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Trainer Tip: Whether there is the potential of physical or emotional violence, listening deeply to the underlying needs of the people in conflict can be swift, direct, and healing. Look for opportunities to defuse conflicts by reflecting the feelings and needs of the other person.

• Ask the Trainer: “I would like some suggestions on how to interact with a member of the practice group I started. This individual speaks and acts in a manner I interpret as angry and controlling.”

In most business environments, purpose holds a higher priority than connection. Listen to Miki discuss the strategy of using minimum connection to remain true to the purpose at hand, and how the purpose of empathy may differ in the workplace.

Listen to CNVC Certified Trainer Dian Killian guide and ease you into a more natural expression of empathy. This is a three person exercise. Listen in and then give it a try!

Trainer Tip: Mary offers 3 foundational tips for making requests: positivity, specificity and doability.

Why is it so difficult to not take things personally? It's because everything reinforces the sense that whatever is being said is indeed about us – both from without and from within. However, we can get better at not taking things personally with a practice of shifting our focus by being open to multiple interpretations, understanding that our reaction is about our own need, and noticing how the other person’s words, no matter how they sound to us, are an expression of their needs. We can then be more present and available to navigate the situation.

Trainer Tip: Mary explains why success isn't dependent upon another person's pain, by reaching for consensus instead of self-sacrifice.

When we have privilege, we can have access to resources resulting from legal or social norms related to membership in a group -- independent of any (in)action, awareness of the disparity, the potential benefits to us, or the costs to others. Unhelpful ways of engaging with privilege are: denial/invisibility, guilt/shame, defensiveness, and entitlement. Helpful ways of engaging are: owning privilege, learning about privilege, opening to feedback, and stewarding privilege for benefit of all. To be helpful we need to engage with necessary (rather than unnecessary) discomfort.

The human brain is a conservative organ that comprises different systems with varying degrees of conscious awareness, which evolved in three basic stages of human history (the lizard-squirrel-monkey brain.) In my understanding, we could say, the brain has strong needs for understanding, order, predictability and meaning. In fact, one of its key functions is to process experiences, and predict what the world is like, in order to maximize survival.  CNVC Certified Trainer Stephanie Bachmann Mattei explores the biological basis of our inner jackal voices.