Here is a different story about who we are, why we got here, and what we can do to move towards our longings for a different world. In her debut publication, Spinning Threads of Radical Aliveness, internationally known thinker and trainer Miki Kashtan puts forth the bold vision that we can live with integrity, even in a world that has betrayed our deepest hopes for the future. The key she offers for opening the door to deep changes at all levels is to embrace a major transformation in our relationship with our deepest needs and values. All aspects of relationships take on a new light when filtered through the lens of human needs. This profound book will help you discover the transformative power of shifting from evaluating, judging, and competing into an openhearted commitment to make things work for everyone. For the millions who long to "be the change you wish to see," this book elegantly and thoroughly provides a roadmap - and nourishment for the spirit.

Find your voice, speak your truth, listen deeply—a guide to having more meaningful and mindful conversations through nonviolent communication We spend so much of our lives talking to each other, but how much are we simply running on automatic—relying on old habits and hoping for the best? Are we able to truly hear others and speak our mind in a clear and kind way, without needing to get defensive or go on the attack? In this groundbreaking synthesis of mindfulness, somatics, and Nonviolent Communication, Oren Jay Sofer offers simple yet powerful practices to develop healthy, effective, and satisfying ways of communicating. The techniques in Say What You Mean will help you to: • Feel confident during conversation • Stay focused on what really matters in an interaction • Listen for the authentic concerns behind what others say • Reduce anxiety before and during difficult conversations • Find nourishment in day-to-day interactions “Unconscious patterns of communication create separation not only in our personal lives, they also perpetuate patterns of misunderstanding and violence that pervade our world. With clarity and great insight, Oren Jay Sofer offers teachings and practices that train us to speak and listen with presence, courage, and an open heart.” —Tara Brach, author of Radical Acceptance and True Refuge

In Microcosm’s DIY guide to zine-making, editors Bill Brent, Joe Biel, and a cast of contributors take you from the dreaming and scheming stages onto printing, publication and beyond! Covering all the bases for beginners, Make a Zine! hits on more advanced topics like Creative Commons licenses, legality, and sustainability. Says Feminist Review, “Make a Zine! is an inspiring, easy, and digestible read for anyone, whether you’re already immersed in a cut-and-paste world, a graphic designer with a penchant for radical thought, or a newbie trying to find the best way to make yourself and your ideas known.” Illustrated by an army of notable and soon-to-be-notable artists and cartoonists, Make a Zine! also takes a look at the burgeoning indie comix scene, with a solid and comprehensive chapter by punk illustrator Fly (Slug and Lettuce, Peops). Part history lesson, part how-to guide, Make a Zine! is a call to arms, an ecstatic, positive rally cry in the face of TV show book clubs and bestsellers by celebrity chefs. As says Biel in the book’s intro, “Let’s go!”

What if people -- even longtime enemies -- could transform conflicts into dilemmas they feel motivated to solve together and build more connection and trust? What if employees could leave a meeting empowered and with a joint sense of purpose? What if the positive changes community activists are working so hard to see in the world had a lasting impact?In THE HIGHEST COMMON DENOMINATOR: Using Convergent Facilitation to Reach Breakthrough Collaborative Decisions, Miki Kashtan introduces a novel decision-making process called Convergent Facilitation that builds trust from the beginning, surfaces concerns and addresses them, and turns conflicts into dilemmas that groups feel energized to solve together. This highly-effective decision-making process has been used successfully around the world to resolve problems and teach people how to collaborate without sacrificing productivity. Since 2002, Convergent Facilitation has helped organizations, businesses, and governments upend traditional and unproductive decision-making methods, such as majority rule, top-down decision-making and coercion, or consensus, which can drain a group's energy. In 2012, Miki worked with the Minnesota State Legislature to resolve gridlock on child custody legislation and helped stakeholders draft bills that passed nearly unanimously. In a 2014 op-ed in the New York Times, Miki explained how power differences lead employees to stay silent and not feel part of a common goal, which ultimately makes a business run less effectively. THE HIGHEST COMMON DENOMINATOR allows readers to learn and implement Convergent Facilitation. The book moves readers through three phases of a process that brings groups to outcomes that are profoundly collaborative and genuinely supported by all. Through vivid case studies and practical examples, the book explains:?how to guide people towards solutions that integrate everyone's needs and concerns without requiring compromise;?how to keep people on track with the task at hand;?how to invite dissent and engage with it productively; and?how to attend to the power differences that so often interfere with collaboration.

In Heart at the Center: An Educator’s Guide to Sustaining Love, Hope, and Community Through Nonviolence Pedagogy, high school teacher Mike Tinoco examines what it means to reimagine classrooms and schools as spaces that humanize, resist violence and injustice, and center love. Offering both a framework and a set of practices that are grounded in different nonviolence traditions, Heart at the Center asks readers to consider what a pedagogy of nonviolence looks like, sounds like, and feels like in the classroom. Written with warmth, expertise, and humility, Mike Tinoco invites us into his classroom, drawing on stories from his own life and powerful examples from civil rights movement leaders to explore questions such as: How do we create classrooms and schools that are grounded in needs and match our vision for the kind of world we dream of? How can we challenge conventional classroom management practices, welcome conflict, and nurture relationships with and amongst our students to foster positive peace? How can we embed love in our curriculum and be inclusive of our students’ lives, centering community, healing, and justice? How can we slow down and take care of ourselves without compromising the urgency to fight for justice? When can voluntary suffering meet our needs and empower us? How can educators navigate conflict, build community with one another, and create their own professional development opportunities that support collective care? Heart at the Center is a book for educators who believe that a different kind of classroom, a different kind of school, and a different kind of world are possible.

“I’m in love with this book! It illuminates the forces that make parenting so difficult, and helps us develop better relationships with our kids—and ourselves.” —Hunter Clarke-Fields, MSAE, author of Raising Good Humans Parenting is hard. But when we replace conventional parent-child power dynamics with collaboration, family life gets easier today—and we create a better world for all of us in the future. When we see our children stalling, resisting, having tantrums, using mean words, and hitting, we want to just make it stop. But conventional discipline methods like time-outs, countdowns, and “consequences” teach children that it’s OK for more powerful people to control others—a lesson they take out into the world. This is how we learned White supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism from our parents—and we will replicate this with our children unless we make a different choice. Research-based parenting educator Jen Lumanlan offers a simple yet revolutionary framework for rethinking our relationships with children. This new approach helps us to look beneath challenging behaviors to find and meet children’s needs, and ours too—perhaps for the first time in our lives. It involves empathetic listening, understanding feelings and underlying needs, and problem-solving with our children to find solutions to conflicts that work for everyone. Family life becomes radically easier in the short term because behavior problems tend to melt away. In the long term, we’ll raise children who confidently advocate for themselves and treat others with profound respect. Includes sample scripts, flowcharts, and resources to help parents learn and implement this new approach. —"The compassionate guidance will be a boon to parents eager to move away from punitive child-rearing strategies."—Publisher's Weekly

Conflict is everywhere: our living rooms, our streets, our community organizations, and every corner of the internet. But few of us have the training to successfully intervene or resolve these conflicts. In these pages, experienced peacemaker Gwendolyn Olton shows you how to use your existing skills and intuition to transform a wide variety of conflicts from insurmountable impasses to working relationships where everyone's needs are met. The result is a practical, kind, realistic guidebook for anyone who's found themselves in a conflict (their own or someone else's) and wondered, "How did we get here and what can I do to make it better!?"The book is broken up into three sections: learn the basics of conflicts, help others work out their conflicts, and finally, resolve and heal the conflicts in your own life. Filled with real life examples and thought-provoking scenarios, Olton offers a variety of conflict analysis and conversation tools that you can use to navigate the most challenging interpersonal dynamics, and to better understand yourself and others along the way—all without calling HR or the cops.