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Have you ever noticed how being heard in a deep, empathic way is like magic?

When we're deeply heard, our whole bodies relax. We return to equilibrium, we can breathe again, and access renewed curiosity, empowerment and choice. We also get a fresh perspective and new insights: like a fog lifting, we see ideas and solutions that evaded us before. And with that restored vision, we're able to find new ways to engage with others that, just moments earlier, seemed impossible or a chore. 

You can become an empathy wizard—with anyone, in any situation, including the most challenging!

Join Dian Killian to explore key concepts and practices, including new ways of seeing and practicing NVC, and learn all this through direct experience, via exercises, pair work, and role play. 

When Dian works with managers, they often ask how they can manage others more effectively. She almost always asks them: how are you managing yourself?

This question applies to all aspects of life, both at work and at home. How are you: 1) gaining clarity around your needs; 2) managing your internal reactions; and 3) clarifying your requests before you open your mouth (or judge) others? This is why self-empathy – which Dian calls “self-management,” now a buzzword in business – is central to the practice of Nonviolent Communication.

Yet self-empathy is not always easy, especially if events in your life stimulate old, “fossilized” needs. These “fossilized” needs are often precognitive and connected to trauma, and as a result, “live” in your muscle memory. In order to fully release this “stuck” energy, it is necessary to engage your felt-sense while learning to empathize with your body and deeply connect with your younger parts.

Dian calls this process Somatic Self-Empathy (SEE).

• 3 full-length courses to deepen your empathy practice
• Learn your body’s “language” and how to listen deeply to it
• Quickly reconnect and return to empathic presence when you are triggered
• Enhance your listening skills and experience greater ease and joy in all your interactions

This exercise explains four stages of the "Need Cycle": Fulfilled, Emerging, Urgent, Satisfying. It asks us to consider, connect and identify needs, feelings and where we are in the Need Cycle. Then it prompts us to remain mindful of the need for sustenance as we move through the cycle, noticing the subtle shifts in your physical sensations and emotions.

When supporting someone with less privilege, first check with them how you can support.  If you're reacting more strongly to their undesirable experience than they are, this then shifts the dynamic so that they're setting aside what they want to attend to your feelings and needs - this may become work that they didn't sign up for.  Read on for what to do instead to support more equity.

Jim and Jori share their work integrating Martin Seligman's work on Positive Psychology with Nonviolent Communication in a system they call REMAP, focusing on relationships, engagement, meaning, accomplishment and positivity.

Our everyday personal experiences of diminishment, and the destruction of our planet has a through-line. Societal traumas lead to us shutting down to avoid pain, and this limits us. The avoidance shifts our brains so we don’t see other beings, species and our planet as wondrous, precious and irreplaceable. Thus, we meet others with diminishment, oblivion, or abuse; trauma keeps passing on. This leads to being blind and mute, and to othering based on social location, and to destruction of our planet.

The human species is trained and habituated towards separation. This model encourages humans to either give up on their needs or fight for their needs. In this short video, Miki shares how increasing capacity shifts habits of separation and supports holding of all needs.

Kelly Bryson shows how clear intention and awareness transform pain into growth.

Exploring how stories and unmet needs each influence the cause of our feelings in NVC.

 Connection requests focus on the quality of connection between people instead of on any particular strategy or solution. While the core motivation for a connection request may be connection with the other person, varied internal states and needs may help guide us toward different types of connection requests. Self-connection and understanding of our motivation in making a connection request can therefore greatly support our capacity for discovering and articulating what specifically we want from the other person that we believe may contribute to connection.

Some of my core beliefs make experiencing gratitude difficult . For example, it’s difficult to celebrate others or myself when I think I have to prove my worth in order to be accepted. So much energy goes into proving myself, there’s little left for celebration.

This 6-session telecourse recording focuses on supporting people who work with children (e.g. parents, teachers, ministers, etc.) in applying the skills of NVC mediation in conflict situations that involve children.

Trainer Tip: Anger can be an opportunity to hear the "Please" behind the words and create a path to resolve conflicts compassionately.

Join CNVC Certified Trainer Arnina Kashtan as explores interdependence, autonomy, valuing self and others, and power-sharing in your relationships. Free yourself to honor your longing for community, belonging, and love.

Bring your inquisitive mind and open heart to Miki Kashtan's Theoretical Underpinnings of NVC and learn the principles that underlie the NVC practice.

I want to hear others through the lens of the meaning their actions have for them rather than through the effect their actions have on me. The very root of empathy resides in this fundamental shift. Whenever someone’s actions are at odds with our own needs, most of us, most of the time, do the latter. In that way, we keep our attention on ourselves rather than on the other person. We cannot be in empathy when we are focused on how things affect us. Miki Kashtan poignantly shares about the challenges of empathizing with another when we really don't understand their actions.

Trainer Tip: Do you ever think you’re taking life just a little too seriously? Many of us work hard trying to improve our outlook, our ability to communicate, and our lives. Sometimes we work so hard, we forget to enjoy life. So let’s make a pact to enjoy our day.