How I became a Nonviolent Communication (NVC) trainer, by Yoram Mosenzon:
TWO-YEAR NVC PILGRIMAGE
“I’m not going back home.”
THE TURNING POINT
I first encountered NVC in 2001, and since then, I’ve been deeply passionate about applying it in my life. In 2008, I set aside my career in dance and performance to dedicate myself fully to NVC.
The turning point came after a week-long NVC training in Poland.
At the end of the training, I went with the trainer, Éva Rambala, to the airport. She was on her way to Switzerland, while I had a flight back to Paris. We sat together, resting and waiting for our flights to be announced. As I watched the people around me, I felt a wave of fear. I thought to myself: How can I be with people if there isn’t honesty and deep-seated empathy in our interactions? These were the core qualities I experienced so deeply embodied in the practice of NVC, and they were severely absent in the culture that awaited me back home.
~ I looked at Éva and said, “I’m not going back home.”
This also meant I wasn’t going back to dancing. At that time, I had no money. We went to the ticket desk, and Éva generously paid for my flight to Switzerland to follow her to the next training. This marked a turning point in my life. I gave up my apartment in Paris and embarked on a two-year journey without a home. Today, I refer to this journey as my ‘NVC pilgrimage’ because of its profound emotional and spiritual significance. The religious sites were not external monuments but rather sacred places within my inner world, which I learned to access through the practice of NVC.
Éva was teaching across Eastern Europe, and I followed her, hitchhiking from one training to the next. Along the way, I started giving introductions to NVC to the drivers who picked me up. It felt like the perfect way to practice: they were available, and I knew I wouldn’t see them again, which made it feel safe enough to start teaching, even though I was terrified and believed I wasn’t good enough.
At the time, I had no teaching experience. However, I strongly believed in the principle that practice leads to quality. So, I kept at it, teaching in all kinds of settings. Over time, people began inviting me into their living rooms to share NVC with their friends and family. I traveled across Europe from one living room to another, and my teaching slowly expanded to reach more people.
A FEW CORE LEARNINGS I RECEIVED
After two years of wandering, my soul was seeking solid ground. I longed for a home and a single wardrobe where all my belongings could rest. Amsterdam became my harbor, and is my present resting place. The miles I had crossed lay behind me, yet their echoes remained, whispering through my body, stirring the quiet tides of my mind, weaving truths into the fabric of my bones.
I love people
More than anything, I have come to understand that I am a social being—or, as I like to say, I am obsessed with people, whether I want to be or not. People fill my thoughts; I dream of them, think about what they think of me, I hate, I care, I get lost in people, and more than anything else in this life, I love people.
Since they shape the very fabric of my world, I wish to meet them with awareness, skill, depth, and care. NVC is, by far, the most powerful approach I have found to help me live my obsession with grace.
NVC seems simple: just four steps. Yet after many years, I still feel like a beginner, stumbling my way toward embodying its essence. I don’t care about NVC as a theory, what matters to me is weaving it into the fabric of my life, letting it guide me toward the kind of honesty that keeps me in connection, in collaboration, in closeness, and in love.
In this world, I sense that we have much room for improvement in how we treat one another. We all know how we want to be treated, yet we understand very little about the extreme delicacy of navigating relationships and treating others in the way they want and need to be treated.
My body is my spiritual guide
All I wish is to be in reality as it is. Reality is life, and life is profoundly intelligent—far more so than my mind.
Before discovering NVC, my life revolved around the question: How can I be happy? And time and again, I was disappointed when happiness remained out of reach. But I have come to value pain as much as joy, seeing both as clear guidance on how to care for life.
My life is no longer about seeking happiness; it is about being in reality as it is and allowing myself to be guided by a greater intelligence that comes from the body.
Sensations, feelings, and needs are the ways my body, nature, or God (call it as you will) guides me with the utmost precision. The more I trust this intelligence planted within me—my feelings and needs—the more I am amazed by how much it already knows about navigating relationships and nurturing life.
FAST FORWARD TO 2025
Today, 24 years after being introduced to NVC and 17 years after I began sharing its gifts, I lead NVC workshops around the world.
In 2008, I founded Connecting2Life—an NVC center based in Amsterdam and online—where I share the practice of Nonviolent Communication widely and internationally. Connecting2Life now consists of eight trainers.
Each year, we reach thousands of people, both online and in person, including the general public, teams, businesses, schools, and more. We offer this through teaching, mediation, team and group facilitation, one-on-one sessions, and other services.
We do this while holding a broad vision of a grassroots movement—a cultural revolution—one that reshapes the way we see and treat ourselves and one another, nurtures the felt experience of belonging, strengthens the bonds of community, and breathes life into the art of cooperation—the essence of being human together.