Trainer Tip: It's up to us to get our own needs met. Mary offers some encouraging tips to do just that!

Trainer Tip: The change you're looking for begins with a single step.

Trainer Tip: There are many ways to meet a need. Open to new possibilities.

Grieving reminds us of the preciousness of life, it helps us integrate loss, and it opens us to deeper compassion, inspiration, and joy. We need to create space in our lives to grieve fully.

Along with it’s potential for helping others calm their emotions and feel deeply understood, the Nonviolent Communication process of empathetic listening can help someone increase their capacity for finding their own truth.

Asking for help is difficult for many of us, but can yield rich rewards.

It can be challenging to tell people that you don’t like a certain behaviour or action of theirs. Even with supportive intentions and compassionate language your message might be difficult for someone to receive. Of course, we are not responsible for others’ reactions, but we are responsible to care about each other, and there are effective ways to express ourselves with more care.

What are the most powerful things I can do to build an inspired relationship? I answered the question with romantic relationships in mind; however, I believe the answer below applies to all important relationships.

For many, the word “need” is associated with lack, neediness, and scarcity. These associations are the opposite of the meaning of needs in Nonviolent Communication (NVC). In NVC, needs are the motivational energy of our innate wholeness and desire to grow, like the energy of a plant pushing it up through the soil and toward the sun.

When we take a leap in life and put our hearts out into the world in new or bigger ways—sharing a song, dance, or poem, writing a book, competing at a sporting event, giving a speech, and so on—there is greater potential for aliveness but also for shame and pain