This course helps you navigate that "space ... between stimulus and response." For most of us, it is a space where we can easily be triggered into the reactive "fight, flight, freeze" area of our brain. When we think and act from that fear-based place, our effectiveness and impact are diminished, especially as leaders within an organization.

In our values-based leadership assessments, this behavior shows up in our "personal entropy" score, where personal entropy is defined as the amount of fear-driven energy that a person expresses in his or her day-to-day interactions with other people.

Needs-Based Communication (NVC) is a potent process that stimulates new insights and gives us new tools to bridge the space between unconscious reaction and conscious response. It invites us to "stop playing the blame game," by enhancing our self-awareness and self-responsibility. At the same time, it enhances our ability to communicate and collaborate with others in challenging conversations, when emotions are rising, even when we seem to be heading into conflict.

Though this is a foundational course in our Conscious Leadership development programs, it is essentially a course on "Leading Yourself" ... and so it's really a course for anyone ready to enhance self-responsibility for their own life. And while there is a workplace focus on these sessions, participants are also invited to use personal or family situations in terms of applying the process if they choose. The skills and the mindsets are the same no matter where they are applied.

This series focuses on core concepts of NVC, and is a co-requisite for more advanced training for Conscious Leadership, e.g. Conscious Conversations or Conscious Accountability.
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Session Outlines

Session 1: Own Your Own Reactions: Observations
​Increase awareness of when I am reactive — notice my somatic indicators and name my reactive thinking
How I blame others for my reactions
The PAUSE — breaking the unconscious reactive loop
How I take ownership of my reactivity, thoughts & perceptions
Understand the importance of observations that are free of evaluations
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Session 2: Own Your Own Feelings: Self-Connection
​How I blame others for my feelings
Enhance my awareness of the body sensations & feelings within me
Understand feelings as the guiding tension to meet needs
How I take ownership of my feelings — expressing feelings without blame
Shift my attention to "what matters" — the vital role of human needs
Differentiate needs from the strategies to meet needs
Learn to be aware of my own feelings and needs in any moment through self-connection

Session 3: Own Your Own Needs: Authentic Expression
How I blame others for my unmet needs
Holding needs tightly, but the strategies to meet them lightly
How to express what matters in a way that is likely to be heard
Exploring the power of requests rather than demands
Using requests that lead to connection & understanding
Using the "training wheels" of authentic expression

Session 4: Invite Others to Own Their Own Reactions, Feelings & Needs: Empathic Listening
​How to listen to others without hearing blame
​Embracing the day-to-day, human need of empathy — a need that is rarely named, rarely seen and rarely met
Noticing the "weird" ways we ask for empathy
Understanding the broad spectrum of empathy: from being heard ... to deep, healing empathy
What empathy is ... and what empathy is not

Session 5: Own Your Own Choices: Self-Empowerment & Autonomy
​How I blame others and avoid responsibility for my choices
How I can harm people and blame them for my actions
How to take ownership of my choices
Learn from my choices rather than blame myself for my "mistakes"
Learn the process of self-compassion
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​Session 6: Self-Responsibility​: Being Accountable for Myself
Taking responsibility for my own life - Moving from "victim" and "blame" to empowered and connected​
How can I enhance my self-awareness?
What are my reactive patterns that derail self-responsibility?
Where does "blame" or "victim" live in me? ... when is it healthy? ... when is it unhealthy?
What are my strategies to develop my own self-responsibility?
What next steps do I want to choose in my self-development?

Prerequisites
Introduction to Needs-Based Communication (NVC), or
Introduction to Conscious Leadership series