So one thing I've found encouraging about it is that it's made me way better at navigating everyday apology situations. My two main case studies are one situation with a family member, and another with someone who lives in my building. In both, I was able to approach a conversation where I knew someone was upset with me, and very easily listen to their perspective, empathize & reflect the validity of their concerns, without taking on a blame narrative, and end the conversation with them feeling very connected, appreciative, seen, etc. And all of that flows naturally from me grokking the principles of trust implied by the NNTD frame—I'm not doing any particular technique or form, I just literally show up and non-do a very satisfying reconciliation with zero effort.
(It actually kinda feels like a weird superpower—Eric made the analogy "like going and fighting level 1 baddies with loot from level 10" which resonated!)
I had figured it should smoothly generalize to such situations but I wasn't actually sure that it would. Now that I'm 2/2 on these fairly substantial ones, and lots of littler moments I don't remember, it's pretty clear that if you grok it it does generalize. I've long been fairly charming and good at defusing conflicts, but these experiences felt very different. The fact that it does interoperate with people who aren't doing anything meta or frameworky or "collaborative" or "noncoercive" or "postblame" or whatever, is HUGE. And was a huge part of the whole point of the NNTD (as contrasted with a more dualistic conception of a cultural operating system shift) is that it wants to be backwards compatible to the extent possible.
this article is about what happens if you confuse the symbol for the substance, regarding this stuff
Another thing is just like, literally anytime someone says (in these words or in some other way) "I don't trust you [to X / in this way]" and I respond with the kind of classic core NNTD move: "I respect that you don't trust me—I wouldn't ask you to pretend or to try to trust me if you can't" it nearly always results in increased meta-trust, and often a lot of stuff opens up. Ofc, if the person doesn't buy that I actually respect their distrust, then we may need to recurse or find another approach, though so far that's been rare. At that point I might need to find a way to demonstrate that respect, which would depend on context.
Another related classic simple move is "if it feels like someone is asking you a question (implicitly or explicitly) whose answer should be so obvious that you're offended that they don't already know (because of what that would imply about you or the relationship if they were in doubt about this thing)........ just say the fucking thing that should go without saying." Sometimes people legit have doubts, and it helps to hear it stated explicitly. Sometimes another part of them knows, but that part isn't active, and isn't there to tell the part you're talking to in this moment. I've experienced this as profoundly transformative in many difficult conversations. Need to collect more examples.
You might find it helpful to self-validate that you feel like you shouldn't have to say the thing. You can also use a preface like "Maybe this is obvious, but..." or "I feel like this should probably go without saying, but someone recently told me it can be helpful to say the obvious..."
those are moves though... in terms of "what situations"... NNTD as I've constructed it is a lot about reconciling after misunderstandings and betrayals, so those are the main situations that it's been helpful...
trust-dancing tho is happening between people before any such breakdowns have occurred,
including that people are usually somewhat sussing out whether they expect one another to betray them in ways they've been betrayed by others before