Listen to learn…
- A definition of community that invites diversity
- 3 core ways of being that will deepen your connections
- 3 activities to hone your skills for connecting conversations
What is community? In this episode, I share what it can look like when we are fully present, listening and sharing openly and how that can strengthen our sense of community.
What’s in this episode for you:
A definition of community that invites diversity
3 core ways of being that will deepen your connections
3 activities to hone your skills for connecting conversations
Hopefully, a few laughs
Poem: Excerpt by One Drum, by Richard Wagamese:
It begins as all things do with stories. When our ancestors gathered around their tribal fires, stories were told.
As a human family we have tradition in common. Many have forgotten their beginnings, but next time you're out with people, and it is a summer night, and a campfire is lit. Watch how everybody responds to it.
As night falls and the flames climb higher people, regardless of their cultural background, will lean in toward the flame. Some will cup their chin in their hand others will lean forward with their elbows on their knees. Still others might lean back in their chair and idle there, never taking their eyes off the fire.
A pervasive quiet descends, and soon there is only the crackle of the fire, the snap of the logs. Everyone breathes more deeply. Everyone relaxes.
This scenario happens everywhere around the world. When people gather in a circle around a fire in the night. I believe it is because we all carry a specific cellular memory based on the spiritual feeling of togetherness, safety, and belonging. It is the basis of our human identity, community, and it is formed in all of us, a long, long time ago.
There is a particular magic that exists when the world is reduced to a flame, and the sound of a human voice is talking. We all respond to that setting like children, wrapped with wonder and entranced by the possibility of story.
A connection tool:
Here are a few tools to start playing around with if you want to hone your skills in having more connecting conversations:
Challenge yourself to listen only and then reflect back what you heard in your next conversation.
Return to the honeymoon phase! In your next tense conversation put your position down and get curious. Pretend you just met this person and really want to know what led them to their opinion. Then, listen.
Set a reminder in your phone that says “How do I feel?” When it goes off, pause, and reflect. The more you hone this skill, the easier it will be to stay present in tricky conversations.
Challenge accepted?
Pick up the talking piece:
What came up for you as you listened to this episode? I'd love to hear your experiences with any of the reflections and exercises in this episode. Send me an email at podcast@humconsulting.ca or leave a voicemail (click the voicemail button on the right).
Gratitude:
Circle of Change is recorded on lək̓ʷəŋən territories.
Our opening and closing music was created by the talented E-Rol Beats. You can find his creations at www.erolbeats.com
My fabulous podcast coach, Mary Chan of Organized Sound Productions, brought this podcast to life www.organizedsound.ca
Transcript:
Change begins from within. As easy as it is to look outside of ourselves and want the world to change, the truth is, it never will if we remain the same. This podcast was created for changemakers like you who want more love and connection in your community. Today you are going to hear stories that will inspire you, and also challenge you to be the change. We are going to go deep, my friend, so take a deep breath and settle in. My name is Ame-Lia Tamburrini - Welcome to the Circle of Change.
Hello friend, I'm so glad you're here. As you continue to settle in, I am going to read some words from one of my favorite people and authors, Richard Wagamese. This is an excerpt from his last book, “One Drum:”
“It begins as all things do with stories. When our ancestors gathered around their tribal fires, stories were told. As a human family we have tradition in common. Many have forgotten their beginnings, but next time you're out with people, and it is a summer night, and a campfire is lit. Watch how everybody responds to it. As night falls and the flames climb higher people, regardless of their cultural background, will lean in toward the flame. Some will cup their chin in their hand others will lean forward with their elbows on their knees. Still others might lean back in their chair and idle there, never taking their eyes off the fire. A pervasive quiet descends, and soon there is only the crackle of the fire, the snap of the logs. Everyone breathes more deeply. Everyone relaxes. This scenario happens everywhere around the world. When people gather in a circle around a fire in the night. I believe it is because we all carry a specific cellular memory based on the spiritual feeling of togetherness, safety, and belonging. It is the basis of our human identity, community, and it is formed in all of us, a long, long time ago. There is a particular magic that exists when the world is reduced to a flame, and the sound of a human voice is talking. We all respond to that setting like children, wrapped with wonder and entranced by the possibility of story.”
Hmm. That is just so juicy and good, like, are you there, right with Him, sitting around that fire? I am.
I just love that he says that community is the basis of our human identity, regardless of our cultural background. In the world that I work in, bringing all these diverse people together to shape policies and development projects, we are constantly asking ourselves, who is in the community or which communities do we need to engage with. This question of who makes up the community is actually controversial in community engagement world, and it can be quite divisive because ultimately the undercurrent of that question is, who is in, and who is out. And right there, presto, we've got division.
But what Richard is focusing on instead is that community is actually more than a membership, it's a feeling of togetherness and safety and belonging. To me this really begs the question, what are we doing with people when we bring them together or when we quote unquote engage with them. Are we stoking this fire of community, are we actually building up wall?
What I have found and this is one of the motivations I started my business in the first place, is that often when we're engaging in community settings in our families, in our relationships, at our workplaces, we're often creating these structures for dialogue that only allow space and time for people's positions to emerge, or people's opinions on certain matters, but we're not really leaving the time or the space for showing up in a way that allows people to dig deeper, to get underneath those positions, and really uncover these juicy components that Richard talks about, which is our basic human needs, essentially: safety, togetherness and a sense of belonging.
Community is missing. I don't actually want to focus too much on the word community, because what I am learning is that, that means really different things to different people. You might think of your family as a community, or your dog and your cat as your community. Maybe you think of your work colleagues or your organization. It could also refer to the literal municipality or county or even country that you live in. But let me ask you this, does every person in your family, your workplace, your church, your municipality, provide you with the feeling of togetherness, safety, and belonging?
When I think about this, about who provides me with a feeling of safety, togetherness and belonging. I'm mainly thinking of my spiritual practice which is devoid of any human beings, but in the material sense I think about a few people from my spiritual community, my business world, a few people from my family, a handful of friends, some podcast hosts, this massive Douglas fir that I hug every time I hike at Pickle. And my favorite TV show, which right now is The Great British Bake Off. Oh, my goodness, do you watch the show? I absolutely love food, so it definitely meets that need, but there's also this smashing combination of diversity and wit, intelligence, ancestry, science and passion. It's magnificent.
Anyways, I digress. What all of these things do is they accept me, fully as I am. I feel safe when I'm around them. I don't feel judged when I'm with them, I don't feel alone. And I laugh a lot, which means that there's a lightness and freedom that I don't feel in other settings, which to me just indicates that I don't feel like I have to have my defense mechanism up and protecting myself all the time. And I think there’s so many situations and definitely what I'm observing in the world today is that our defense mechanisms are up. So often the situations that we walk into in our workplaces, in the shopping mall in the grocery store in our family conversations, in community meetings or town hall meetings, there is this sense that we need to protect ourselves and in that space, it's really really hard for us to stay in connection both to ourselves, to what's really true for us, but also the other people in our surroundings. Are you able to relate to that?
So what is going on here? What is present here in these juicy, succulent fireside chats that is not present in so many other situations in our life and in our societies?
I'm going to propose three core ways of being that really show up when we're sitting in circle, as components that I think are also present when we are in those really deep juicy conversations that fulfill us.
So the first element is deep listening. And I know you're like, oh great, great Ame-Lia, deep listening, yeah that is mind-blowing. I know it's not mind-blowing, but the thing is, we are still not doing it for the most part. When we sit in circle, we literally manufacture this, we have a talking piece that we pass from one person to the next and when one person holds that talking piece, they have the floor, they are speaking from their heart, and everybody else in the circle is giving that person the gift of their attention.
Any of us are lucky to have one or two people in our lives that will simply listen as we share. Think about your own lives, your own situations, who in your life can you just speak out into space, where that person is not advising you or coaching you or fixing your problem or planning their response, you know when you can see people's wheels turning. So who are those people in your life where you can just talk into space, and have your words float out and that your thoughts percolate? And what does that feel like? To me personally, it is luxurious to talk with those people. It's like going to a spa. So when we're in circle, and we're sitting around those campfires we really are giving each other that gift, but we're also treating ourselves to that experience. And I find that it's part of the circle experience that so many people find so enticing and makes them want to come back. We can do that for one another, we can challenge ourselves to not fill the spaces, to trust that people have all the wisdom they need to figure out things for themselves, and that maybe the best gift that we, you and I, can give each other, is our undivided attention. How does that feel?
The second parcel is curiosity. This is highly related to listening, but when we sit in circle we're constantly asking open-ended questions. What has that experience been like for you? What needs to be in place to move forward? Who do you want to be in this situation? What does your dream outcome look and feel like? Who are you? The questions really are endless. What walking in with curiosity does is it helps us to keep our heart open, where we remain curious about the other person's experience, their story that they are about to share. We also are being curious about ourselves. What is it that I want to contribute to this circle? What is my intention for saying what I'm about to say? What is that reaction I have going on in my stomach right now. Is it the food that I ate at lunch, or am I just having an emotional response to something that has been said. When we sit in circle, we're really raising our awareness of ourselves and others, and curiosity allows us to do that in a really gentle way. Does that make sense?
I love to bring curiosity home in terms of how it creates connection by relating this back to the honeymoon period of relationships. Now it's been a while for me so I'm going on ancient memory here, but what are we doing in the honeymoon months, besides our hormones having a dance party, we're actually being ridiculously curious in those moments. We want to know about that other person right, what lights you up? What was your upbringing? What do you do for activities? Who are your favorite authors? Why did you break up with your last partner? Being on the receiving end of that is so intoxicating, what? You care about me, you want to know about me? And now fast forward four years, what is your conversation like? How are you showing up? Are you still asking questions? In my case, heck no, I am in the driver's seat, baby. I am handing out instructions for how to be a better person and how to brush your teeth right, how to manage your relationship with your parents, I'm not asking, why do you brush your teeth that way? Why do you floss before you brush? Nope, I just think you're ridiculous. That intoxication factor goes down, as does the safety and belonging, and togetherness. So this is what curiosity can bring, and we do not have to be sitting in circle to bring this into our conversations or interactions with people. All that it requires is setting an intention before we step in.
Okay, enough about curiosity. The third and final piece that I want to delve into is speaking from the heart. That to me really means that we speak with intention, like I just said, speaking with the intention to be curious. In a circle that I participate in, the running joke is that once you feel that unease in your throat or your belly that it’s a sign that you're ready to share. For me I feel like that's a sign that I have transitioned out of my head and I'm about to share from some deeper place within me, I have waited for that message to arise. This is really about contributing what needs to be said in the moment, it's not about agreeing, it's not about giving a philosophical thesis, it's not about defending or arguing against someone else's point. It's about speaking what is coming up for you in that moment, even if it's just to say, I don't know what to say. I'm just so full of emotion right now I have no words.
So often we share prepared responses: we share colloquialisms, we share what we think needs to be said to keep the waters calm, or we talk from the space of fear defending, arguing, etc. But when there's a feeling of safety and belonging, and togetherness, we can actually learn to speak in new ways. So what are the situations in your life where you allow yourself to fully speak from your heart?
I do think that these three elements, speaking from the heart, curiosity, and deep listening, are the things that are present when we sit around fire. We are sitting there just listening to people's stories, taking in our environment. We are curious about what is being said and about the world around us, and about what is bubbling up inside of us it's total magic. And our differences, they don't actually play such a big role. They haven't gone anywhere. There's simply space for them to be there.
Okay, so how do we do this, how do we change the structures of our dialogue so that we can create a community wherever we show up? I could literally talk about this for a week, but I'm going to leave you with three ideas to experiment with. And, of course, everything is optional and I would also love to hear your ideas as well for how we build these skills of listening, curiosity and speaking from your heart.
Okay, so listening. Next group conversation that you're in, I challenge you to refrain from jumping into the back and forth dialogue that is happening. Instead, go back to that fire, sit back, stare into the circle, and really just take in people's words. And when it gets to a certain point, either write down, or say out loud into the group what you think has been discussed so far. Hey, guys, I just want to jump in here for a sec, and tell you what I feel like I've been hearing, and then say whatever comes to you, they're gonna let you know if you got it right or not, it's amazing how this works, they're also going to be really impressed. If this is totally not your norm because you're super extroverted and you're always in there, or you're super introverted and generally don't contribute to conversations, it’s going to be uncomfortable, but hey, being the change isn't meant to be comfortable. You got this. Challenge accepted.
Okay, curiosity. For this one, we're going back to the honeymoon phase. This is for conversations where, you know, you're going to step into a situation where there might be some side-taking, you already know the position of the person you're going to be speaking and maybe you’re anticipating that tension and a bit of dis-ease. For this one conversation just set your intention to get curious and act that out by asking the person lots of questions about their position. Wow, that's really interesting, you know, I don't think I've ever asked you to tell me more about that opinion. What experiences led you to that understanding? You may even want to write a bunch of questions down before you step in, especially if it's a conversation on repeat and you know the general arguments that are going to be present. What is it in their story that you can get genuinely curious about if you're not focused on defending your position? Trust me, nothing is going to happen if you set your position down just once. Have fun, be gentle with yourself.
Speaking from your heart. This one’s kind of a fun one. So set an alarm on your phone, for Once a Day, and put the message, how are you feeling? When this message goes off at whatever random time you set it for just stop, take a breath, ask yourself, How am I feeling right now? and say it out loud or maybe you want to write it down again. Yeah, awkward. But, if you're outside and you've got a mask on, nobody will know you're talking to yourself anyway, so it's totally fine.
With time this skill might seem a little bit silly in the moment, but we can start communicating how it is we are feeling in the moment to others and just watch what that actually does to dialogue because instantly it grounds you in humanity, but we'll talk more about that I’m sure on another episode. Okay, thank you so much for being here, experiment, have fun, don't take yourself too seriously, and please let me know how it goes. Thank you for being the change that this world is asking for.
I'm now passing the talking piece to you. If you feel called to put your voice in this circle, please head to www.humconsulting.ca/podcast and share your story there. I cannot wait to hear what has come up for you as you have listened to what has been shared here today.
I wish you love and joy beyond your wildest imagination. Thank you so much for being here in the Circle of Change.
I also want to express my gratitude to the following peeps: Circle of Change is recorded on the Lekwungen territory and I am so grateful to live on this land. Our opening and closing music was created by the talented E.Rol Beats. You can find his creations at erolbeats.com. And special thanks to my coach, Mary Chan of Organized Sound Productions for bringing this podcast to life.
Until next time, Ciao.