving your thinking
  • Express yourself clearly and fully, with compassion
  • Feel confident asking for what you need
  • Offer clear feedback

When we blow our tops, that means we care about something

  • Demystify behaviour
  • Hear others’ needs rather than criticism
  • Acknowledge your needs and feelings 
  • Feel more confident going into difficult conversations
black and white image of a girl holding her head in frustration

Nonviolent Communication gives us a specific, doable,  process for connecting

  • Separate what someone did from who they are
  • Let feelings help you decipher what people need
  • Find constructive, mutually-agreeable ways forward
  • All with the energy of a Nonviolent Communication giraffe (compassion, big heart, neck of perspective)
Nonviolent Communication model: intention, Observations, Feelings, Needs, and Requests

Book a Private Training - Friends/Family

Elke’s favourite way to offer training is to create a custom course just for your group based on a discussion of your pain points and learning goals. With a minimum group of 6 people, we can create a course for your private exploration – safe, interactive, and growth-oriented.

What this training looks like – both in terms of the focus of the topics as well as the frequency and number of sessions – depends on what you need. We can explore that together, starting with a 20-minute session.  I use our meeting(s) to make your training program, with exercises, examples, handouts, and ideas geared towards your specific group’s learning goals.

Transforming our mindsets – for example, never hearing criticism and labels, again – transforms our conversations, and these transform our lives. Anything that anyone says is ultimately to meet a need, whether they are aware of it or not, and there are strategies that serve us and others more or less well.  We can ask for what we want and give feedback without criticism or diagnoses. The starting point for being able to do that is personal clarity about what is swirling around in us.

We change naturally and sustainably when we see a way forward that is less painful and more joyful, and change from this energy builds our resilience, trust in ourselves, and mutual trust.  This is a far more powerful and life-serving form of change than anything that comes out of a sense of shame, guilt, or fear; indeed, rather than obligation and coercion, we need clarity about what matters to us and to others to create change that everyone is happy about and can stand behind.

Together, we can create, as Dr. Marshall Rosenberg says, the quality of connection where natural giving occurs. In other words, the relationships we build are steeped in trust and a willingness to collaborate. For example, this happens when we

  • Trade self-loathing with clarity about and tenderness for how our inner critics aim to protect us and to help us to grow.
  • Trade grounding our children when they don’t do homework with hearing their ambitions and supporting them to connect with the purpose and joy in learning.
  • Trade fights with our partners over finances with heart-felt discussions about our worries, hopes and dreams for financial security, financial freedom, and time together.
  • Trade pain and snarky remarks to friends who don’t come for a lunch we planned with curiosity and self-expression about our desire for connection and consideration. 
  • Trade frustrations with “rude” family services clients with tender compassion for their deepest concerns and requests for support so we can assist them with ease.

What is it that you long for most in your relationships? What would your world look like if you could shape it? What would bring you hope, fulfillment, connection, and joy?

Bring together a group of six (6) or more people (e.g. family members, friends, teachers, day-care providers or other family-service-provider coworkers) and let me know what your group focus is. I will create a communication training offering for you, either in-person or online.  For in-person, please contact me.

For ease, Book Now to book a 20 minute free conversation to get started. I can walk you through the three-step process (discovering your needs, scheduling, and payment).

Facilitator: CNVC Certified Trainer Elke Haggerty, LL.M, MBA

3 steps:

1) Book Now Discovery conversation

2) Agree on a schedule together

3) Make your payment

The first step in making a private booking is booking a 20-minute discovery session through Book Now (Calendly) or sending me an email through the Contact tab (choose Contact option on the tab) so we can discover your needs.

Once we have discovered your needs and scheduled your sessions, you confirm by making a group payment through the Stripe link we will provide or through Interac, in Canada. Please read the cancellation policy before making your payment.

The Practice

How can be honest without criticizing others? With self-connected practice. This intimate-sized group meets 4 Wednesdays each month.

“It is a group where I feel safe to open myself up by asking questions, asking for help and care without feeling of being judged … This group is my Sanctuary.” – Wendy Z, Vancouver

How can we feel closer to our loved ones, invite support from others, and show up with confidence? The Practice gives you space to gain awareness about yourself and others with the help of the language of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) so that you can listen, be heard, and express yourself more fully, with less judgment.

The ongoing twice3-monthly series is a facilitated, interactive exploration of NVC using activities such as personal reflection, journaling, role-playing, games and more. Participants can ask the facilitator for the topics that most interest them for the next session. There is no prerequisite. We share vulnerably – even the facilitator – so you know you are not alone and don’t need to be perfect! What we do ask is a willingness to actively practice connecting through NVC.  Are you joining to support your communication growth? Where there is willingness, there is rich learning possible and we can, together, create a safe space through our humility and openness.

We delve into a range of NVC ideas from the NVC model (observations, feelings, needs, and requests; the 4 ears, 3 kinds of requests), NVC practices (e.g. hearing another’s anger, expressing and hearing a no, self empathy, mourning and learning from our regrets, screaming in giraffe, expressing and receiving gratitude, making conscious choices with an awareness of needs, making an NVC apology, and resolving inner conflict), and 24 NVC key distinctions (e.g. power with vs. power over or power under, protective vs. punitive use of force, appreciation vs. approval, compliments, or praise, shift vs. compromise, persisting vs. demanding, and self-discipline vs. obedience).

Facilitator: CNVC Certified Trainer Elke Haggerty, LL.M., MBA

Note: December dates: 1st & 3rd Wednesdays, instead, to work around Christmas holidays.

You can sign up here for the current calendar month of sessions.

After your first month, you can simplify registration for subsequent months  using the Stripe link and Zoom link provided upon registration. Sign up is month by month.

Process Works Communication Intro (3 hours - Nov. 2, 9 AM - 12 PM MT Edmonton)

Start transforming your communication in this inspiring 3-hour session focused on self-connection and connection around needs. Received all 5 out of 5 ratings!

Wondering how you can reduce conflicts and misunderstandings to collaborate more?  Cooperation, closeness, and ease can happen when we get clear about what everyone needs. Indeed, transformational shifts can happen, which means that we happily choose to do things differently to help meet each others’ needs. In just 3 short hours, you can discover buckets of inspiration by peeling back the layers of needs at home or at work. Hope you’ll join us via Zoom!

Session date: November 2, 2024 session. 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM Mountain Time (Edmonton)

Facilitator: CNVC Certified Trainer Elke Haggerty, LL.M, MBA

To sign up, simply add this session to your cart and choose your price. 

Please read the cancellation policy before making your payment.

Train One-on-One with a Facilitator

Prefer working one-on-one on your communication with someone in your personal life (such as a child, spouse, service provider, or yourself)? That’s possible.  Book a 55-minute one-on-one here.