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COURSE

Communicating With Compassion & Clarity

With Lucy Draper-Clarke PhD

This is a course for everyone who yearns to communicate in ways that build connections. It will also help those of you who wish to heal from painful past experiences. When interacting with others, you may have found yourself triggered and then spoken and acted in ways that caused hurt or harm – to yourself, the other, or the relationship between you. This Compassionate Communication course draws on the principles of non-violent communication as developed by Dr. Marshall Rosenberg. Coupled with the powerful practices of mindfulness and compassion, you will learn skills to address these very human challenges.

Integrate non-violent communication (NVC), mindfulness, and compassion to deepen connection with yourself and others.

10 Days

1.5k students

4.8 stars

16 min / day

English

About this course

Tonglen

Mindful Awareness

Tense-and-Release

Meet your Teacher

Lucy Draper-Clarke PhD

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Saltash, UK

Lucy Draper-Clarke PhD is a retreat facilitator, mindfulness mentor, and researcher-practitioner in the field of mindfulness and compassion. After obtaining a doctorate in mindfulness and teacher education, she now offers public courses and conducts research at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. With a focus on Compassionate Activism, she works with those engaged in social transformation and healing, to alleviate stress and increase resilience through awareness and compassion. She leads popular retreats around Southern Africa, exploring embodied awareness. As a practitioner of the Karma Kagyu School of Buddhism, Lucy attends regular meditation retreats to deepen her own practice. Felicity Joan Hart is a teacher, mindfulness facilitator, wisdom keeper, and coach whose work focuses on spirituality as it relates to all aspects of our lives and being. A dedicated practitioner of yoga, mindfulness, and meditation for almost 40 years, her work is very much informed by these modalities and others. Felicity holds an Honours Degree in Psychology, a certification in Mindfulness-Based Interventions from the University of Stellenbosch as well as international coaching qualifications. She is an enthusiastic student and teacher of Non-Violent Communication as developed by Dr. Marshall Rosenberg and runs retreats around South Africa exploring the power and healing of compassionate communication.

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10 Days

1.5k students

4.8 stars

16 min / day

English

Lesson 1

Mindful Awareness

This first session explores how mindful awareness and compassion practices can help you apply the principles of non-violent communication (NVC) when you need them most. We introduce the four steps of NVC, consider the challenges of communicating consciously, and draw on insights from neuroscience to support your understanding of habitual ways of engaging. The accompanying mindfulness practice will help you connect with three dimensions of awareness: intention, attention, and an accepting attitude – all vital qualities for your compassionate communication journey.

Lesson 2

Jackal Language

This session reveals what gets in the way of skillful communication. Marshall Rosenberg distinguished two paradigms: jackal and giraffe. The symbol of the jackal represents language that creates disconnection while the giraffe symbolizes the language of connection. We look at how jackal language shows up in everyday life and why we tend to default to unskillful communication. By not judging the jackal, you will have an ally and guide to your deeper feelings and needs. In the somatic practice, you’ll experience how tensing and then relaxing different muscle groups open you to the possibility of feeling greater safety and connection.

Lesson 3

Giraffe Language

Heart-centered giraffe language is the essence of compassionate communication and includes the four steps and four foundations found within NVC. In this session, we explore the flow of the 'giraffe dance' and how it leads to connection. We expand our understanding of NVC beyond the awareness and skillful use of language. It is also a model of communication, a compassionate consciousness, and a powerful means of influence in the world. The meditation practice today recognizes the interdependence of the mind-body and uses the seven points of a meditation posture to connect to the beauty of giraffe consciousness.

Lesson 4

Observations

The willingness to observe without judgment is a high form of intelligence and one of the key capacities we develop when communicating compassionately. The observation step in NVC speaks to what you experience through your senses - the facts of a situation or event. In this session, you’ll explore why focusing on the facts can be challenging, especially when you are triggered. We consider the benefits of separating observations from evaluations and offer ideas for processing your experience before communicating your observations to others. A practice of pure mindful observation, without judgment, offers you an embodied experience of this session’s learnings.

Lesson 5

Feelings

In this session, you’ll explore feelings as the second step of non-violent communication. You will have an opportunity to develop awareness around feelings and distinguish them from interpretations. In exploring this relationship to feelings, you will sense how they show up in the body, learn to express them without blame, and use them to help you connect to your needs. The body is an ally for us when working with feelings, and the practice in this session allows you to become more familiar with physical sensations and the associated emotion, to help you identify your feelings with greater ease.

Lesson 6

Compassion For Difficult Feelings

“You can search the whole world for someone more worthy of compassion than yourself, but no such person exists.” These words from the Dalai Lama invite you to explore radical self-compassion and this is the focus of our sixth session. As you open more to your feelings, this session offers encouragement, reassurance, and comfort. Self-compassion is a way to allow for a deeper understanding of your feelings and needs. The meditation practice will support an attitude of loving-kindness towards yourself by allowing you to experience how to create a container within which to hold your wide range of feelings.

Lesson 7

Needs

This session is all about needs. Everyone experiences needs and our actions are usually in service of our needs. There are many available strategies to meet your needs, although you may not always be aware of them. NVC suggests that, at the level of needs, there is no conflict, but the strategies we use to meet them often creates conflict. You will explore questions and non-violent principles to reveal your needs and build the courage to express them. Today’s practice brings an awareness to your body, touches into the present moment and allows you to recognize your needs.

Lesson 8

Making Requests

The question, “What would I like to request of myself or others to enrich my life?” is the final step of NVC. Dr. Rosenberg taught that the clearer we are about what we want, the more likely we are to get it. This session offers ways to make skillful requests, composed of positive action language. Our intention is for others to contribute to our well-being because they want to. There is a big difference between a request and a demand. Our practice will explore how to make requests of yourself first and then be open to the possibility of making requests of others.

Lesson 9

Empathy

In this session, we’ll explore the quality of empathy within the NVC process. We revisit the three points of connection symbolized by the infinity sign and consider how to practice empathy for yourself and others within this flow. The heart’s consciousness leads the way. The self-empathy practice allows you to drop into a feeling of safety, name what’s present in your body, emotions, and thoughts and hold even the difficult or uncomfortable experiences. The practice gives you an opportunity to feel the transformative capacity of the heart when you bring compassion to yourself and your experience.

Lesson 10

Golden Threads

In this final session, Felicity and Lucy share their personal golden threads of insight. These include the heart qualities of compassion and kindness, the contemplative, mindfulness, and somatic practices that support the steps of NVC, and the steps themselves. We see how the steps can become a ‘friend’, a way to check in with yourself repeatedly, building your capacity for self-awareness and self-compassion. Our closing practice traces the steps of NVC and transforms them into a beautiful meditation, allowing you to drop into a feeling of peace, ease, and comfort as we end our time together.