About The Dialogues
Welcome To
The companion dialogues
Introduction
The Companion Dialogues are a response to a felt need in our time. The need for a renewed sense of meaning, relating, and being with ourselves and others. The virtual reality we are living in right now – as students, educators, leaders, and workers – calls for a new form of interaction. If the Dialogues are the medium to meet this need, then companioning is the mode.
The Dialogues are an intentional space that depends upon the courage to share and the openness to receive in a non-judgmental way. They offer an interactional rather than transactional space, where people are present as themselves for others in the pursuit of possibilities rather than answers.
It is in this spirit that the Dialogues are grounded in the Ignatian principle of Cura Personalis: the whole person is not only a welcome but a necessary presence, as a condition for the Dialogues to function and for the growth of members to be realized.
In sum, members of the Dialogues are first and foremost learners: we learn about the world, each other, and ourselves through active listening, purposeful silence, and noticing what moves us. Thus, the Dialogues is an invitational space where vulnerability, empathy, and reciprocity serve as both the dynamics of exchange and goals for growth.
Companion Dialogues provide an opportunity for us to “think together” and “be alone together” that seek to inform how we design the ways we live, lead, manage, create, and innovate in a fast-changing world. By sharing our stories, beliefs, values, and concerns with the intent to accompany each other on our journeys, we can add something new and transformative to our perspectives. In these times, as in all times, companions are a vital source of our continuous growth and transformation
Setting
A “setting” can be thought of as the invisible context of the visible sessions of an intentional circle where participants come together to dialogue. A setting is considered rich when:
- individuals put effort into listening attentively not only to others, but to themselves as whole persons, loosening their defenses, assumptions, reactions and resistance;
- respect is a dynamic presence to make space for people with different viewpoints, seeking the truth in what others are saying, rather than trying to change them;
- judgment and opinion are suspended in favor of stepping back, changing direction, and seeing with new lenses;
- participants speak with their own voice, giving up the need to dominate, while disagreeing humbly and thoughtfully;
- and the dialogue is given the time it needs, as resolutions are not necessarily sought, apparent, or feasible.
LEARN MORE
REACH OUT TO THE CO-CREATORS OF THE COMPANION DIALOGUES:
Long Le at lle@scu.edu
Shawn Vecellio at svecellio@usfca.edu