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Responding to your own reactivity is an inside job. Robert reveals how your reactions are often a secondary reaction to a triggering stimulus, and that accepting responsibility for your reactions can lead to less blame and more inner peace.

When we care about our cause and want to mitigate disaster, we may become reactive. However, transformation comes through connection, rather than convincing, judging, criticising, controlling, and making demands of others. To inspire change, get curious about how they relate to the topic – and get support for yourself elsewhere to process grief, become more present and compassionate, speak self-responsibly, and make requests.

Often, honoring someone’s choice supports more connection. Thus, checking in with someone’s choice to listen or not (offering autonomy) sets the stage for being heard more fully. On the other hand, when someone has the perception that you are talking to them without considering their choice, resentful listening might result. Here are ways to mindfully check in about choiceful listening before starting a conversation.

Roxy Manning discusses the connection between the challenges parents face with their children and the qualities they want them to develop. She highlights the importance of aligning actions with desired outcomes, using the example that if parents value independence, they should encourage choice rather than demanding compliance. She encourages parents to consider the long-term impact of their parenting choices on shaping their children's future behavior.

Join Dian Killian as she reframes the 4 steps of NVC (observations, feelings, needs, requests) into everyday words you might hear at work.

Trainer Tip: Notice when you're tempted to wield physical, emotional, and intellectual power to get your children to do what you want. This coercion or force may bring short term ease, but long term it can be counterproductive. Ask yourself “What do I want my child to do?” and “What do I want my child’s reasons for doing it to be?”. Then consider ways to help them connect to their intrinsic motivation for doing it.

When it comes to how you're achieving your goals, notice what you value. Is achievement coming at others' expense? Where is your sense of worth and validation derived from? Do other people in some way set the bar that you strive to surpass? Without comparing to other people, what does success mean to you? Read on for a related story.

Trainer Tip: We can voice our upset about a situation and still see the higher self in the other person. Honest expression can deepen connection and bring us closer to resolution and connection, when we're not judging them. To know that they're a spiritual being, but think they're an insensitive slob or egotistical bore, is a contradiction. Instead, look for the needs they want to meet. See the spiritual being in everyone—even yourself.

Miki Kashtan hosted Living Room Radio Show on KPFA Radio 94.1FM in Berkeley, California, USA. Listen as she works with a a woman whose relationship is challenged by what happens when her lover drinks. In this segment, Miki encourages the caller to get support for her stress, find an outlet for it and receive empathy. Miki addresses the challenges of addiction, the self-judgment of trying to meet needs by drinking and the pain this causes for everyone involved. She further suggests that the caller try to connect to the needs he is trying to meet by drinking, and to identify those that are actually being met and those that aren’t.

Observation is the awareness of our sensory perceptions and thoughts, separate from evaluations and judgments. Feeling involves bodily sensations and emotions, distinct from "faux feelings" that mix thought and emotion. Needs encompass universal human requirements for survival and wellness, while thoughts and evaluations express needs. Requests are rooted in connection and invite true willingness, rather than demanding compliance.

Trainer Tip: The exchange of resources, that is, exchanging money for an item or service, is enhanced and better appreciated when we are connected to its personal value rather than its cost.

Effective and connected dialogue requires significant self-awareness, mindfulness, and skill. You can focus on any of these six areas that most often escape your awareness: anchoring and staying grounded; boundaries; thoughts and beliefs; stuckness or attachment; feelings and needs; and requests. Read on for a list of questions to help you focus on how to do that.

If we befriend our fear we cannot be paralyzed by it. Every fear that arises is a moment to increase our capacity. Fear is connected to something that is precious to us. We also can see what we do to numb our pain and how we try to avoid it. This knowledge can help us to choose healthier strategies to deal with our fears.

Trainer Tip: It's up to us to get our own needs met. Mary offers some encouraging tips to do just that!

“Nonviolence” is not just a political tactic. It is a “soul force,” a courageous and compassionate stand in the face of what seems to us unjustly unequal, oppressive, and violent. It is the force of love meeting and transforming what appears to not be love.. It is the force of love meeting and transforming what appears to not be love. It is speaking and listening with courage, compassion, and an open heart and mind and rooted in our truth in a way that bridges understanding. And doing so without demand nor trying to convince -- all in the face of any anger, fear, oppression, inequality, violence or disagreement.

When avoidance coping or positive thinking sidesteps challenges, internal and external injustice and unrest also rises as we sidestep our values and integrity. It leaves us in sadness and distress. What's unacknowledged impacts ourselves and others undesirably. To live nonviolently we need to be in touch with what's real. With resonance we can more likely be with what's true, and trust our resilience and inner alignment.