Sometimes NVC is wholly dismissed by some people precisely because of this. If we are not going to say that rape, or murder, or racism, or Nazism, or communism, or child trafficking, or whatever the person in front of us believes is wrong, then we are wishy washy nonsense, says the person and walks away in a huff.

I have been on the path of liberation for decades, and most pointedly since 1996. Liberation, as I have been saying for years and years, overlaps with and is distinct from healing. Liberation, for me, is restoring capacity in areas where patriarchal conditioning has robbed us of it. It’s a …