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To be a human being is to regularly be in conflict with oneself and others. Since we are biological beings, we are not able to be inside another person's experience, which means that each of us has our unique frame of reference on the world. Brain scientists tell us that our experience shapes how the mind perceives the world. We all know this intuitively. In a simple example, you and I can go to a movie together, and you might be impassioned while I might be bored. The difference lies in each of us, not in the movie.

Nick was a model prisoner in his last decade at Oregon’s maximum security prison. In for armed robbery, Nick had begun to turn around his life of drugs and violent crime before joining NVC as a student in the yearlong program. Over a period of five years, mentoring under a Certified NVC trainer, he mastered NVC and became an instructor in Oregon Prison Project’s Peer Training program. In his final year at the penitentiary, he appeared to me as confident yet humble in his leadership role.

Here are five tips for how to find balance in relation to the news cycle.