Compassionate Communication:

Cultivating Constructive Approaches to Interpersonal Conflict

with Daniel Wasserman, Rahimah Sweeney, Munira Reed, and Abraham Sussman

Our Sufi path offers us direct guidance for manifesting peace and harmony in our relationships with each other. Deep listening, growing compassion, witnessing and mastering our habits of reactivity, and watching our breath are all foundational towards becoming active peacemakers. The inner work of cultivating forgiveness and awareness of one's own heart condition contributes naturally to the outer work of reconciliation with others.

In an era when separation, partisan division, polarization, and marginalization of others are exploited endlessly by social media and politics, there is an urgency to develop the experience and realization of Unity and the applied benefits of that realization. Our Sufi path aspires to sacred relationships. Compassionate Communication will address practical techniques to restoring harmony and healing in relationships when conflicts arise. Working through differences and conflicts through constructive communication is an antidote for separation and ultimately war.

The course will be collaboratively presented by Daniel Wasserman PhD (SRI Mureed Advocate), Murshida Rahimah Sweeney PhD, Rev. Sheikha Munira Reed PhD, and Murshid Abraham Sussman PsyD. All four are long time mureeds deeply immersed in our Sufi lineage. Collectively they integrate years of direct spiritual experience with diverse multi-modal psychological training (including Non-Violent Communication) and bring a lifetime of professional experience working in the field of Conflict Resolution and Mental/Emotional/Spiritual Health.