About Vika
Vika Miller, MA is a visionary educator, speaker, cultural creative, and relationship whisperer who loves to awaken and empower deep, authentic connection with ourselves, with each other, and with Life Itself.
Her big-picture Calling and deepest devotion has always been to help (re)create a world where we can all genuinely thrive — personally and collectively — in a sustainable, attuned dance of connection with the Community of Life on Earth, of which we’re an eternal, irrevocable part.
Her greatest genius lies in being able to discern key patterns and principles at the individual, relational, and systems levels, and to share these game-changing discoveries through extraordinarily powerful, paradigm-shifting distinctions that are astonishingly easy to understand and apply in real, everyday life.
All in a warmly welcoming, playful, relational field of compassion, authenticity, and shared humanity.
Because, as she likes to note, “Being human doesn’t get solved. But it can become wonderful.”
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Vika was awarded a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology and Education from Carleton College, and a Master of Arts Degree in Economic Development and Social Policy from the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs.
In her mid-20s she served as Vice President of Operations for a startup behavioral health consulting firm that grew into a nationwide organization under her direction. At the same time she was a partner in The Himmelman Consulting Group, a public/private/nonprofit collaborative facilitation consulting company.
In the late 1990s, lightning struck: Vika encountered Nonviolent/ Compassionate Communication (NVC). NVC contributed essential missing elements that Vika interpreted in a groundbreaking way, making a major contribution to NVC worldwide by recognizing that NVC’s “needs” are every living thing’s pathways to thriving; changing the order of NVC’s 4 steps (because who can make a genuine observation when they’re upset?); and recognizing that thriving is the goal of not only communication but everything else anybody ever does;
Vika has integrated and practiced these Thriving Life-adapted core NVC distinctions in every aspect of her life, ever since.
In 2011, Vika became a partner in Rose City NVC, and within 4 months grew that practice into the largest NVC training organization in the state of Oregon.
Vika has taught NVC to residents serving life sentences in Oregon’s State Penitentiary (a maximum security prison) and Columbia River Correctional Institution. She’s proud to be a former Executive Director of the Oregon Prison Project.
When she’s not sharing her passion for midwifing others’ thriving lives and amazing relationships, you can find her joyfully biking the Minneapolis chain of lakes; dancing argentine tango; cooking delicious food that’s dramatically expanded her thriving lifespan; kayaking down Minnehaha Creek; and communing with whales and scuba diving as often as possible.
You can connect with Vika online as well as in Minneapolis, MN; Portland, OR; and nationally and internationally by request.