Events

The world’s top experts, live every day

Get away with a Teacher

Browse retreats

Join thousands

Explore a Challenge

Browse A to Z

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

COURSE

Heal Emotions That Fuel Relationship Conflict

With Margo Helman

This is what makes us most likely to be triggered during and after fights and arguments: pushing feelings away rather than being able to move through them. Disowned feelings then suddenly rise up and trigger us to react in ways we'd rather not, whether being flooded with emotion, or having little control over our own behaviour. In this course, I share my personal experiences and teach the practices that help me to hold onto myself and choose my response in my high conflict relationship. Discover how to welcome emotions so that you’re not at their mercy, moving through painful feelings and reaching peace, while allowing your inner experience. Explore why difficult emotions feel so threatening, how childhood experiences shaped your instinct to avoid them, and why suppression leads to sudden eruptions of anger, shame, or self-criticism. Discover the deeply good wishes beneath every painful feeling. Learn how to welcome inner protest and connect with the body sensations of emotion. As you practice these gentle methods, you’ll gain more choice in conflict, reduce reactivity, and cultivate compassion for yourself and the people you love. Each lesson offers clear guidance and a next step or self-inquiry prompt so you can steadily build the capacity to stay grounded and choose your response, even when relationship tension is high. By the end, you’ll have practical tools to help you heal emotions and relate with more clarity and kindness—during conflict and in everyday life.

Reduce reactivity during fights and arguments, and be less thrown off afterwards by learning to calm emotional triggers and developing the ability to truly welcome emotion instead of bracing against it.

24 Days

128 students

5.0 stars

6 min / day

English

About this course

Parts-Based Visualization

Sensation Investigation

Somatic Presence

Meet your Teacher

Margo Helman

View Profile

Jerusalem, Israel

As a clinical social worker, and daily meditator, Margo often brings mindfulness principles to her therapy clients. Years ago, she suddenly noticed it felt pointless to meditate and then get up, walk into the room where her family was, and lose it! Because what’s the point of being mindful and wise on your cushion or yoga mat if your inner peace and self connection disappear when you need them most? Of course, there is a point any time we connect with our wisest selves and with the present moment. But taking our practice to relationship conflict is the most impactful and strengthening. Margo has developed methods for bringing mindfulness to fights and arguments in the couple or family. She's discovered that the greatest opportunity and obligation for equanimity practice and right action are those painful moments of our precious relationships. That’s where we can powerfully improve our own lives and the lives of our loved ones. Learn how to stop conflict from ruining your day and your sense of self. Choose your response, instead of being triggered into action. Bring healing to your relationships. Be peaceful or be fierce. Or both. It’s up to you, according to your values and goals. Learn simple, doable practices for heated conflict, and what to do when everything goes badly. Stay connected to your clarity and intention no matter how the other person is acting.

View Profile

24 Days

128 students

5.0 stars

6 min / day

English

Lesson 1

Keeping Emotion At Bay Makes Conflict Harder

Learn how the most common way to regulate emotion fuels reactivity and escalation in family and couple conflict. And why welcoming feelings is the key to being less triggered and having more room to choose your response.

Lesson 2

How To Use This Course And Why I Developed These Approaches

I'm so excited you're here! Here's a little bit about my personal journey - how I developed these approaches for my own high conflict relationship - and a road map of the different parts of this course.

Lesson 3

Conflict Can Be Your Most Valuable Inner Practice

Conflict may be the best space for mindfulness, equanimity, and self-compassion. Rather than collapsing into reactivity, use difficult moments to build what you most love in yourself. This lesson shows how to transform conflict into practice that supports every area of your life.

Lesson 4

Even If Conflict Is All Their Fault, It’s Your Inner Experience That Holds The Key

The other person’s behavior may be unacceptable, and that’s important to be clear about. Still, it’s your inner experience that determines how conflict affects you. Learn that even though you don’t need to rise above someone’s behavior, you can choose to relate differently to your own emotions, and how turning inward gives you real agency.

Lesson 5

Fear Of Feeling Shapes Our Reactions In Relationship Conflict

When we avoid emotion it's out of a sense of fear. In this lesson, begin to think about your own fear of emotions and how it can make you vulnerable to being triggered to behave in ways you’d rather not.

Lesson 6

Early Experiences That Lead To Emotion Avoidance

Our fear of emotion begins in early childhood. Learn how normal early experiences shape our belief that emotion is unsafe. You’ll see how childhood aloneness with big feelings still shapes your reactivity today — and how understanding this softens self-judgment and fear.

Lesson 7

But Is Avoidance Of Feelings Necessarily Harmful?

In this lesson gain important information about the positive role of avoidance and distraction. This is crucial for achieving balance and approaching the work of conflict with self compassion and realistic expectations.

Lesson 8

How Avoidance Leads To Emotional Eruptions Or Distress

When we work hard to keep feelings below the surface, conflict can trigger sudden eruptions — whether behaviorally or internally. This lesson shows why these reactions can feel so sudden and how avoidance often leads to more emotion instead of less.

Lesson 9

This Common Habit Is What Leads To A Distress Response When The Other Person Is Critical Or Harsh

When we push away our own confusion or self-criticism, we become hypersensitive to the other person’s tone or words. In this lesson, learn how disowned feelings get projected outward, possibly making the other person seem harsher than they are, and intensifying the pain of conflict.

Lesson 10

Conflict Averse? Here's How That Affects Your Emotions During Fights And Arguments

If conflict feels dangerous, you may spend enormous energy trying not to be in it. This intensifies emotional pressure and makes anger and blame rise more quickly. In this lesson, learn how your strong dislike of conflict can lead to more self blame and more fury at the other person.

Lesson 11

Beneath Anger at Them: Anger at Yourself

Sustained anger toward someone close almost always sits on top of anger or criticism toward ourselves. Listen to this lesson to explore this difficult truth with compassion, and see how acknowledging your inner struggle helps break the conflict cycle and opens space for more understanding and choice.

Lesson 12

Some Emotion Regulation Approaches Can Make Things Worse

Trying to control or suppress emotions can backfire, increasing intensity and prolonging internal struggle. Learn about common approaches to soothing emotions that lead to the opposite of what we want, and what's needed instead. Including a brief review of research conclusions.

Lesson 13

This Surprising Inner Response Can Ease Difficult Emotions

Welcoming emotion creates more choice and reduces the pressure that leads to outbursts or shutdown. Learn the key principle for regulating emotion while still being in touch with your feelings. This gentle practice helps reveal that feelings often want something good for us.

Lesson 14

Interoception: This Sixth Sense Is Essential For Emotional Healing

Interoception is the internal body sense that tells you about emotions, as well as physical states such as hunger, tiredness and pain. It’s the foundation of all the practices in this course. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to apply this sixth sense in order to meet emotions through the body, including discerning between emotion sensations and sensations related to purely physical processes. This inner practice is essential for moving through difficult feelings and resolving them.

Lesson 15

Connecting To Body Sensations of Emotion - About The First Practice

Tuning into physical emotion sensations, such as tightness or fluttering, helps slow reactivity and anchor awareness. In this lesson, you’ll learn how sensing emotion through the body builds steadiness during conflict.

Lesson 16

Connecting To Body Sensations of Emotion - First Practice Guided

In this practice I'll guide you to tune into body sensations of emotion with lightness and kindness, including a process of preparing to apply the skill in moments of predictable conflict. The practice strengthens your ability to be present with emotion in a way that builds resilience and reduces overwhelm.

Lesson 17

Inner Protest: Reconnecting With This Important Childhood Language - About The Second Practice

As children we often disconnect from inner protest. Reconnecting to it is basic to allowing emotions, particularly related to conflict. Hear a personal example of how allowing protest helped me move through emotion, rather than continually using energy to tamp it down.

Lesson 18

A Personal Example of Allowing Protest Related To Conflict With My Husband - Second Practice Example

One day, allowing inner protest about something my husband does revealed a younger emotional layer that still lives inside me. For me, welcoming these parts with curiosity opened the possibility of closeness, playfulness, and connection instead of automatic disconnection.

Lesson 19

Simple Body Awareness Practice for Welcoming Emotions - Third Practice Guided With Explanation

In this lesson, you’ll learn a gentle practice (I do it every night) that welcomes body sensations and emotional experience with kindness. This simple process is a quiet way of being with emotion, and strengthens your capacity to be present with whatever is here.

Lesson 20

Brief Simple Body Awareness Practice for Welcoming Emotions - Third Practice Guided No Explanation

Here again is a gentle practice that welcomes body sensations and emotional experience with kindness, this time with only instruction for the practice and no explanations or examples. This simple process is a quiet way of being with emotion, and strengthens your capacity to be present with whatever is here.

Lesson 21

Seeing The Beautiful Desire Behind A Painful Feeling - My Favorite Welcome Practice- About The Fourth Practice

Learn my absolute favorite way to welcome and transform painful feelings. Most feelings are holding a sweet, beloved wish, and this practice helps you sense that deeper desire while still acknowledging any difficult emotion.

Lesson 22

A Simple Run-through of My Favourite Welcome Practice - Fourth Practice Guided

This short guided practice walks you gently through welcoming a difficult feeling, sensing what it wants, and following the steps until the deeper want becomes clear. Experience the possibility of moving through difficult emotion to something that feels good.

Lesson 23

Finding Emotion When There Seems To Be None

In this lesson, you’ll learn simple ways to find an emotion to work with when nothing seems to be there. Even the faintest feeling, a remembered moment, or a gentle prompt can help reconnect you with your inner experience.

Lesson 24

What to do next: Including Where To Find Audios Of All The Practices

Thanks so much for investing your time and intention in this work! This is a short audio with some ideas about how to bring the ideas and practices that you've learned to your life. It's good to take some time and give this some thought.