Horizons - Looking Outward

When you are faced with an unknown future, are you filled with worry, trepidation, calm, or excitement?  If you are like me... it depends on the situation!

After a series of setbacks, the future may look like more of the same... or, I may think, "It can't get any worse! " On the other hand, after long periods of calm and stability, an unknown horizon may seem distant and foreign.

What is it about change and the unknown that strikes fear or excitement in us?

What obstacles do you see on the horizon?

What I enjoy about sailing are the vast expanses reaching out to the horizon.  It seems that anything is possible: where would I like to go?  The ocean waters reflect the ever-changing combination of time of day, light, sky and clouds.  Our lives also reflect a dynamic interaction of people, locations, and events.

• What will happen if I say...?
• How shall I approach...?
• Can I move to...?

Each question and decision alters the course of where we go... and the next series of events.

How do you handle the unforeseen?

Earlier in my life, I was amazed when my family was surprised at a decision I made.  I had been thinking about this change for several years, but my parents and siblings were unaware of my thoughts and deliberations.  Independently, I had anxiously changed course without signaling to them my thinking.

It was easy to get defensive and state that it was my decision.  But, I wonder, how else could I have responded?

Can each day provide moments of beauty?

Since that decision several decades ago -- and in combination with recent dialogue studies, I am reflecting on how often I share or don't share significant thought processes.  It seems that the more I reach out with unfinished thoughts or conclusions, people respond with openness and a helping nature.  In a similar way, when I share my feelings of being vulnerable and unsafe, the texture of the conversation becomes more human and intimate.  

Barriers fall down; doors open; horizons extend outward.  This doesn't mean that the skies will be rosy and the seas calm.  Rather, it means I am traveling with people who care and are willing to listen, advise, and accept.

May this week provide moments when we can look outward at the beautiful people and horizons we encounter on this journey we call Life.

Larry Gardepie

Dialogue San Diego Consulting

(click on link for website)

Seeking Protection

Traveling and exploring different cities, states, and countries opens my mind and heart to different peoples and Ways of Doing... maybe even Ways of Being.  We experience changes through food, language, use of written and verbal expressions, architecture... and what brings value.  What is important to one person may not be the same for another.

Oftentimes, our structures symbolize the values or emphases that guide us.  For instance, in Washington, D.C., we see the:

• White House (which symbolizes elected leadership)
• Capital Building (democracy)
• U.S. Supreme Court (justice)
• Smithsonian Museums (history and culture)

In many of our coastal cities, there are breakwaters that protect harbors and provide safe moorings for sea-faring vessels.

What protects you?

Lighthouses are placed in strategic locations along the coast to protect sailors from harm.  Schools and libraries promote the gathering and imparting of knowledge.

Each structure brings significance to the individual or the community.  Each has purpose.

What guides you and keeps you from harm?

Through the lens of my dialogue practice, I find the national struggle with the southern border wall fascinating -- and disturbing.  Especially if we interpret structures as symbols of what is important in our lives.

For many people, the border wall focuses on the values of national identity, safety, legal entry, and opportunity.

What happens, though, when we have positioned ourselves on the extremes of each value?  We have seen public division, peoples and positions devalued, and dialogue almost non-existent.

What bridges have you created?

When we are in a polarized situation -- or when we have polarized ourselves -- it may be important to step back and ask ourselves questions based on our individual, regional or national interests of Ways of Doing and Ways of Being:

• Am I willing to listen to another viewpoint?
• Can I hold lightly my position and try to understand another?
• What will be gained when we create a bridge between the extremes?

When we position ourselves to win at any costs, we have actually lost.  The human experience is cheapened and the structures we build become facades of the Emptiness Within.  I believe that we can do better... when we show up with the hope and invitation of dialogue.

This week:

• May we seek to understand more deeply the values we hold individually;
• May we learn to build bridges which honor all that is important collectively; and,
• May we invite others into a dialogue where All is our Answer. 

Larry Gardepie

Dialogue San Diego Consulting

(click on link for website)

Which Dialogue Zone Are You In?

As a child, I was fascinated by time zones.  We had moved from Iowa to California when I was 5 years old.  My grandparents remained in Iowa, two time zones away.  To call our grandparents, we would have to coordinate schedules... when were they at work or eating or sleeping.  My attempt to understand how my grandparents could have eaten their dinner already when we weren't even preparing for ours mystified me.  Were they living in the future?  Could they tell us the score of a baseball game?

Now that I travel for work and leisure, I retain some of this wonder.  I still coordinate schedules in order to call a loved one when I am multiple time zones ahead or behind but I now realize that we are each living in the same moment... even if the time is different.

What time zone do you live in?

I carry this same wonder when I attempt to practice my dialogue skills.  I am sometimes confused with a situation until I realize that others are seeing and experiencing the same reality... but individually.  In a way, we are in different dialogue zones.

For example, the foundations of reality -- the facts -- may be the same, but our paths toward understanding may diverge.  This awareness allows me freedom to ask questions and to explore interpretations or meanings that I haven't considered.  Dialogue, in a way, allows us the flexibility to coordinate schedules of understanding so that we are no longer disconnected by conclusions that separate us.

Are you confused when others see a situation differently?

Accepting that dialogue zones must be coordinated and examined provides opportunities -- or invitations -- to reconnect with a loved one, friend, and work colleague.  Unlike my childhood conclusion that my grandparents lived in the future, I can live in the moment with those I choose to sit with, listen to, and understand.

What dialogue zone would you like to inhabit?

As we enter a new week or awaken to a new day, let's consider the following questions:

• Am I willing to release earlier conclusions that anchor me in my dialogue zone?
• Can I entertain that another zone is as valid as mine?
• What would it look like for me to schedule a visit to a friend's understanding of reality?

Happy travels this week as you explore your dialogue zone and others!

Larry Gardepie

Dialogue San Diego Consulting

(click on link for website)

Single but Many

Since our country’s inception, our Founders and subsequent generations have struggled with how to balance our freedoms.  Examples of political tensions in my lifetime:

• Which amendments take precedence over others;
• How to view Federal and States rights;
• The rights of the one (minority) versus the rights of the many (majority).

There is a healthy tension when we allow the pendulum of differences to swing back and forth as we respectfully try to understand other points of view.  But, the struggle becomes unbalanced when the majority no longer listens to the minority and the minority views the majority with suspicion.

Is it realistic to think that these encounters will be neat and orderly?  What happens when our interconnections untangle and stay unraveled for a long period of time?  I wonder if our understanding of conversations and outcomes is flawed?

Do I expect neatness and order?

I like to image these conversations as a diverse population awakening to the Desires of All: that is, gaining the ability to move outwards towards acceptance of Other.  Yes, there is a central core of what identifies us... AND... there is a burst of individuality which radiates from these central beliefs.  Both are true!

All are joined together:  all are distinct.

 Do I see the beauty of the One or the Many?

Astronaut Christina Koch posted a wonderful photograph on Twitter recently:  a Russian Soyuz rocket was bringing her best friend from earth to the International Space Station, where Christina was stationed.  The tendrils of the rocket plume seemingly connected the craft to earth; the single bright star of the space craft illuminated the sky.  From the Many (earth) to the One (space craft), friends were being reunited.

Each of our journeys can be like that: understanding our individuality by breaking through the atmospheric definitions that surround us.  We are — individually and collectively — attempting to balance what it means to be Single-in-Relationship.

Do I wait for others to join me?
(Photo credit:  Christina Koch)

Dialogue provides moments where we check-in with another person on where life’s journey has taken them:

Awareness nurtures Compassionate Understanding,

which feeds Creative Freedom through Interconnectedness.

In other words, it is through dialogue that we can share individual insights which informs collective understanding.  One and Many:  both can be true!

May this week draw us into a healthy balance of We (many) and Me (one) that allows us to coexist without violence and harm.

Larry Gardepie

Dialogue San Diego Consulting

(click on link for website)

Healing Dialogue

This past week, as a Dialogue colleague and friend prepared for surgery and the recovery process following, she asked many of us to hold her in loving and healing intention.  A list of positive statements were provided that allowed the hospital staff, family and friends to focus our thoughts, prayers, love and energy.

Living hundreds of miles away, I felt connected... and able to participate in something bigger than myself.

What colors do I choose for my Life Story?

I wondered:

• Each day I encounter many choices: which do I choose and why?
• Our world seems dark and divided: how can I focus loving and healing intention?
• The steps I take have meaning:  am I willing to work on goals beyond my own?

Am I willing to work together, applying one grain of sand
at a time, to our World Story?

If we understand Dialogue as a way to add one thought or experience to a Picture Unfolding, then maybe we can remove the pressure of having all the answers, being the arbiter of what is right, or expecting so much of ourselves and others.  Like Buddhist monks creating a mandala one colored grain of sand at a time, we can focus our intention on the experience of holding lightly to each person's contribution to the Whole.

We still have responsibility for individual thoughts and actions,.  But, releasing our negative conclusions about another person or outcome, invites freedom to open ourselves to Love and Healing.

What story do you want others to know?

As we move into a new day, maybe we could focus on a quote that Debbie shared with us days before her surgery:

"We are never more than a belief away

from our greatest love,

deepest healing,

and most profound miracles."

-- Gregg Braden

This week, may we seek to be intentional in how we encounter one another... with dialogue that opens us to healing past wounds... with interactions that connect us... with questions that allow us to see a Picture Beyond our granular perspective.

Larry Gardepie

Dialogue San Diego Consulting

(click on link for website)

Debbie... you are loved and held gently by so many!