If you have read my book, Getting Real, or attended one of my seminars, you've probably heard of the HONESTY SALON. An HONESTY SALON is a small group experience where we practice "the 10 truth skills" in real time. Fellow HONESTY SALON member, Don Drake and I will be starting an Honesty Salon via telephone conference call format on Tuesday, January 11 at 3-4 pm Pacific time US (6-7 pm Eastern Time). We invite you to join us. At this stage, we are still refining the technology--so we are offering it to our e-lists free of charge. We plan to do this every Tuesday for an hour. In a few weeks, we will start asking for a donation to assist Don in launching his Getting Real coaching practice.
In this blog, you may post anything pertaining to your Honesty Salon experience, e.g. unfinished feelings and self-talk, either after the salon or in preparation for the upcoming salon.
If you send me a request via posting on this blog or emailing me at drsusan@susancampbell.com, I will send out the phone number and pin you'll need to get on the Tuesday calls.
Below I have copied the communication guidelines we will be using in this new Honesty Salon.
There is also an Honesty Salon on Face Book called COMPASSIONATE HONESTY: Experience the Joy of Transparent Communication. To join the Face Book group, go to this link:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=106234612746972&ref=ts
susan campbell
Getting Real Honesty Salon -- Communication Guidelines
From Susan Campbell (707) 829-3646 www.susancampbell.com
We are here to wake up from our conditioned thinking and automatic patterns and to help each other wake up--so that we can live in reality in present time. We do this by using the “10 truth skills” and the “7 keys to present-centered communication” as our awareness practice. The goal here is to notice our reactions and patterns rather than identifying with these. In order to achieve such awareness, we agree to reveal our present feelings, sensations, reactions, observations, and self-talk, even if these do not seem justified or relevant.
1. As you speak, feel your energetic-heart connection to yourself and to the other(s). This is helped by sensing your breathing and your body. Share what you notice in your body.
2. Speak from your own experience, using “I-statements” and feeling statements. For example: I feel sad, upset, tense, relaxed, happy, angry, startled, hurt, excited, afraid, anxious. Stay on your own side of the net by speaking only about YOUR feelings and self-talk.
3. If you offer an interpretation or self-talk, notice if the intent is to be right, to be entertaining, to be smart, to appear cool, etc. If you notice yourself in such a control pattern, mention this.
4. Check in with your body, your feelings and your wants as you listen and before you speak.
5. Take responsibility for your wants and boundaries. Ask for what you want. Don’t answer a question just because someone asks it. Don’t do something just because someone suggests it. If you feel overloaded or upset or don’t want a certain type of attention, say this.
6. When giving feedback or expressing feelings about something the other person did or said, be specific about what was actually done or said and what you felt. (Example: “When I heard you say, ‘I’d rather be somewhere else,’ I felt anger/I felt a pain in my gut/etc.”) Notice your generalizations and add the data, the specifics, that led to your generalization.
7. Notice your intent. Is it to relate or to control? (Relating is expressing your present feelings and self-talk in the interest of transparency, without trying to manipulate the outcome or others’ reactions. Controlling is trying to mask or avoid feeling what you feel; trying to control the outcome; or trying to control or deny your anxiety about not being in control.)
8. When expressing anger or judgment, do it in a self-revealing way. Anger that seeks to punish, get even, justify oneself, or be right is controlling. Anger can be “hot” and still be relational, if you use the truth skills (e.g. I am furious at you for the way you just laughed as I was speaking.) Know that underneath the anger there is usually a button that has just gotten pushed.
9. When you have a judgment, an interpretation, a theoretical insight, or a helpful suggestion, notice what you feel, and express this first. Look underneath these behaviors for the button that may have gotten pushed.
10. If you’re getting triggered, say: “I notice I’m getting triggered” or “I think I’m getting a button pushed.” (Then “stay with” and report your feelings, perhaps allowing an earlier memory to surface, and be with yourself in a self-nurturing way)
11. When you offer an imagining or an interpretation, do it for the purpose of self-disclosure and/or to clear your foreground so you can be more present. Notice if you are attached to being right with your interpretation. If you are, mention this.
12. Be honest in your listening. Don’t fake interest.
13. Use the following phrases often to help you stay in your own experience (vs. in your conditioned mind):
Hearing you say that, I feel…
I notice/see/hear…and I imagine….
I’m getting a button pushed
When ….(this happened), I felt (or I said to myself)….
Right now I’m saying to myself…..
Right now I’m feeling….
I want….
I feel….and at the same time I also feel…
I hear that you want/feel/think….. and I have a different want/feeling
I’d like to “go out and come in again.”
Premise: You are responsible for your own experience. Your experience is uniquely yours. Validation by others doesn’t make it right. Disagreement doesn’t make it wrong. Your honest feedback or response is one of the greatest gifts you can give to another person (and to yourself).
Further thoughts:
As I see it, this communication work is a “practice” (a yoga of communication) to help us become more response-able and more self-aware about our automatic communication habits (such as the automatic “need” to explain, defend, fix, improve, or rescue). We call these our Control Patterns. Control patterns are the ego-mind’s attempt to stay feeling “right, safe, and certain" (vs "real, unique, and open") and to avoid getting our buttons pushed. I think we need to value getting our buttons pushed so we can see what needs healing in ourselves.
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