In some situations you might expect people to show a degree of maturity or skill. When they don't, your anger-fueled response doesn't lead to lasting improved relationship change. Instead, find someone who retains focus on your feelings and needs rather than colluding with you about what should(n't) be. This can support greater acceptance, grief, vulnerability, groundedness and discernment,...

Listen as Mary Mackenzie shares an eight step path to create your own NVC learning activities, based on your own NVC learning experience. In this session, Mary uses the value of requests and observations as teaching examples.

For many people thinking about creating a workshop outline is overwhelming because they focus on the whole thing at once. Breaking the process down to bite-size pieces eliminates much stress and overwhelm and brings fun and creativity to the process. here's your step-by-step guide!.

Find renewed aliveness and connection in your daily life through NVC and Buddhist Mindfulness practices. In this 6 session course with Roberta Wall and Barbara Bash, you will explore how NVC helps bring to life Buddhist principles and values in relationship to yourself and others. And, you will discover how Buddhist practice deepens and supports your capacity to learn and live NVC in your daily...

NVC groups can sometimes get caught in a rut and lose energy and momentum. Mary shares her extensive experience with seven steps for keeping your group engaged and energized.

Ever wondered how to balance everyone’s needs when leading a NVC group? In the first part of the video, Mary shares tips how to balance the facilitator's, the individuals members' and the group's needs. In the second part, Mary talks about transparency as a facilitator - what does it mean, what does it look like and how to be transparent in a way that is supportive for the group.

When we are completely involved in an activity for its own sake we are in engagement. Here, the ego falls away and time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one. Our whole being is involved, and we're using our skills to the utmost. Read on for activities that could stimulate engagement, a list of subjectively experienced elements of engagement and a...

Use this interactive empathy exercise to track the relationship and shifting of body sensations, feelings and needs as you note them out loud.

Building trust involves each person taking responsibility for what they want by identifying their needs, and making specific and doable requests that open a negotiation. Identify in what contexts you already have trust, what you want to be able to trust, and how you may be blocking or cultivating that trust. Making requests for specific actions of what to do differently can also help.

Developing our own teaching exercises is a powerful consciousness-building process that eventually helps us clarify our own way of learning and to develop our unique style of teaching.

Integrating a full living involves grief/mourning and gratitude. Here we'll more deeply integrate inner and outer dimensions of gratitude and grief. In any experience there's the outer aspect, an event that occurs in life. And there's the inner response to the outer event. When we judge the outer positively or negatively we're in tension or resistance to our experience. Here we'll explore a...

When there's quality connection then collaboration and creativity generosity of heart can come. Then strategies honoring everyone’s needs are easier. This requires us to trust connection, hear needs, brainstorm, experiment, prepare, and hold confidence that everyone’s needs can be met. Needs-based negotiation starts there. What derails this? Feeling urgency, listening from our (dis)likes or...

Here are some questions to support you in exploring your connection to life, your life purpose. Here we briefly touch upon what blocks you, your gratitude, strengths, passions, and what you are committed to.

Enmeshment refers to confusion about who is responsible for what. This lack of clear boundaries results in attempts to manage the other person's experience as a substitute for managing your own. When you think you're contributing to another person, but you're actually acting from enmeshment, there's inner tension and contraction. Read on for 16 common signs of enmeshment so that you can know...

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...

When someone behaves in a way that you may label convincing, cajoling, guilt-tripping, threatening, analyzing, or criticizing, you may be tempted to guess they have a "need" for control. Instead, name what this person is doing that isn't meeting your needs. If it is a true need your heart will have softened. If you feel resentment or resistance, you are likely making a judgment rather than...

For this exercise choose a situation in which you have said a “yes” to someone‛s request but you didn't experience your “yes” as given freely or joyfully. Then explore judgements, feelings, needs, and alternate strategies that come up in relation to your “yes”, your “no”, and in relation to what the other person might be experiencing.

With this exercise you'll choose an experience you had with someone where your needs were not met. You'll work with the related feelings, judgements, values, and feeling the fullness of the need even though it was not met, plus any sadness that may arise.

Fully connecting to the deeper need under the anger can transform and release the anger, without requiring the other person to do anything differently. From there, you can reach an understanding of the other person's experience, feelings and needs underlying the actions that stimulated your anger to re-establish connection with your own and the other person's humanity.

When you don't have a sense of being heard you can apply skills to help you can interrupt cycles of reactivity and resentment, and create connection. Let's look at six ways that will support you in being heard. These are clarity about the topic and needs; supportive conditions; respect for autonomy; sharing your intention; attending to emotional security; and making clear requests.