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When we don't like what someone is saying to us, sometimes people encourage us to hear their needs, and "not take it personally" -- and we're inclined to agree.  Could "not taking it personally" close our hearts and awareness to others, life and ourselves?  Rachelle Lamb invites us to take a closer look at what it's like when we attend to the situation from our hearts, and skillfully reflect upon our actions with tenderness.

Trainer Tip: Sometimes we need to empathize with a person before he can hear our anger. Consider that all anger is an expression of an unmet need. If we focus on the need, rather than the actions, we are more likely to connect compassionately with other people. Be aware of opportunities to empathize with someone’s anger today.

Anger is an emotion we'd often like to disown! Shantigarbha offers us five tips for "finding the life" in our anger, and ends with a short, guided reflection.

One way to understand trauma is it means we got a blow greater than our nervous system can tolerate – then we move into hyperarousal, and then hypoarousal or dissociation. This cycle can continue long after. Here, we're not able to fully process emotional cues, information, our body, and others. It's important we consider re-writing the cultural paradigm of separation so that our trauma doesn't get marginalized.

This trainer tip suggests ways to transform blame in to personal power. He suggests having multiple sources of support and multiple pathways to achieving the outcome you want, to allow more room to hear a "no". Read on for more.

Bask in this telecourse recording with Kathleen Macferran and explore ways to nurture and maintain greater depths of joy by focusing on gratitude.  The reward?  To increase your ability to live fully present to the joy in life, even in the midst of pain.

Discover how our unconscious contracts limit our life energy and how we make a vow or contract every time we experience a traumatic event. Listen in as Sarah works with a course participant.

• 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.”

Finding your power in seemingly powerless situations doesn't mean denying what happened, your feelings, your needs, nor the behavior of others that didn't meet needs. It does mean reexamining those situations with the intention to compassionately look for your contribution and for clues to your hidden perceptual biases. Read on to learn about about finding these clues, and more.

For each reactive pattern there is a perceived threat to a tender need. Knowing these tender needs helps us figure out how to interrupt these patterns and creating new ways of perceiving and relating to life. In addition to knowing the need, knowing the healing response and the primary reactive behavior helps with transformation.