Communication

Check the calendar for our practice group on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month!

Do you need to build understanding or agreement in your workplace, project, community or family? Do you feel challenged in discussing difficult topics or in giving feedback?  You can learn a simple  conscious an compassionte communication process that can be applied in any situation. Based on Marshall Rosenberg’s technique called Nonviolent Communication, this process

• Is simple and doable. There are four simple steps. We cover 2 principles and 2 parts to the process. We learn express ourselves clearly in ways that will invite cooperation from others and help everyone to recognize that we are essentially ‘on the same team.’
• Can be used with anyone. Whether you are talking to your boss, your child, your co-worker, your client, your partner or friend – you use the same skill set to express yourself and listen.
• Is complete and adaptable. Whether you are interested in more productive feedback sessions with a boss or employee, connecting with a loved one or client, working with anger or overwhelm or expressing and receiving gratitude or forgiveness, these skills can be adapted to any situation in which talking is part of the solution.

Read Books on Conscious Communication

• The Ongo Book: Everyday Nonviolence by Jesse Wiens and Catherine Cadden
• Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, 3rd Edition by Marshall B. Rosenberg
• What We Say Matters by Ike Lasater and Judith Hanson Lasater
• Words that Work in Business, Ike Lasater

The Hearth of Your Heart Poem by Lucy Lu read by Mary Kay 

Conscious communication can be learned through strategies that engage the intellect and through engaging the heart. This heartfelt poem was read by Mary Kay as an introduction to the meditation below. For those who are interested, this poem can be a lovely transition into the meditation below, or done as a meditation on its own.

Meditate on the Beauty of the Needs with Mary Kay

It is not necessary to meditate in order to learn conscious communication, and yet conscious communication studies can be enhanced with special meditations developed by experienced nonviolent communication practitioners. In this meditation, Mary Kay shares her own version of the Beauty of the Needs meditation.