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Sometimes the empathy you offer may stimulate disconnect or a sense of boundary crossing for the other person. To identify what might have contributed to the disconnect you can look for the signs, the level of attunement and the context, and examine what's happening in you. Read on for more.

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.

In a "power with" consciousness you're aware of, and responsible for, your needs and values while considering and hearing others needs. Whereas regarding someone with earned authority, you trust her capacity and discernment is based on her experience and expertise. Read on for signs of when you are slipping into power under, power over, or power with, and how that fits with earned authority.

Anger can alert us that a need may be threatened. When anger lives in someone as a well-worn habit, it arises from a place of dissociation from one’s heart and is entangled with misinterpretations, a deep sense of threat, a history of pain, and social conditioning that isn’t life-serving. Read on for how intention, mindfulness, and specific actions can change that habit.

With worthlessness comes the idea of not belonging or not being worthy of belonging. In this context, belonging is more than an identity with a particular group. It is the sort of belonging that enables you to get other fundamental needs met, including safety, support, nourishment, and love. Unconscious attempts win worthiness and belonging often effectively blocks the very thing its pursuing. Read on for more.

In times of stress, some part of you may still hold the belief that you can't be present for the stressor and survive. Some part of you may believe you have to go away. There are three things you can consider when attempting to intervene with the reactive pattern of shutting down: how you relate to the shutting down, access to self-confidence, and engagement. Read on for more.

Repairing betrayal may include rebuilding self trust, getting support, empathy on both sides over time, and new agreements. Even though your (in)actions don't "cause" someone's behavior, acknowledging any part you played in creating conditions for the behaviors to arise, can support repair. Trust builds slowly as new skills, ways of relating and experiences that reflect honesty, self responsibility, and respect are consistent over time.

If you ask for or give empathy and are met with accusations of codependency, there are a number of things you can do to check that you are coming from a place of healthy differentiation. You can see if you're doing so from a place of healthy differentiation -- and notice signs of healthy differentiation when you offer empathy. You can also bring a profound respect for differences, and clear boundaries. Read on for more.

Even in a conflict, you can offer emotional safety without being enmeshed -- and you can do this without sliding into strategies to gain power over another. You can prioritize connection, express your intention, make space for mutuality, honestly reveal what you care about and propose a way forward. This means caring for your needs regardless of their response -- and mourning if their response isn't what you want. Read on for more.

Worthlessness and shame are linked to the idea of not belonging or being unworthy of belonging -- that is, a deep sense of belonging to life, to your sense of self, and to our earth. Compensatory strategies to win worthiness and belonging arise from here and effectively block the very thing it is pursuing. Transformation occurs when there is a critical mass of clarity about the harm of a particular way of thinking and behaving.