Meet the
Wise Heart Team
LaShelle Lowe-Chardé
My name is LaShelle Lowe-Chardé. I founded Wise Heart with a mission to help make a shift in consciousness about how we relate to life. I dream of a world in which we value and trust the quality of connection with ourselves and others as the primary way to build and maintain a thriving life for all. I dream of a world in which becoming a master of relationship is a central value in our global culture.
Wise Heart seeks to join with others who support this shift in consciousness that will help us create a sustainable and thriving life for all.
This passion to create change and transformation started with my family of origin. It was as rich with love as it was with loud arguments, explosions of anger, fear, and chaos. Growing up with a heart full of love and a mind wrought with confusion, I was highly motivated to find clarity and create the life of beauty and joy I knew was possible.
Ever since I can remember I have devoted myself to this search for clarity. At age six I had a vision of living in a monastery. At age eleven I started reading books on the life of the Buddha, the New Testament, the teachings of Don Juan, quantum physics, and whatever else I could find.
This quest continued through adolescence and young adulthood and led to a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a graduate degree in school psychology (Ed.S.). I then began work in public schools as a school psychologist. In addition to nine years in public schools, I spent several years facilitating group healing work for adolescent youth labeled “at-risk”. During that same time, I led leadership and teamwork trainings for businesses and organizations around Portland.
Along the way I found Compassionate/Nonviolent Communication (NVC) and began training with Marshall Rosenberg and other internationally known NVC trainers. I immediately knew that Compassionate Communication was the missing piece. It offers a deep and broad yet simple understanding of human nature along with a concrete set of tools to help us act and live from a place of clarity and compassion. For me Compassionate Communication is the hands and feet of spirituality. In 2006, I was certified as a NVC trainer.
In 2002 I realized that my work in the schools and with youth had reached its end. I left my position as a school psychologist and spent a year living in Great Vow Zen Monastery. Here I was able to do much healing work and deeply integrate NVC into my internal dialogue. Now the inner voice of compassion arises as habitually as the old voices of self-criticism and judgment did in the past. I have continued a dedicated practice to meditation and mindfulness at Dharma Rain Zen Center where I am an active member today and my husband is the abbot.
Upon leaving the monastery in 2003, I began teaching and training full time. I founded Wise Heart in 2007. I then pursued three years of training with M.E.T.A. - Mindful Experiential Therapeutic Approaches. Training with M.E.T.A. included a primary focus on Hakomi (body centered therapy) and shorter trainings on dynamics of attachment, trauma modalities, Recreation of the Self, group process, and character theory. Shortly thereafter, I completed introductory trainings in Emotionally Focused Therapy and with the Gottman Institute.
Over 20 years of training and experience have led to the articulation of a system that integrates Mindfulness, Hakomi, and NVC called Mindful Compassionate Dialogue. I am enormously grateful to the very many teachers and mentors I have had along the way and the enormous work others have done over many decades that have served our understanding of what it means to heal and live a fulfilling life.
I currently live and work in Portland, Oregon. I feel continually blessed to be living in the great northwest where the lushness of nature is all around. I am happily supported here by my partner and loving community of friends and colleagues.
Jeri Parks
Hi, I’m Jeri. It’s a delight and an honor to offer support and collaboration for Wise Heart’s community, offerings, operations, and virtual presence.
I am dedicated to cultivating inner peace through expansive understanding and relational competence, and to contributing to this learning in the world. I’m currently finishing a graduate degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, providing MCD and Hakomi based therapy for individuals and couples. In addition, I enjoy a committed daily Vipassana meditation practice, and volunteering with the Northwest Vipassana Association. I value authenticity, expression, creativity, nature, play, and rest, and have been teaching music to kids and adults for over a decade.
Mindful Compassionate Dialogue has provided profound transformation for my life. After taking a first course with Wise Heart years ago, my meditation hours became filled with cathartic grieving in deep visceral contemplation of the Feelings & Needs list and Life-Serving Boundaries. It was healing. Learning to interpret and comprehend experiences—and relationships to them—through the lens and vocabulary of MCD has been a revelation.
My gratitude for the epiphanies of awareness that MCD facilitates is humbling. The opportunity to in turn serve Wise Heart’s thriving is purely a gift. Wise Heart FTW!
Violaine Felten de Arredondo
My name is Violaine Felten de Arredondo, and I’m known as V. Originally French, I carried out most of my studies in English and have now been living in Bolivia since 2006.
In 2013, I left my business career to focus on connecting with my young daughter and finding a heart-based parenting method. While on this quest, an NVC-trained mom recommended I read Marshall Rosenberg’s book “NonViolent Communication: A Language of Life”. In the week it took me to read it, I suddenly became able to visualize and imagine a different world. I regained hope— not only for the uphill relationships in my life, but for society in general. Although I still had many doubts (“How am I going to apply this?”), I already had the sense of having (re)discovered my path. And I had an urge to share it with others.
That’s how I ended up studying, practicing, and sharing NVC in Spanish since 2016, both locally in Bolivia and online, with the general public and in organizations, through workshops, practice groups and my podcast.
Having felt dismay over the gap I observed between NVC offerings in English and in Spanish, I became passionate about making more NVC resources accessible to Spanish speakers. In this context, after several years of reading and admiring LaShelle’s connection gems, I reached out to her, hoping to make her work more accessible to Spanish speakers. In 2019 I assisted her in launching a few workshops in Spanish and we’ve been collaborating since, mainly focusing on Spanish-speaking audiences.
I find the tools LaShelle shares invaluable, the blend of Hakomi and mindfulness with NVC, which in my eyes gives the NVC practice more depth and ease of integration. However, what most motivates me in this work is LaShelle herself’s embodiment of what she teaches, her pauses and self-connection, her application of “power with,” what I receive as her authenticity and integrity as well as her spiritual connection. She is a model for me and I have grown and continue to grow through my collaboration with her.
I am a graduate of the NVC Parent Peer Leadership Program and on the CNVC certification path, as well as in the process of becoming certified in Focusing. When I am not studying or sharing these tools, I enjoy practicing qigong, gluten-free baking (and eating!) and reading.
Jean McElhaney
Jean loves discovering what can light up our hearts, give meaning to our lives, offer healing for our pain, and build connection across difference. As a licensed clinical social worker and professional counsellor, she worked with people who had experienced trauma, anxiety, depression, and grief. She also facilitated groups on topics such as mindfulness meditation, stress management, and transforming anger, shame, and guilt. She has also been ordained as an interfaith/interspiritual minister and a Sufi cheraga, certified as a Dances of Universal Peace leader, and participated in death doula training through Doorway into Light. She has an interest in nonviolence going back many years, which has led her to commit civil disobedience, lead meditations for peace, earn a certificate in nonviolence (through the Metta Center for Nonviolence), and become a certified trainer with the Center for Nonviolent Communication. She loves how Nonviolent Communication integrates her interests in language, counselling, social change, and spirituality, giving us practical tools to live nonviolence within ourselves, with others, and in the larger context of the systems in our world.
In her passion for learning more about NVC, Jean discovered Wise Heart’s weekly gems many years ago. She continues to appreciate how LaShelle Lowe-Charde offers practical suggestions for learning and applying Nonviolent Communication to daily life. In July of 2019 she was excited to finally meet LaShelle in person! Since then, she has enjoyed supporting LaShelle with her year-long course Thriving and Resilience (about the 12 relationship competencies of Mindful Compassionate Dialogue -- MCD) as well as her introductions to MCD for therapists. She especially values the quality of presence that LaShelle brings, as well as the clarity and effectiveness of the framework she has developed. Jean joins us from Aotearoa New Zealand, where she moved to from the USA in 2012.
Ava Frank
Hello, my name is Ava Frank (she/her). I am honored to serve my community as a Licensed Professional Counselor in private practice & MCD Trainer with Wise Heart. And after many years of integrating Non-Violent Communication consciousness into my life and therapeutic work it is an honor to co-create MCD Therapy and co-facilitate trainings with LaShelle teaching & mentoring healers & therapists utilizing the Mindful Compassionate Dialog (MCD) process.
Another therapist and I had the honor of sitting over the course of a year with LaShelle receiving coaching and support in integrating what would later be called MCD process into my life and practice. At the end of this year together we requested that LaShelle map out what we had been learning so it could be disseminated in a clear way to others. I’m inspired and deeply appreciative of the process LaShelle has created. When I first saw the MCD map my instant thought was “this is a map for being fully human”! It is such an empowering experience to be able to see a path forward, to have a sense of what our strengths are, and clear guidance in healing and strengthening the areas in life that keep us from living our fullest relational potential.
When I’m not doing therapy or teaching, I can be found tending to my meadow garden, dancing, enjoying time with my wife and pup, and stand-up paddle boarding. I value social and environmental justice and continue to develop a life in deeper alignment with these values.