Research shows that couples with a secure bond experience arguments that are shorter, lower in intensity, and easier to recover from. Building and keeping a secure bond with your partner requires mindfulness and consistency: respond to what’s needed or supportive in a given moment; give them your full attention and affection in a spacious greeting; conveying care, consideration, and that they matter and are seen.

Grow your compassionate presence with this 3-process exercise. The processes include: Connecting to and feeling the Life Impulse meditation, Creating your own inner space of compassionate presence exercise, and the Compassionately Embracing visualization. These processes will guide you toward deeper self connection and compassionate presence.

Ask the Trainer: "In trainings I say our jackals are thoughts and now I've come to wonder if all thoughts are jackals...?"

Do you want to befriend your needs and live without shame about them? Would you like to increase your inner freedom by letting go of attachment to outcome? Join Miki Kashtan to learn skills and practices that will enable you to want fully without attachment.

What we refer to as "selfishness" is action taken without concern for the impact or cost of that action. Self-responsibility, on the other hand, includes actively living from the truth of interdependence, care for your and others needs, thriving of all, and more. We can access clarity of self care when we have open flexibility, curiosity, and responsiveness. Read on for more on the indicators and attributes of each of these distinctions.

One clue we have trauma is when we respond in a way we don't want (eg. being reactive, self sabotaging, etc). Even when we have high level NVC skills our trauma-related mechanisms can activate, and we can lose access to well honed NVC skills. Read on for approaches that involve healing trauma, and approaches that involve managing the effects of trauma and preventing additional trauma.

Follow worry to the underlying universal need and discern wise action. To get there, we can try out prayer, wishes, savoring the need, or compassionate witnessing. If you notice and name the aspects of worry continuously, the compassionate witnessing practice will interrupt the habitual spinning of worry-filled stories. There are at least six things you can witness with curiosity. Read on for more.

Misunderstandings can be painful. We can easily avoid this by checking what the other person understood from what we said, and ask the other person to do the same. Doing this is especially important when it comes to planning, shared decision-making, and when emotions are strong. Also, the more someone knows you, the more they think they already know what you mean -- which can get in the way of really hearing you. Here are a variety of ways to approach this simple strategy.

When feeling unworthy, powerless, or afraid, we can hear others' comments as criticism, rejection, demands, limits, or attacks. Practice self-compassion, release attachments, and ask “How can I stretch the boundaries of who I believe myself to be, in service of love?”. Try replacing love with a word that inspires you (e.g. freedom, thriving, etc). Note answers that arise later. Or explore the question with a trusted person or in a journal. Read on for examples.