Conflict and You: Navigating Conflict in Relationships with Confidence and Skill

This is an in-depth exploration of how we get into conflict, why it can be so stressful - and what we can do about it

As you live your life, you will inevitably encounter moments of conflict. 

There will be things that people say or do that trigger: 

😠Upset
🙁Hurt
😡Anger
😤Frustration

…and plenty of other unwelcome emotions that seek to drive a wedge between you. 

Yet few of us respond to these moments with confidence and grace. 

Instead, it’s all too easy to lapse into deeply ingrained habitual patterns of:

🤜 Defensiveness
🤜 Blame
🤜 Retaliation 

The urge to be right, and make the other person wrong— to feel bad so that they feel what you're feeling. Particularly in relationships, the common pattern is to hold others responsible for your own hurt and upset.

And yet…. you know this does nothing to heal the rift. 

In your heart ❤️ you know these ways of coping with conflict just make things worse, that they increase separation rather than build connection.

So why do most of us keep reacting in the same old dysfunctional ways? 

It could be that:

🤷🏽 You simply don’t know what else you can do
💜 You don’t understand yourself as well as you’d like
🗝️ You don’t understand your conflict strategies well enough to regulate your reactions

Without this understanding, you’ll continue to make choices that widen the gap rather than promote understanding and connection.

🏵️ Conflict and You is designed to remedy this! 🏵️ Over five two-hour sessions online, you will delve into why conflict can trigger such strong fight/flight/freeze reactions… and what you can do to manage yourself differently.

Here’s a glimpse of what Kirstin Heidler and Jo McHale will teach:

• Awareness of your own ways of dealing with conflict— how they have been shaped by your experiences both as a child and as an adult; how they protect you at the same time as harming your relationships
• What happens in your nervous system when you engage with conflict— how to recognize the signs that the emotional part of your brain has been triggered, and how to restore your system to a state of equilibrium so that the thinking part of your brain regains control and enables you to make positive choices about how you respond
• What you’re thinking and feeling when you experience shame— the difference between shame and guilt, how your body responds to the experience of shame, and how your own shame - and the tendency to shame others -  impacts the way you cope with conflict and can prevent you from transforming it into a healthy experience
• Uncovering the story running in your head about the person you’re in conflict with— empathy for the other person, and experiencing the power of self-empathy to uncover the multiple layers of blaming, criticizing, and judging that contribute to anger— and transforming those thoughts into feelings and needs
• Repairing rifts in relationships— making sincere and powerful apologies

Meet Your Trainers: Jo McHale and Kirstin Heidler

Certified Trainer, Jo McHale has been integrating NVC into her life and work for 27 years, constantly in awe of how its principles and ethos enable people to tune into one another and transform discordant relationships. 

The majority of those who find Jo are in distress— sometimes individuals seeking help, but more often she works with the whole relationship system. 

She helps people with conflicts at work— both those between individuals or team conflicts with power dynamic complications and wider systemic issues— and conflicts in the family like divorce. 

Jo will be co-facilitating this course with her colleague Kirstin Heidler. Their difference in age offers a new and welcomed perspective on these topics. 

This course is part of our NVC Beginner’s Pathway Learning Nonviolent Communication (NVC) can be an incredibly rewarding experience with the potential to fundamentally transform your understanding of yourself and others, and your relationships. But if you are new to the concept of Nonviolent Communication, you might be wondering where to start your learning journey. Here at the NVC Academy we run a number of Live Courses every year. This particular course is part of our Beginner’s Pathway — courses for those who are new or relatively new to the practice of Nonviolent Communication. It is for those with little/no experience of NVC, or those who lack confidence in their practice of it. While courses on our Beginner’s Pathway are designed for newcomers, seasoned NVC enthusiasts are very welcome to attend. Most long-time NVC enthusiasts enjoy the opportunity to get refreshers of some of the building blocks of Nonviolent Communication to reinvigorate and deepen their practice. 2025 NVC Beginner's Pathway: Finding Connection in a Fragmented World with Rachelle Lamb - March 2025 Conflict and You: Navigating Conflict in Relationships with Confidence and Skill with Jo McHale and Kirstin Heidler - May 2025 Restorative Peace Building: Introduction to NVC for Healing and Reconciliation with Aya Caspi - September 2025