Recent studies have proven it: the quality of our relationships have the greatest impact on our overall happiness and health.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/

Does that rings true in your life experience?

If it does, this workshop is an opportunity to invest time and energy to work on your relationships with yourself and with others, and live a more fulfilling life.

**** This workshop is for you if you would like to ****

** be able to deal with conflict and difficult relationship with more fluidity, confidence and trust

** develop a better relation to yourself that helps you in moments of intense emotions

** increase your capacity to listen to people that are dear to you and improve the quality of your relationships

------> Hearing and accepting ourselves....

We all have a little voice inside of ourselves that often criticizes us, telling us that we are not good enough, we could be more efficient, more creative, have a better body, be more organized... What if this voice was preventing us to live what we really yearn for?

In this workshop, Myriam invites us to transform the way we talk to ourselves. Participants will develop a capacity to hear themselves with warmth and understanding. We'll be listening deeply to what is happening inside of us, behind the judgment. This is a powerful way to find peace inside of us and the energy to live the life we dream of.

-------> A path to developing meaningful and quality relationships

Transforming the relationship we have with ourselves can help us deepen our connections to our life partners, children, colleagues, neighbors, and even people that are sometimes "difficult to talk to".

In our daily lives, when someone doesn't talk or act in a way that we find acceptable or desirable, we start building judgment about this person. This may confine him or her in our misunderstanding of who they truly are. This is preventing us from really connecting and understanding each other. Going past this judgment is not easy. We haven't learned to hear what is behind what someone says or does and reach his or her humanity.

Through interactive exercises, you will learn to

- connect to what you really want and make sure you will stand up for your needs

- develop the capacity to talk to people you find hard to talk to

- ignite collaboration

- go faster to a win-win solution that works for everyone!

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Here is the outline of the workshop:

Saturday morning: Connecting to ourselves and finding inner peace, a path to a more fulfilling life

Saturday afternoon: Going from strategies to needs in order to have more choice

Sunday morning: Learning to listen truly to each others and offer empathy

Sunday Afternoon: Seeing behind the judgment and practicing difficult conversations

The workshop isn't theoretical: after each piece of new information, concrete exercises will help the participant to integrate and apply it to their daily lives. We will have coffee breaks regularly to keep the energy flowing.

**** What past participants have said: ****

" Myriam's passion for her work really shone through and got me excited about NVC! She incorporated such a variety of activities in her workshop that I was always interested and fully engaged for the two days."

"As an NVC facilitator, Myriam creates a safe and welcoming space for the deep emotional work to take place. She seems to be connected to her emotions and body which enlivens the workshop as well as her great sense of humor."

" I experienced perceptual changes and deeper understanding of my needs and how to express them in just 2 days!"

******

Food:

Coffee and tea will be served as well as light snacks.

Please bring your own cold lunch, (you can also decide to go buy some food at Quality Foods nearby), we will be eating together in the Pacific Gardens dining room from 12 to 2pm.

******

Price:

100$ - 300$ sliding scale for 12 hours of training

To confirm registration:

https://forms.gle/ZGS3KaQfkNovkuCn6

Please pay by Etransfer to myriam.verzat@gmail.com to confirm your reservation.

*** How to decide how much to pay? **

The money you contribute helps me to sustain my work. In average, I need each participant to pay 200$ to have those workshops sustainable. And I know this amount of money is not easily available for everyone. If you contribute more than $200, you help someone else come to the workshop who couldn't otherwise.

Here is some considerations to decide how much you wish to contribute (source: https://www.ridefreefearlessmoney.com/blog/2016/05/sliding-scale-1/)

Consider paying less on the scale if you.

- are supporting children or have other dependents

- have significant debt

- have medical expenses not covered by insurance

- receive public assistance

- have immigration-related expenses

- are an elder with limited financial support

- are an unpaid community organizer

- are a returning citizen who has been denied work due to incarceration history

Consider paying more on the scale if you:

- own the home you live in

- have investments, retirement accounts, or inherited money

- travel recreationally

- have access to family money and resources in times of need

- work part time by choice

- have a relatively high degree of earning power due to level of education (or gender and racial privilege, class background, etc.) Even if you are not currently exercising your earning power, I ask you to recognize this as a choice.

If 100$ is still a barrier, please communicate with me, I am sure we can find creative ways for you to contribute other than money :)

***********

About the facilitator

MYRIAM VERZAT

Nonviolent Communication (NVC) has been a very important part of Myriam’s life since she was a teenager. It is a process and a way of relating to each other that her parents have used in her family of four children, allowing deep and beautiful connections to unfold. She can see how much accepting emotions and listening to each other has helped tremendously the quality of her relationships with her husband, child, friends, neighbours and coworkers. After reading and experiencing NVC by herself for many years, she studied and shared Nonviolent Communication in Montreal. She is now sharing NVC in Nanaimo and collaborates with Angela Walkley from Farthest Shore.

Myriam has the deep conviction that the way we relate to ourselves and to each other is at the core of the type of violence we observe and perpetuate in the world. She wants to support leaders, schools, organizations and families to contribute to the profound social and environmental shift that needs to happen if we want to survive as a species on this planet. Thanks to her past experience as environmental educator and artist in dance theatre, she sometimes incorporate in her teaching of NVC nature connection and artistic approaches. To know more about her, please visit: http://www.myriamverzat.com.

The workshop is hosted in partnership with the Salish Sea Empathy Society (http://www.salishseaempathysociety.com/)