Communication Skills to Speak Your Truth and Hear Others

Whether at home or at work, there's nothing more important in life than our relationship with ourselves, and with others, yet most of us aren't taught how to truly connect. So much of our culture teaches us to disconnect, from ourselves and from others. It turns out, authentic connection is a learnable skill, with some simple "how to" steps. It starts with an understanding of the shared human needs that drive every single thing we do, which gives us common ground to work from.

In this course, you'll learn to create a relationship with yourself that changes everything. You'll find clarity about what you truly want, and explore ways to move towards finding that in your life. You'll learn a simple tool that can make a profound difference in all your relationships, enabling you to speak your truth “quietly and clearly”, with both authenticity and compassion.

You will learn the "how to" of authentic connection – how to speak up for yourself in ways that work to create connection rather than conflict, and find win/win solutions – based mostly on Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg (“nonviolent” meaning “to do no harm”) with splashings of Inner Relationship Focusing, the Enneagram, Polyvagal theory and other frameworks. Learning this can help you meet needs for being heard/seen, agency, competence, authenticity and belonging. Ultimately, it’s really about learning how to be comfortable in your own skin, and being able to truly be yourself.

These skills can be applied in all avenues of your life - at work, at home, with your friends, with your enemies. They can improve your leadership and management skills at work, and deepen your personal relationships.

What Will I Learn?

• Feelings literacy (sensing what's going on in body, being in relationship with it)

• Needs literacy

• How to talk about feelings and needs, without blame or demand

• Exactly HOW to bring up a difficult issue with someone, in a way that will be much more likely to be heard.

• How to get clear on exactly what it is you're wanting in a situation

• Be able to work WITH the other person to find a solution that works for both of you, or, find other solutions that are equally satisfying to you, even if the other person isn't willing to talk or negotiate.

• How to naturally have more compassion for self and others

• How not to take things personally - aware that everyone else is just trying to meet their needs, and it's not about US.