What are the Conversation Maps?

Copy of Foundations of Empathy & Mindfulness in Conversation Self-Guided Program

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The MYL Course Gives You The Ability To:

  • Recover more quickly in the moment of a difficult interaction and remain more centered
  • Deepen presence and connection in conversations and relationships
  • Use language more skillfully in your interactions with people
  • Cope better with stress, overwhelm, and inner conflict about the past and future
  • Transform anger and frustration into empathic understanding for self and other
  • Feel more confidence and skill having difficult conversations
  • Bring your listening and empathy skills to a new level
  • Express yourself more authentically and courageously, and with compassion
  • Heal emotional hurt and pain between you and others, and experience reconciliation and forgiveness
  • Develop empathic community of support and learning at this higher level
  • Work together better to discover creative ideas and solutions

4 Foundation Maps:

  • Self-Connection/Self-Connection Practice, an OFNR mindfulness practice and coping with challenge moments
  • Empathy in Speaking and Listening/Elements of Empathy, for speaking and listening in empathic conversation
  • Safety in Conflict/Intensity Practice, for practicing to respond with self-connection and compassion in intensity of difficulty and challenge
  • Freedom in No and Yes/Need Behind the No, for responding empathically and compassionately when hearing a "no" from someone or when you are wanting to say "no"
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What are Conversation Maps?

The Mediate Your Life online training course offers foundation and conflict conversation "maps," with the OFNR communication components and skills of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) at the core, for returning to empathic connection, compassion, and new creative possibilities and solutions. The conversation maps help you navigate different territories of disconnection and conflict in your life, inner and outer. Learning and practice happen in the context of building empathic community of connection and support with others in the course and in your life. The skills and structures help you return to empathic connection when you’re triggered into the brain’s Fight-Flight-Freeze stress response system. A core aspect of this level of training is a Triad Model of Conversation & Consciousness that integrates and deepens dual and non-dual awareness practice and relationship with the unconscious (e.g. subconscious and superconscious dimensions of mind, inner parts). The conversation maps come out of the Mediate Your Life Training body of work, created and developed by John Kinyon and Ike Lasater, and are associated with an empirically-supported model of emotion circuits and networks in the brain developed by affective neuroscience researcher Jaak Panksepp. In conjunction with the emotion networks there are differentiating patterns of thinking and evaluating related to each conversation type. Also integrated with this approach is Richard Schwartz's Internal Family Systems (IFS) work.

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6 Conflict Maps:

  • Resilience for Self/Mourn Celebrate Learn, to recover and strengthen your resilience and debrief with empathy and compassion after you did something you fear will be seen as a "mistake" and you're feeling anxiety, stress, or guilt/shame about negative judgments towards you from others, loss of connection, or other negative consequences.
  • Compassion for Other/Enemy Image Process, to prepare yourself to respond with empathy and compassion toward someone when you are feeling anger or frustration and having negative judgments about them.
  • Mediating Self-Compassion for the Past/Chooser-Evaluator process, for when you feel anger towards yourself and have thoughts of self-blame, -condemnation, -unworthiness, or disruption to your experience of play and joy about a past choice you made consciously or unconsciously.
  • Mediating Self-Direction for the Future/Internal Mediation process, for when you are feeling anxiety, stress, stuckness, indecision, depressed mood, or disruption to your experience of discovery and enthusiasm, and thoughts of inner demand -- should, have to, must, and possible negative consequences -- about making a decision or moving in a particular direction or towards a particular goal in the future. 
  • Bridging Differences/3Chairs Process for Difficult Conversations, for talking to someone when you are feeling trepidation or fear because there is disagreement around beliefs, lack of acceptance, and perhaps reactions of anger.
    Includes: Three Types of Agreements — main, supporting, and restoring
  • Healing Divides/Reconciliation & Healing process, for talking to someone when there are feelings of emotional hurt and pain in you and/or another person, and perhaps judgments of blame and feelings of anger.
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