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To express opposition without stimulating distress, stop judging and look for ways to honor, understand, and have compassion for others. You can do this by finding a point of agreement. For example, you can agree with part of what they said. Or if you completely disagree, you can express what greater understanding, inspiration, appreciation or empathy you have in response to what they're saying. Read on for more on this, plus, ten sentence stems to get you started.

Mid-conversation you may find yourself sliding into defending, shutting down, attacking, or blaming. Here's a list of possible emergency interventions that can help slow down escalation and return you to connection.

Join Miki as she covers a lot of territory, defining leadership, helping us lead when we're not in the leadership chair, showing us how to have power in every moment and engage our fear instead of let it run us. Get some powerful leadership tools you can put to use today.

There's a danger in using empathy exchange to perpetually recirculate and exchange pain (often by telling and re-telling the same old stories), rather than using it as a catalyst for transformation. It can create and further pain in whatever form: anger, destructiveness, hatred, grief, emotional drama, and violence. It can also reinforce dualistic evaluations of "met" vs "unmet" needs. And it can slow down productivity.

How often do you find yourself stuck between two options? Do you go with option A or option B and what if it's a complicated decision that involves more than just a quick thought process? In this Life Hack we guide you through a process you can use when facing a difficult decision with a simple 5 step process, this meditation should leave you feeling more at peace and with more clarity on moving forward.

This meditation also brings in elements of brainstorming and ideation, so as well as reflecting on your needs, once the process is finished we hope you find some fresh ideas of ways to move forward.

Trainer Tip: Have you heard the saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”? Communication is like that too. Don’t try to adjust your communication and behaviors if they already work for you.

What is it that enables us to thrive? How can we influence our capacity to live a meaningful and fulfilling life? Join Jim and Jori Manske in this exciting telecourse recording on the intersection of NVC and cutting-edge Positive Psychology, the science of human thriving.

There's the real need. And then there's the privilege that’s offered as a substitute for it. Privilege substitutes support the existing structure of society. It can look to us as if giving up the privilege would amount to giving up everything -- if we don't believe the real needs can even be experienced. If we connected directly to the needs, we could become subversive, agents of change.

Trainer tip: Empathy can offer profound learning opportunities to children, expand their feelings and needs vocabulary, and teach them the positive results of valuing everyone’s needs. Read on for a story that illustrates this.

Trainer Tip: Changing your thoughts can change the way people experience you. Just for today, see if you can notice when you have judgmental thoughts about yourself or other people. Then look to translate those thoughts into your feelings and needs. Read on for an example of how this works.