Dialogue & the UK Values Alliance

Last year I joined the UK Values Alliance and was welcomed into a community of inspiring people working in a variety of ways to embed values thinking and action in schools, organisations and society.

I began thinking more deeply about values; how we form them and how they influence our feelings, actions and beliefs during my masters research. During this time I designed my first workshop using dialogue and creativity to encourage participants to reflect and consider their personal and shared values.

Having since led many workshops that have included space for reflection on values, I have witnessed the energy and connection that this creates within individuals and groups.

On joining the UK Values Alliance I was given the opportunity to bring dialogue to the members and explore further the meaning and thinking of values. After a taster session in one of our quarterly meetings we have developed a series of four dialogues for 2018, open to anyone with an interest in values.

Our first dialogue held last month explored: Values and the self

‘We need to address and explore the underlying beliefs, assumptions and motivating values involved in our problems and challenges.’

In the first dialogue we explored and shared meaning around personal values: what they are, where they come from, how we action them, what can challenge them and what meaning they bring to our lives.

It generated some interesting thinking and areas for further exploration. Some notable takeaways for me were

• the space between imposing our values on others and personal boundaries

• how we can connect energetically with people when we are truly listening to understand, not respond

• whether if we have a sense of personal safety in and of ourselves we are able to take risks in being open and vulnerable with others and offer an invitation to connect at a deeper level, at a place that we can accept each other and our common humanity

• whether value based behaviour is a choice and what can compromise that

• what are the small things that we can do to live our values, starting from smiling at people in public places and asking those who serve us daily, 'how are you?'

The second dialogue will explore: Values and others

‘Dialogue allows us to see things differently by looking through a different lens’

In the second dialogue we will explore values from the perspective of others, what happens when our values conflict and how we relate to each other from a place of values and a value-based language.

If you would like to join us for any of the upcoming values dialogues please register here.

Mindful Communication Workshop at Hello Love

I am really excited to be running my new Mindful Communication workshop series at Hello Love in March. I have been developing and testing this workshop for a while now, and it is great to be bringing to a space that shares my values and philosophy for emotional sustainability.

The workshops incorporate the principles of Bohm dialogue with mindfulness and non-violent communication practices in a fun, creative and playful way.  These are participatory workshops; so no speaking at one another, but to one another; forming connections and gaining insights from your fellow participants as well as gaining a greater understanding of yourself.

As with all my work I aim to create a safe and relaxed space, that allows participants to explore and reconnect with simple practices, whilst gently challenging and broadening our thinking and raising awareness.

Tickets are available through Eventbrite, and spaces are limited to 15 people.

I hope to see you there! Any questions please contact me at jessica@creatingmeaning.club

Exploring Freedom at Cumberland Lodge

Just before the Christmas break I was lucky enough to be invited to the majestic Cumberland Lodge to run a session for the International Student Christmas Retreat on the theme of Freedom.

“Cumberland Lodge is an educational charity that seeks more peaceful, open and inclusive societies. We tackle social divisions by equipping and inspiring people to engage in constructive dialogue.”

— cumberlandlodge.ac.uk

Every year Cumberland Lodge invite international students studying in the UK, who are not able to be with their families over the Christmas break to take part in festive celebrations and some thought-provoking sessions. 

I was tasked with running the first session of the day, with over 50 students to engage at 9am in the morning! I started by asking them to sit on the floor in two circles, easier said than done, for a group check-in, with the question, 'what have you been most grateful for in 2017.' People and opportunities seemed to be the most popular answers, demonstrating that relationships and fulfilling our potentials come high on our list of meaningful things to be grateful for. Then after a short mindfulness exercise we moved to the next room for a paper tear exercise. I love this exercise to start off a session as it helps build relationships, relaxes the group, whilst also showing individuals how they relate to others and to tasks given. It is natural that some embrace their creative and playful sides, whilst other more task-focused individuals rush to 'get the job done.' After the first part of the exercise I challenged the students to write as many words that they associate with freedom or feeling free on the paper. Below are some of the results.

After the pairs had discussed their differences and similarities on the topics of freedom and feeling free we went into a Knowledge Cafe style discussion, with three rounds of conversation building on what had emerged in the first exercise. I introduced this by sharing with the students the root meaning of the word free, a meaning that surprised me when I was researching for the workshop.

Source: etymonline.com

To frame the further discussion on the topic of free with the idea that it originated with the words love and friendship, among others gave a new energy to the room. I also shared an excerpt from David Bohm's book On Creativity

“The tendency to “fall asleep” is sustained by an enormous number of habitually applied preconceptions and prejudices, most of which are absorbed at a very early age, in a tacit rather than explicit form. Therefore, whoever is really interested in what it really means to be original and creative will have, above all, to pay careful and continual attention to how these are always tending to condition his thoughts, feelings, and overall behaviour. After a while, such a person will begin to notice that almost all that is done by the individual and by society is in fact rather strictly limited by such largely tacit and essentially mechanical constraints. But as he becomes sensitively aware of how the whole process works, in himself and in others, he is likely to discover that the mind is beginning to come to a more natural state of freedom, in which all this conditioning is seen to be the triviality that it really is.
”

After a very lively Knowledge Cafe we met again in our circles to check-out with our reflections and thoughts on what had arisen in the conversations, and any new perspectives that were discovered. It was a rich session and we created much new thinking in a short space of time. Thanks for having me Cumberland Lodge!

The Value(s) of Dialogue

Here is my second blog post for World Values Day

“A society is a link in relationships among people and institutions, so that we can live together. But it only works if we have a culture-which implies we share meaning; i.e. significance, purpose and values. Otherwise it falls apart. - David Bohm

David Bohm was a quantum physicist, a contemporary of Einstein, whose work focused on his theory of Wholeness and the Implicate Order; believing that our reality and consciousness form a coherent whole. In his later life he developed a friendship with Indian philosopher, Krishnamurti, and during this time developed his theory of Dialogue; a form of group communication that has the potential to create new ways of thinking by sharing meaning together in a non-judgemental and free-flowing space.

“At the heart of the art of thinking together is an exploration of the underlying motives and intentions of the people concerned.” -William Isaacs

Bohm believed that one of the main causing factors of the challenges we face in the world is fragmentation: fragmentation of our societies, organisations and even ourselves. Dialogue in fact, starts with the self; ‘how successful am I at listening to and speaking with myself?’ Listening is the first principle and a leading value of dialogue. First we must set the intention to listen to others with respect and the intention to understand; secondly we must listen to ourselves, to the resistance, defenses and patterns of thought that occur within us when listening to other people; and thirdly we must listen to the group, for the shared meaning and collective themes that are unfolding as the dialogue flows. Non-judgement is the second principle of dialogue. It requires an openness and honesty that allows us to share our truths with the spirit of fellowship and trust. To listen from a point of non-judgement it is important that we accept that our opinions are assumptions, based on our previous experience. In a dialogue it is not necessary that everyone be of the same opinion, what is important is that we share our opinions and experiences and are able to suspend any judgements that may arise, long enough for the group to be able to inquire into them and create new knowledge from the sharing of meaning.

“Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weaknesses.” - Brene Brown

Bohm was concerned with the thinking process and the awareness that allows us to notice what is happening from moment to moment. For many of us we rely on habitual patterns of ‘thoughts’ that rush into our minds when we are faced with familiar or challenging situations. In dialogue, if we are able to suspend and become aware of our thoughts and judgements, we will be able to create space for new ‘thinking’ to form. Discomfort can arise from this space as we have the time to reflect on why it is we think a certain way, the root causes of this thinking and how it may relate to our sense of self. To engage in dialogue therefore, requires both vulnerability and courage.

“It is our values and attitudes that drive how we speak and listen” -Linda Ellinor and Glenna Gerard

A key value of dialogue is the principle of participation, a desire to work with the collective intelligence of the group. To be open to the energy of the group, that allows for individual freedom, coupled with shared responsibility. Through dialogue we are able to see complex inter-relationships and form new ways of thinking together about how the world works. The guiding values for a successful dialogue can be felt and experienced as  listening, trust, openness, respect, honesty, awareness, courage, vulnerability, participation, inclusion and creativity. However, we each bring our own leading values to a dialogue, which will inform how we participate, and may even shift within or after the dialogue as we open ourselves to new perspectives, possibilities and the experience of relating well to each  other.  For the ultimate goal of dialogue is creative motion, to recognise that we are dynamic free-flowing beings, interrelated and interdependent.

“We voluntarily change our minds and our behaviour in response to our own internalisation of new values and thinking. This is much more likely to occur in an environment that supports exploration of new thinking and behaviours.” -Linda Ellinor and Glenna Gerard

This article originally appeared on the World Values Day website here.