Building Your Bond Community ~ by Lynne McTaggart

[CHRISTINA]

Building Your Bond Community
A task of the week to rebuild your own community

Consensus Building: The art of dialogue

The art of “dialogue,” first proposed by British physicist David Bohm, is a communication skill in which a group explores feelings and ideas in an unstructured way to create greater understanding, deeper connection and a new synergy of ideas. Bohm, a physicist who believed in the unseen unity of all matter, grew convinced that our version of reality is simply a construct, colored by our own concepts and memories, which themselves are influenced by language, culture, and our own histories. Each of us believes that the way in which we interpret the world is the only sensible way in which it can be interpreted.

Consequently, when attempting to talk together about subjects that matter most to us, we speak from our own version of the truth and invariably end up disagreeing with anyone whose version slightly differs from ours.

Bohm proposed a method of discourse that would slow down the process of thoughts so that individual and collective presuppositions could be explored and the ideas, beliefs, and feelings behind them exposed.

By helping individuals to understand the processes that interfere with real communication, this kind of exchange would establish a common version of reality. Bohm likened dialogue to a river flowing around and through the participants by reinforcing the Bond between them and creating a “coherent culture of shared meaning.”

Reading Aid: Chapter 10 of The Bond

Weekly Exercise: In your group, practice having a dialogue about a contentious subject (abortion, the Tea Party, gun control, etc).

The Rules of dialogue are as follows:

• Take turns speaking – don’t monologue
• Don’t reach a decision or have a debate
• Be alert to your own reactions when something is said you don’t agree with
• Be fully present
• Don’t judge

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