Transformative Negotiation: Reimagining Conflict Through Narration and Dream Work

Conflict is no longer something happening “out there.” It lives in our conversations, our communities, and often within ourselves, shaping what feels possible and what feels stuck. In a time of rapid change and deepening division, many of us find ourselves caught inside stories that harden perspectives, narrow imagination, and limit our capacity to respond. The key to surviving and thriving at this moment is finding ways to negotiate change and transform the rising conflict around us. 

Together, we will explore a different way of meeting conflict — one that begins with curiosity. We will listen for the narratives that shape our experience and engage the imagination as a resource for transformation, exploring how conflict can be approached not only as a story we tell, but as a waking dream. In this integrated approach, narration and dreamwork move together to reveal how meaning is made, how it can shift, and how new pathways can emerge if we loosen our grip on a single way of seeing.

Topics include: 

• Conflict Narration and Transformation, to view conflict through a narrative lens and articulate what’s happening around us —  identifying stories and exploring how people can draw different meanings from the same moment. This approach allows us to discover what differing stories tell us about what we (and “they”) might do next and what feels possible.
• Peace Work as Dream WorkTM, which uses projective group dreamwork to analyze conflicts (from the interpersonal to the international) as waking dreams to break the rules of waking life, imagine new possibilities, and create new approaches for conflict transformation.  

Together, these practices invite a spacious and creative relationship to conflict that can be lived and applied across the many domains of our lives. At the intersection of spirit and praxis, this workshop takes a dignity-centered approach and unfolds through a blend of lectures and experiential group work, providing concrete tools for personal and professional use.

Recommended reading: Transformative Negotiation: Strategies for Everyday Change and Equitable Futures by Sarah Federman