1-Day Indoor Skill Building Workshop Presented by Linda Kohanov

• When: June 19, 2017
• Time: 9:30 am to 5:30 pm daily
• Where: Providence Renewal Centre • 3005 119 St. NW • Edmonton, AB T6J5R5 • Canada
• Tuition:  $250 (Canadian)
• For More Information or to Register: suebedieracp@gmail.com • 780-983-3494

Significant family and social change is not going to occur until sensitive, caring people become empowered rather than overwhelmed. We need thoughtful, compassionate individuals to enter situations where suffering and conflict proliferate, and show a different form of strength, one that holds people accountable without becoming abusive. Otherwise we will continue to see frustrated, disillusioned teenagers and spouses acting out violently, bullies stirring up fear to gain control, and sociopaths callously thriving at others’ expense.
— Linda Kohanov

In this engaging, moving, immensely practical workshop, Linda Kohanov shares the skills she accessed to rehabilitate Midnight Merlin, a dangerous, formerly abused stallion, while showing how these principles can be translated into handling challenging people and situations.

The daylong seminar is for anyone who wants to learn new ways to transform interpersonal conflict, power struggles, bullying, and other challenges at home, school, work, and in political, religious, or social activism contexts.

Based on skills featured in her books The Power of the Herd: A Nonpredatory Approach to Social Intelligence, Leadership and Innovation and The Five Roles of a Master Herder: A Revolutionary Approach to Socially Intelligent Leadership, this workshop offers innovative tools for working with frightened, aggressive, abused, or potentially explosive children and adults—situations that call for considerable finesse and empathy backed by a skillful use of power.

The Power Behind Nonviolence training is for lawyers, mental health professionals, divorce coaches and financial advisors, mediators, teachers, parents, health care workers, clergy, social activists, first-responders, law enforcement personnel, and people who work or live with those who act out in aggressive or intensely fearful ways at times.

In peace and in war, George Washington exhibited emotional heroism, advising his closest associates to “Let your heart feel for the affliction and distress of everyone.” Dealing with the pain and resentment experienced in his own war-torn country 200 years later, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh observed that ‘When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply in himself. He does not need punishment. He needs help…Happiness and safety are not an individual matter. His happiness and safety are crucial to your happiness and safety.”

“No one made this controversial notion more apparent to me than Merlin,” Linda emphasizes. “Misunderstanding and punishment created the monster he became. I knew I would never be safe around him until his trauma was transformed, not through naive, ‘it’s not his fault’ indulgence, but through a heroic use of power combined with mindfulness, compassion, and self-control. Whenever I achieved this balanced state of power in myself, Merlin would shift from violence to thoughtfulness and respect, learning over time to trust feelings of safety, connection, affection, and well-being. If a horse can achieve this, why can’t we?”

In this workshop, you will learn how to:

• Build trust, respect, and connection in challenging situations
• Help others manage fear and anxiety in times of significant change, conflict or competition
• Understand the messages behind emotion, in yourself and others, and use this information to make informed, thoughtful choices (without,
  ironically, mentioning the emotions themselves)
• Learn how to be assertive without being aggressive
• Employ nonverbal and conversational techniques for diffusing conflict and gaining cooperation from dominant, confused, frightened or
  aggressive people
• Understand the differences between predatory and nonpredatory power, and when and how to use both for the good of the “herd” and “tribe”
• Learn the difference between the Leader and Dominant roles, and when
  and how to use both effectively
• Develop emotional heroism, that rare combination of power and compassion, courage and self-control, accountability and forgiveness that great secular and religious leaders throughout history used to create significant social change

An innovative and practical, nature-based approach to leadership—and life. It’s not just for corporate executives. Parents, teachers, community organizers, film directors, and especially politicians would all benefit from learning these skills.
— William Shatner, actor, director, author