The fall and winter holiday season is upon us.
Vegan/vegetarian advocacy (or even simple social “defense”) can be challenging throughout the year. But when turkey and ham dinners with family, friends, or coworkers start happening, it can be especially stressful and frustrating.
Whether you expect to be dodging snide remarks or jokes from relatives around the turkey, or you’d like to talk persuasively about veg*anism to your co-celebrants to encourage others to give it a try, this workshop can help. We’ll be talking about using NonViolent Communication (NVC)* tools to build connection, rather than divisiveness, when talking about these charged topics.
We won’t be talking about fact-based, point-by-point rebuttals to anti-veg*n statements, since there are plenty of online resources for that. We’ll be talking instead about how to get in touch with our own feelings and needs around animal rights, environmental concerns, and/or health, and conveying them–if and when we choose to–in a way that is more likely to encourage openness in our listeners, rather than argument or defensiveness. The goal of the workshop is to increase the potential effectiveness of our persuasive conversations, while also decreasing our risk for the anger, bitterness, depression, and burnout that sometimes go along with living by a certain set of beliefs that many of our loved ones may not share.
The venue is small, so attendance will be capped at six participants. There are two events: November 22 and December 13.
*Disclaimer: I am not a certified NVC instructor. However, I have been involved in studying, using, and facilitating the learning of NVC for the past twelve years, in a variety of online and in-person capacities.
Hi Maren, I’ve been studying NVC for a couple of years now, and I’m a dedicated vegan. I would like to bring NVC to my vegan community. Would you be willing to share an outline of your workshop with me? I struggle how to bring NVC in an engaging and valuable way to the vegans and activists.
Hi Julia, that’s so cool you want to bring NVC to your vegan community! Unfortunately I don’t think I still have a copy of the outline, but hopefully this can be helpful: a (kind of rough, unfortunately) video of the presentation itself. Feel free to use it as a jumping-off point to make a presentation of your own, or if you would like, you have my permission to show it to your group. https://vimeo.com/135524212 Best of luck in your efforts! I think NVC and veganism are natural “siblings.”