8-Week In-Person Series in Portland, OR
Is this you?
You want better communication skills and more fulfilling relationships. You want to create more connection in your personal relationships and have the confidence that you can handle conflict. You want to bring relationship skills to the people you care for that embody your values.
You are dedicated to living an authentic life with compassion for yourself and others. You understand that creating healthy relationships and relating to yourself and others from authenticity and compassion requires mindfulness and practical skills. You are ready and willing to practice mindfulness and concrete skills in a safe environment that includes vulnerability and self-reflection.
You respect the complexity and subtlety of transformation and emotional-spiritual growth. You recognize that transformation and the integration of new skills requires both a shift in how you perceive and what you believe.
You would like to live with a solid confidence that you can navigate relationships with yourself, others, and something greater in a way that serves life and keeps you connected to love, wisdom and compassion.
What's It All About?
About Mindful Compassionate Dialogue
Mindful Compassionate Dialogue (MCD) provides a framework for emotional-spiritual healing, growth and transformation. It is a comprehensive system that supports the cultivation of a solid sense of self and practical relationship skills such as communication, life-serving boundaries, relationship repair and more.
MCD helps identify obstacles to growth in yourself and others along with specific and concrete tools to move forward.
It was born from a moment of inspiration in which the basic framework presented itself to LaShelle during meditation in an image similar to the one you find at the bottom of the page here. This inspiration was preceded by a deep grounding in Mindfulness, Hakomi (and other therapeutic approaches), and Compassionate Communication (also called Nonviolent Communication or NVC).
Each of these modalities contributes something unique. Hakomi offers clarity about reactivity and healing. NVC provides a method for achieving self-responsibility, skillful communication, and agency. And mindfulness adds the stable attention and clear focus needed to continuously refine and deepen your understanding and skills.
MCD is a system meant to provide access to agency, compassion, mindfulness, and wisdom. Personal transformation is achieved through practice with the 12 Relationship Competencies and Nine Foundations, which arise from a central, life-serving intention.
What to expect?
In this eight week in-person series, you will engage in conceptual learning, group discussion, experiential learning, and skills practice. Practice exercises will be done individually, in pairs, and in small groups. You can apply examples from your own life that you choose in the exercises.
Registration is limited to 16 participants. Some will be new to Wise Heart and others will have taken previous courses with Wise Heart.
The course will be divided into four sections relative to the four fruits of Mindful Compassionate Dialogue: Mindful Engagement, Compassionate Relating, Access to Agency, and Wise Action. We will spend two weeks learning about and practicing each one. Below are a few questions we will address for each:
Mindful Engagement = Weeks 1 & 2
What does it really mean to be mindfully engaging with life?
How can you cultivate mindfulness?
What’s most important to be mindful of when cultivating healthy relationships?
How does spontaneity fit in with mindfulness?
How does mindful engagement prevent escalation of reactivity?
How does mindful engagement help with conflict resolution?
Compassionate Relating = Weeks 3 & 4
What is compassion?
How can you prevent compassion fatigue?
How do you practice self-compassion?
How can you maintain compassion and still set life-serving boundaries?
Access to Agency = Weeks 5 & 6
How is agency different from choice and empowerment?
How does agency depend on societal systems and how does this affect your relationships?
How can you be yourself in every relationship?
How can you maintain your autonomy while considering the needs of others?
How can you negotiate mutually beneficial decisions while maintaining your agency?
Wise Action = Weeks 7 & 8
What is wisdom and how do you know you are acting from it?
What helps you discern whether a decision is coming from habits, unconscious conditioning, reactivity or wisdom?
What concrete strategies help you access wisdom?
How can you support and respect the wisdom of others?
What are some basic practices in relationships that support wise decision making?
Details:
Trainer: LaShelle Lowe-Chardé
When: Thursdays, 6:30pm - 8:30pm, September 8 - October 27, 2022
Where: Multnomah Friends Meeting, 4312 SE Stark St, Portland, OR 97215; 1st floor room 12
Contribution: Collaborative and Conscious Contribution
Let’s create an economy based on the power of gratitude and giving from the heart
With tremendous gratitude, we are aware that everything we offer at Wise Heart is possible due to the generosity of many who have supported us and continue to support the consciousness and skills of love and connection.
We, here at Wise Heart, trust in the satisfaction that human beings feel when we live from gratitude and become aware of the power we have to contribute to Life and share our resources.
We also trust that when we create a certain quality of connection we naturally act with compassion and generosity and can care for the needs of all.
Because we recognize that the economic system in which we live does not promote generosity nor help distribute resources, we are taking steps to support a new way of managing resources based on transparency, trust, and gratitude. We want to live in a world in which resources flow more naturally towards needs, and money doesn’t determine whether one’s needs are met.
At the end, or at any point in this class series we ask you to consider what you have received, the energy offered, and the financial costs of offering this course and decide how you would like to express your gratitude. We will send an email at the end of the course to invite you to engage in this contemplation. In addition, at the end of this page we have included transparency about our investment as well as ideas for expressing gratitude.
In learning how to participate in this form of sharing resources, it’s important to be aware of the word “free.” For many the word “free” has become associated with the idea that you get to have something without considering how it came to you. Part of receiving with connection is recognizing that everything comes into being with effort whether from human hands or the cycles of nature. Honoring an offering goes far beyond a simple monetary exchange.
In this sense, please be aware that this is not a “free” offering. Much time and effort goes into offering this series and if you receive benefit we ask you to honor the gift in the way that makes sense to you.
When there is not an expected transaction involving money, there can be a tendency to devalue what is received. We know in our hearts that money does not determine value, yet we have been conditioned to think otherwise.
As such, we invite you to let a sense of resonance, clarity, and your heart’s longing be your guide in deciding to register.
Space is limited, so if you choose to register and then drop out, there is an impact on others who would have attended, as well as an impact on the cohesion and consistency of the group. We ask that you discern carefully. Register only if you are confident that you can attend at least 6 of the 8 sessions.
We realize that this may be a new way of doing things for you and could therefore be anxiety-provoking. This is also new for us! We are learning how to live and create community based on trust, gratitude, and generosity. We ask for your patience and collaboration as we figure this out together. If you need more information to help you discern, don’t hesitate to contact us at info@wiseheartpdx.org
We have listed below our investment in the series along with ideas for expressing gratitude and offering contributions.
Transparency: costs
Rental fee paid to Multnomah Monthly Meeting House: $520
Monthly business expenses for Wise Heart not including rental fee: $1917 (this is mostly online services and help with graphics and social media)
Energy & Time:
The energy and time we have spent to create this course, we offer from a place of joyful creation not as a burden of work. We share the following from a desire for collaboration and mutual understanding:
…a lifetime of personal healing and transformation, spiritual practice, research, education, taking risks, and the creative process.
For this course, approximately 100 hours of preparation which includes all the things you might expect: curriculum writing, social media posts, website management, creating a new system to accommodate this new economic model, email exchanges, editing services, and physical preparation of the space and materials.
Transparency: What does your financial gift support?
The courage and confidence to eventually shift Wise Heart to an entity that depends entirely on an economy of gratitude, trust, and generosity.
The opportunity to meet needs for those who would otherwise be excluded because of a lack of money. This includes students locally as well as those in Mexico, South America, Spain, and Europe. (Wise Heart staff volunteer time, money, and energy in-person and online both here and in the Spanish speaking world).
A contribution to creating and collaborating in ways that move our society and our planet towards a sustainable future
Supporting Jeri and LaShelle to cover the basic expenses necessary to live daily life and keep Wise Heart going in a market economy for so long as it is necessary
Possible Expressions of Gratitude:
Immaterial Offerings
A commitment to dedicate yourself to a daily practice that keeps the consciousness and tools of connection (like the ones we will share in this course) alive and effective in your life.
Include us in some way in your spiritual practice, such as keeping us present in your prayers/wishes, sending us love or good energy for the flourishing of our team and the growth of this consciousness.
Choose a spiritual practice and someone, some natural space, or animal, that you will focus on supporting with that practice.
Financial Offerings
Send money to Wise Heart. In the market economy, I typically ask $275 for an 8 week series.
Send money to Multnomah Monthly Friends Meeting House. Friends meeting house offers a beautiful space at an affordable rate for many forms of healing and learning. Over 20 years of renting with them, I have consistently been met with care, flexibility, and generosity.
Send money to the cause of your choice.
Service Offerings
Videography: if you are a professional videographer, we are looking for help creating videos during live workshops.
If you are able and willing to commit regular time and energy and skilled with social media, we are looking for 3-5 hours a week of help.
Reach: if you have access to spread the word about this work to those you think might benefit we welcome the support in getting the word out.
For example, inviting 10 people you know to subscribe to the Connection Gem or follow us on social media, or follow our podcast.
Or, agreeing to spread the word about a future workshop (Email us for specific and doable actions - info@wiseheartpdx.org).
COVID Proposed Agreement
Relevant information with regards to health is that the room we will be in has a purifier and many large windows (though the weather may inhibit all open windows later in the course). While I have received four vaccine injections, I don’t judge each person’s choice nor do I want to police their choice. I want to be inclusive and care for health and safety as best we can. I would prefer not to wear masks, but will bow to the group or caring for someone at high risk. With all this in mind and heart, what follows is a proposed agreement. Please email me with concerns and requests if you have them.
Take a COVID rapid test before each class meeting
If you are symptomatic, do not attend the meeting *
If you test positive, do not attend the meeting
Rapid tests will be available for you if you do not have access to them
*An audio recording of the presentation portions of class can be provided if you are absent.