Miki Kashtan
Miki Kashtan is a practical visionary pursuing a world that works for all, exploring the application of the principles and tools of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) to social transformation. She envisions, in great detail, local and global systems based on care for the needs of all life. Miki is the mother of the Nonviolent Global Liberation (NGL) Community and now focuses all her energy there, with only specific and few engagements with individuals, organizations, or movements. In her work with individuals, she focuses on supporting movement towards rapid empowerment in service of the whole. In her work with organizations, she focuses on creating and supporting collaborative systems and processes. In her work with multi-stakeholder groups, she focuses on transcending polarization and advocating for solutions that work for everyone. Inner freedom, nonviolence, dialogue, collaboration, interdependence, leadership, systems, conscious use of power, and a commitment to structural change are the lenses through which she looks at every moment and interaction. Some of her deepest sources of inspiration are many feminist theoreticians, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Marshall Rosenberg, Mary Parker Follett, radical economics, and the commons movement, and the entire lineage of what she developed is here. Miki strives to bring together theory and practice, spiritual commitment and conceptual clarity, radical vision and practical applications, heart and mind, self and other, personal change and social transformation.
She is also the author of The Highest Common Denominator: Using Convergent Facilitation to Create Breakthrough Solutions (2021), Reweaving Our Human Fabric: Working together to Create a Nonviolent Future (2015), Spinning Threads of Radical Aliveness: Transcending the Legacy of Separation in Our Individual Lives, and The Little Book of Courageous Living (both 2014). Her Ph.D dissertation is also freely available: Beyond Reason: Reconciling Emotion with Social Theory. Miki writes all the time, mostly at The Fearless Heart where she blogs and shares learning packets about the NGL framework and other resources. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, Tikkun, Waging Nonviolence, Peace and Conflict, Shareable, and elsewhere.
Miki is an Israeli native with significant roots in Mexico and New York City. She lived in California for thirty-seven years before choosing to vagabond in search of learning about liberation and community. She is currently based in Catalunya and is part of a home pod and in the slow process of setting up an NGL community on land. She is inspired by the role of visionary leadership in shaping a livable future, and works toward that vision by living, applying, and sharing the principles and practices of Nonviolent Communication as they are expressed within the NGL framework. nglcommunity.org
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You Sound Like a Therapist!
Miki Kashtan, Certified NVC Trainer: Miki Kashtan explains how using OFNR or "Classic NVC" is for practice, not real life situations.
This is an excerpt from Miki Kashtan's 7 part course Naturalizing NVC Language, which is also available in the NVC Library.
Keywords:
- empathy
- express... -
What is Mine to Do?
Miki Kashtan, Certified NVC Trainer: How DO we live our lives? What is an effective response to what is happening in the world? Listen in as Miki dialogs with a participant asking, "What is mine to do?", and honors the dissonance we feel when working to change.
This recording is from session 3... -
Vaccination and COVID-19: Restoring Togetherness
Miki Kashtan, Certified NVC Trainer: Struggling to navigate needs between the vaccinated and unvaccinated? How can we disagree and still understand each other? Listen in as a participant engages with Miki about her struggle to choreograph people's divergent needs around vaccines, and enjoy Miki's...
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Unacknowledged Fear Looks Like Aggression
Miki Kashtan, Certified NVC Trainer
Miki Kashtan shares how Marshall Rosenberg helped her see how unacknowledged fear can be misinterpreted as aggression and offers an elegant and simple strategy for changing this dynamic.
This is an excerpt from Miki Kashtan's 7 part course Naturalizing NVC La...
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Responding to the Call of Our Times - Living into Your Power
Miki Kashtan, Certified NVC Trainer: Want a world that truly works for everyone? What are you going to do right now to help it efficiently move in that direction from wherever you are? Listen to Miki's coaching and guidance as she's helping participants with their challenges.
Keywords:
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Reducing the Gap in Capacity Range
Miki Kashtan, Certified NVC Trainer: Each of us has a range of capacities. Miki Kashtan describes this as a range from "floor to ceiling." Floor capacity is what happens when you hit your limitation, ceiling capacity is when you are closest to functioning in line with your values and vision. This...
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Principle Based Approach to Teaching NVC Basics
Miki Kashtan, Certified NVC Trainer: It's one thing to share NVC with those who're interested, but what about those who aren't? How does meeting someone where they are create space for learning, and help you find a pathway forward? Miki Answers this and more.
Keywords:- teaching NVC
- te... -
Navigating Uncertainty: The Power of Present-Centered Decision-Making
Miki Kashtan, Certified NVC Trainer: In uncertain times, when facing important life decisions, it's common to get caught up in imagining various scenarios and potential outcomes. The desire to predict and control the future often gives a false sense of security. The key is to make decisions based...
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Increase Your Capacity and Diminish Separation Habits
Miki Kashtan, Certified NVC Trainer: The human species is trained and habituated towards separation. This model encourages humans to either give up on their needs or fight for their needs. In this short video, Miki shares how increasing capacity shifts habits of separation and supports holding of...
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I Don't Know Whether to Express Myself or Offer Empathy
Miki Kashtan, Certified NVC Trainer: Miki Kashtan discusses how focusing on connection and care can guide us in expressing honestly and offering empathy.
This is an excerpt from Miki Kashtan's 7 part course Naturalizing NVC Language, which is also available in the NVC Library.
Keywords:
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Holding the Group's Needs
Miki Kashtan, Certified NVC Trainer: Miki Kashtan shares a tip on holding a group's needs while empathizing with a single person in the group.
This is an excerpt from Miki Kashtan's 7 part course Naturalizing NVC Language, which is also available in the NVC Library.
Keywords:
- acceptance... -
From What's Fair to What's Possible
Miki Kashtan, Certified NVC Trainer: So many of us have been taught to solve conflicts by what is "fair." However, Miki Kashtan states that fairness is a separating concept. In this video, she describes how when we do not have the conditions to care for all needs involved, when we live within sep...
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From Control to Collaboration: Reclaiming Shared Decision-Making
Miki Kashtan, Certified NVC Trainer: Miki Kashtan shares how decision-making can move beyond either/or thinking into true integration—where your needs matter and so do others'. She speaks to the vulnerability and power of co-creating choices rooted in mutual care, not control. Miki invites us to ...
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Finding Our Authentic Expression
Miki Kashtan, Certified NVC Trainer: Miki Kashtan offers 3 steps we can take to access and express our deepest authentic expression.
This is an excerpt from Miki Kashtan's 7 part course Naturalizing NVC Language, which is also available in the NVC Library.
Keywords:
- NVC consciousness
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Empathy vs. Sympathy
Miki Kashtan, Certified NVC Trainer: Miki Kashtan clarifies the distinction between empathy and sympathy.
This is an excerpt from Miki Kashtan's 7 part course Naturalizing NVC Language, which is also available in the NVC Library.
Keywords:
- imagination
- empathic presence
- presence
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Contextualizing the NVC Process
Miki Kashtan, Certified NVC Trainer: Miki Kashtan explains how NVC's OFNR process is a tool to train our consciousness, rather than the "correct" way to speak.
This is an excerpt from Miki Kashtan's 7 part course Naturalizing NVC Language, which is also available in the NVC Library.
Keywords:... -
Approaching a Difficult Conversation
Miki Kashtan, Certified NVC Trainer: How do you repair a relationship when you've already said things you regret, and want to reconnect with explaining or defending yourself? Listen as Miki Kashtan offers two valuable tips.
This is an excerpt from Miki Kashtan's 7 part course Naturalizing NVC La... -
Accepting What Is
Miki Kashtan, Certified NVC Trainer: Miki Kashtan explains how naturalizing NVC language involves self care and begins with accepting what is true in the moment.
This is an excerpt from Miki Kashtan's 7 part course Naturalizing NVC Language, which is also available in the NVC Library.
Keywo... -
Developing Empathic Presence
Miki Kashtan, Certified NVC Trainer
Miki Kashtan guides a participant to find his inner empathic presence.
This is an excerpt from Miki Kashtan's 7 part course Naturalizing NVC Language, which is also available in the NVC Library.Keywords:
- acceptance
- connection
- OFNR
- naturaliz... -
10 itemsNVC Reference Guides
10 items
Referential lists, learning tools, and articles to guide you in your NVC learning experience.
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Purpose, Intimacy, and Choice: Creating Relationships that Defy Patriarchy
Miki Kashtan, Certified NVC Trainer, and Emma Quayle
Patriarchal conditioning creates a deep groove of narratives about relationships. This is an introduction to a different pathway that questions relational dyads and rests on a deep alignment of purpose and values that we can have with many peo...
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15 itemsNaturalizing NVC Language
15 items
Miki Kashtan, Certified NVC Trainer:
Learn to speak NVC using your own voice and increase ease and flow in all your personal and professional conversations. This 7-session telecourse recording with renowned trainer Miki Kashtan is designed to help you integrate NVC into all aspects of your life ...
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Dialogue with the World at Large: 4 Session Course
9 items
Miki Kashtan, Certified NVC Trainer:
A chosen, interdependent world… In most cases, that's sure not the world we live in today, is it.
But it could be the world we live in tomorrow.
And you can choose to be part of bringing that better world to life – to be part of a gradual, joyful transformati... -
The Essentials of Using NVC in Business
Miki Kashtan, Certified NVC Trainer: Miki responds to a 2014 NVC in Business Conference participant’s question concerning the focus on needs over other aspects of NVC in business communication.
Keywords:- expression
- feelings
- honesty
- needs
- strategies
- connection
- values
- leade...
