Learn to Communicate What Works! Appreciation: Mindful Compassionate Dialogue Relationship Competency 1 (Video Conferencing or Self-Paced)

Thursday, January 28, 2021
11:30 AM 1:00 PM

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Is this you?

You are dedicated to living an authentic life, cultivating compassion for yourself and others, and building the practical skills to create better relationships. You know you want more tools to manage reactivity, listen deeply, ask for what you need, and negotiate with others. You are willing to practice mindfulness and relationship skills in a safe environment that includes vulnerability and self-reflection.

What is it all about?

This workshop will focus on the relationship competency of appreciation, a form of honest expression. It’s about noticing what’s working well and saying that aloud more often than expressing what’s not working.

Appreciation is a form of positive feedback that uses clear and specific terms to express what works. It’s not about building someone’s self-esteem or giving praise. Appreciation practice lays the foundation for collaborative and vibrant relationships. It supports the ability to meet challenges with skill and grace, and contributes to resilience by creating a sense of confidence that each person’s good intentions and effective contributions are known.

Appreciation as a form of honest expression likely is changing the definition as you know it. When most people hear the word “appreciation,” they think of praise. Examples of praise include telling someone how great they are, complimenting them, and assigning positive labels like “sweet person,” “good parent,” or “hard worker.” Praise and positive judgments (or labels) are usually meant to be forms of celebration, but they are problematic for two reasons. First, judgments are static and simplistic and can’t represent all that you are—an ever-changing flow of dynamic aliveness. Second, you may have experienced praise as a form of manipulation, an attempt to shape your behavior, or as a means to dole out rewards and punishments. Both of these are tragic strategies that interfere with your ability to hear the other person.

In Mindful Compassionate Dialogue, the word “celebration” is used synonymously with “appreciation.” In this context, when you share a celebration you express gratitude regarding something a particular person has done to contribute to particular needs for you. Listening to someone offer appreciation is really about hearing their experience of something you did, not their opinion of you. In a fundamental sense, when someone appreciates you, it’s not about you. It helps you get to know the person offering appreciation and how to contribute to them.

About Mindful Compassionate Dialogue

Mindful Compassionate Dialogue (MCD) naturally supports you in creating the relationships you want by integrating the wisdom and skills of three powerful modalities: Hakomi, Nonviolent Communication (NVC), and mindfulness.

Each modality contributes something unique to the process. Hakomi offers clarity about reactivity and healing. NVC provides a method for achieving self-responsibility, skillful communication, and agency. And mindfulness adds the stable attention and clear focus needed to continuously refine your understanding and skills.

MCD is a system meant to provide access to agency, compassion, mindfulness, and wisdom. Personal transformation is achieved through practice with the12 Relationship Competencies and Nine Foundations, which arise from a central, life-serving intention.

What to expect:

In this two-hour workshop, you will engage in conceptual learning, group discussion, experiential learning, and skills practice. Practice exercises will be done individually, in pairs, and in small groups. You can apply examples from your own life that you choose in the exercises.

Understanding the online format

Students will be signing in to the workshop simultaneously in real time from their own locations, using Zoom. We will be able to see and hear each other. For visibility, it’s important to have a light in front of you, not behind you. The technology allows for breaking up into pairs or small groups, which the trainers can check in with just as would happen in an in-person course.

You will be able to review a recording of the workshop for a full week after it ends. Students won't be shown on the recording, but can be heard. You can participate in discussions via chat if you don’t want your voice recorded. This course may be sold later as a pre-recorded course.

You can also opt to take the series only through the recording.

Having someone in your life available to do the exercises with you is recommended for this option.

You will receive a detailed handout as a part of the workshop that you can download and keep for future reference.

Details:

Live attendance means:

Arriving on time to the workshop.
Attending and participating for the duration of the class. It is very disruptive to come in and out of the workshop; please plan to attend by recording if you cannot stay for the full 90 minutes of the workshop.

Access to the video recording for a full week following the workshop.
Receiving a detailed handout that you can download and keep for later reference.
The opportunity to be assigned a study buddy
Ensuring you have consistent access to internet speeds and connectivity that support video conferencing (600kbps/1.2Mbps (up/down) for HQ video; 1.5Mbps/1.5Mbps (up/down) for gallery view).