Meaningful Conversations 3

This is the third part of a multi-part post on meaningful conversations.

So, how do you learn to be more authentic, share what’s most important to you and have a meaningful conversation?

There are 12 things to remember and practice.

Most important, be patient and gentle with yourself; you won’t get all of this overnight: there’s a steep learning curve. But you will have many opportunities to get it right, get help and practice.

• Spirit of Exploration: enter this work with openness, optimism, vision, faith; realizing how risky, rough and rugged it is, but also, how very rewarding

• Perception is Unreliable: Appearances are Deceiving – must figure things out for one’s self; be your own scientist/empiricist; be responsible

• No objective reality for the most meaningful things – facts, at the most important levels – Social, Economic, Moral, where values are involved [and they’re always involved] at best, there is consensus reality.

• Meaning is a subjective, emotional, inside job. Here again, we’ve got to be responsible for what things mean to us and realize they might mean something else to someone else

• Everyone is not like you and does not think like you, and that’s a good thing, imagine a world of people with the same strengths and weakness; that means when you have a blind spot or a weakness, you can probably find someone who isn’t blind and is strong where you’re blind and weak

• Wholeness and the Wisdom of Crowds – a more complete and accurate perception, is more likely when two or more are gathered to seek it. Individuals miss a lot; have filters – personal quirks, different cultures, experiences, tastes, appreciations – think about siblings in same families

• If you always do what you always did…. You’ll be frozen, unable to move forward. Stuck. So do it differently; get a different perspective, a different person involved

• Others see what we don’t; everybody’s not gonna go bungee jumping or wants to be a surgeon

• We can’t know everything; [dogs hear more and cats see more] but help is available. You’ve got to know you need it, then ask for it before you get it