Is this you?
You would like to be a part of positive change and learn specific skills to support thriving and resilience in yourself and others. You witness the challenge of staying grounded as systems around us change.
Or, perhaps you feel a sense of fear and overwhelm, at times, as you witness division and suffering in our communities and would like more resources and skills to stay grounded.
Either way, you value continued growth and transformation. You want to learn a framework and set of skills that give you greater access to maintaining a grounded, wise and compassionate orientation to life.
You might be new to Wise Heart, or you might have taken numerous courses with us. Either way, you are ready to direct your energy toward cultivating the consciousness and skills to respond to stress and challenge in a way that helps you stay grounded and contribute to community.
What's It All About?
In this series, you will have the opportunity to learn and practice the consciousness and skills of MCD in community. Joining together in community with shared intention is one of the most nourishing things you can do to support your own sense of groundedness and hope. When we learn to trust and lean into the potency of our interdependence, we gain the support of all our natural inclinations and access our innate systems as they were meant to facilitate our thriving and resilience. We are able to shed our conditioning and come more into our authentic way of relating together.
In our series, the first and last weeks will be dedicated to an introduction and integration accordingly. The middle six weeks will be dedicated to the following themes:
Thriving and resilience
True security
Agency
Here are some of the skills and competencies we will learn, integrate, and practice together:
Mourning and celebration
How to access and build community
Regulation
Self-empathy
Empathy
Equanimity
Life-serving boundaries
Taking wise action
About Mindful Compassionate Dialogue
Mindful Compassionate Dialogue (MCD) naturally supports you in creating the relationships you want by integrating the wisdom and skills of three powerful modalities: Hakomi, Nonviolent Communication (NVC), and mindfulness.
Each modality contributes something unique to the process. Hakomi offers clarity about reactivity and healing. NVC provides a method for achieving self-responsibility, skillful communication, and agency. And mindfulness adds the stable attention and clear focus needed to continuously refine your understanding and skills.
MCD is a system meant to provide access to agency, compassion, mindfulness, and wisdom. Personal transformation is achieved through practice with the 12 Relationship Competencies and 9 Foundations, which arise from a central, life-serving intention.
WHAT to expect
In this series, you will learn and practice the consciousness and skills of Mindful Compassionate Dialogue that help you stay grounded in the face of challenge and contribute to others.
You will engage in conceptual learning, group dialogue, experiential body-centered learning, and skills practice. Practice exercises will be done individually, in pairs, and in small groups.
You will receive a detailed handout to accompany the series.
Understanding the online format
Students will be signing in to the workshop simultaneously in real time from their own locations, using Zoom. For visibility, it’s important to have a light in front of you, not behind you. We will make use of breakout rooms for dyad and small group sharing and practice. Facilitators will offer more individual support by visiting these small breakout rooms.
You will be able to review recordings of the series for another eight weeks after it ends. Students won't be shown on the recording, but can be heard. You can participate in discussions via chat if you don’t want your voice recorded. This course may be sold later as a pre-recorded course.
You can also opt to take the series only through the recording
Having someone in your life available to do the exercises with you is recommended for this option.
Details:
Live attendance means:
Arriving on time for each session
Attending and participating in at least 6 of the 8 sessions
Access to the video recording for 8 weeks following the end of the series
Receiving a detailed handout that you can download and keep for later reference
The opportunity to be assigned a study buddy
Ensuring you have consistent access to internet speeds and connectivity that support video conferencing (600kbps/1.2Mbps (up/down) for HQ video; 1.5Mbps/1.5Mbps (up/down) for gallery view)
Facility with using the Zoom video conferencing system. For more technical information about Zoom, you can go here.
Self-paced attendance means:
Access to the video recording for eight weeks following the series
Receiving a detailed handout that you can download and keep for later reference
The opportunity to be assigned a study buddy
Facilitation team: Elia Paz and Ceferino Cenizo, with assistance from MCD Guides Beth Laskin and Sam Einhorn
When: 10:00 am - 12:00 pm PST every Saturday for 8 sessions beginning on January 24, 2026:
January: 24, 31 / February: 7, 14, 21, 28 / March: 7, 14
Where: Online video conferencing
Cost: $295.00 USD
Please email us at info@wiseheartcommunity.org if financial contribution is the only thing preventing you from joining us.
You may attend live or at your own pace by accessing the materials and recordings. The course will be hosted on Zoom Video conferencing.