“At the deepest levels of human life, we do not need techniques. We need insights into ourselves and our world that can help us understand how to learn and grow from our experiences of diversity, tension, and conflict.” – Parker Palmer
- Where do you get stuck?
- In what ways have you felt a separation or dividedness in holding both commonalities and differences?
- What would you love to contribute in your personal, congregational and community life this election year?
In order to contribute to collective healing, we must also be in relationship with and heal our own hearts.
This series is based on:
Five Habits of the Heart Curriculum ~
Parker Palmer’s Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit.
Courage & Renewal Touchstones® and Honest & Open Questions® are foundational practices that help us change our habitual patterns of trying to fix or change each other, which always seems to separate us from each other even more deeply.
The 5 Habits are:
- An understanding that we are all in this together
- An appreciation of the value of “otherness”
- An ability to hold tensions in life-giving ways
- A sense of personal voice and agency
- A capacity to create community
Nonviolent Communication practices ~
Marshall Rosenberg’s Speak Peace in a World of Conflict and
Oren Jay Sofer’s Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication and
Jessie Chu’s Group Empathy practices.
NVC practices shapes our communication in ways that create a higher quality of interaction – allowing us to move more deeply into each habit.
These ways of being compliment the Habits of the Heart:
Empathy – for self & others – helps us keep in conversation, even when we’re standing in a Tragic Gap of separation, polarization or dividedness.
These practices include:
- Compassionate presence
- Self Empathy and empathetic listening
- Listening to what really matters
- Power with – Partnership Paradigm
- Group empathy practices
The Cynefin Model supports us moving from “easy solutions” to understanding the complexity of our times invites us to engage in new ways.
Different points of view are necessary to come up with emerging ways to move forward in this time of great complexity.
The 5 Habits of the Heart with a Side of Empathy are important ways of being, supporting new ways to move through these chaotic and unpredictable times.
How we listen and respond matters.
Activities in each session: sharing dinner with others, self-reflection, earnest conversations, interactive exercises, collective empathy practices, and follow up activities to practice each week.
By beginning with sharing a meal, we apply each habit in real time. Welcome, trust and belonging are all supported when we get to know each other stories. We build upon this “relational activism” of sharing meals with 1 Habit and 1 NVC practice each session.
The focus is not on strategies to talk about your point of view nor is it about one right answer to polarization. Rather we will practice ways of being within our self and others that allows us to move into conversations with beloved ones and those we consider The Other.
Come join us! Come as individuals. Come with a beloved with whom you are in disagreement. Come with your community group, board or congregational team. All are welcome!
The Center for Courage & Renewal and its facilitators do not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression, age, height, weight, physical or mental ability, veteran status, military obligations, and marital status.
