“The essence of warriorship, or the essence of human bravery, is refusing to give up on anyone or anything.”

Chögyam Trungpa,
Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior

TO FIGHT, HIDE OR FLEE?

If you’re someone whose stress response defaults to ‘fight’, you may find yourself oscillating between feeling proud and ashamed. On one hand, you notice that in a culture where most people are conflict-avoidant, being willing to say the hard things and address underlying dynamics explicitly is a good thing. On the other hand, sometimes your fight hijacks your heart, making it impossible to express without being intentionally harmful. It’s really painful to have people villainize you so often, making you feel misunderstood and often abandoned.

I also know there are plenty of people who admire the fire that lives in the heart of a fighter, but they struggle to stand near the heat. These people may have a vision for peace, but would rather not have to deal with navigating how to work with those that get fired up. If you stick around, you might be enabling a destructive force, but if you walk away you know you’re dismissing the warmth and transformational beauty that often lives inside those who confidently carry their fight impulse. While fighters are easy to fear, blame and hate, you also know that any vision needs the spirit of the warrior to come into fruition.

Through this offering, I’m speaking to the fighters and pacifists, those who run hot and those who hate the heat. We are all being called to fight like lovers. If we can come together to see our unique roles in facilitating the transformation waiting at the edges of conflict, then we will win the ultimate battle — that which keeps dividing us. It is our responsibility to not give up on each other, and to instead support each other to harness gifts, face shadows, and keep trying.

FIGHT LIKE A LOVER

Fight Like A Lover is an online group experience teaching peace-building by centering the fight (the process) rather than peace (the outcome).

Specifically, it’s created to support those who default to fighting so that they can learn how to wield their power, express with intention, and awaken deeper discipline in conflict, while also teaching those who fear the fight how to lean in, expand their capacity for relational chaos, and help facilitate shared transformation.

Sessions will be part lecture/conversation and part coaching. Assignments between sessions will include conflict strategies to try on your own and reflection/journaling prompts. Everyone is asked to honor the confidentiality of what occurs in this space.

WHAT WE’LL COVER:

How to orchestrate a satisfying, productive, and transformational fight.
How to welcome and facilitate a process of forgiveness (even when the other party seems like a real piece of sh*t).
For fighters: How to express with intent, integrating the heart into the heat, and knowing your gifts and responsibilities in facilitating relational transformation.
For pacifists and avoidants: How to expand your capacity for relational chaos, de-escalating cruelty, and knowing your gifts and responsibilities in facilitating relational transformation.
A brief intro into the lineage of mediation and how to weave some of its processes and philosophies into your life.
What is repair and how to do it gracefully.
My journey into relational maturity as someone who tends to be defensive, mean and explosive when I’m very upset or perceive an injustice. :)

SCHEDULE

We will have three 1.5 hour sessions, and a final session that is an hour (or more) for tying loose ends, sharing feedback and opening up the floor for a very honest Q+A. Sessions start August 25th and end September 11th, running for three weeks. Once you sign up, you will be asked to vote on times that work best for you. I’m hoping to be able to give every participant access to at least 1 live calls. All sessions will be recorded and available for replay for two months.

WHY

We live in a war-dominant culture, and it’s time we each take responsibility for it. Right now, conflict is the primary means of collective creation. Even in activism, we see that the conflict is the place where we gain awareness, draw in willpower, and focus in on the point of tension where something new may emerge from. We have to learn how to fight well before we can step into more intentional, non-violent means of creating. We need to learn how to relate through thick-and-thin in order to create new order.

— MY WHY

One of the biggest pains of my life has been the heartbreak that accompanies the ending of a relationship that is unequipped to endure conflict. Naturally, I orient to conflict as being a relational opportunity for growth and deeper intimacy, but that belief is not the standard for Western culture.

I grew up with pretty severe volatility in my family, as my father had substance abuse and anger issues. In my healing process, I once agreed with the story of living within a familial culture of enabling. As I moved further along in my own growth process, I re-crafted that narrative to reflect my understanding of the complexity of trauma, conflict, and community. I now see that I grew up in a culture where no one gets left behind. When my father passed away five years ago, he had been fully forgiven and reintegrated back into our family. Forgiveness supported him in sobriety and spiritual growth. I got to be apart of a redemption story that forever changed me.

It took me many years to acknowledge that my most accessible stress response is ‘fight’, because I also used to employ a defensiveness that is very rational, analytical and proof-seeking. I’ve worked through a lot of repressed shame in regards to having so much access to anger, and through lots of personal and professional practice, have grown in an emotional maturity that allows my fight response to exist in a (mostly) productive manner.

ARE YOU READY?

To join the upcoming cohort (August 17-24), send payment via Venmo or Paypal. Payment is a sliding scale of $75-200. Please share the name of the course (Fight Like A Lover) in your payment note.

VENMO: @Fiona-Nodar

PAYPAL: www.www.paypal.biz/evaorallc

IMPORTANT
Once you’ve completed payment, please fill out this form so I can collect your email address and some information to design the class specifically for you.

LINEAGE

MY GUIDING PRINCIPLES:

I value living compassionately and bravely from my heart, learning from our natural world and cultivating meaningful, mutually supportive relationships within my community.
I aim to strike a balance between personal empowerment and social responsibility.
I believe in the power and influence of a divine mystery (God).
I know peace is achievable with willing participants.

MY CREDENTIALS:

Certification in Mediation and Conflict Management through Harvard Law
30-hr Family Mediation Certificate through Mediation Dynamics
Mediation Certificate through Kenneth Cloke
BFA in Communications Design through Pratt Institute
Continuing Education through International Coaching Federation (ICF)
Mediation Coordinator + Mediator for my local district court

“From War to Peace is not from the strenuous to the easy existence; it is from the futile to the effective, from the stagnant to the active, from the destructive to the creative way of life...The world will be regenerated by the people who rise above these passive ways and heroically seek, by whatever hardship, by whatever toil, the methods by which people can agree.”

— Mary Parker Follett