Connecting with self and other is key to care and creativity. Before dialogue connect with your intention and needs for being with grief, fear or pain, and empathy. Dialogue when you're both rested, fed, and have spaciousness. Start by expressing care and desire to find mutually satisfying solutions. To deepen connection you may repeat what you hear and ask the other person to do the same.

Trainer Tip: When there's conflict if you set the intention to connect and build trust first, you're more likely to move towards resolution. This can be built through offering reflections that captures essence of what's important to each party. Once connection and trust is established, then begin the process of creating strategies and solutions.

In this edition of Conflict Improv, CNVC Certified Trainer Christine King navigates the challenging practice of expressing honesty when that expression might easily be heard as criticism.

Listen to John talk about the inner and outer mediation process, the importance of the "3rd chair," and an experience of working with Pakistani elders.

In this role play, Jean Morrison plays a mother who is asking her son to vacuum the house and he is objecting. She enacts the role first using "jackal" language and then again using Nonviolent Communication.

In this upbeat video, CNVC Certified Trainers Kelly Bryson, Christine King and Jean Morrison enact two role plays that involve a triggered adult interacting with a young student and a teacher who has just witnessed an unpleasant interaction between two students.

Using an example from a participant, the trainers engage in a role play to explore how to stay in your heart even when being perceived as a difficult customer by store employees.

Have you ever had an argument with someone who simply wouldn't put the toilet seat down? Watch veteran CNVC Certified Trainers Kelly Bryson, Christine King and Jean Morrison navigate this challenging yet common dialogue.

In this amusing and inspiring video, CNVC Certified Trainers Kelly Bryson and Christine King engage in a role play about a parent talking to a seven year old daughter who is feeling bored.

Kelly Bryson and Christine King engage in a role play about how to stay connected to a friend whose persistent jackal voices tell her that she is worthless and her life is hopeless.

Conflict is normal and natural and yet we are still often surprised by it and unprepared to deal with it. You will come away from this session with the tools for creating simple agreements with your group about what to do when conflict arises.

Listen to this 4-session telecourse recording with CNVC Certified Trainer, Hema Pokharna, PhD and her sister, Manda Pokharna, MD, and you will learn simple steps for transforming conflicts and mobilizing peace at home, at work and in the world.

Old emotional hurts and pains can easily erupt when you’re in the throes of conflict – even if you’re the mediator. Wouldn’t it be lovely if you could avoid all of that, and instead create more peace and happiness for yourself, your family, your co-workers and your community?

John and Stephanie combine mediating conflict, parenting and study of brain science to this ground-breaking course recording on how to funnel your anger and your child’s anger toward mutual caring and peace.

The heart of the practice of nonviolence is a commitment to live through the powerful combination of compassion, fierceness, and courage, with an uncompromising willingness to stand for truth. Join Miki Kashtan for this exciting and informative course to learn how to practically embrace nonviolence.

Ask the Trainer: My question is about wanting to empathize more with my husband. Sometimes we connect very deeply, other times he slips back into "jackal talk..."

Ask the Trainer: Is it a good idea to use NVC on persistent guilt, anger or depression without the aid of others?

Ask the Trainer: For many years I have been using crime and punishment (reward and consequences) to discipline because it was the only thing I knew. I knew deep in my heart it was alienating me...

This holiday, shift your focus from what disappoints you to the true whisperings of your heart. Compassion is an inside-outside process. In this telecourse recording, you will experience four simple tools for savoring your own precious needs, allowing you to experience greater compassion and harmony this holiday.

Trainer Tip: Anger can be an opportunity to hear the "Please" behind the words and create a path to resolve conflicts compassionately.