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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 recorded telecourse, John Kinyon, world renowned CNVC Certified Trainer, offers an overview and practice with four elements of empathy – presence, understanding/meaning, need language and deepening into needs.

The human brain is a conservative organ that comprises different systems with varying degrees of conscious awareness, which evolved in three basic stages of human history (the lizard-squirrel-monkey brain.) In my understanding, we could say, the brain has strong needs for understanding, order, predictability and meaning. In fact, one of its key functions is to process experiences, and predict what the world is like, in order to maximize survival.  CNVC Certified Trainer Stephanie Bachmann Mattei explores the biological basis of our inner jackal voices.

Trainer Tip: Sometimes the expression of our needs can sound like demands or criticism. This can make it harder for people to want to contribute to us. Today, pay attention to how you express your needs. Find ways to release the emotional charge.

• Transform and heal developmental trauma 
• Reclaim the parts of yourself that have been left behind
• Discover the difference between developmental trauma and PTSD
• Reawaken your heart to love

• Uncover the expansive possibilities of Nonviolent Communication in growing compassion for a more empathic world
• Engage with 17 global trainers on 17+ unique topics
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• Immerse yourself in a festival of learning, fun, and community

In this prerecorded telecourse, Raj Gil uses an interactive dialogue and proven exercises to help you develop a profoundly healthy response to anger, right in the moment.

Ask the Trainer: "I'm practicing with 'transforming the pain of unmet needs into the beauty of the need.' In identifying my unmet needs, I come up with 'fairness.' However, fairness isn't on the needs list! I'm wondering what needs might be underneath 'fairness.'"

Ask the Trainer: "I feel a lot of fear or nervousness about approaching a neighbor who uses 'wastebasket talk.' Once she's engaged, there are only two techniques that interrupt the flow: leaving or interrupting."

This gentle, healing telecourse recording will assist you in unearthing feelings and issues that have become tangled up with loss, enabling you to face whatever is blocking your grief.

Learn when to use the two types of requests in the practice of Nonviolent Communication: Action Requests and Connection Requests. Both are important when working through conflict or difficult situations and for building connection.

Who does not want to be understood? In Tip #6, Eric shows you how to deepen connection and trust by checking your understanding with the person you are conversing with.

One of the premises in NVC is that behind all behavior and expressions are Universal Human Needs as the deeper motivators. And one of the key distinctions in NVC is that between Needs and Strategies. Try Alan Seid's exercise called  "Peeling the Layers of the Onion, " a process for uncovering these needs — the deeper motivations — that underlie words and behaviors we may find disturbing or puzzling.

Eric offers some tips for nurturing and affirming ourselves as a daily practice.

How do you know when you’re projecting disowned parts or replaying old relationship dynamics? It’s hard to know for sure, but if you find yourself upset or shutting down and unable to have a dialogue in which you can speak clearly about your feelings and needs and empathize with the other’s feelings and needs, there is likely a projection. The stronger your reaction, the more likely you are projecting.

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.