Making Peace with Internal and External Conflict

Ralph Metzner and
Martine Amita Algier

Combining didactic presentation and experiential practice, this workshop is designed to help bring about more balance and peace in both your inner states (intrapsychic) and your relationships with others (interpersonal). Participants will learn and practice intrapsychic peacemaking by working with the “shadow” or “inner enemy,” as described in Ralph Metzner’s book The Unfolding Self. Through such practices, you will learn to come to terms with negative feelings, such as fear, rage, frustration, threat, and despair, as well as release hidden reservoirs of self-knowledge and creative self-expression. Participants will also practice interpersonal peacemaking through the processes of nonviolent empathic communication developed by Marshall Rosenberg and described in his book Nonviolent Communication. Through these methods you learn to deal with relationship difficulties in an immediate and practical way, defusing anger and expressing your deepest needs in a peaceful, respectful manner.