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Speaking the truth creates congruence, which creates trust, facilitating understanding and cooperation. Without truth there is no growth in our relationships and community. If this is true, then what keeps us from speaking our truth?

LoraKim explores what gets in the way of seeing the inherent worth and dignity of others when there is conflict in congregations. The strategies LoraKim offers can be applied to any spiritual community.

What parts of yourself or others are hard to embrace, understand or even notice?  What parts do others have difficulty embracing, understanding or noticing?  Why do we condemn, loathe, hate, deny, judge, blame or feel shame around certain needs, feelings and parts of self and/or others? This article talks about the hidden parts of ourselves and others that shapes views and behaviours.

Blame is a misguided habit that's used to avoid pain and suffering, offering only a momentary distraction and oversimplifies complex histories. It also disconnects us from choice and agency, blocks us from discovering more about ourselves and others, and can keep us from having compassionate, self responsible conversations. Instead, we can practice speaking in terms of impact and notice our experience without trying to escape it.

Nonviolent Communication includes a practice of empathy that involves listening for feelings and needs no matter how someone expresses themselves, and reflecting back the feelings and needs when it is helpful to do so. You can reflect back in a traditional NVC manner, or in a more creative way, with metaphors.

Miki speaks to peace activists about connecting with the life vision in those who stimulate pain in them.

We all know what it’s like to be on the end of feedback that we receive as clumsy, unbalanced or even spiteful. We don’t have any control over the skill level of people who give us feedback, or their motivations. So how do we receive feedback without taking it personally, in a way that we can learn from it?

The impulse to say "I love you" is an opportunity to check-in both with our level of presence (eg. are we saying it by rote?) and also with what we really mean in that moment (eg. what are the needs and real purpose deep beneath the word "love"?).  This can invite us to explore a deeper, more heartfelt way of communicating and being...

Who are you not use to caring about? Is it those you classify as "other"? Those you disagree with? The lower class? People in power? Those who inflict harm? Yourself? To include everyone's needs fully, not instead of your needs, can transform the either/or paradigm. It can also help us to go beyond so-called "codependency". And it can support us all to live more sustainably on this planet.

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.