Learn By Doing

At first, there are those who do not see the great importance of the practice. Soon they begin to know their practice companions and to feel more comfortable. Many begin to like being listened to and heard. Others begin to find pleasure in listening to other sand practicing improved listening skills. Then others find the new meaning and understanding coming into their lives is pleasantly empowering.

Many begin to sense the value of the skills they are practicing and learn by doing.

Soon enough many really get into the dialogue. They begin to see that it can support individuals and society, and lead to more beneficial action. They begin to know what it means to suspend judgement of opinions, opinions of their own and those of others. The begin to find the value of doing so. They begin to see value in looking over available opinions and discovering some of their sources. They begin to see and know more interesting stuff.

They may begin to feel it natural to appreciate the objective of listening to every one, one at a time. They come to see the value of listening to what each has to say. Some manage to listen without judgement and to know the reason why. Some even come to feel that their own words are gifts.

It comes to be that nearly everyone is really trying to understand what each speaker is trying to express. They experience some success at doing so. In time they begin to better understand why others say what they do and also to learn more of the why of that what they themselves say. Wow, they experience a lot.

We Learn A Lot From Our Practice Experience

We begin to share some common content and get to know each other. More and more we find ourselves in meaningful and creative talk. Our understanding grows and often so do our opinions and the way we value the opinions of others without having to accept them as our own.

As we practice we can find that looking at many things together can be a revelation. Our understanding grows. Just learning a bit of the life experience of another can be a revelatory.

We sometimes find that sharing in a certain common way is pleasure and empowering in a way not so common.

We find that we are defending our opinions and positions less and trying to persuade others less and find that others are doing the same. At the same time we find benefits of our dialogue increase.

We find that we understand the meaning of assumptions more usefully and also come to better understand the experiences which support them.

There is more about the practice of dialogue in the other posts on this blogsite.

It is okay to ask questions

Thank you for reading.

Richard Sheehan