12/22/2024
Shared from a friend:
"I thought you might appreciate these thoughts about communication, by a practitioner and teacher in England."
>>THE UNFOLDING PRESENT MOMENT
A new culture of communication.
Have you noticed that sometimes we chat to avoid what’s really present, like when I yabber away in order to avoid connecting with how scared I really feel?
Nothing wrong with that. I have no judgement on talking, or doing anything, to avoid pain, as long as it doesn’t harm others. For me to have a judgement on that would be like judging someone for talking a paracetamol. I take paracetamol sometimes.
And at the same time, I seem to notice that so much of day-to-day conversation seems centred on repeating soothing patterns-of-conversation to avoid facing what’s really underneath. And that feels sad, to me. Like, if all I can do is constantly take paracetamol, well, that’s sad; I would rather, at least in the long run, seek to have a deeper understanding, and a deeper long-term solution to my malady.
Relatefulness is a new culture of conversation. New conversational habits which can be learned and practised; habits which can help us access the “what’s-really-here” of human experience, in a way which is gentle, compassionate, caring and transformative, beautiful, fun and enriching. For me, at least.
I list some of these habits below.
Many of these will be familiar to you. More and more, they are immerging, as we enter this new age. They interweave through many cutting-edge systems of therapy, healing, coaching, leadership, and the like, as people all over the world seek deeper meaning, understanding and transformation. I was familiar with many of them when I met them in Relatefulness. And yet, at the same time, the Relateful practises offered me a unique opportunity to deliberately practise these new habits, in a safe environment, with others, so that I could anchor them more in my being. This is an ongoing process for me. I’d be delighted to share it with you.
These are some of the new habits, I’m referring to:
In communication….
1) Make slowing down permissible. Allow communication to be a stately dance between humans. We each are part of God/Goddess/All That Is; communication is what happens when pieces of the divine meet. Allow communication to be a beautiful art, in and of itself, future outcomes notwithstanding. Even allow pauses of silence.
2) Make respectful non-sequiturs permissible. Allow our minds to be non-linear. Allow communication to be like art; we don’t necessarily have to follow the linearity of logic and reason. Make saying stuff that doesn’t make sense, permissible. Make mystery and the unknown, welcome in communication. If someone makes a comment in a conversation that doesn’t seem to make literal sense, nor even be linked to the subject being discussed, be open to the possibility that it may still add to the beauty and richness of the conversation, and hold a potent mystery.
3) Make expression-of-physical impact welcome. Honour our bodies, as part and parcel of the conversation. If someone asks me a logical polite question, rather than feeling obligated to answer it immediately with a logical and rational answer, let it be okay to say, “When you ask me that question, I notice I take a deep breath; and feel an opening in my chest” or “When you ask me that question, I notice I freeze, and feel a tightness in my Solar Plexus”. Our body can be like a barometer, and also a source of wisdom, adding to the conversation.
4) Make expression-of-emotional impact, and imaginal impact, also welcome: “When you ask me that question, I notice I feel sad.” “When you ask me that question, I notice I have visions of far horizons”
5) Allow the multiplicity of selves to be welcome in communication. “When you ask me that question, I notice that a part of me, and it feels like a young part, gets scared. And another part of me, it feels like an adolescent part, feels angry. And another part of me, it feels like an adult part, feels sad and concerned. Whilst another part of me, a higher part, feels a call to reach out and offer help.”
6) Allow the multiplicity of threads to be welcome in communication. There are always multiple things happening, and multiple communications going on at the same time, and it’s impossible to control all of these. Allow them to be. Even celebrate them as they come into awareness. At the same time, it’s okay to choose which one I want to focus on. I can even allow myself to be focusing on a thread that no one else seems to be focusing on. “Whilst you were talking, I noticed that the movement of your hands changed; and I found myself more curious about that, than the content of what you were saying”
7) Allow creativity and playfulness to be part of communication. If a certain mode of communication doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere; try something else. Try communicating-whilst-walking. Try communicating with your eyes shut. Try “okay, for the next five minutes I’ll be you, and you be me” (then argue from the point of view of the other person, whilst they argue from the point of view of you). The possibilities are endless. Allow communication to be like music and art, and play.
8) Acknowledge the sacredness of the beautiful transformations that can happen through respectful communication. Not only transformation in the relationship, but also transformations in the individuals themselves. Honour those transformations. Allow communication to be as a sacred dance; as a sacred ritual. Celebrate it, in and of itself. After you’ve had a chat with someone, take a moment to notice how you feel; how you’ve been changed by the communication; share that, if it feels appropriate.
9) Allow lack-of-apparent-resolution-at-the-end-of-a-chat to be okay. Even the process of witnessing an another, and allowing them to witness you, can be something valuable. Something may have started moving at a deep level, even though, on the surface, it may seem that we still disagree, or an issue seems unresolved.
10) Remember the value of coming back to present time awareness; and remember to do it, regularly, during a conversation: “How does it feel, right now, that I am speaking like this with you? How does it feel that I shared what I shared with you? How does it feel that I witnessed what you said? How are we, together, right now, with this conversation? Where do I want to move, and HOW do I want to move….from here?”
11) Witness and allow, the dance between trying and allowing. It’s okay to try and make things happen, in a conversation. For example, I may want to tell you a joke, to try and make you laugh. And if it’s a good joke, and I tell it well, then maybe you will laugh. And this can be really fun and great. Or I may want to try to help you. I may want to talk in a way that is helpful to you. And if I’m attuned, and my heart is caring, it may work, and you may really feel helped. And that’s great too. Trying to do stuff in conversations is fine. And at the same time, it can be really valuable to take my foot of the “trying” accelerator, and allow myself to just be; to just notice what’s here right now, and allow that to unfold without trying to alter it. Both of these: the trying, and the allowing, can be incredibly valuable. Perhaps the dance of being human is the dance between trying and allowing.
I know I posted something like this before. This is the same thing, repackaged. I’m so into this stuff right now, I enjoy packaging it and repackaging it. It’s like finding different ways to describe something beautiful.
-Andrew Stones on FB
