Stories:
Youth
Personal
Professional
Exercises:
Defensive
Non-defensive
Current Bay Area Workshops for the Public
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To see the schedule of PNDC events, click on the Calendar.
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| Scroll down to read descriptions of all current workshops |
Sharon Ellison, originator of the Powerful,
Non-Defensive Communication (PNDC) process, offers regular workshops
in the San Francisco/Oakland Bay Area for people who want to learn to
integrate the practice of non-defensive communication into their personal
and/or professional lives.
In addition, other consultants in the PNDC Consortium of Trainers offer
workshops. This calendar includes PNDC workshops offered by Mady
Shumofsky.
Vicki Dello Joio offers classes and workshops in Chi Kung and the Way of Joy. Working with this foundational martial art, Vicki guides people in creating an internal, non-defensive state of being. For information, see: www.wayofjoy.com
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Using non-defensive principles and teaching techniques, |
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PNDC Workshops with Sharon Ellison
How to registerWorkshop Fee Discounts & CEU's
PNDC Workshops
PNDC Level I: Basic Workshop
PNDC Level II: Intermediate Workshop
Changing Blueprints - Changing Reality
Co-Facilitated Workshops
A meeting of Two Paths to Empowerment: Chi Kung and PNDC
Living Non-Defensively, Living in Your Power
Free Events
An evening of role - plays
A community conversation
PNDC Practice Sessions
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Current practice sessions are listed on the Calendar. |
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How To Register
For workshops with Sharon, please go to Sharon's Calendar to the specific
class you want to sign up for and email us or call the office at (510)
655-8086 to register. You can pay your deposit with a credit card over
the phone with MasterCard, Visa or American Express. You can send deposit
checks to Ellison Communication Consultants, 4100-10 Redwood Road, #316,
Oakland CA 94619. Please indicate either in the memo section on your check
or in a short note the event(s) for which you are registering.
If you are not on our E-zine list and would like to be, please let us know.
Workshop Fee Discounts
For each person you refer who takes the Basic PNDC workshop, we'll give you a $40 gift certificate. If you take one of the Level II series or the Blueprints workshop within 6 months after you take the Basic workshop, we will give you a $40 discount on each one Practice Sessions: if you take one, it will cost $60; two, $50 each; three or more, $40. If you take all six, monthly practice sessions in the series, it is $30 per session. In addition, partial scholarships are always available.
*Partial scholaships are available on all workshops and support materials.
*CEUs are available for MFTs and LCSWs for the PNDC workshops with Sharon.
PNDC Workshops
PNDC Level I - Basic Workshop
The basic Powerful Non-Defensive Communication workshop provides information on how our traditional communication model has been based on the "rules of war" and thus causes people to get defensive easily and engage in needless power struggle. We will examine the six typical defensive modes people use daily. We will discuss how common ways of asking questions, making statements, and giving predictions actually create and accelerate conflict and cause us to become controlling and manipulative, even when we have good intentions. Then we will discuss the principles of non-defensive communication and practice eight formats for listening and speaking with far greater power, even when others do not "cooperate." This new way of listening and speaking can not only can increase our self-esteem, confidence, and clarity; it is also often disarming and prompts others to be increasingly respectful and reciprocal.
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PNDC Level II Workshop
After what you learned in the basic workshop about making a transition from a "war model" for communication to a non-defensive model, you can focus on strengthening your skills. In the Level II workshop series, we spend one whole weekend on each form of non-defensive communication. You can move from "How do I figure out what question to ask?," to "Let's see, which question should I ask first?" You can get so familiar with the steps in the non-defensive statement, that it becomes more automatic and old habits of withdrawal or argument begin to disappear. And you can eliminate inhibitions about setting effective boundaries at home and at work. I have found this series to be exceptionally rewarding. Each of the three sessions will be approximately six weeks apart. Pre-requisite: Basic Workshop.
Questions - Weekend One: Learn dozens of kinds of questions so they become easier to access as an alternative to the immediate defensive response. They offer a means to deepening your understanding and enhancing creative thinking. Instead of struggling to find a single question to ask in response to what someone says to you, imagine being able to draw from a wealth of possible questions in any situation! You can learn to use the disarming power of the question to stimulate others to respond with openness and sincerity.
Statements - Weekend Two: Become so familiar with the four parts of the non-defensive statement that they are deeply internalized and an automatic framework for speaking with clarity and power without being judgmental — whether you are stating your own opinion or giving feedback to someone else.
Predictions - Weekend Three: People seldom use predictions to create boundaries in day-to-day personal and professional relationships. Predictions are often seen as just the kind of limit setting a parent does with a child. Work through any barriers in making predictions that are firm, but gentle, so others gain increasing respect for you.
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Changing Blueprints - Changing Reality
Learn to understand how we create a kind of "blueprint" or map of reality for each experience we have in life - love, success, exercise, respect, freedom, even rain. In this workshop I show how we create these blueprints at an early age, and demonstrate how they can give form to long term, self-defeating patterns in our lives that have no - win choices built into them. Each person will have opportunity to work on a significant childhood blueprint, which influences her/his life. This workshop can help you understand and change yourself at a core level, thus achieving greater fulfillment. Basic PNDC not required.
The material that forms the basis for this workshop is from my forthcoming
book.
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Co - Facilitated Workshops with other PNDC Trainers
PNDC and The Way of Joy:
A Meeting of Two Paths to Empowerment
- with Vicki Dello Joio and Sharon Ellison
The focus will be two-fold. First, it will be on using Chi Kung, a Taoist
system of gentle movement, which embodies powerful, non-defensive energy.
Vicki will guide participants in increasing their wei chi, or protective
energy, which comes from being energetically open, expansive and assertive.
It is the ability to exude so much radiant energy or chi that nothing
negative can penetrate it. The Chi Kung practice will occur outdoors if
weather permits. The second focus will be on strengthening our ability
to speak with the non-defensive power of being fully authentic. The goal
is to simultaneously enhance our non-defensive energy fields and non-defensive
verbal skills.
Living Non-Defensively, Living in Your Power -
It is only through our vulnerability that our greatest power comes
- with Monza Naff and Sharon Ellison
Become more open, spontaneous, intimate, confident and powerful as a way of being - in your relationships, your life work, and your spiritual journey. Spend a weekend exploring how to integrate your inner voice and creative expression with the power of non-defensive communication. You will have opportunity to (1) focus deeply on the prompting of you inner voice (through meditation, journaling, art, music and movement), (2) strengthen your ability to show vulnerability as an essential part of being spontaneously open, fully alive, and present in the moment, and (3) speak with confidence and authority, interacting in a natural, genuine way that enhances your integrity and ease. In this retreat we'll share, stretch into new comfort zones, and have fun!
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Free Sessions: Community Gatherings
An evening of Role-Playing: Due to the popularity of this evening of role-plays, Vicki Dello Joio and I will be offering it twice each term. During this evening, I take one example after another that audience members bring and role-play, comparing and contrasting defensive and non-defensive ways to respond. We debrief each role - play and I answer audience questions. It is always different — fun, moving, intense — PNDC in action.
A Community Pot Luck and Conversation: Sharon
hosts an evening where people can gather to talk. The last session focused
specifically on the "War on Terrorism." The focus is always
on how we can approach community issues from a non-defensive posture.
As became so apparent during the last "conversation," while
we may want peaceful solutions to local and global community issues, it
is still often hard to deal with our own frustrations without getting
defensive when there is conflict among individuals and groups with conflicting
perspectives. Learning how to integrate non-defensive attitudes when issues
are heated is a vital aspect of learning to create peace, starting with
ourselves.
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Practice Sessions: Creating non-defensive Habits
This series of practice sessions will focus on particular habits we have in communication which interfere with our ability to be non-defensive. Some of these habits, such as reassuring others when they feel insecure, may even seem to be normal, helpful ways of supporting others. Others habits, such as holding back from giving others negative feedback, may seem positive. And some habits just hold a spell over us, even though we know we want to be rid of them. We will sort it all out so we can have habits that genuinely create health.
The cost of an individual practice session is $60. If you take two of the six it is $50 per session, and three or more of the series is $40. If you take all six of the monthly sessions it is $30 per session.
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Eliminating Our Own Victim Mentality (An old favorite)
Any time we are defensive, we slip into the internal expectation of being victimized. It not only hands over some of our power to others, but locks us into resentment and characterizing others as having the intention to hurt, dominate, or manipulate. We can't protect ourselves well and damage our ability to have empathy for the other person. Learning to interact without slipping into the "victim mode" habit can free us to see the other person's strengths and weaknesses more realistically and not be intimidated.
Negative Feedback: A Key to health
We often hold back our frustrations with others regarding behaviors or attitudes they have that impact us negatively and/or cause them problems. Or, conversely, we get angry and speak to them judgmentally about anything from being self-absorbed, to not doing their share, to how critical they are. In this workshop we'll focus on how to give negative feedback in a constructive way. This is essential in order for each person to know what kind of impact they are having on others, and to gain more insight into themselves. I believe all of us need to give and receive this kind of feedback much more than we do.
Intimidation - The Red Flag for Communication
When we feel intimidated, the red flag goes up, and effective communication stops. I have been amazed, in my own life, how often intimidation stops me from speaking my mind and my heart. I have discovered that intimidation is more often a habit within myself, than it is an actual indomitable force within the other person. In this workshop we'll look at how to move through the mental block of intimidation to using non-defensive power with everyone, anytime.
How to Stop Reacting Defensively to Perceived Criticism from Others
We often hear double messages in what others say, and there are a lot of double messages when we use traditional communication methods. Then we interpret those messages, and here's where the destructive habit locks in — we frequently read criticism into what others are saying and automatically defend ourselves. "Are you ready to start dinner yet," may be read as "You should have already started dinner," and prompt a sharp, "Look I've been really busy!" In this workshop we'll examine how to respond to perceived or real criticism without defensive reactiveness.
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