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9 Skills for Navigating Conflict

Access this complete 8 session course Do you long for more reliable access to NVC when you need it the most? When conflict erupts, NVC skills can sometimes seem so far away. When you feel separate, enflamed with uncomfortable emotions and judgment, NVC can seem like the farthest thing from your mind. During those times it can be all too easy just to react when what you may really want to do is...
Sexual Expression

In Mindful Compassionate Dialogue, discerning the difference between a universal need and a strategy to meet that need can mean the difference between staying stuck or getting unstuck in a conflict. Let's look at a simple example. If you believe your need for peace is the same as time alone, you can only meet your need for peace if you get alone time. Getting regular alone time is a popular...
How to Ask for Space

Do you ever wish you could get a little more breathing room in an intimate relationship? From your perspective, they move in so close that you wish you had a snorkel so you could get a little air. The other person, on the other hand, is feeling hurt wanting more intimacy and is receiving your request for space as a form of rejection or lack of caring. You notice this conflict repeating itself...
Transforming Needs Into Compassionate Connection

Iris Bawidamann explains how needs, like appreciation, can easily turn into demands or self-blame when approached from a place of lack or expectation. Instead of blaming others for not meeting our needs or harshly demanding fulfillment from ourselves, living compassion invites us to gently embrace and connect with the essence of our needs. By tuning into the feeling and meaning of appreciation...
The Spiral Blend

David explores how movement helps you hold your center when navigating challenging conversations. Example: Move to Wind ~ to calm your system; Move to Ground ~ to notice the ground on which you stand; and Step to Shikaku ~ step behind to practice empathic listening. Listen Now. Keywords: consciousness presence somatic empathy movement needs strategies strategy mourning gratitude empathic guess...
The Freedom of Committing to a Path

In June, 1996, I had an epiphany. In a motel room in Indiana, the night before returning home from a solo camping trip in Michigan and Canada, I discovered how much I had lost in my life because of so fiercely protecting myself. Up until that day, bringing forth my vulnerable self was to be avoided at all costs, which kept me numb much of the time, disconnected from myself and from much of...
Forming, Uniting and Nurturing NVC Communities

Does your workplace convey a sense of “community?” And how does that sense of community you feel at work differ from what’s present at your church, your sangha or dojo? What about the neighborhood where you live? Do you ever find yourself taking your community for granted? And – what can YOU do to support and grow “community” wherever you find it? The word “community” is so fluid, it’s hard to...
Being Honest About Our Anger

Trainer Tip Few blame themselves until they have exhausted all other possibilities. —Anonymous When I am angry, it is likely that I am not getting something that I want and that I think I should get, and I am about to say something that will ensure I won’t get it. When we blame other people, we place ourselves in a dangerous position of not meeting our needs in that relationship. Instead, take...
All in

Access this complete 7 session course When you consider making the full-on commitment to living nonviolently, do you … Worry that in some situations you will compromise your own needs? Wonder if it's even possible? Struggle to trust yourself to have what it takes? I used to feel that way too. Now, after some years of being on this path, I feel more able to face life, to trust myself to work out...
Basic Pitfalls of Using NVC

When many people first learn Nonviolent Communication, they become so enthusiastic about the possibilities they see unfolding, that they immediately try to put it to use everywhere. Often enough, the results can be disastrous, such that other people become deeply suspicious of NVC. Here is a sample of what people often hear from others in such circumstances: "It's like I've got a complete...