The Doug Noll Show

My guest is Dan Millstein, author of the book The One Minute Miracle. Dan spent 18 years in prisons around the world teaching inmates how to be self-aware, non-reactive teachers of peace. His book explains a simple and elegant guided meditation composed of twelve affirmations and twelve yoga hand positions, called mudras. As each affirmation is spoken, the hands change to a different position. This simple ceremony changed prisoners and prison populations, sometimes dramatically. Today, Dan is putting out the idea of creating 108 million Teachers of Peace. Again, by affirmation, he wonders what would happen if 108 million people declared themselves each to be a Teacher Peace. More information about Dan and his work can be found at www.visionsforprisons.com and www.teacherofpeace.com . Join us for a interesting conversation about Dan’s work.
http://www.teacherofpeace.com

Dan Millstein, Author of "The One Minute Miracle"
http://www.teacherofpeace.com

Dan Millstein, Author of "The One Minute Miracle"
http://www.teacherofpeace.com

Dan Millstein, Author of "The One Minute Miracle"
http://www.teacherofpeace.com

What a great Valentine’s Day topic! Mars vs. Venus. Men and women fighting. It seems like every couple, whether dating, committed or married, at one time or another has a fight. In many relationships, the conflicts escalate until the relationship feels like it is not worth preserving. What is going on that we fight with the person we love the most? My co-host is Aleya Dao and together we explore the war between the sexes. Men and women have different perspectives, different communication styles, and different needs at different times. Aleya and I talk about these differences from the female and male perspective.

It’s not about the money! Aleya and I talk about symbolic content issues like shopping, sports, money, sex, children, parents. These seem to be what the fight is about, but not really. Tune in and find out what is really going on.

Learning to make peace with your partner. Aleya and I have some basic tools for you to make peace with your partner and we demonstrate in actual conversations how to do it. Learn how and why to create a safe space for difficult conversations, set some ground rules, and engage in various kinds of empathic listening.

Continuation of Segment 3

We expect kids up through their teens to fight with their parents. Its part of growing up and learning. But what we don’t expect are the fights between adult children and their parents. In this show, my co-host, Aleya Dao, and I take up this troublesome issue. Why do adult children fight with their parents? And how can those fights be transformed into peace. We start by identifying some of the common themes of fights between adult children and their parents, including health, money, alcohol and drug abuse, second (or third) spouses, child rearing including discipline, education, and religion, opinions about children’s spouses, and politics.

What are the hidden relationship issues? These issues drive many of the fights, and we are not aware of them. They include respect manifested by disrespect, insults; freedom manifested by unhealthy control; autonomy manifested by unhealthy or manipulative power; safety manifested by fear; love manifested by smothering and guilt; and abundance manifested by hoarding, stinginess, not being generous.

What are the hidden identity issues? They include self-esteem manifested by competition, self-worth manifested by arrogance rather than humility, gratitude and appreciation manifested by resentment, commitment to self manifested by selfishness, self-control manifested by guilt, healthy pride and self-esteem manifested by shame.

Some simple questions indicate much about how adult children respond to their parents. For example:
• Who am I if I am not my mother?
• Who is my father closer to - me or mother?
• What can I do so that my mother accepts me as an adult?
• Is it OK to be happier than my mother?
• Why do I want my mother's approval?

What are the three topics your mother said never to raise in polite company? And what are the three topics that drive human resources managers crazy? And what are the three topics that define us as human beings in terms of the most important values and beliefs. You got it — Sex, Politics and Religion. In this show, we talk about sex, politics, and religion at the office. Why are these hot buttons? Is it possible to even talk about these issues without drawing the ire of HR or bringing down a lawsuit? How do we build healthy attitudes towards sex, politics, and religion at the office?

In this show, we talk about sex, politics, and religion at the office.

In this show, we talk about sex, politics, and religion at the office.

In this show, we talk about sex, politics, and religion at the office.

Ever noticed how in an argument or fight, the conflict usually seems to escalate rather than calm down? In this show, we will be looking at conflict escalation—why arguments and fights become heated. We start some recent studies about the brain and beliefs, look at the goals people bring to conflict, and then discuss the five stages of conflict escalation. Finally, we share some of the secrets of how peacemakers de-escalate conflicts.

In this show, we will be looking at conflict escalation—why arguments and fights become heated.

In this show, we will be looking at conflict escalation—why arguments and fights become heated.

In this show, we will be looking at conflict escalation—why arguments and fights become heated.

Anger and conflict go hand in hand. Every argument involves anger and anger is part of life. Why do we become angry? How can we deal with our own anger? How do we deal with the anger of others? And how do we deal with people in our lives that are perpetually angry? In this show, we look at anger from the perspective of the peacemaker. There are four kinds of anger and each reflects a very different behavior. Of course, angry behavior is rooted in neuropsychology, so we look at the brain’s fear response system as a source of anger in the brain. In dealing with anger, we look at our own anger and its causes. Likewise, we look at other people’s anger and talk about how we might work with it. Finally, we consider the problem of violent anger and how to respond and not respond to it. Tune in for an informative show.

Continued Anger Discussion

Continued Anger Discussion

Continued Anger Discussion

Conflict usually involves a lot of emotion and reactivity. When we are reactive, we lose our ability to think things through clearly. Aleya Dao and I will be talking about these common experiences in this show and invite you to email me at info@lawyertopeacemaker.com with your comments and questions.
Reactivity is controlled by deep brain functions located in the amygdala. We have two amygdalae, located in each brain hemisphere. The amygdalae act as early warning systems and trigger us into action if a threat is perceived. Interestingly, the amygdalae cannot distinguish between a physical threat, a social insult, or a bad memory. The opporutnities for triggers is therefore plentiful. Anger and Inner Peace, Finding Peace Within, Reactivity, Difficult People Forgiveness

Conflict escalates in five stages. As people enter the next higher stage, their reactivity is more intense and their ability to reason their way out of the problem diminishes. The only way to de-escalate is work back through the stages one at a time.

The tools for dealing with triggers and reactivity include self-awareness, feeling emotions and identifying them within you, looking for the lessons to be learned from the moment, and practicing that which you wish to master. Aleya tells us about the energetic fields that can be used to shift reactivity.

Learn to read emotional data fields to help others who are reactive and triggered. The emotional data field consists of the layers of emotions a person is experiencing in conflict situations. We can help people de-escalate by acknowledging and identifying their emotions for them in the moment.

Fear is a good thing when you might be facing a sabre-toothed tiger. It motivates you to do something: Fight or Flee or disappear into the landscape by freezing. However, fear in our complex modern society can, and often is, debilitating. Drug addiction, relationship problems, violence and abuse, and even war are all caused in large part by unconscious reactions to fear. So one of the central components of transforming conflicts of all kinds into peace is working with fear. My guest on this show has helped people deal with their fears for over a quarter century. Helene Rothschild earned a Bachelor and Master of Science Degree in Health Education at Brooklyn College, in Brooklyn, New York and she taught in High School for six years. She received a Master of Arts degree in Marriage, Family, Child Counseling from the University of Santa Clara, in Santa Clara, CA. For 26 years she has been counseling, speaking, and teaching her unique therapeutic technique. Helene's goal is to assist people all over the world to "love themselves to peace" which she believes to be the key to health, happiness, success, and our greatest contribution to world peace. She has been a published author since 1985. Her newest book is a manual for life. The title is, "ALL YOU NEED IS H A R T!, Create Joy, Love and Abundance NOW!" A Unique Guide to Holistic And Rapid Transformation is available on her website www.lovetopeace.com. The key to inner peace is to get in touch with your fear and then release it. Helene and I talk about how most fear-driven behaviors originate in early childhood. Early experiences create scripts that play over and over throughout our lives, creating emotional chaos.
http://www.lovetopeace.com

In any intimate relationship, there are really three relationships. Two of the relationships are relationships we have with ourselves. No relationship will truly be intimate unless both of the partners have high self-esteem. In other words, Helene says, they have a good relationship with themselves. The third relationship is based on communication—the bridge between the partners. When a relationship is dysfunctional, it is because there is low self-esteem or poor communication. When anger arises it is an indicator of fear, hurt, or powerlessness. In relationship conflicts, the key to good communication is being able to say how you feel, e.g., “I feel afraid.” “You” statements should only be used to compliment; otherwise, there is blaming and accusing.
http://www.lovetopeace.com

We talk about how fear manifests in the physical body. Helene tells us that our physical body is a literal map of our emotional state. By focusing on the fear associated with the part of our body that hurts, we can release the emotion and heal. Doug asks Helene about fear theat drives indecision. Helene tells us that we can overcome the fear of making a wrong decision by letting our Higher Self make the decision from love. She says that this is the essence of intuition or right brain processing. We too often ignore this part of our experience. By listening to our intuition, we can actually make decisions from a place of love rather a place of fear.
http://www.lovetopeace.com

Doug asks Helene how parents can be better at raising their children in a fear-free environment. Helene says that people have to learn to be parents. That requires reading, going to class, and studying. Many people are not able or willing to work hard at learning to be good parents. As a result, they pass their fears and scripts on to their children and the children end up with scripts of low self-esteem.
http://www.lovetopeace.com

Just about everybody has an annoying or even combative coworker without which work would be so much more pleasant. Imagine how great it would be if you could go to the office and do your work without having to deal with jerks with quirks. Doug’s guest is Serena Williamson, a corporate consultant with more than 20 years’ experience leading, coaching and training thousands of people. She holds a Ph.D. in adult education and psychology from the University of Toronto and has written numerous books and recorded CDs that inspire people and give them the tools to ride life’s ups and downs with enthusiasm and reduced stress. Her latest book is THE PASSION AND THE PAYCHECK and her website is www.serenawilliamson.com. Serena and Doug talk about leadership. One problem seems to be that people have high expectations of leaders. They expect their leaders to be geniuses, be inspirational, and have vision. The truth is most leaders are ordinary people with faults and problems like everyone else. Serena says that the key to dealing with poor leadership is to stop, look, and listen. Reflect on what’s going on around you. Decide what is important and what is not.
http://www.serenawilliamson.com

Doug and Serena talk about controlling the informaton flood. Turn off the machines and observe that the world does not come to a screeching halt. Serena talks about how amazed people are when she gives them permission to turn off their cell phones and Blackberries.
http://www.serenawilliamson.com