Real Dialogue is a method and a skill designed to maintain the emotional space for dialogue during polarization, emotional threat, stress, or perceived offense. It counteracts our natural tendencies to dehumanize each other and create enemies when we feel unheard, unseen, or unknown. Different from conflict resolution, mediation, or any form of compromise, Real Dialogue is a form of negotiation or creative conflict that allows individuals to remain mindful and in contact while in disagreement.

We want a new kind of love in the 21st century. In relationships, we want to be treated as equals and to be seen and known for ourselves. Equal and reciprocal love between adults, in marriage and committed partnerships, is in many ways more problematic and unhappy now than ever, after decades of struggle for gender equality and sexual freedom. 21st century love requires new psychological and spiritual skills that are go beyond secure attachment or “improved communication.”

Love always guarantees a broken heart. No matter how else it functions in our lives, love will include loss, sepa- ration or betrayal. In this presentation, I will address the question, “What is love, anyway?” We will talk about loss in the context of the Buddha’s teachings about reality. This evening’s lecture presents a new context for personal love as a spiritual practice of deep acceptance of the human condition.

This webinar will chart the path of “true love” from falling in love (idealization) through disillusionment, introducing a key concept from psychoanalysis: projective identification. It will show specifically how and why well-meaning couples who “know how to communicate” still get caught up in harmful emotional patterns if they do not understand their inner lives, as individuals.

RECORDING AVAILABLE: UNITY WEEK, UNITED NATIONS 75TH ANNIVERSARY
Join Humanity Rising in this Week of celebration of the UN and international efforts to implement the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

VIRTUAL CLASS SERIES: In this course of 10, one-hour online classes, we will learn to increase trust in our relationships by becoming more skillful in how we speak and listen, and learn to lower emotional threat levels. We will also investigate why it is so difficult for human beings to “get” each other, especially when we feel defensive. In any important conversation or negotiation, there is no progress without BOTH sides of a conflict being seen/heard/felt. Both sides and both points of view are needed to find lasting solutions.

FREE VIRTUAL CLASSES: Bringing mindfulness into our relationships, especially in times of emotional distress, will allow you to make contact with yourself and others in a whole new way. Each week, Polly will make a short introduction to the topic and then give you a chance to ask your questions and go into depth about your own concerns on these topics that are so important in our lives right now.

This presentation will look at the archetype of “contagion” as it is connected with shame, humiliation, disgust, and covering up. Drawing on the concepts of participation mystique and the theory of projective identification, I will show some of the reasons we should be very concerned about our current social-psychological set-up of mandatory mask-wearing and isolation — how easily all of it can slip into tyranny over those we consider contagious.

RECORDING AVAILABLE: At this moment in our national history, we must become aware that we need both sides on the big issues if we are going to find lasting results. In order to bring this about we need to end the humiliation-rage cycle in which one side humiliates and enrages the other, and then that cycle is repeated on the other side. We need to hear both kinds of contrarian voices: those from our own tribe and those from the others. In this class, we will learn how to invite and manage open-minded dialogue with people who disagree with us and we will touch on a few of the topics we all need to be talking about as the lock-downs end.

RECORDING AVAILABLE: Many of our emotional and physical difficulties reside in the area of our overwhelming desire to predict the future, control outcomes and protect/promote ourselves in times of threat - emotional, financial or physical. Living within these lock-down and shut-down conditions, we may have lost our ability to listen when conversations get difficult. In this class, we will find out how to lower emotional threat levels and keep open our ears while sorting out what is going on in our minds when we are triggered.

RECORDING AVAILABLE: Our biggest problems as individuals take place when we think our own memories, ideals, opinions, and beliefs are beyond reproach. We are 95% unconscious of what we are saying and doing, more subjective in our perceptions than we believe, and highly motivated to promote ourselves as “good” or “nice” or “better than” (sometimes called “virtue signaling”). This creates obstacles to open-minded and civil conversations with people who think or feel things differently from ourselves.

RECORDING AVAILABLE: In states of threat and high alert, we want to find "the enemy" and vanquish it. It's an impossible and destructive intention. We don't rule this planet. We have to get along here. And our human world is a world of life-and-death, not a world of "life" separated from "death". The two are bound together for humans on earth. We cannot wage war on one side without making war on the other. Join this exploration of coming to terms with death as a part of life.

RECORDING AVAILABLE: Living in the time of COVID-19 gives all of us a strong and clear taste of uncertainty. Our welfare is on the line and we are trapped at home with our questions, our vulnerabilities, and the vulnerabilities of others. Join me in this virtual class from the Rowe Center.