♪ Celebrating, Learning and Growing ♪ - 21 min 52 sec - 5.4 MB

I am about to leave for San Francisco Airport. I will be taking a flight back to Japan soon.

I left home, leaving my children for the longest time, 3 weeks. I called them every day but I miss them and I am guessing they miss me, too.

I am finally learning a little bit about NVC because of my participation in the Leadership Training course offered by BayNVC. I feel like I am learning two languages, English and this Non-Violent Communication at the same time.

When I first heard about NVC (it was a long time ago), it did not do anything for me or seem to fit me and my lifestyle in Japan). That was when I listened to Marshall Rosenberg on cassette tape back in 2003. It sounded good, but when I translated the words into Japanese, it all sounded too strange to use practically. So I never did anything with it.

But NVC kept coming back to me.

When I started a campaign to create Ministry of Peace (the equivalent of the Department of Peace in USA), many of the Americans in the movement were practicing NVC. When I attended the 3rd National Department of Peace Conference in Washington DC in 2005, Marshall's book "Speak Peace in the World of Conflict" was given to me. I read some, but I never finished it. (Sorry, Dot!)

On another occasion, when I attended the 2nd Global Alliance Summit for Ministries and Departments of Peace in Canada, I met Miki Kashtan, the trainer of this retreat and organizer of the whole LP program this time. When I heard her speak in the conference, I thought, "What is this? She is speaking differently..."

When we organized the 3rd Global Alliance Summit for Ministries and Departments of Peace in Japan, Miki Kashtan was the facilitator for all the sessions. At that time I got to know more intimately about NVC.

After that some of my colleagues from JUMP (Japan United for Ministries of Peace) started learning NVC more intensively and I also became more interested.

Now I find myself attending the LP10. Such a thing, a few years ago, was beyond my imagination. It seems like a big leap, an enormous leap. How did I get here?

Time to go to the airport. I will write and reflect more about the retreat when I get home. Please click the title to listen to my podcast. My need of learning and growing was met by this 2nd retreat and I am celebrating!