Beyond Agreeing to Disagree – Maintaining Integrity and Connection when Our Understandings of Reality Differ

Hybrid Service (In person and on Zoom)

Speaker: Pam Winthrop Lauer

In this presentation, you will learn some basic principles of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) that will help you to tend to your own fears, maintain integrity, and still open your heart to friends and family members who see the world very differently than you do. It does take some work and practice.

Here are some questions that Pam Winthrop Lauer will aim to help you think of strategies to deal with them:

  •  Have you given up on staying connected to people whose views seem dangerous to you?
  •  Do you sometimes nod your head in order to get along, but inside feel awful for betraying your own convictions?
  •  Do you sometimes feel you MUST set them straight, all the while knowing they won’t believe you?
  •  Do you find “agreeing to disagree” maintains peace but also leaves a bit of a wall between you?
  •  Believe it or not, it IS possible to stay in compassionate connection without betraying your own integrity.

Pam Winthrop Lauer is a spiritual director and Certified Trainer with the Center for Nonviolent Communication (cnvc.org). Based in St. Paul, Minnesota, Pam has been practicing NVC since 2006 and doing NVC training, mediation, and coaching full-time since 2016. For Pam, NVC is a practical “how-to” practice for living with an open heart.

She will be presenting to us via Zoom instead of in-person.