Conscious Communication Skills

A set of basic and easy to learn skills that enable you to:

* Hear and acknowledge other people without judgment
* Express your feelings and needs without blame
* Establish healthy boundaries
* Negotiate so that both of your needs are met
* Be independent and connected with other people

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While we have made impressive advances in technology that enable a level of material comfort unthinkable to our ancestors,
our way of relating to each other
has not changed much since the Stone Age. 

Most of us rely on our instincts of fight or flight when we feel threatened, and we still believe that attacking or withdrawing will resolve our conflicts with other people. The tragic results of our lack of relationship skills are evident all around us, from the epidemic of divorce to the continual outbreaks of war throughout our world.

With more than six billion of us now sharing the resources of our small planet, tensions between people can only increase, and our inability to cooperate with each other may be the largest threat we face to our survival as a species.  In an age of nuclear weapons, global warming, massive environmental pollution, and a global economy, it is clear that the actions of each one of us affect everyone else here on earth.  In this light, our reliance on primitive survival instincts to manage our relationships makes no sense.  If we continue to choose competition over cooperation, we insure our own eventual demise.

Conscious Communication presents a model for healthy relationships that focuses on the hidden causes of tension between people, and helps us understand how our own ingrained assumptions create an atmosphere of competition. Instead of approaching conflict from a moral or intellectual view point, this system takes aim at the primal impulses that compel us to fight, even when the outcome is not in our best interests.  By bringing our ancient survival instincts into view, we expose them for what they are and recognize how they directly undermine our needs for family, community, and security.

The foundation of Conscious Communication is a set of simple skills that effectively interrupt our habitual reactions and enable us to make a more conscious choice than fight or flight when we feel threatened.  These new tools for co-operative relationships offer a framework for conflict that goes beyond the simplistic labels of good and bad, and allows us to stay connected with each other, while acknowledging our differences.