- Date
- Time
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Five consecutive Tuesday sessions beginning 10/27/26
- Fee
Conflict can actually be an opportunity for learning, for connecting more deeply, for healing, and even for opening new possibilities.
Three things can be true at once: we live in a conflict-averse culture, deep collaboration inevitably involves conflict, and we yearn for more generative and grounded ways to move through conflict together. With skillful communication, rooted in empathy, we can discover that conflict can actually be an opportunity for learning, for connecting more deeply, for healing, and even for opening new possibilities.
In this 5-week workshop, we will cultivate our capacity to connect with ourselves and others, practice nonviolent communication skills, and develop conflict resilience for our working relationships.
*Details on fees, sliding scale, and scholarship options can be found below.*
Too often, when we pour ourselves into work we care about, with limited resources and growing challenges, we find ourselves experiencing tension with the very people we are most aligned with, despite our best efforts. It is disheartening, exhausting, and frustrating. Conflict can slow down the momentum of our shared work or, worse, it can lead us to step away from collaborative efforts entirely.
The problem with tension and conflict is not that they exist, but that the legacies of a domination paradigm (e.g. capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, scarcity) have left us without the skills we need to find learning and growth in the conflict that inevitably arises.
Nonviolent Communication (NVC) offers us a toolkit to deepen our own embodied self-connection and build our capacity to relate to ourselves and one another with empathy, so that we can show up more fully and authentically to our work in the world, and build strong, collaborative relationships along the way.
Together, we will learn and practice new/old ways of communicating that bring us more deeply into alignment with our values, our purpose, and into connection with one another, as we work to build the world we long for.
During this 5-week, online workshop, we will explore practical strategies for undoing domination and instead orienting towards partnership. Each two-hour session will include interactive content and practices to engage with real-time examples from your work and life. You will have the opportunity to be paired up with another participant for practice in between sessions.
A shared experience with colleagues can make it easier to bring this language and these skills into your working relationships, so we encourage you to sign up with one or more of the people you work with! This course will support you, and the colleagues and collaborators who join you, to:
- Understand empathy: what is it and why does it matter in working relationships? “How can I listen with empathy and compassion, both with others and with myself?”
- Explore NVC as an embodied mindfulness practice
- Grow your capacity to tune into body sensations as valuable feedback from your nervous system pointing you towards what matters to you
- Develop an awareness of and vocabulary for resonant language – including “feelings” and “needs” – and your understanding of the brain science behind why this kind of language works
- Prepare for difficult conversations, and have more tools for “clean up” afterwards
- Foster connection while maintaining personal authenticity
- Identify patterns of domination culture and develop a needs-based orientation that can enable you to undo domination
- Develop an empathetic listening practice with a buddy between sessions as a foundational tool for resourcing yourself to show up better in conflict and collaboration
This workshop is not meant to be a forum for working through active conflicts with one another, but rather a place to be supported in cultivating the skills that will help us to engage more effectively with conflict in our working relationships.
Since we first offered this workshop in 2020, we have refined and adjusted it! Past participants have found it very valuable to repeat the series, so consider joining us again for a refresher and new material if you have taken this workshop in the past!
Testimonials:
This class helped me cement concepts that were either abstract or still in formation previously. I gained clarity and confidence around foundational frameworks for nonviolent communication and conflict-resolution. I reconnected with younger parts of myself and reclaimed my intuition as a source of compassion and understanding. – Jay M.
I walked away with practical applications to use in both professional and personal moments and have already felt the impact of this work in my daily life, leading to stronger connections and more empathy in my relationships. I strongly recommend this course to anyone hoping to move through conflict with more compassion, care, and clarity. – Lee B
This offering will be facilitated by Nicole Bauman with the support of GWI workers.
Nicole Bauman is a midwest-based queer parent steeped in the sacred work of facilitation, transformative justice, somatics and Nonviolent Communication. They see building conflict resiliency as an essential part of living into the world to come, and are passionate about creating space where personal and collective liberation feel possible. As the descendant of white Western European peasant farmers who carried their trauma with them to the Americas, Nicole is committed to centering racial justice and ancestral healing in their work. Nicole’s background in farming, intentional community, yoga, doula work and natural building grounds their work in connection to the earth and the body. Nicole is a Certified Professional Healing-Centered Coach and a student of Somatics with the Strozzi Institute and in the lineage of generative somatics. Nicole finds rootedness in growing food, daily walks to the river, weaving willow baskets, and tending and being tended by community in the Rust Belt city of Elkhart, Indiana (occupied Potawatomi territory). You can learn more about Nicole’s work at nicolebauman.com.
REGISTRATION
Accessibility: Our registration form includes a question about accessibility needs. We are able to offer closed captioning for this online workshop.
Fee: This program is offered at a sliding scale. General guidance for selecting your fee can be found below. Your registration fee covers online workshop facilitation and materials.
Amount requested: $300
If your participation is paid for by an organization with a regular professional development budget or if you are paying for this class on your own and your current level of expendable income is adequate, we encourage you to select this fee that supports us in covering the actual costs of offering this program.
Sliding scale: $200 - $375
Tier one fee $200 If you are paying for this class on your own and doing so creates a sense of hardship because you currently experience limited access to a level of financial resources adequate to meet all your needs, we encourage you to select this discounted fee.
Tier two fee $250 If your participation is paid for by an organization with an irregular or limited budget for professional development or if you are paying for this class on your own and doing so creates a sense of trade-offs within your limited expendable income, we encourage you to select this discounted fee.
Pay-it-forward fee $375 If your or your organization’s current access to financial resources is ample, we encourage you to select this pay-it-forward fee above the actual costs of offering this program to support discounts and scholarships that help make programs like this accessible to participants experiencing limited access to financial resources.
Scholarships: If the low end of the sliding scale is still out of reach, we have a limited number of scholarships available. Apply here or email if you would like to speak to someone first.
Donations: We welcome donations to help provide discounts and scholarships for Good Work Institute programs. Email if you would like more information before considering a donation.
GWI can refund your registration fee with a minimum 48-hours notice of cancellation. Please see our full cancellation and refund policy for details