Tackling Defensiveness 101
Overcoming defensive behavior in personal and professional relationships
STOP reacting. START responding.
TRANSFORM how you show up.
Defensiveness is human. And it’s also in the way.
You know the feeling: someone offers feedback, asks a hard question, or challenges your perspective—and before you even realize it, the walls go up. You shut down, push back, or spiral into self-protection. It’s not your fault.
Introducing…Tackling Defensiveness 101
This 6-week live intensive program will empower you to manage conflict more effectively in your relationships at home, at work, and in the world.
You’ll transform your understanding of defensiveness, shifting from a need to win arguments at all costs to recognizing that true victory comes through connection and collaboration.
Without working together, no one truly wins.
Ready to Shift from Defensiveness to Connection?
“I didn’t realize how much I struggled with defensiveness – or how my defensiveness was negatively impacting my relationships – until beginning this course. Lisa teaches critical skills for recognizing and overcoming defensiveness in a non-judgmental way. Role-plays in live calls helped reinforce these skills. I’ve already begun to see improvement in my relationship with my spouse and am committed to continuing to put in the hard work”
~ KB
Do any of these situations sound familiar?
1
It’s late November and you walk out on the front porch…
You notice the pumpkin your roommate carved for Halloween is on the floor rotting and oozing.
You ask them to throw it away.
Their response?…
“Well, excuse me. I’ll get right on it. I didn’t mean to ruin your damn day.”
Your blood boils and you quickly realize you should have just kept quiet.
2
Your boss gives you feedback that your project needs more fine-tuning… again.
Although you keep your cool in the moment, on the inside you feel attacked.
You quickly explain why you did what you did —
“I wasn’t given much instruction about what was expected so I did my best.”
But once you get home?…You ruminate about the feedback for hours while you revise your work with growing resentment.
3
You’re feeling exhausted, frustrated and hopeless…
You’re wondering if your partner will ever be able to hear your upset without defending their actions.
If you hear one more explanation about why they did what they did or how what they did wasn’t that big of a deal, you’re going to SCREAM!
Any hope for them being accountable for their actions seems impossible at this point.
Or perhaps one of these comments from past participants resonates with you:
“My husband is so defensive. I’ve tried everything I know to help him hear my feedback but nothing works.
Am I doing something wrong?”
“I am in a young relationship with someone I love very much. We do have our problems… I have trust issues and so does he.
But he has used the defensive shield already to avoid things that have really hurt the relationship we have.”
“I was married to a man for almost 20 years that used the shield of defensiveness.
After a few years of this I began to question my sanity and my perceptions of just about everything.
That led to shutting down and trying not to feel anything. It’s a horrible way to live your life.”
“I have a really hard time taking in feedback and know this is a problem but it’s terribly difficult for me to be accountable…
It definitely interferes with my relationships and my life.”
Are you the partner who’s grown accustomed to keeping quiet to avoid conflict or simply given up trying to communicate your needs?
Or are you the partner who can’t help but feel attacked and react defensively, even if you’re trying your best to change?
What if ...
- You no longer had to walk on eggshells to avoid someone else’s defensiveness.
- Your feedback was welcomed and valued by your partner, helping your relationship grow.
- You could handle constructive feedback at work, without letting it hold you back from achieving new levels of success.
- You didn’t feel the need to defend, explain, or present yourself in a good light when your friend, co-worker, partner, boss or (fill in the blank) gives you feedback.
- You could save your struggling relationship by learning how to communicate without getting defensive.
Allow me to introduce a radically new approach to dealing with conflict that could change the way you show up in relationships…
It’s Not Me, It’s You:
Tackling Defensiveness 101
Here’s everything that’s included in this program:
5 Core Modules
Practical Tools & Scripts
Guided Reflection Prompts
Lifetime Access
Six 90-minute live calls with me, your coach.
Five in-depth Modules
Module One: It's Not What You Think
The focus in this module is learning about the 9 Faces of Defensiveness and which category you fall into. By understanding the part you’re playing, you can learn how defensiveness is showing up in your relationships and what to do about it.
Module Two: What is Defensiveness Costing You?
Module 2 focuses on the drivers of defensiveness,— including family of origin, societal myths about conflict and conditioned gender expectations — to better understand the consequences it’s having in your personal and professional life.
Module Three: Building We...at Home, on the job, in the World
The focus in Module 3 is recognizing defensiveness when it rears its head and managing your responses to conflict in a way that builds connection rather than destroys it. You’ll discover an easy template to slow down your reactive responses to conflict that allows you to ground yourself and effectively respond in difficult times.
Module Four: Responding with Compassion and Confidence
The focus in this module is learning effective strategies for responding to the reactivity and defensiveness of others. Instead of trying to get the other person to respond better, you’ll focus on your own behavior as an empowering move that yields the best results in the face of someone who struggles with conflict.
Module Five: Courageous Accountability
The final module provides you with a template for powerfully and effectively managing conflict at work, home, and in the world. You’ll walk away with a clear understanding and template of what accountability looks, sounds and feels like. You’ll practice courageous accountability in break out groups and will become significantly more skilled at taking in feedback and effectively working through conflict than ever before.
You’ll also receive these Tackling Defensiveness Powerful Tools
- Defensiveness Assessment: a simple tool to help you assess if defensiveness is a problem in your life (past program participants have often found that whilst their partner, children, or colleagues are defensive in one way, they themselves are defensive in others)
- Faces of Defensiveness Guide: discover the 9 faces of defensiveness, so you can recognize conflict avoidant behaviors (and idenitfy specific behavior that’s not helping you, and hurting your relationships)
- Grounded Powerful Thinking Table: an eye-opening resource whic helps you identify when you’re being defensive (and gives practical steps to interrupt your go-to patterns with new, healthier responses)
- From Defensiveness to Connection Action Plan: provides a step-by-step map of how to move from defensiveness to connection (so you can reset, move forward with courage and accountability, and repair relationship ruptures)
This course is for you if…
-
You often feel misunderstood or attacked—even when people mean well.
-
You find yourself replaying conversations, wishing you’d responded differently.
-
You want to receive feedback without spiraling, shutting down, or blowing up
-
You care about your relationships and want to show up with more honesty, clarity, and presence.
-
You’re ready to shift from reactivity to self-leadership.
“Lisa is a rock star in everything she does. No one else is doing this work that I know of and it is so badly needed.
Her handouts were wonderful as well as her homework. The role plays really helped me see what my defensive posture is and brought my awareness level up. I made a commitment to work on my own defensiveness.
It is hard work, but helps me keep my side of the road clean. Thank you Lisa.”
~ Ginger Edwards, LCMHC
Your Investment in Tackling Defensiveness 101 gets you:
✅ Early Access to the 5 Modules & Practical Defensiveness-Taming Tools
✅ Six 90-minute interactive workshops with me
✅ Plus, 4 Tackling Defensiveness Powerful Resources:
• Defensiveness Assessment
• Faces of Defensiveness Guide
• Grounded Powerful Thinking Table
• From Defensiveness to Connection Action Plan
Which give you the tools, support & accountability to shift from Defensiveness to Connection
By the end of this course, you’ll be able to:
- Recognize the subtle ways defensiveness shows up in your communication
- Understand the root causes of your own defensive patterns
- Pause and respond—rather than react—from a grounded place
- Create more trust and openness in your relationships
- Lead with curiosity, even in conflict
- Show up more powerfully at work, more compassionately at home, and more confidently in the world
In case you were wondering, here’s how it all works:
Modules are released every Wednesday, and Live Calls happen the following Tuesday.
- Wednesdays You will receive a module to review prior to our Tuesday call. Each module includes a weekly workbook with notes, challenges, and journal prompts to help you better understand your relationship with defensiveness.
- Tuesdays: The following Tuesday from 1:00–2:30 PM ET:, we’ll meet on Zoom for a 90-minute interactive workshop and dive into the latest module together. This will include breakout groups, exercises, practices, and a live Q&A.
“Lisa’s course on defensiveness was an eye opener to say the least! I entered the course believing I was an innocent victim of defensiveness but quickly realized that I can “dish it out” just as easily.
The course and workshop material gave me helpful information to begin taking accountability for my own behavior. I can feel the difference in my correspondence with my family and they have thanked me for taking an initiative to do better. Thank you Lisa! “
~ DJ
Meet Your Coach
Hi, I’m Lisa!
I’m not your typical relationship coach. With over 20 years of experience as a relationship coach and trained therapist, I am a paradigm-shifter that cuts through the fluff and gets straight to the heart of the matter.
I am passionate about transformation and believe that change begins with us—how we communicate, how we connect, and how we show up in the world.
Shifting the paradigm of relating from Power Over to Power from Within sets us free to create true connection, safety and intimacy – in our homes, in our workplaces, and in the world!
I am so excited to be offering the Confict Resolution Self Study Course to you, and look forward to welcoming you into the course.
Lisa
“Lisa is an experienced and knowledgeable trainer, who is able to simply break down what is far from a simple topic.
Her no nonsense approach is so edifying. She is there to help us all to be better humans in how we approach our relationships, and the more people she can reach with this work, the better our world can become.”
~ Jodie Preiss
“Lisa not only led our class through an understanding of how defensiveness destroys relationships but gave us a way to understand our own “styles” of defensiveness and practical steps to deal with them.
Lisa presents clearly and with a positive engagement that makes this kind of hard work feel easy.
It was also great to see and work with other people dealing with similar issues. Though it was online, we developed a kind of camaraderie which was very supportive.”
~ Bill S.
Frequently Asked Questions
How will I receive the modules for this course?
Module videos and worksheets and bonus materials will be delivered through a password-protected online course portal site. As soon as you enroll, you’ll be emailed your access details.
Recordings of our interactive workshops, with the exception of time spent in breakout groups, will also be added to the course portal within 48 hours.
When are the live interactive workshops?
What if I cannot attend the calls live?
When will the five modules be released?
What is the investment in the program?
Are payment plans available?
What if I want to attend with my partner?
When is the deadline to register?
Do I have to be in a relationship to benefit from this course?
“Lisa was an outstanding coach in helping me understand how, when and why defensiveness shows up in my life.
She really unearthed a lot of long standing habits as to why I would respond in a defensive manner when challenged in certain situations…
Now life is much easier when I can let my defensiveness go and not get burdened with proving how “right” I am.
Thank you Lisa — I appreciate your help and guidance.”
~ ASO
Stop allowing conflict to rule your relationships.
It’s time to tackle defensiveness once and for all and take accountability for how you show up in your relationships and in the world.
If defensiveness is throwing a curveball in your relationships, join me inside Tackling Defensiveness 101 today: