Compassionate Conversations
STUDY & PRACTICE COURSE
Diane Musho Hamilton
assisted by Kimberly Loh & Rodrigo Martinez
Tuesdays, February 13 - April 2, 2024
10:00 - 11:30 am MT
Via Zoom
The Compassionate Conversations Study and Practice Course is for those who are passionate about improving the quality of their conversations. These times call for excellent communication skills, whether we are talking lightly about the topics we agree about or intensely about those we don't. Every conversation has the potential to transform our understanding and deepen our relationships.
This is a course for those interested in discovering a new way of being and relating in service of evolving our relationships and culture. This is not a course in social justice advocacy. The Compassionate Conversations Study and Practice Course is highly experiential, engaging participants in open dialogue and practices. These practices are designed to foster self-expression, deep listening, and emotional authenticity, addressing our defensive patterns, unconscious biases, and power dynamics. Most importantly, this training will awaken the qualities of self-confidence, wisdom, and compassion for ourselves and others.
You will deepen your capacity by offering new frameworks and skills, including how to use the body and breath to calm your nervous system to stay present and engaged. You will explore the capacity of conflict skills to create more freedom and ease in your relationships.
THE ELEMENTS WE WILL COVER
Essential skills:
- Deep listening
- Powerful self-expression
- Reframing
- Perspective seeking
- Transmuting emotions
Crucial topics:
- Ethnocentrism
- Unity through diversity
- Navigating strong emotions
- Power dynamics & privilege
- Forgiveness and atonement
This online course consists of eight sessions over the course of eight weeks. Each 90-minute session will include a teaching segment from chapters in the book, a practice session in small groups, and an opportunity to ask questions that have come up in your daily life.
We will offer coaching tips for honing your skills.
IN ADDITION TO THE LIVE CLASS
SESSIONS, YOU WILL RECEIVE:
- Access to Zoom video and audio recordings
- Supplemental materials
- Optional online practice groups to deepen learning
SCHEDULE / COMMITMENT
Tuesdays, February 13 - April 2, 2024
10:00 - 11:30 am MT (9PT/12ET/6 CET)
Class dates: Feb 13, 20, 27
March 5, 12, 19, 26
April 2
The optional Practice Call schedule will be announced in the first class.
Your learning experience in this course is built on your participation and practice. We expect a firm commitment to participate in all sessions. Sessions will be recorded for review.
Required reading: Compassionate Conversations: How to Speak and Listen from the Heart.
Registration
$449 GENERAL ADMISSION
Scholarship opportunities are available for those under 30, people of color with financial need, and those with a negative currency exchange against the US dollar.
Diane Musho Hamilton is an award-winning professional mediator, author, and teacher of Zen meditation. She is a life-long practitioner of meditation and a lineage holder in the Soto Zen tradition.
As the first Director of the Office of Alternative Dispute Resolution for the Utah Judiciary, Diane established mediation programs throughout the court system and won several prestigious awards for her work in this area.
She is the Executive Director of Two Arrows Zen, a practice in Utah, and offers training programs oriented to personal development and advanced facilitator skills. Diane is the author of Everything Is Workable and The Zen of You and Me. Her latest book is Compassionate Conversations: How to Speak and Listen from the Heart, co-authored with Gabriel Wilson and Kimberly Loh.
Practice Group Facilitators
Kim Loh
Kaua'i, Hawaii
I am an author and a coach, and I trained as a peace specialist working to foster conflict transformation and ethical leadership. My work has included international peace research at the United Nations, post-graduate conflict resolution at Columbia University, and individual and group coaching to expand our personal and collective potential. I co-authored Compassionate Conversations with Diane and Gabriel Wilson. I am passionate about art, ecosystems, and freshly baked banana bread.
Rodrigo Martinez
Mexico City, Mexico
Ro Shogaku is a coach, facilitator, assistant administrator for Two Arrows Zen and the program coordinator for Real LIFE Programs. His degree is in business, and he has experience in transformational training and existential psychology. He worked as a client partner for Franklin Covey in Latin America. In 2016, he decided to devote himself to Zen practice. Rodrigo is ordained in the Soto Zen tradition and facilitates a weekly study group called "Love of the Dharma." He is committed to facilitating groups imbued with warmth, connection and full of heart. Ro was born and lives in Mexico City.