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Empathy is a form of attunement. Empathy is giving your compassionate curiosity by guessing another’s feelings and needs. Consider how you live or relate to each of these 12 essential aspects of empathy. Some of them mention how we can offer empathy without abandoning ourselves, how empathy isn't always the best response, and how "Empathy can be offered when you disagree with another’s opinion, memory, or perspective."

Learn to speak NVC using your own voice and increase ease and flow in all your personal and professional conversations. This 7-session telecourse recording with renowned trainer Miki Kashtan is designed to help you integrate NVC into all aspects of your life by gaining fluency in your practice of NVC and by embodying the principles regardless of the words you use. This course is based on intensive practice and coaching with real-life examples from participants’ lives.

Ask the Trainer: "I am wondering what to do with a judgment that is expressed by someone about me. In these situations I can't find the unmet need they are expressing (other than perhaps significance)."

We each hold an internal model or set of expectations about how caring and comfort could be accessed in relationship. The ability to reflect upon and challenge our own dominant model of perceptions, beliefs, and behaviors --and to experience discomfort and vulnerability-- is a key feature of "security". If not, an "attachment reactivity" arises -- where sense of insecurity, separateness, and belief that love, and acceptance can't be trusted nor accessed reliably. Thus change would require intensive support. Here's a guide to help you reflect and access change.

Trainer Tip: It is true that we cannot fully understand other people until we understand ourselves. Gain understanding and healing through self-empathy within the Compassionate Communication process.

Often patients need enough emotional space to reduce any inner stuckness in their situation. They need to do this before they can adequately absorb information or effectively take next steps. Empathy can help with this. Empathy requires an intention to connect non-judgmentally. This gets better with practice. Read on for examples of how a situation can play out with, and without, empathy. And the difference it makes in healthcare.

Trainer Tip: Anger is a prominent call to gain our attention. Mary explains why it's worth heeding that call.

Blame is the game that protects me from the understanding that the cause of all my emotional distress, fear, shame and guilt comes from the part of me I call "the inner voice." As long as I keep the big bony finger of blame pointed in your direction, I can remain unaware of the fact that it is what I am telling myself about your behavior that is stimulating my painful reactions. 

Workplace relationships are complex. Each employee brings their unique self to work. Their background, perspective, emotional triggers, and working style. Add to this the dynamics of power relations, and the fact that often workplace communication now takes place at our computer keyboards rather than face-to-face. Sylvia Haskvitz offers practical tips to make today's complex workplace relationships more satisfying and effective.