I’m in the middle of a tense conversation and the other person says, “You hurt my feelings and I’m really upset.” I’m flabbergasted! I never meant to hurt anyone and I certainly wasn’t trying to hurt anyone’s feelings. Why should
Cultivating accountability in our lives
How do we know when someone in our lives is trustworthy? Brene Brown, PhD, LMSW, uses the acronym BRAVING when talking about and assessing behaviors that allow us to trust others (and to trust in ourselves!). We’ve so far tackled
Overcoming Barriers to Reliability, Earning Trust
After “Boundaries,” an important characteristic of someone who is trustworthy is reliability (“R” in the BRAVING acronym). This may seem fairly obvious—after all, we all intuitively know that someone who doesn’t follow through on promises and commitments is harder to
Assessing trustworthiness through BRAVING
How do we know when someone in our lives is trustworthy? Brene Brown, PhD, LMSW, uses the acronym BRAVING when talking about and assessing behaviors that allow us to trust others (and to trust in ourselves!). The B in the
What’s so Hard about Setting Boundaries?
Boundary-setting is a key component of verbal self-defense, and verbal self-defense is a huge piece of the empowerment self-defense model. It’s easily equally as important as physical self-defense. Participants are often surprised by that. But 75% to 90% of physical
Introducing PowerUP!
PowerUP is a 6-week workplace empowerment program. Part workout, part meditation, and part assertiveness training, each session will leave participants feeling more powerful and confident in themselves, their lives, and their work. Workouts are centered around self-defense techniques to further
How Empowerment Self-Defense helps employee engagement
So how does Empowerment Self-Defense help employee engagement? Because one of the fundamental things we teach is how to communicate assertively. And when you know you can say no to what you don’t want, and ask for what you do