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Trainer Tip: If you are motivated by fear, guilt, blame or shame, your actions will usually be motivated by avoiding pain. The best way to experience permanent, lifelong change is to focus on how your life will improve when you make a change. Notice when you attempt to motivate yourself and others with guilt, blame, or shame today, and then look for motivations that enrich life instead.

Trainer tip: In every interaction, we have a choice of responding in one of these four ways: judge/blame self, Judge/blame others, empathize with self, and/or empathize with others. The goal is to make a conscious choice about our response. Notice the choices you have when you receive someone’s communication today.

Trainer Tip: When someone acts in baffling ways we can either wonder about what’s going on with the other person, create our own stories about it (blame, resent, make assumptions), or inform ourselves by asking. This is an opportunity to learn something new.

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.

Taking 100% Responsibility offers a powerful antidote to the all-too-common dynamic of blaming that leaves you in the victim position and unable to have the relationship you want. Miki invites you to assume a stance of leadership while holding full care for both parties’ needs. No longer will you need to wait for the other person to change, nor will you need to give up your needs to reach harmony.

Mismanaged emotional pain can compound and hurt ourselves and others. Four ways we can mismanage pain are: denial, blame, depression, and escape/numbing. This can result in hatred, resentment, discrimination, revenge, anger, and more problems. The fifth way we can deal with pain is to confront the pain acknowledging it and dealing with our unmet needs. This is a more direct path. Read on for more ideas for how to handle the pain.

Trainer tip: Be aware of times when you are judging others, demanding, making comparisons, or denying responsibility for your actions. Notice how these communication patterns affect your connection with other people.

Self responsibility is owning what's yours. It involves identifying your observations, evaluations, feelings, longings, and more. When we identify what's truly ours we are unlikely to mistake it as coming from outside of us. Self responsibility is not self blame. Without self responsibility, we project, blame and judge. Self-responsibility is central to clarity and full self-awareness. This exercise will guide you there.

Ask the Trainer: "I'm part of a small, self-led NVC group that's been working together for almost two years. We are experiencing some growing pains in that we're still not certain how and under what circumstances to make requests, especially negative ones."

Ask the Trainer: "What guidance do you have for working with enemy images? Can you say some things about processes and/or exercises that can bring relief from this trap?"