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Trainer Tip: People tend to look, act, and sound softer when they have been more fully heard. If you're unsure whether someone has been heard and you want to be cautious, you may ask them, “Is there anything else you’d like me to hear?”. If you try to reason with or educate them before they're heard, they'll likely respond negatively. After they're heard, you may notice a willingness on their part to listen and proceed.

How do we talk to ourselves and with others about polarizing topics in a way that's supportive? Seek to understand and be understood rather than press for agreement. Bring mindfulness into the conversation. Slow down and use structure to support everyone. Release knowing the solutions, answers or outcomes. Keep focus on shared universal needs. From this place we can say what's in our hearts and minds, and trust the process.

Trainer Tip: Even when it's tempting to coerce or match might with might, we can strive to meet our needs without negatively affecting others. Instead of convincing anyone to do it our way or to value the same things we value, we can focus on what we value: compassion among people and valuing everyone’s needs. By doing this we are actually more likely to meet our own needs and we are better able to live peacefully.

Trainer Tip: Notice if something within your agency will bring you the serenity you want. If not, then notice the needs you are trying to meet by wanting to take that action. Then then choose another action that's more likely to have the desired effect.

Roxy Manning emphasizes positive relationships in parenting, highlighting acceptance, understanding, and compromise. She stresses the importance of being aware of one's needs, attuning to the other person's needs, fostering trust, and encouraging open communication, especially with children. The approach involves a balance between meeting both sets of needs for a healthier dynamic.

Trainer Tip: Be aware of opportunities today to choose empathizing over arguing with someone who is angry, and notice how it affects your ability to resolve the situation. Read on for more.

Trainer Tip: Instead of trying for perfection, let’s try safe experimentation: Acknowledge that whenever we try a new behavior, it’s bound to take us a few times before we get it right. Read on for how we can do this. We'll use learning empathy as an example.

Trainer Tip: Sometimes you might find yourself in a situation where your need for love is not met. Consider ways in which a partner or friend could meet your need for love. Be sure to request something the other person is capable of doing. Whatever the situation, it is our responsibility to clarify how we can meet our need for love, while also considering the abilities of our loved ones to comply with our requests.

Amidst the Israel/Palestine war we see polarizing media portrayals and the battle for public opinion. Read how one person shares his deep, personal connections to the Israel/Palestine conflict, expresses the trauma and viewpoints of both Palestinian and Israeli experiences -- in a way that aims to transcend polarizations, hold compassion, and understand the complexity on both sides. Despite the immense challenge that defies easy resolution, he holds hope, noting historical reconciliations such as the ones between Germans and Jews.

There's reactive anger - the sudden outbursts of words, temper or action that create a nervous system response in another. And then there's the anger that's a reaction to someone's anger -- a nervous system startle-response. Instead of either of these, we can learn to heal with empathy, look for unequal power dynamics, take responsibility to make repairs, and shift into the clean, life-serving, fully expressed anger and love.

Using his own life experience, Eric explores why we need support from others, what support might look like, and what blocks us from asking for support for our relationships.

Join CNVC Certified Trainers, Raj Gill and Mary Mackenzie as they explore the Nonviolent Communication process of Empathy.  This audio will support people with a basic understanding of Nonviolent Communication who want to deepen their ability for empathic presence.

It can be challenging to tell people that you don’t like a certain behaviour or action of theirs. Even with supportive intentions and compassionate language your message might be difficult for someone to receive. Of course, we are not responsible for others’ reactions, but we are responsible to care about each other, and there are effective ways to express ourselves with more care.

Trainer Tip: Have you heard the saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”? Communication is like that too. Don’t try to adjust your communication and behaviors if they already work for you.

Trainer Tip: When someone is unresponsive it can be an opportunity to bring in more presence and connection through empathy. They may be worried that if they speak they'll say something they'll regret. Or they may want to know that their needs matters as much as yours. They may also need more space to clarify their thoughts.

Trainer Tip: When there's conflict if you set the intention to connect and build trust first, you're more likely to move towards resolution. This can be built through offering reflections that captures essence of what's important to each party. Once connection and trust is established, then begin the process of creating strategies and solutions.

Trainer Tip: When considering your "deal breakers" consider what you want from a relationship rather than how it will look. For instance, maybe my need for abundance can be met by someone who is independently wealthy, so he doesn’t have to “have a good job”. When you shift your focus from strategies to needs, you may be pleasantly surprised what the universe brings. Read on for more.