Conversare – through which one thing leads to another

Here’s a nice story on this.

It begins with a person being inspired by her participation in a Conversare event in Adelaide to develop a similar enterprise in Melbourne.

Kate Barrett-Lennard (reported with her permission) came along at the invitation of a previous participant to one of the Conversare events held at the Whitmore Hotel in Adelaide last year. This led to an ongoing friendship between Kate and my wife Carmen and me. Since then she has moved to live in Melbourne and has held the first of what she hopes will become a series of what she calls Courageous Conversations.

She wrote recently: “Re Courageous Conversations – it was a wonderful night. By this I mean we had 15 people and we worked together for 2.5 hours and people did not want to leave. Ron played piano accordion at the opening and I included a few poems. The rest were “paired processes” [similar to Conversare]  … I was a host /facilitator.

Thankyou for your support and inspiration towards this evening. It was very helpful.”

Kate also noted:

“I have bought your eBook from Amazon. Its great. I will definitely be quoting many passages from it.
Love what you are saying …

[It] was a joy to read. You appreciated the warmth that people need in their relationships …in their meeting one another. You have put to words the connectedness and warmth of relationship that people long for – even when they don’t realize this is what they long for.

Sometimes Alan people are attached to what is not healthy- to the suffering of the world and dysfunctional interests of society (eg pornography) they don’t realize that their soul needs the basic stuff of warm connectedness to others, and being ‘met’ by others. (Some do but many don’t). You capture in words the beauty and the value of human relations.”

This news from Kate brings to my mind interrelationships between the developing of the format of Conversare events and my recently producing an e-version of my booklet Time to converse – at the heart of human warmth.  For the core of both is ‘Whenever we treat each other well good things happen.’ I describe this as ‘the other side of the Golden Rule.’

While living happily in Hong Kong from 2005 to 2011 I self published a booklet with the same title. Feedback on this was so positive that I decided to re-write it as an e-book. This was completed shortly before I went travelling in May across the USA during which two events happened. See  Conversare in America

What is now becoming increasingly clear – at least to me and hopefully increasingly to others – is that these are both about treating each other well via face to face connection. The events are to experience this and the booklet is to provide ‘the words’ as noted by Kate above.

Which leads on to the question of ‘What difference could insights and experiences of one or both of these make to lives?’

Could possibilities be reminders that:

.  experiencing the warmth of human relations does happen in contexts in which participants feel secure in knowing that they will be respected for whoever they are?

.  taking the initiative – having the courage – to have conversations face to face can have very positive outcomes, albeit often quite unexpected?

.  giving of oneself by being a participant rather than a spectator brings rewards beyond price?

.  doing these can go a long way to alleviate the ‘hunger’ for substitutes for ‘the real thing’, such as binge drinking, drug abuse and pornography?

. co-creating contexts in which there is minimal judgment of whoever is present – being ‘the right people’ for whatever learning may emerge – is something we may all contribute to ?

And that there are very practical contexts in which this can happen, such as:

.  ‘orientation’ programs for incoming students at every level of education from primary to high school to university.

.  conferences – as a way of indicating that one purpose is to get to know fellow participants more deeply than usually happens.

.  periodic gatherings of existing organisations such as service clubs and associations for a similar purpose to that above.

.  a novel and yet integral component of the night life of cities and for the day life too.

These are for people who wish to have rich conversation and who recognise there are places in which this happens. People who appreciate too that all who participate have roles and responsibilities to contribute to the success of such events.

.  other contexts which come to your mind? 

Could more outcomes – to extend the one illustrated in the story above –  be:

.  new career opportunities for people of all ages as hosts of Conversare events?

.  a lot of positive energy released – associated with a lot of fun!

.  the alleviation of loneliness which according to ever growing number of reports is on the increase  particularly in cities. See Loneliness on the rise as our cities atomise

For another remarkable perspective on the underpinnings of this – and how it can be addressed – see The Innovation of Loneliness

Do you have a sense of where these ideas and practices could be leading?

Looking forward

Go well

 

Alan Stewart
Adelaide