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Roxy Manning
CNVC Certified Trainer from San Francisco, California, USA

CNVC Certified Trainer from San Francisco, California, USA

Committed to compassion and fierce authenticity, Roxy Manning brings decades of service experience to her work interrupting explicitly and implicitly oppressive attitudes and cultural norms within individuals, communities, and organizations. Rooted in her experience as an Afro-Caribbean immigrant, Roxy’s passion for cultivating resilience and equity comes from seeing the vast inequities in the ways different communities were resourced throughout her development and education. Roxy has worked and consulted across the U.S. with businesses, nonprofits, and government organizations wanting to move towards equitable and diverse hiring practices and workplace cultures, as well as with individuals and groups committed to social justice in Sri Lanka, Japan, The Netherlands, and Thailand.

As a facilitator, Roxy's thrilled by the process of holding opposing voices and ushering groups from discord towards values-driven solutions that work for everyone. Her own inner work coupled with her professional experience has grown her capacity to meet people with varying levels of education, disparate life experiences, and the most intense feelings in ways that help them feel heard, respected, supported, and loved. As a psychologist, she maintains a private therapy practice, and works with the City and County of San Francisco’s Disability Evaluation and Consultation Unit, serving the unhoused and disenfranchised mentally ill population.

Roxy integrated Nonviolent Communication into her psychotherapy practice in 2003, and has been offering classes and workshops in NVC since 2005. She served as the Executive Director of BayNVC from 2014-2017, was a trainer for BayNVC’s NVC Leadership Program from 2008-2017, and has been a trainer for the Nonviolent Leadership for Social Justice Retreat since she co-founded it in 2007. As an Assessor with the Trainer Candidate Community Path team of the Center for Nonviolent Communication’s (CVNC) Educational Services group, she collaborates with other experienced assessors as she works to support people from the Global Majority who wish to develop the experience and integration of NVC consciousness that will enable them to bring the power of NVC to the communities which they serve.

Read some of Roxy’s articles on her website here: www.roxannemanning.com

NVC Library Resources with : Roxy Manning

In treating everyone the same, we perpetuate inequities. If we want NVC consciousness to spread globally, it's crucial to acknowledge how various demographics are have varying capacities, and are differentially perceived, treated and impacted. Modifying our NVC teachings can increase equity and reduce the frequent judgement, disbelief, denial, insistence, non-resonance and re-marginalization that so many experience in NVC circles.

The notion of "micro-aggressions" may be levied by those in the dominant class - for example white folks may talk about receiving micro-aggressions when a (legitimately) angry BIPOC references them as "white". This shuts down the conversation and feeds a myth that everyone's pain about race is equal. It doesn't foster dialogue that moves us towards a more equitable, compassionate world. Read on for more about the complexity.

Many believe it's only a true NVC request when we can ask for what we need without urgency or insistence. But what if we're the target of oppression and hate in a world with systemic inequality? Is it still nonviolence to abdicate power by allowing the person enacting harm to be the one to decide whether harm continues? The intensity of the need, degree of harm, and how chronically unmet the need is, are factors to guide us for when to apply force and demand within NVC. We can be attached to outcome, without being attached to strategy.

Listen in as Roxy explains how NVC approaches systemic change: through the protective use of force, the ability to self connect and connect to others, requests vs. demands, and understanding needs that are motivating behaviors. 

For many people, attempting to connect with others across differences can feel akin to walking through a minefield. With humility, tenderness, and courage, Roxy challenges your perspectives and encourages you to open your heart and mind. Roxy uses concrete examples and visual tools to illustrate complex concepts.

When supporting someone with less privilege, first check with them how you can support.  If you're reacting more strongly to their undesirable experience than they are, this then shifts the dynamic so that they're setting aside what they want to attend to your feelings and needs - this may become work that they didn't sign up for.  Read on for what to do instead to support more equity.

When conflict or criticism occurs, we can notice two layers of meaning to create connection: the content and the needs the speaker is holding. When we are able to recognize this --and ideally engage open-heartedly, with curiosity, make clear requests, imagining what they want, no matter how their expression was framed -- we have more opportunity to support the longevity of our relationships, and to decrease our loneliness when together.

The existing unequal risks and impacts people of certain race, class and identities face in society is magnified in these strenuous times -- especially with things such as illness, financial well being, discrimination, attacks, and death. As responsive NVC practitioners we can stand in solidarity with those who are differentially impacted. Read on for this, and additional ways to spot common pitfalls of doing so.

Amidst racial violence, there are things that NVC can offer. And there are places where NVC culture needs to be more vigilant. Here are examples of where, amidst incredible loss and pain, "allies" and communities commonly (and often unknowingly) create false equivalences, minimization and re-injure those who've been historically marginalized -- even when they offer empathy, or aim to stay "safe". Read on to cultivate greater understanding and ways to respond differently.

"All humans share the same needs" -- tragically, this idea can hide the reality that some people with less power in society have needs that go unmet to a greater extent, much longer, and with more dire consequences. Often, when the marginalized bring up experiences related to their membership in a certain group, their pain isn't acknowledged, and focus shifts to the listener's discomfort. The concept of universal human needs can be used to silence and minimize their pain. Read on for how to proceed.