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Exploring why “to be” verbs like heard or valued are seen as strategies, not needs, in NVC.

Mary Mackenzie shows quick self-empathy exercises to notice your sensations, feelings, and needs.

This article outlines a four-part transformation process to help us recognize what's giving rise to our suffering and resentment -- and transform it into more freedom, creativity, and choice.

I love the insights, resources, and inspiration I get from this course. It gives you a glimpse into the support Miki offers around deepening the practice of nonviolence in thought, word, and action.
—Lore Baur, NVCA Course Coordinator, CNVC Certified Trainer.

Miki is sharing what that means "Responding to the Call of our Time" for her and invites us to feel that call. This video illustrates how she is helping participants through teaching, coaching and mentoring so they can move forward with their challenges.

In lasers, light bounces between the mirrors, with each pass the light grows more intense. Our minds work similarly. Because of the "mirror" effect, where we can react to our reactions to our reactions to our reactions (and so on), changing our thought pattern even modestly at every level of reaction, can dramatically affect our ultimate experience.  Usually the greatest amplifiers are the ones we notice the least.  Learn what to notice -- to amplify more love rather than pain.

Trainer Tip: Our inner critic judges ourselves and other people; and it is the most likely to get scared when we begin to make a change. It holds wisdom for us if we are willing to listen. When we acknowledge our inner critic and empathize with its need, we gain insights into ourselves and we clear the way for resolution.

Trainer Tip: To defuse anger and create space for resolution, hear the other person’s feelings and needs. If this practice is new to you, you're like to experience fear and resistance in trying it out. However, you'll be more likely to experience a powerful shift, and build your capacity, if you try it anyways.

Trainer Tip: When someone acts in baffling ways we can either wonder about what’s going on with the other person, create our own stories about it (blame, resent, make assumptions), or inform ourselves by asking. This is an opportunity to learn something new.

Trainer Tip: Be aware of opportunities today to choose empathizing over arguing with someone who is angry, and notice how it affects your ability to resolve the situation. Read on for more.

Trainer tip: Why do NVC practitioners sometimes use the jackal as a metaphor in the NVC world? What can it teach us? Read on for more.

Trainer tip: People often presume why something happened before checking with the other person. Instead, if we were to name the facts of what happened through observation without adding in our own judgments or reasons why we think it happened, we can more easily open the possibility for deeper connection with the other person. Read on for more on making observations.

Trainer tip: Beware that your expression of feelings helps you own how you feel, rather than blaming the other person for doing something you see as wrong. Expressing your feelings helps the other person know how deeply this issue affects you. Plus it can bring more clarity and connection to all parties. Read on for more.

Trainer tip: Do you have behavioral patterns that block intimacy? When we are feeling our most vulnerable, we often want intimacy but also tend to keep it at bay. Acknowledge your need for intimacy, and find people you can trust to love you as you are.

Trainer Tip: On a scale of 1 to 10, how is your emotional bank account? If it’s lower than you like, consider what you can do right now to bring it closer to balance. Everyone in your life, and most especially you, will benefit from this. Even 15 mins of empathy may nourish you with accompaniment and perspective, even when the issues or circumstances in your life are the same.

• Move beyond anger, blame and judgment… 
• Make sense of the baffling or offensive people in your life… 
• Deepen your compassion for yourself and others… and
• Transform your old thought and speaking patterns into new ones that inspire harmony and fun!

Trainer Tip: We have a better chance of getting our needs met if we prioritize connecting with one another's needs more than being right. This way we can reduce the chances of conflict arising. We also increase the possibility we can find ways everyone’s needs can be met.

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.

• Gain a new, surprising, and exciting connection to yourself that will enable you to both deepen the sense of power in your life and actualize everything you've always dreamed of… 
• Experience being fully present in the world — despite your habits — so that you'll always be connected to your inner center and thus be able to choose at any given moment where to take your life…
• Understand how to create within yourself (and others!) a sense of flow and love, making your life much more beautiful and exciting… 
• Learn how to open up in your relationships in ways you never thought would be possible, creating an entirely different closeness and intimacy in your life… 

Trainer Tip: Without knowing our feelings, its harder to live fully present, take care of ourselves, and make sound decisions. If its difficult for you to know what you feel and to express your feelings, consider reviewing a list of feelings, practice expanding your feelings vocabulary, and naming your feelings.

The regeneration movement employs practices for healing our planet from damage, and boosting Earth sustainability. Environmental and social degradation is deeply connected -- as it comes from the same extractive, exploitive mindset of economic and related systems. Connecting with universal consciousness and needs underlying conflicts, we connect with commonality of all planetary life. This helps tap new abilities for working together. This can contain power to regenerate and heal ourselves and Earth.