In Dialogue - Focusing and Mentoring

At the heart of Live and Flourish is a confidence in the power of dialogue. That it seems an everyday ordinary occurrence belies its significance. We believe that true dialogue is actually increasingly rare in our culture. Perhaps this partially explains, for example, why Britain is now the loneliness capital of Europe.

In 1970 the famous Zen master Shunryu Suzuki* wrote about human communication: "Usually when you listen to some statement, you hear it as a kind of echo of yourself. You are really listening to your own opinion. If it agrees with your opinion you may accept it, but if it does not, you will reject it or you may not even really hear it." In the age of social media this observation on human communication strikes me with even more force than it did when I first read it many years ago. 

For me what listening, and being listened to, amounts to is being fully recognised as a human being. I know that when I make the effort to really listen to someone my perception of them changes dramatically - they transform from two dimensional, almost object like beings, into multi-dimensional full human beings. This shift is always a beautiful experience.

Such listening is at the heart of dialogue  - a listening that allows for a true meeting of two individuals. Modernity, it has to be said, doesn't exactly encourage this kind of meeting. The echo chambers of modernity lead ultimately to shallow and unsatisfying communication  - we are not seen - not fully recognised or witnessed. Often people tell me about how close friends and family don't really know who they are, what their real values are, their passions and deeper thoughts and feelings about life. When these aspect of ourselves go unwitnessed we are likely to suffer. For example, we might in turn find ourselves unable to express, or even know, our true nature but instead live a life shaped by the views and expectations of others. 

This is why we offer our focusing and mentoring services  - rare opportunities for a genuine dialogue. In both these practices you are really seen, witnessed and affirmed. But it goes deeper still in that being witnessed in such a way encourages us to be more sensitive to ourselves. We can retrieve a fuller sense of who we really are, our values and identity. Dialogue also supports us while we disentangle from the habits of living someone else's life, allowing space for our authentic self to flourish. And lastly, experiencing real dialogue can encourage us to relate more generally in this way too. As a result clients find their relationships with family and friends gradually improve. 

Our style of working is informal and relaxed. We bring a very human quality to our work that is often lacking even in the modern day care professions. Care isn't something that can be prescribed, measured or set into a procedure. Care is in the meeting of two individuals really seeing each other as fully human beings worthy of respect. This is the essence of dialogue and the principle that animates what we do at Live&Flourish.  

Marion is a fully qualified Focusing Practitioner and I am developing this new form of mentoring called Empathic Dialogical Mentoring. Both modalities stress the importance of this genuine meeting. For more information please visit our website. 

*Zen Mind Beginner Mind by Shunryu Suzuki, 1970, Weatherhill.