It sounds easy: just listen to each other! But what “success-stories” exist of this truly listening? How does this listening look like in real life, in real conflicts? How does it help to fight fear and pain? Does a cultural/artistic approach help in the process of opening up to the other?
It´s clearly not something I came up with: many people predict listening! Even an experienced mediator told it to me, as being the essence of mediation (or finding a way out of a conflicting situation in general): understand your own truth and truly listen to the other.In university, where I studied history with a focus on international relations, I learned to be aware of the background of the author: where and when did he write his book. Later on I really enjoyed the concepts of creation of an image: doing research on the different perspectives in a conflict. It was a revelation when I discovered the theories of intercultural communication and found tools to get a grip on differences between cultures. A little later I bumped into dialogue activities in my hometown where you could experience the break through of this image-creation yourself.
On this interpersonal level it’s about the magic that happens when two people from a different side of conflict or just two different backgrounds connect: when they manage to break through the appearances.
What is that about: that feeling of breaking through?
The idea of wholeness, that Bohm talks about? Going beyond the fragmentation that we learned to think with.
The importance of relationships, as Michele LeBaron points out in her book Bridging Troubled Waters?
In a Christian way, I’d say, it’s about the presence of the Holy Spirit. Is this a place we can go to, even if we are coming from different directions?
And what do we do with this level of awareness?
How small the world is, Anne-Claire. Just went through the wordpress dashboard and bumped into you.
By: Robert on May 4, 2008
at 7:38 am