Fall Retreat 2025 ~ NVC Santa Cruz

Mark your calendars for October 10th-12th for a weekend of enriching and connecting workshops for beginners through more experienced practitioners. All levels are welcome and accommodated! Come for the whole weekend or just the parts that interest you.

We are using compassionate pricing to meet our needs for generosity and your needs for contribution. This means you are welcome to register to attend for any amount that works in your budget. Here is some context to help you decide on an amount:

• Sustaining: A sustaining donation of $301+ helps us continue our mission beyond this retreat.
• Maintaining: A maintaining donation of $300 helps us cover our overhead costs for this retreat.
• Supported: A supported donation of $10-299 will be gratefully accepted as we welcome all interested parties, regardless of ability to pay.

Register by Friday October 3, 2025

FRIDAY 6:30-8:30 PM at The Resource Center for Nonviolence (downtown Santa Cruz)

Conflict Improv! Sit back and relax as your NVC Trainers roleplay your conflicts, sometimes hilariously, and always with tenderness and understanding. You can register for this event on its own, without attending the weekend workshops.

Click here to register for Friday only.

SATURDAY 9:15 AM - 5:15 PM at The Community Foundation (Aptos)

SUNDAY 9:45 AM - 4:45 PM at The Community Foundation (Aptos)

Over both days, we’ll offer:

• A dedicated beginner’s track of 5 workshops with 4 different trainers to grasp the fundamentals, encounter NVC in a new way, or just get a refresher.
• An experienced practitioner’s track of 4 workshops with 4 different trainers to deepen your practices of mediating for others, interrogating our stories, befriending our jackals, and self-connecting in times of strife.
• Five more workshops open to all levels, spanning topics from parenting teens and relationships with adult children, dealing with our collective grief, feeling and expressing gratitude, mediating our own conflicts, and conflict improv for relationship repair.

NOTE: "experienced pracitioners" does not necessarily mean "advanced," but just that you've taken at some workshops and/or read Marshall's book and have some facility with the basics on NVC.

FRIDAY at Resource Center For Nonviolence (612 Ocean St, Santa Cruz, CA 95060)

6:15 – 6:30 pm Greeting and gathering.

6:30 - 8:30 pm Welcome, quieting, remembering. Then sit back and enjoy watching hilarious and tender moments of Conflict Improv with trainers Jean, Kristin, Rick, Caren, and Eric, roleplaying the real life situations you suggest.

SATURDAY at The Community Foundation in Aptos  (7807 Soquel Dr, Aptos, CA 95003)

9:15 – 9:30 am Greeting & gathering

9:30 - 10:10 Morning council, overview of offerings

10:15 – 11:30 am

Session 1 A (Beginner’s Track) Intro to NVC/Boogie with the Basics with Jean Morrison

For those starting new and those who want a refresher. Get the ‘Big Picture’ view of NVC and the foundational aspects of this phenomenal universal process that grabs our minds, hearts and souls has us wishing we had learned this in our homes, schools, and communities.  And… it’s not too late!!

Session 1 B (Experienced Practitioners) Intro to Mediation with Alicia Garcia

An overview of the NVC model for mediating a conflict, including the general flow, principles, and skills to be considered when mediating a conflict. Participants will observe a brief example of a mediated conversation, reflect and practice a few essential strategies grounded in NVC consciousness.

11:45 am - 1 pm

Session 2 A (Beginner’s Track) Empathetic Listening with Alicia Garcia

This interactive session looks at “active listening” in mainstream counseling and how NVC-empathy offers deeper ways of listening from the heart. We’ll explore an indigenous-aligned way of framing empathic listening, possibly next step in the “evolution” of empathic connection––coming full circle to ancestral ways of experiencing “In Lak ‘Ech.”

Session 2 B (Experienced Practitioners) Practicing Self-connection in Times of Strife with Caren Camblin

Symptoms of internal disconnect may include feeling grumpy towards everyone, having low patience for small inconveniences, ruminating/rehashing/rehearsing, and numbing out. If this sounds familiar, especially in these unprecedented times of strife, you might enjoy this experiential session using NVC to reconnect to your heartspace and what really matters to you.

1 - 2 pm Lunch & Integration

2:15 – 3:30 pm

Session 3 A (Beginner’s Track) Basics of Self-Empathy with Caren Camblin

How do you give empathy to yourself? I remember being pretty baffled by this idea when I first started learning NVC. Turns out there are concrete ways you can learn to turn your empathetic ear inward. Benefits of self-empathy include self-connection, self-soothing, and bringing more clarity and receptivity to interactions with others. 

Session 3 B  (All Levels) Conflict Improv for Relationship Repair with Rick Longinotti

We’ll use the format of Conflict Improv to uncover hidden judgements, generate self-empathy, and practice challenging conversations. 

3:45 – 5:15 pm

Session 4 A (All Levels) What Can We Learn About “Story” with Kristin Masters

Seems one key piece of utilizing NVC is knowing how our thinking is at play,  yet it can be a tricky unconscious hole to climb out of. In this “experienced” session, Kristin will guide us thru some inquiries to gain skill that lead to awareness and accountability with our stories, beliefs, narratives and assumptions. 

Session 4 B (All Levels) NVC Between Parent & Teen or Parent & Adult Child with Rick Longinotti

We’ll examine  patterns of interaction that don’t work, and practice patterns that connect: empathy, and honest expression of our needs. We’ll practice making requests and setting limits (figuring out how to meet our needs if our requests are not fulfilled). 

SUNDAY - Community Foundation in Aptos (7807 Soquel Dr, Aptos, CA 95003)

9:45 – 10 am Arrive, snacks, settle in.

10-10:30 Morning Council

10:45 – 12 pm 

Session 5 A (Beginner’s Track) Differentiations That Make a Difference (Part 1) with Eric Huang

Observations and Evaluations; Feelings and Thinking. In this interactive session, we will work in small groups to discuss and find out how to differentiate between these NVC components and their “dance partners.”  Dance skills not required.

Session 5 B (Experienced Practitioners) “Your biggest jackal is your best guru.” -M Rosenberg;  with Jean Morrison

I know we can be hard on ourselves when our Jackal habits (toward ourself and/or others) of judgments, criticism, should/shouldn'ts right/wrong and good/bad evaluating, etc. are wearing us out. Or maybe we’re tired of OTHER PEOPLE’S Jackal habits?!  Today we’ll use our Jackals to enliven  our deeper, more authentic, grounded self. Whew!!

12 – 1 pm Lunch & Integration*

1:15 – 2:30 pm

Session 6 A (Beginner’s Track) Differentiations That Make a Difference (Part 2) with Eric Huang 

Needs and Strategies; Requests and Demands. This session does NOT require you attend Part 1.  And still does not require dance skills. With both sessions, the hope is this will sharpen your skills in separating out Needs from Strategies and Requests from Demands.

Session 6 B (Experienced Practitioners) Mediating our Own Conflicts with Kristin Masters 

Wouldn’t it be amazing to have a third party available to help us through conflicts? But how do we draw on NVC skills/practices when we are one of the parties AND the person to try to hold it with integrity and care? This won’t give all of the answers, but we’ll find some good hints and tricks.

2:45 – 4:15 pm

Session 7 A (All Levels) Meeting Collective Grief with Kristin Masters

In all times, but especially in these, we need a community and a container to hold our grief and fears about the state of things in our world. Kristin will help make a space that will allow for us to name and hold what we are up against with spacious compassion. 

Session 7 B (All Levels) Feeling and Expressing Gratitude with Caren Camblin

Sometimes we think we “should” be grateful and gratitude is not always easy to access, much less express. In this session we’ll use NVC fundamentals to dive into a deeper, felt sense of heart-expanding gratitude. And we’ll play with how to share it with others!

4:15 - 4:45 pm Closing & harvesting

Host or Publisher NVC Santa Cruz