Empathic Communication for Health & Wellbeing
Healing the Divides in our Personal and Work Lives, Organizations, and Society Through Empathic Conversation
Empathic Conversation & Organizations: Conversations That Change The Game
Facilitation and Training
John's mission is to work with individuals and with and between organizations — business, nonprofit, government, groups and communities — to support healing our divides and working together to respond to the challenges we face. John offers training in structures of empathic conversation and facilitates the difficult and healing conversations that are often avoided but are essential for growth and new possibilities to emerge. As the conversations unfold, learning and development in skills and "conversation maps" of empathic communication are provided based in universal language and mindful awareness. The focus within these trainings is the following:
- Leading through empathic communication and conversation, producing greater results through connection and transforming conflict
- Having difficult and healing conversations that catalyze positive change and move the individual, the team, the organization forward into new emergent possibilities
- Creating the understanding, connection, psychological safety, and trust that supports cooperation and synergy in teamwork
Speaking
John gives talks, presentations and introductory learning experiences. In these John provides an experiential overview of the core communication structures, components, and skills followed by demonstration and, if possible, interaction with the audience.
TO CONTACT John and schedule a call to talk about your organization/group, click HERE.
TO CHECK OUT John's 3Chairs Conversations Project events, click HERE.
Empathy and Consciousness in Conversation with Yourself and Others Helps You:
- Work Better with Others. Learn awareness and language skills to help you better understand and meet your needs and the needs of others around you.
- Build Empathic Community. Through practicing together with others you build a supportive learning community that includes family, friends and coworkers.
- Enhance Energy, Wellness, and Wellbeing. Health goes deeper than just your body. It is a transformation of the relationship to your mind and emotions, giving access to unconditional wellbeing and greater resilience, resourcefulness, and effectiveness in responding to conflict and challenges.
Empathic communication. Are you experiencing disconnection or breakdown of connection and cooperation in your organization or your personal or work life that you don't know how to heal? On a larger scale, is your work related to the social-economic-environmental turbulence and conflicts happening in the world and you're looking for a missing piece to help you? The approach of this work of empathic communication offers a way of being and communicating with yourself and others that is grounded in deep connection that leads to cooperation and the creation of new possibility. It is based in the international work of Nonviolent Communication (NVC).
The power of conflict. Empathic communication transforms the energy and creative potential in conflict into compassionate understanding and cooperative solutions. Conversation becomes a way to bridge and reconcile polarizing differences, opening doorways to greater health, well being, and collaboration. Empathic communication gives the ability to successfully navigate conflict and opens us to new possibilities to create the life we want and the world we envision, one conversation at a time.
Empathic conversation structure and consciousness. Learn empathic conversation "maps" and skills to use with yourself and others based in dimensions of universal language and mindful awareness (dual and nondual) in consciousness. Become more resilient with adversity and challenges, access new creative possibility, and build empathic community.
The vision of this work is that empathic communication is recognized as an integral part of the global health movement, including empathic relationship with the living ecology and systems of the planet. The deep urgency now is for human beings to collaborate and respond to the great challenges we face and transition globally to healthy and sustainable ways of living.
* For online community and courses, coaching & mediation, events, books and more, see below and the website navigation menu
Check out digital workbook Mindfulness in Conversation
Interviews with John
[click to view]
What is empathic communication? 2:21
Achieve Health and Wellness
Mindfulness and meditation are recognized in the cultural mainstream and the scientific community as an important component of overall health. The next step is the ability for empathic conversation. You'll learn to speak and listen to yourself and others in a nourishing way that contributes to thriving and flourishing. Shift from disconnection and conflict to connection and compassion. Our neurophysiology is wired for care and bonding. Supportive community and belonging are woven into the core of our ancestral inheritance and memory. Bringing awareness, presence, and consciousness into conversation, including difficult conversations, opens new pathways to health and wellness.
Live Resiliently
Resilience is a quality that is key to your overall well-being. Bounce back from adversity, conflict, failure, embarrassment, heartbreak and loss, anxiety, stress and overwhelm with new tools to become resilient by having better quality conversations with yourself and others. There are dimensions of mindfulness that are integrated with distinctions and skills of empathic communication. You gain an increasing capacity and ability to tap into connection that is already inside you and all around. Through the synthesis of awareness and language, combined with practice in a supportive learning community, a foundation of mental and emotional resilience develops happiness and well being--and being able to respond to challenges with resourcefulness and creative solutions.
Mindfulness In Conversation Digital Workbook
In a world that's teeming with disconnect, emptiness and conflict there's an emergent calling from our collective consciousness for deeper, richer ways of relating that nurture our common well being, trust, and cooperation.
In this digital workbook download you'll:
- Learn four dimensions of mindfulness in conversation for developing empathic connection, and restoring connection, with yourself, others, and life
- Practically apply your learning with exercises and practices with yourself and others
- Experience the deep fulfillment and greater effectiveness, resilience, and well being of empathic connection in your interactions and relationships
The workbook is designed to be read on your computer or tablet. It contains 99 pages, with two additional downloadable handouts.
Unlock Your Creativity
Creativity. It’s not just about being artistic or a special ingredient of productivity in your work. It' a primary component of the core skill set for experiencing a happy and successful life. When challenges arise how do you get to wise solutions? How do you access creativity in daily living? This work offers a way to get there through mindful conversation with yourself and others. The journey of these conversations takes you into the field of infinite potential and possibilities. You'll gain access to information, ideas, and insights that transcend the limitations of the thinking you started from. This ability will be increasingly essential for you to be able to respond to the rapidly growing magnitude and complexity of the challenges before you, and to find a way for you to have healthy and sustainable living.
Deepen Your Connections with Empathic Communication
Relationship and working together. Whether personal or work related, there is an essential, underlying quality to all our relationships — the degree of empathic connection. Beyond the roles and contexts, the conversations we are in through the day have the potential for a depth, richness and power that is exquisite. These connections become a tremendous source of well being, support, and opening to creativity, insight, and collaboration. There is a way to reliably produce this experience, and return to it when it is lost, by how we speak and listen, how we pay attention and use words, and how we move with life’s flow and currents of innovation to create the relationships, work, life and world we envision.
Online Learning & Community — Program & Courses
One of the most important things I (John) have discovered in my 20+ years of work in this space, is that furthering this kind of learning works best in a learning community. Developing these skills to be able to respond to the growing challenges in our personal lives and what’s happening in the world takes time and lots of practice and support. So, I’ve created an Empathy & Consciousness in Conversation online community (hosted on a platform called Mighty Networks), as well as levels of weekly live-session online courses to support you in skill development and help you build empathic community. See more information and links below.
Empathy & Consciousness in Conversation Online Community
It's FREE to join. The online community offers live virtual community spaces for connection and support, as well as different written topic sharing and discussion areas for engaging in and a wide variety of information and resources, and announcements about online courses and events with me. The community is about meeting, connecting and interacting with others who share your interests and values, and who can be sources of inspiration and support as we navigate the growing challenges and difficulties in our world. You can coordinate empathic conversation practice with other community members, and even connect with people who live near you! I believe building empathic community and support is crucial to growing our resilience, experiencing health and wellbeing, and being able to respond to the enormous difficulties ahead. CLICK HERE to learn more and to join the community.
Foundations of Empathy & Consciousness in Communication Course (Level One)
Empathy and awareness in communication transforms your world
Develop deep foundational skills and abilities, in the support of empathic community, to respond to challenges and adversities in your life and in the world.
Conflict to Connection in Conversation with Ourselves and Others 12-Week & 4-Week Intermediate Courses (Level Two)
Next 12-Week Course starts: July 20, Tuesdays 1:30-3pm PT
Empathic conversation maps to restore connection and create new possibility
Learn conversation maps (inner and outer) that build resilience with adversity, strengthen relationship and collaboration, and open new creative possibilities.
Conflict Coaching & Mediation Online Advanced Training Program (Level Three)
Next 6-9 Month Course starts: Sept 2, 2021. Click on link below for more info and to apply.
Level 3 Monthly Practice & Mentoring Group with coaching from John. Click on link for more info and to apply.
Helping people respond to conflicts and challenges within themselves and with others
Learn how to be in the role of conflict coach and mediator using OFNR mindfulness and the skills and maps of Mediate Your Life training, developed by John Kinyon and Ike Lasater.
Reviews
Sometimes, it's not so much which framework is the "best", but rather ... how honestly, completely, willingly a facilitator embodies the framework's principles. For it is in that intimate journey of surrendering, and allowing one's humanity to be refined by the framework's essence, that true power lies. That, I find inspiring, and worthy of emulation. And this is what I witnessed how John showed up for every session throughout the 4-month virtual mediation training program I took with him. John's commitment to responding to our needs as learners, and the grace with which he expressed that need, was for me as a fellow facilitator, exemplary. A brief testimonial does no justice to describing the transformation that was seeded in the space of co-creation and discovery that John held for us. I may most honestly only say, "experience it for yourself"! - Roslina Chai, Managing Director, Catalyse
“John Kinyon is one of our trainers of Nonviolent Communication and someone in whom I have a great deal of trust and confidence. John in my experience has a special gift for facilitating empathic understanding and communication between people. I highly endorse John's skills and abilities with Nonviolent Communication, and I strongly recommend him to anyone needing help resolving a conflict situation.”
––Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D., Founder of Nonviolent Communication
“John possesses remarkable insight into the inner workings of the mind caught in conflict. He has helped me understand my own blocks – needs and issues that have clouded my ability to connect with myself and others. I am deeply grateful that our paths have crossed.”
––Larry R., Attorney and Mediator, Former CEO of Venture-Funded Company
“John, I’m so grateful for the work you have done with my staff and me over the past 4 years. I want to thank you for how you helped me turn around the difficulties I was experiencing with my employees and create a new level of success in my business. You have contributed to these things by how you coached me to communicate differently and model the qualities and ways of relating I wanted to see with my staff. You have a great ability to support people being honest and authentic with each other in ways that bring them together. You have helped us communicate and resolve conflicts in a way that everyone felt heard and understood that then led to finding mutually satisfying solutions. Particularly helpful was when you mediated between two employees with long standing and complex problems - it was truly amazing to watch as they found the common ground of understanding and found the basis for being able to work together again with a growing sense of respect and mutuality.”
—Suzan Steinberg, Business Owner
“At a time of escalated tensions and unexpressed concerns, John's experience and inspirational style with NVC helped to facilitate a reconnection between the principles of the business. After the breakdown in communication, his skills helped create a stronger foundation of trust and empathy, where each person could be heard. This enabled us to move ahead into a creative dynamic process of strategies and goal setting for the company.”
—Selma Aslin and Tehra Braren, business owner and company director
“Nonviolent communication sounds like a political thing, but to me NVC is a communications approach that I value in personal and business relationships. John Kinyon is an expert and highly trained NVC facilitator, and is superlative at resolving hard, entrenched conflicts. He has the courage and competence to tackle even situations where people hate one another, and can lead them to find a common ground. John gets to the heart of an issue, and, in the kindest possible way, airs every stake-holder's point of view. His practical judgment, life experience and quiet style earn the respect of the participants, as he calmly draws them to lasting clarity and closure. Any organization--any relationship--could benefit from John Kinyon's teaching and facilitation.”
—Ed Niehaus, organizational consultant
Sometimes, it's not so much which framework is the "best", but rather ... how honestly, completely, willingly a facilitator embodies the framework's principles. For it is in that intimate journey of surrendering, and allowing one's humanity to be refined by the framework's essence, that true power lies. That, I find inspiring, and worthy of emulation. And this is what I witnessed how John showed up for every session throughout the 4-month virtual mediation training program I took with him. John's commitment to responding to our needs as learners, and the grace with which he expressed that need, was for me as a fellow facilitator, exemplary. A brief testimonial does no justice to describing the transformation that was seeded in the space of co-creation and discovery that John held for us. I may most honestly only say, "experience it for yourself"!
- Roslina Chai, Managing Director, Catalyse
