Conflict and You – how to navigate conflict with confidence and skill

Conflict is an inevitable part of life. Yet few of us handle it well. Instead, we tend to avoid it, fight it, deny it, or somehow muddle through and feel dissatisfied afterwards.

It doesn’t have to be like this!

Our programme offers a different perspective.

We see conflict as an opportunity for learning, for growth and for strengthening relationships.

Yes, this might sound very idealistic and hard to imagine.

And we agree that it isn’t easy. It takes self-awareness  – knowledge of our vulnerable parts and what triggers them. It requires us to be willing to explore perspectives different from our own. And it invites us to look for the grain of truth in whatever we’re finding hard to hear.

The result, though, can be transformative.

If this sounds appealing, we would love you to join us. Together, we can spread connection and understanding, one conversation at a time.

Ready to book your place? Jump right in 

Format

Ten weekly two hour sessions, on Zoom

Time

13.00 – 15.00 UK time

(NB In the UK, BST ends on 29^th October and clocks go back one hour, to GMT)

Dates

10 Tuesdays starting 12^th September and finishing 14^th November

Content

Your experience of conflict

• What it means to you
• How you feel about it
• How you habitually handle it
• What you would like to do differently, and how you would like to be when conflict arises

Managing yourself in conflicts

• Understanding the physiological aspects of being in a state of conflict
• Recognising historical attachment wounds and how they play out in your current life
• Managing intense emotions in yourself such as anger, guilt and shame
• Staying present and grounded, even when others are expressing their strong feelings
• Looking for the grain of truth in whatever is coming at you that you experience as hurtful
• How to use self-empathy and empathy for others as ways to increase connection
• Using dialogue skills (reflecting back what you’ve heard; expressing your own feelings and needs; separating needs from strategies for meeting needs; checking for understanding; making requests, not demands) to build connection and understanding

After conflict

• Learning from the experience
• Repairing the ruptures
• Giving and receiving apologies

Outcomes

The programme offers you:

• A deeper understanding of what conflict is and how it features in your life
• Insights into your own fears about conflict and your habitual ways of dealing with it
• An opportunity to practise skills that are essential for managing conflict
• Support in planning how to continue developing a mindset that sees conflict as contributing to your growth and learning

How the programme will run

The sessions will be as experiential as possible – no long periods in which you just sit and listen.

We will offer short inputs and invite you to work in small groups to:

• Discuss concepts
• Share your experiences
• Practice skills

We will provide you with a Workbook as a companion to the course. This will give you a record of our inputs and activities as well as space for your own journalling and note-taking from the experiences you have in the sessions.

This workshop series is run by the Conflict Transformation Weave (CTW). CTW is a part of the community interest company NVC Matters UK CIC.