Reality NVC 2: Remarkable Women 

Living Truth

A series of 6 lunchtime drop in sessions

Welcome to Reality NVC 

The Reality NVC program aims to bring stimulating and exciting themes into the realm of NVC, inviting a live correspondence in the moment for a more enlivening and connecting experience.  We will be bringing alive the poets, writers, artists, philosophers, community movers and makers, and the such like.  

The Experience

Through NVC lens and practice, we'll explore how these visionaries integrated inner work with outer transformation. Sessions include dialogue, reflection, needs exploration, and practices for embodying their wisdom in our own lives and communities.

Who's Welcome?

NVC practitioners at all levels, activists, change-makers, and anyone seeking to align personal integrity with collective liberation. Bring your questions, your struggles, and your longing for a better world.

When?

February 12, (NOT 19) 26, March 12, 19, 26. April 02  2026   (Thursdays 12.15 - 1.15)

Remarkable Women

Six remarkable women whose clarity about needs, values, and human dignity reshaped how we understand authority, wisdom, and what's possible

Each session explores the direct evidence of their lives - edicts, writings, testimonies, and teachings - not interpretations by others, but the actual traces of those who connected deeply to universal human needs when familiar power structures said "impossible." We'll practice hearing the needs alive in their choices, the values that moved them, the requests they made of life itself.

Core Themes We'll Explore Through NVC

• Your Response - sensing into what the meaning might be in terms of your own relationship with power and authority
  
• Power WITH vs. Power OVER - how these women embodied collaborative power rooted in meeting needs rather than domination
• Clarity of needs and values - the universal human needs (autonomy, dignity, contribution, meaning) that moved them beyond cultural "shoulds"
• Tragic expressions of unmet needs - understanding the violence and oppression they faced as tragic strategies arising from unmet needs for control, certainty, belonging
• Self-connection as revolutionary act - how deep connection to their own needs and values enabled them to act with courage
• Empathy across difference - how some built bridges through understanding needs beneath positions, even with adversaries
• Life-serving strategies that changed history - their creative responses to meet needs when familiar strategies were blocked

Session Titles and Dates

Thursday February 12 

COMPLETED

Malala Yousafzai: "Education as Universal Need - Speaking Truth to Violence" - Young activist whose UN speeches express crystal clarity that education meets fundamental human needs for growth, understanding, contribution, and hope; we'll hear how she transforms her own experience of violence into advocacy that connects to universal needs, offering requests to the world rather than demands or blame

NO SESSION 19 FEB

COMPLETED

Thursday February 26

Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya: "Pure Connection - Love Beyond Fear or Reward" - Sufi mystic whose prayers express the need for authentic spiritual connection freed from strategies of fear-based obedience; we'll hear in her teaching stories the mourning of connection lost when religious practice becomes duty rather than love, her life a celebration of direct relationship with the divine

COMPLETED

Thursday 12 March

Cleopatra VII: "Strategic Partnership - Meeting Needs Through Alliance" - Last pharaoh whose diplomatic brilliance shows exquisite understanding of needs beneath political positions; we'll explore how she built alliances by connecting to others' needs (Caesar's need for legitimacy in Egypt, Antony's need for resources and partnership), her multilingual capacity as tool for deep empathic understanding across cultures

COMPLETED

Thursday 19 March

Simone de Beauvoir: "Naming the System - From Confusion to Clarity About Needs" - Philosopher whose The Second Sex helped millions of women connect to their own needs beneath socialized compliance; we'll explore how she gave language to the "odd feeling" women had, translating vague dissatisfaction into clarity about unmet needs for autonomy, choice, and self-determination

COMPLETED

Thursday 26 March

Rigoberta Menchú (1959– Guatemala)
Indigenous activist whose testimony brought global awareness to human rights abuses and indigenous struggles.

NEXT...

Thursday 2 April

Greta Thunberg; is a young climate activist whose voice has inspired millions to care more deeply about the future of our planet. In an NVC context, she can be understood as speaking from a place of deep care, urgency, and a longing for responsibility, protection, and change.

Each session invites us to connect with these women through the NVC lens - to hear the needs alive in their impossible choices, to notice what resonates with our own needs as we encounter their courage, to practice translating their historical moments into the timeless language of human needs and values that connect us all.

Contribution and Sustainable based Pricing

(See 'Buy ticket' for actual costs, make sure you scroll all the way down).

These sessions require significant preparation, facilitation, and follow-through. Pay what feels true for your circumstances, honouring both your financial means whilst valuing this creation. Your honest self-assessment—supported by those who can contribute more—keeps this work available to all. I am of course delighted to receive what you give. My dog, Skye, and cat, Miss Pippin, will also wag their tails.

• Any Session: General Admission                   £15.00
• Any Session: Concession                                £12.50
• Super-save on All 6 Sessions                         £60.00
• Per Session Financially Strapped                  £6.00
• Per Session Beyond Financially Strapped:   By Donation

(See 'Buy ticket' for actual costs, make sure you scroll all the way down).

You might also like 

Reality NVC The Residential 

- a 3 day event at the exquisite Braziers Park

Living Truth confidently where Angels Fear to Tread @ Braziers Park

In the Focusers Guide Series, you might also be interested in:

FOCUSERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY: POETS OF EMBODIED WISDOM. 

What are you going to do with your one and only Precious Life? 

See also Focusers Guide to GREAT PHILOSOPHERS and INDIGENOUS WISDOM HOLDERS

Deepen your NVC and Focusing Training:

Focusing Skills Training and Events      Nonviolent Communication      

Embodied Empathic Presence Trilogy for Restorative Wellbeing & Community - 3 Residentials @ Braziers Park.

Meet Simon 'K2' McKibbin

Presence Guide, Mentor, Friend and Coach.

We are living in unprecedented times—both thrilling and unsettling with forces beyond our control at play on financial, global, environmental, and social levels. The lack of meaning in materialism has left our culture's social fabric empty, sowing confusion in our identities and a sense of lostness about what it means to feel secure, grounded in the natural order, and truly connected to others and the awe and mystery of the universe.

We live in a culture of atomization where technology promises connection yet alienates us further—moving from Cartesian "I am" to Apple "I-Phone," faces frozen and hypnotized by screens. The proliferation of information competes for our attention—it's hard to draw breath and sense our true identity as sovereign beings.

And yet... in every moment, the sun rises and stars offer their soft light. The ground remains ever faithful, lovingly supporting us. Birds continue to sing, trees remain rooted, oceans stay deep, and there is richness and beauty in every precious, tingling, vibrant moment. A silky breath slides into our bodies from the skies as the universe continues breathing through us, perfuming every cell with vibrancy and warmth. We are here now, alive—coming home to ourselves is the prayer of every star, every mote of dust. Something deep within knows how to return to its authentic original self—like a hidden gem stitched into a garment's lining, we had it all the time. Embodied Relational Presence offers a portal to true self-empowerment where we realize we are not foam buffeted by waves, but the ocean itself.

For over 34 years, I've supported individuals and communities toward greater personal and professional empowerment through Mindfulness, Nonviolent Communication, and Focusing—practices that unlock our capacity to live more fully, creatively, and courageously. My work bridges inner transformation with outer change, rooted in active commitment to ecological regeneration, social equity, and nonviolent living through grassroots organising and co-creation. I invite you into this portal of Embodied Relational Presence—where there is autonomous, sovereign, connected, and irrepressible life—to become both magician of your own wholeness and powerful ally for planetary regeneration and collective wellbeing.

Experience: CNVC Certified NVC Trainer | BFA Focusing Teacher | Breathworks Mindfulness Teacher | Associate Mindfulness Teacher, University of Cambridge (2017–2023) | Extinction Rebellion consultant, mediator & trainer | Møller Institute Cambridge University Executive Coaching Guest Lecturer | Mindfulness in Schools Project (MISP) teacher | Triratna Buddhist Order member | Samaritans volunteer

Contact Simon simon@living-presence.co.uk