Mindful Compassionate Dialogue (MCD)

Support in better communication and connected relationships

Mindful Compassionate Dialogue (MCD) founded by Wise Heart is a comprehensive system and map that describes the process and skills necessary for cultivating thriving relationships with yourself and others. Through a dynamic understanding and integration of intention, using the nine foundations of selfhood, and the 12 relationship competencies you begin to live your relationships consistently with mindful engagement, agency, compassion, and wise discernment.

It combines and integrates the wisdom and skills of three primary modalities: Hakomi (body-centred therapy and psychotherapy), Nonviolent Communication (NVC), and Mindfulness (various mindfulness practices that adds the stable attention and clear focus needed to continuously refine your understanding and skills).

Each modality contributes something unique to the process. The result is relational competencies, communication skills and emotional capacity that empowers you to create compassionate, skilful and thriving relationships with yourself and others.

The 12 Relationship Competencies

The 12 relationship competencies offer a powerful and comprehensive guide for creating thriving relationships. Each relationship competency identifies six concrete skills along with specific practices for learning each skill. The relationship competencies naturally support emotional security, while at the same time promoting healthy differentiation. You learn to express appreciation, listen with empathy, make requests, access self-empathy, stay grounded through recognising and managing reactivity, negotiate, set clear boundaries, cultivate thriving and resilience, and repair disconnect.

The 9 Foundations of Selfhood

The nine foundations (attunement, warmth, security, awareness, health, regulation, equanimity, clarity, and concentration) are the key to working with obstacles to learning and transformation. Cultivating the nine foundations allows you to access skills when you need them most and count on them as your natural response. They are the foundation of your well-being; core parts of every person’s emotional, psychological, and physical experience. They are places that any therapist, spiritual director, or naturopath would look to help you heal, transform, and grow. When cultivated and strengthened, the nine foundations support a resilient and confident sense of self and allow you to move forward and master the relationship competencies.

Life Serving Intention

The intention to connect and focus on present moment experience is central to MCD, because this is where a powerful paradigm shift occurs. This shift is learning to trust the truth that when we attain a particular quality of connection within ourselves and with another, we naturally want to engage with generosity, creativity, and consideration of all needs present in a given situation.

The 4 Fruits

Relationship mastery manifests through the four fruits of mindful engagement, compassionate relating, access to agency and wise action. As you become more grounded in the consciousness of connection, have a sense of integration of the nine foundations and are able to access the skills of the 12 relationship competencies, you will find that the four fruits permeate your relationships.

Relationship & Communication Skills for Thriving Relationships

Mindful Compassionate Dialogue is presenting much more than a new or better way to communicate. It is asking you to make a paradigm shift in the way you relate to your experience, decide what you trust, and how you perceive others. As you strengthen and learn the nine foundations and the 12 relationship competencies of MCD, you will experience yourself and your relationships in a profoundly new way. You will learn to identify unsupportive relationship dynamics through an accessible framework and learn a set of skills that enables you to make immediate changes.

COURSES & WORKSHOPS

Empowering you with the skills and capacity to create compassionate, skilful and thriving relationships with yourself and others.

MCD - Foundations Course

This course lays the foundation and will help you create healthy relationships and relate to yourself and others from authenticity and compassion. Emotional and communication skills and competencies for thriving, connected relationships.

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Empathy Circle – Free Offering

A safe space where you will learn and discover what empathy really is, and most importantly, practice giving and receiving empathy, allowing you to be deeply seen and heard in whatever challenge or celebration you’re navigating. All are welcome.

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Communication & Relationship Mastery Series

A roadmap to relationship mastery. In this series, we will learn and cultivate each of the 12 relationship competencies needed to become skilful and competent in communicating and relating to yourself and others. Join for the entire series or only choose the competencies you want. Experience connection and thriving relationships with yourself and others on the other side of this series.

Coming Soon...

Lifer-Serving Boundaries

Setting boundaries is about being firmly grounded in what works for you. It means making conscious decisions about how you will relate to another or behave in a particular situation. Learning to set boundaries with yourself and others helps you create a life that is balanced and nourishing.

Coming Soon...

Attachment Theory & Relationship Skills

This course will help you understand how the psychological system of attachment impacts your relationships and how you can take action to cultivate relationship skills that build emotional security in personal relationships.

Coming Soon...

Bringing Light to Shame

You are ready to gain confidence that you can work with shame when it comes up for you. You want to learn practical tools for moving through shame to the vulnerable feelings underneath and then identify and take action to meet your needs. In this course, you will learn to bring shame fully into the light of consciousness and build a compassionate and skillful relationship to it.

Coming Soon...

Transforming Reactivity

Learn specific and concrete tools for managing reactivity in yourself and meeting reactivity in others. Begin to transform your inner dialogue into one of inner clarity and self-compassion.

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COMING SOON...

More courses and workshops coming soon. Watch this space to stay updated.

Coming Soon...

COMING SOON...

More courses and workshops coming soon. Watch this space to stay updated.

Coming Soon...

This is for you if…

You want practical communication and mindfulness skills for personal transformation and thriving relationships.

You want better communication skills.

You wish to create more connection in your personal relationships.

You want to build your confidence and ability to handle conflict.

You want to introduce and employ communication skills in your life, relationships and community that embodies, respect, inclusion and equity.

You are dedicated to living an authentic life with compassion for yourself and others.

You want to set boundaries while remaining connected to your heart.

You want to recognise and manage reactivity within yourself and others, enabling you to take effective action and prevent escalating arguments.

Let’s Work Together

MCD workshops are offered (in person and online) throughout the year, where we deep dive into various themes and competencies, such as empathy, self-empathy, honest expression, appreciation, recognising and managing reactivity, life-serving boundaries, needs-based negotiation, bringing light to shame, dating skills and discernment, and many more.
Sign up to be notified via our newsletter of upcoming workshops or keep an eye out for them by joining us on Facebook and Instagram.

To bring Mindful Compassionate Dialogue consciousness and skills to your team or organisation, have a look at MCD Teams.

MCD