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Grief is often confused with anguish. Anguish is a painful feeling that comes along with deep resistance to an experience or truth. Grief that leads to healing is an expansive state. It is a willingness to be with an experience and truth. If you're not resisting grief, then it's a neutral-to-pleasant experience. Pleasant sensations can include a sense of space and relief as something is integrated and tense holding releases.

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.

If you want to support someone in distress offer a menu of ways you can contribute. Often a person in distress can’t articulate what they need but can recognize it when they hear it. Move fluidly among these 11 options to offer what’s truly helpful, rather than offering something out habit or based on what you think they should have. Remember that you can ask, “Is this helpful?” to support collaboration.

Differentiation means you can access both autonomy and intimacy in relationships. When you're unafraid to lose yourself or be controlled, you can feel deeply connected and affected, while standing strong in yourself. Differentiation also means ability to tolerate disharmony and differences, self-soothe, offer compassion, and set boundaries. Here, we'll focus on setting boundaries with monitoring eye contact and physical interaction, and interrupt our "helping".

Relationship repair means building connection and care after disconnect and unmet needs. It requires intention to connect and take responsibility for your behavior by naming what didn’t work, offering empathy, and making a plan to do something differently next time. When you have enough empathy to find care and curiosity for them, reflect the other person's observation, thoughts, feelings, needs and requests. Focus on this more than on details of the event.

When you hear yourself saying that you are being abandoned, turn toward your experience with compassion and curiosity. Check in with your interpretations, feelings, and needs. Reach out for support. This can help dissolve feelings of reactivity and allow perspective. You are then able to make requests of yourself about what you’d like to do differently in the future to honor for your needs when making a choice.

Is it tough to see a loved one go through hardship? May you have tension building up inside and draw a rigid boundary, or feel the urgency to swoop in and try to “rescue” them with advice, consoling, cheering up, analyzing, or explaining? Instead, relax your body. Invite your emotions to flow with acceptance. Notice inner peace and expansion. See this person as someone on a journey to awakening with all its painful and joyful twists and turns.

Hearing actions that lead to living beings' harm, you may notice that some people believe that the needs of some must come at the cost of others. This view arises from fear and an economic system meant to promote and feed off false scarcity. When struggling with this, grieve, receive support, and notice your feelings show you certain values matter to you. From this sense of purpose you can find where you can be of most service.

Before entering a family gathering, set your intention to notice reactivity and make a plan for self-care when it comes up. It might also be helpful to imagine repetitive interactions and plan how you will respond; for example with a boundary, honest expression, empathy, or by taking a time-out for self-care. Remember your core values, intention, and how you are committed to showing up in the world.

You value generosity and you often give easily from the heart. There are those times, however, when you get snagged by a sense of obligation. You feel tense and resentful. You don't want to continue with this attitude, but how can you reconnect with the desire to give from the heart? Let’s touch on three essential elements that support giving from the heart: choice, mourning, and acceptance.

Making a decision or boundary that invites someone to be honest about their feelings can be difficult. Remember that lack of authenticity may be due to lack of awareness, inner conflict, or fear of conflict, rather than dishonesty. Offer empathy and reassurance and invite more conversation. Approach with compassion and curiosity to naturally invite more honesty.

Learn how unconscious impulses can lead to depleting patterns. Here, we look at two forms of reactive attempts we may use to avoid future pain, and how to make conscious decisions instead. Read on for questions that can help us see if we're making decisions from a grounded place, such as taking time to reflect on values, receive support from others, and getting curious about others' views.

If someone asks you to love them as is, try wondering what contributes to their need for acceptance. Loving someone and empathizing with them, doesn't mean you can't make requests for change. Recall that your requests are about your needs, not about them. Understand that requests may not be met due to lack of resources or skills, even if the desire is there. Clarify how important the request is to you and how negotiation can look.

You may want to shift power dynamics in intimate and family relationships -- especially if there's longstanding, unprocessed hurts. Reflect on where, when and with whom you tend to enter reactive “power over” patterns. Explore the feelings and needs that are up for you in those contexts. Imagine other ways that could meet your needs in, or before, those moments. In this way, in similar situations you can have more access to choice.

If you want a better connection it's crucial to be mindful about how your communication affects your partner. This means noticing and keeping eye contact, observing body language, and checking for their reactions. You can also share in small increments, check in before sharing vulnerable thoughts, and express what you notice. Give yourself empathy when you notice that you want to be right more than you’re wanting to be connected.

When you experience an emotion, your body send a message to your brain that lights up the amygdala. Then what? Listen as Sarah Peyton demonstrates the NVC practice of Naming the Feeling and Need, which calms the amygdala and enables you to move into relational space.