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Before you make a request you can connect fully to a time when your need was met. Notice how your request feels and sounds different from this place of aliveness. Excitement about meeting a need implies confidence and trust about moving forward together. Offer an invitation to find strategies that work for both of you.

CNVC Certified Trainer Shantigarbha Warren offers a report of his recent NVC training trip to Israel/Palestine, India and Sri Lanka and clarifies how NVC can support social change in three very different contexts. Included is an exercise, based on Gandhi’s teaching.

When we are completely involved in an activity for its own sake we are in engagement. Here, the ego falls away and time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one. Our whole being is involved, and we're using our skills to the utmost. Read on for activities that could stimulate engagement, a list of subjectively experienced elements of engagement and a list of what supports engagement.

Without self-acceptance any attempt at growth and transformation, even while parenting, can easily become a path to self-judgments and another yardstick against which to measure ourselves as falling short. Instead, we can practice 1 minute a day or more, or while doing other tasks, to develop the self-compassion and self-acceptance needed to grow both new habits and our capacity to meet our children with calm and compassion.

In some situations you might expect people to show a degree of maturity or skill. When they don't, your anger-fueled response doesn't lead to lasting improved relationship change. Instead, find someone who retains focus on your feelings and needs rather than colluding with you about what should(n't) be. This can support greater acceptance, grief, vulnerability, groundedness and discernment, from which next steps can arise.

Building trust involves each person taking responsibility for what they want by identifying their needs, and making specific and doable requests that open a negotiation. Identify in what contexts you already have trust, what you want to be able to trust, and how you may be blocking or cultivating that trust. Making requests for specific actions of what to do differently can also help.

When someone's behavior costs us, we may attempt to negotiate as much as possible. After some rounds of this, if there's no change we may reach a tolerance limit. So we may set a boundary for self care and clarity about what's unworkable. But depending on intentions and the way its said, this may or may not be a punishment to get even. Here, clarity about intentions, feelings, needs, actions and dialogue may support us.

When you don't have a sense of being heard you can apply skills to help you can interrupt cycles of reactivity and resentment, and create connection. Let's look at six ways that will support you in being heard. These are clarity about the topic and needs; supportive conditions; respect for autonomy; sharing your intention; attending to emotional security; and making clear requests.

Kelly Bryson, CNVC Certified Trainer known for teaching people how to live authentically, focuses this audio on honesty: how to express what you're most afraid to say, when honesty is the best choice to support connection and how to employ "naked" honesty.