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Listen to Miki make an important distinction between giving feedback, which is grounded in a desire to contribute to another, and our own need to be heard.

Creating a trusting connection and keeping the line of communication open are the primary prerequsites for giving feedback as a supervisor. Listen to Miki work with a course participant to ready herself for an upcoming feedback session.

While we can’t control other’s behavior, we can choose how we show up. With forethought and care, we can approach interactions with more clarity, love, and skill. Read on for practices that include: Choose wise attention, ask better questions, practice deep listening, structure the conversation, know your limits, speak your truth, share your personal stories, be present and recall permanence.

In A Worldwide Field of Compassion, Robert Gonzales presents an engaging course steeped in compassion-based self-discovery for ourselves and all life. Recorded in 2020, this 8-session course includes handouts, readings, exercises, and video recordings!

Self-compassion is essential for healing trauma and restoring your wholeness. It is also an antidote to reactivity and separation, allowing presence to emerge.

In developing presence, you can become what the world needs most in these times of intensity and chaos. This work can strengthen your skills to be more fully in relationship with all that life offers while allowing your heart to be moved by what is alive in you and with others

Living Compassion in an Ever-Changing World is the last course that Robert Gonzales offered before his passing in November of 2021. It is an intermediate course whose purpose is to deepen our conscious connection to our own vital life force, to develop skills that support inner healing, and to grow and strengthen daily practices that allow us to truly live life to the fullest.

When we feel pain about humans relate to, and conflict with, one another on Earth what can give us capacity to transform it? Perhaps in connection to the formless consciousness of unity we may relax, open, expand -- and connect to formless human needs, a sense of universal well being, benevolence and good will. Loving action flows from here. Suffering shifts into deep healing, grace and new possibility.

Giving feedback can be a difficult task, sometimes we try to avoid getting to the point and instead end up spending a long time attempting to communicate. We find there are mostly two types of feedback. The first focuses on what is wrong with the person's behaviour and tends to feel more judgemental whereas the second is values-based feedback, focusing on the needs of the people involved.

When an entity or system has authority or power and mandates something we don't agree with we may submit or to rebel. If we submit, we give in or give up, often out of fear. If we rebel, we're in reactivity which may not help our cause, and reduce our power. This may result in others' resentment, anger, and pain. Gandhi and Martin Luther King didn't submit nor rebel. Instead, they were in choice and advocated for their cause.

Distinguishing between needs and strategies to meet needs is crucial for solving conflict. For example, the need for peace can be met through various strategies beyond solitude or gratitude. Similarly, sex is a strategy. Sexual expression is the need behind it, and can be met in various ways to meet that need without having sex itself. Such flexibility can foster  creativity and deeper connection, enhancing relationships.

Dear friends,

Happy April Fool’s Day, which, according to Wikipedia, “is an annual custom on April 1st consisting of practical jokes and hoaxes.” I always think of my Mom on April Fool’s Day. She was mostly a stern person who scorned practical jokes, but on April Fool’s Day, she would play hoaxes on my father. One year, she...

In this Life Hack, we take a closer look at 'values-based' feedback and give you 7 practical tips that will help you provide useful feedback.

Do you find yourself giving in with growing resentment? Do you avoid conflict and explode later without apparent reason?  Miki Kashtan, a world-renowned CNVC Certified Trainer, invites you to listen to this two-session telecourse recording to re-imagine and fine tune your skills at dealing with disagreements and negotiations.

The more we can support an interdependent flow of resources and energy in society and the economy, the greater we can increase both natural abundance and the chances of averting extinction. Accumulation is a strategy born of mistrust. It’s an attempt to control the flow of life to guarantee that we will have enough for the future. Accumulation and exchange has blocked this interdependent flow. We can transform this blockage by uncoupling giving from receiving, and shedding excess as much as we can, so that energy and resources can travel further to those in need.

When we take a leap in life and put our hearts out into the world in new or bigger ways—sharing a song, dance, or poem, writing a book, competing at a sporting event, giving a speech, and so on—there is greater potential for aliveness but also for shame and pain

Where do you feel desperation, resentment, anger about your partner's choices? What do you want to demand of them? Rather than looking for what they're suppose to do, look for your feelings and needs, how would you would respond if you trusted your needs could be met without your partner, and what you choose to do given what your partner offers and does not offer.

"Falling out of love" is a misleading concept that can lead to feelings of helplessness in relationships. The initial intense phase of love gradually gives way to the need for intentional effort and communication. Unrealistic relationship expectations can erode connection, causing the perception of falling out of love. To address this, we can ask key questions and seek clarity to attend to unmet needs and maintain a healthy connection.