A Dialogue Practice Group

Dialogue With RCS: Your Dialogue Practice Group

                I do not have a dialogue pracice group, but I can still write about them.

                In the kind of dialogue practice I write of there is no agenda in the ordinary sense. The purpose is mostly the practice. The practice is the honest and just sharing of meaning and development of coherence.  The group practices  certain methods and skills for thinking together. So in the practice there are practically no decisions to make. However skills may be honed.

                So, the practice is not without purpose, it is to practice skills and learn rules of effective dialogue. I hope that you will come to see how this mere practice builds and supports our culture even as we listen and speak.

                Over time the practice can evolve and change form. They take forms suggested by names such as Dialogue for Peace and Magic Table Dialogue. What ever the the name the skills stay much the same. I have begun to outline and picture an example of a beginning group in action and hope to continue doing so. The typical group may look leaderless from the outside because leadership is so widely shared. The group doesn't stall because a leader doesn't show up.

                People around the world are practicing a similar dialogue. However, you are unlikely to find an active group near you.  So, to have a group, you may have to participate in making it. You will probably need to speak with another about the dialogue. If the two of you find a third you may have started a group. You can talk it over, maybe discussing what it is a why you are interested, what it means, how you can do it, and like that.
                    

                Take a good look around this blog.

    

                 More to come.


                                                                                    by Richard Sheehan

 

Dialogue Differently

  I write about a new kind of dialogue. It is mostly for groups of as small as 9 to groups of about 39. 

Below are some descriptive notes about what is, and what it is not. See other posts on the benefits of this more productive and satisfying way to communicate. It can work wonders with your husband and has been successful in some very large groups.

Our dialogue practice is not a:

~ place to make a particular point prevail.

~ debate or even a discussion. 

~ time to attempt to make points.

~ game to win or lose.

 

This new dialogue practice is a way to:

~ meaning and understanding.

~ an activity which helps us to be us.

~ through the meaning of word.

~ an honest, supportive activity.   

~ greater awareness and enhanced consciousness.

~ hone your listening skills.

~ develop new speaking skills.

~ effective methods of communication. 

~ cultural preservation and creation.

~ make a healthy, effective society more probable.

~ meet interested people in an interesting environment.

~ put honest thoughts "on the table" where we can look at them and begin to find their meaning.

~ be heard.

~ find pleasure in speaking-up.

~ understanding among us and within us.

~ satisfying relationship.

~ exchange idea and opinion more safely. 

~ share experience.

~ more effective communication beyond the group.

~ practice a "second" language.

~ peace and good will.

~ to see our words as gifts.

According to Dr. David Bohm a similar dialogue practice is:

~ participating in a flow of meaning between us, through us, and among us.

~ an activity out of which emerges new and renewed understanding.

~ an activity which helps us to be an us.

Could you find a way to practice a dialogue of this sort? Could you practice a dialogue more of this sort in your group?

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Thanks for reading.