From Conflict to Connection
September 23 @ 12:00 am - November 18 @ 11:59 pm CEST
A conflict is a call for connection.
It’s two hurting hearts craving to be heard, when there are no ears to listen.
Let’s learn how to pick up this cue, transform this separation and take it as a chance to connect to each other and ourselves even deeper.
We’ll practice listening until we fall in love with the core behind opposing opinions.
We’ll practice expressing ourselves with an open heart – vulnerable, authentic and still inviting for connection.
From Conflicts…
Conflicts are tearing our world apart:
Metaphorically in our relationships and communities: Something painful happens or we disagree and our loved ones and colleagues all of the sudden become our biggest enemies. Where we wished for support, togetherness and care, the only things remaining are broken trust and feelings of abandonment and loneliness.
As well as practically in the world: While climate change, biodiversity loss and soil degradation threaten humanities survival and soaring inequality and injustice highlight the divides in our society, every effort towards change seems to suffocate in economic pressure or through political constraints. Society seems to split between political opinions on who’s to blame and how to care for our wellbeing.
And also as a felt experience, when different parts within ourselves are in conflict with each other. So often we are torn – having to choose between two options with an equal amount of pro’s and con’s. How to embrace these dilemmas, understand ourselves and care for what we really want?
…towards Connection:
This workshop series builds on non-violent communication (NVC). A tool developed by Marshall Rosenberg to address the questions “What is the origin of violence?” and “What kind of education would support us to develop a different culture?”.
We’ll use its theoretical framework, philosophical underpinnings and many practices to dive deep into the core of our conflicts – to create presence and awareness for the delicate dance of life happening at all times within, in between and all around us.
This moment of understanding – which is always a felt experience and not only a cognitive achievement – is the connection that’s needed. When we arrive there, what was stuck begins to unfold again. Finding solutions becomes effortless and conflict transforms into collaboration
So let’s learn how to bridge these gaps that divide us.
About approaching NVC
We will start a journey as a community to go beyond right and wrong, to get in touch with all of life and to connect through communication in all its forms. We will practice to get in touch with the authentic core of your being and to fall in love with the beauty of your vulnerable self. We will learn how to express this in a way that is authentic and real and yet still increases our chances to be understood by the people listening to us.
We will learn how to bring understanding and compassion to our most difficult conflicts.
We will step by step build more skills to listen, express and connect in our real life, while having a safer space to go back to for support, learning, and recentering the nonviolent consciousness we will start to embody.
What you are gonna learn:
- The art of listening
- What is the origin of conflict? How can we develop compassion for it and see it as an opportunity
- Responsibility & why it’s so tricky where we allocate it
- What are feelings & how to understand their function in the body
- How to be together in reality
- How to foster connection and understanding by really listening (to others and yourself)
- How to move from conflict to collaboration and feel like a team
- How to be touched by what is important to me, and to you
- How to express and how to receive a “no” (how to understand and deal with rejection)
- How to ask for your dreams, without having a demanding energy
- How to navigate a conflict and resource yourself in it
- How to repair the hurt that happened without bad intentions
- How to share and receive gratitude, so that it fuels connection and growth
We experienced learning NVC as a revolution that allowed these points to be integrated into my life. I hope and trust it may support you similarly, and I want to acknowledge everyone’s uniqueness. We are looking forward to witnessing your personal evolution.
Learning style
Our focus is on the embodied aspect of NVC, so classes will not look like a seminar. To practice and integrate NVC, we implement a mixture of 30% theory and 70% interactive practices such as exercises, demonstrations, role plays, and processing of real-life situations emerging during the course. So, be ready to tackle your real life!
PRACTICAL INFORMATION
Desired amount of experience
No amount of experience is required to join this course.
When?
The course will consist of 9 sessions of 2.5 hours each, once a week:
Tuesdays 17:30 – 20, Starting 23 September
All dates: 23 – 30 September; 7 – 14 – 21 – 28 October; 4 – 11 – 18 November
Where?
Online, on Jitsi Meet.
You won’t need to download anything.
Number of participants
The number of attending participants can go from a minimum of 5 to a maximum of 20. There might be one or more assistants joining us to support you on your very personal learning journey.
Price
The cost of the course is between 300 and 500 euros.
We offer a sliding scale as everyone has a different income and financial situation, and we intend to leave you as much as possible the freedom to contribute out of your means and free will.
The payment takes place in two steps:
1) A prepayment of 100 euros before the beginning of the course to reserve your spot
2) The completion of the payment one week before the end of the course, so that your payment comes from gratitude and not only from a sense of duty
About money
Money is our favorite strategy to care for the sustainability of our offerings. It’s very flexible and easy to direct towards what supports contributing to me, depending on the moment. Your contribution also supports a sense of mutuality in us.
At the same time, we are open to other possibilities if this one prevents you from joining. Please contact us if that’s the case.
Materials
At the end of every session, you will receive a summary of the main points touched during the session and a recording of the lesson (for viewing, not downloading), which will be available until 2 weeks after the end of the course.
Registration:
Apply on the google form
What to expect in the google form? 1) Read the terms and conditions (I know, I also never read them, but I would really love to be on the same page with you on this, to make sure we are both at choice). By registering, you agree and consent to them.
2) Send an email to martinapescenvc@gmail.com with:
- Subject: “From conflict to connection course”
- Content: your name and surname + anything you’d like us to know
3) Complete the 100 euros prepayment by sending money to
Name: MARTINA PESCE
IBAN: IT65 Z036 4601 6005 2631 6114 217
BIC: NTSBITM1XXX
Please write “your name and surname” in the message description
or Paypal: martinapescenvc@gmail.com
Your Instructor
Martina Pesce & Matthias Flury
Martina Pesce
My mission is to contribute to a world where everyone can be heard and seen, by others and themselves.
Hi, I’m Martina. I came in contact with Nonviolent Communication (NVC) through a relationship where I started to grasp the beauty of this tool. After 3 years of self-study and occasional practice, I was touched by how this communication allowed me to connect with my mum in conflict, so strongly that I felt love for her for the first time in 20 years.
Unsatisfied with the lack of mental health support in the neuroscience research field, I decided to switch careers and dive deep into NVC. I trained as a mediator, counsellor and trainer at the Connecting2life school (Yoram Mosenzon). It was a two-year-long process of embodying the tool and then learning how to transmit it so that it could sink in the body. For a year I’ve been holding my workshops, courses and 1:1 practice.
My approach is based on practice and embodiment. I found NVC very revolutionary and with that respect, I like to let sink in our system a few bits of info at the time, rather than an overwhelming waterfall of theory.
Matthias Flury
Hi. My name is Matthias. To be honest with you, I’m incredibly hesitant to write this short biography about myself. Part of the resistance comes from a fear of not being enough – it’s an insecurity that often comes alive since for many years of my life my need for connection wasn’t met, no matter what I tried. Out of this experience I’m shy to show and present myself, even to an unknown reader, to not go through the pain of rejection again. Another source for this hesitation is that I’ve got an idea of how I need to present myself here as a teacher. “I need to sell myself well and in a way that will make you trust me and curious to learn from me”. And I’m worried that I’ll try to perform as something I’m not in order to achieve that. Underneath the pressure of trying to be perfect I’m certain I’ll lose something incredibly important. I’ll lose connection to myself and with that any hope of actually contributing value to you.
That’s why I’ll start this introduction of myself like this. I’m looking forward to meeting you and exploring together how we can connect to our feelings and unknown desires. How we can hold space and lovingly meet each other exactly where we are in our authentic selves. This is the place where relationships gain intimacy and depth, where love grows and where life begins to make sense.
Just in case you actually want to know about my background: I started learning about NVC in 2019, took my first lessons with Empathie Stadt Zurich in 2020, and completed my education in 2023 with a course about teaching and embodying NVC by CNVC-Trainer Yoram Mosenzon. I regularly support NVC-teachers as an assistant in their courses and occasionally teach myself. If you have any questions you can reach me at matthias.flury@mail.ch.