“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 experienced a sense of separateness or dividedness?
What are you envisioning in your personal, community, and organization or congregation for this election year?
In order to contribute to collective healing, we must also be in relationship with and heal our own hearts. This is not about how to get your point across or change The Other side. Rather we move deeper into what really matters to us and the threads that bind us together.
This program 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 fixing or changing each other that separates us from each other.
The 5 Habits of the Heart 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 shape our communication in ways that creates a higher quality of interaction – allowing us to move more deeply into each habit.
Empathy – for self & others – helps us keep in conversation, even when we’re standing in a Tragic Gap of separation, polarization or dividedness – with that deep longing of bringing the best of human qualities into our daily conversations. 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 of Complexity reminds us that we are living in a time of great complexity, which rings true that the 5 habits are important guides for these chaotic and unpredictable times.
How we listen and respond matters.
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.
