emergent dialogue

Module 2

Friction & Synergy

Starting Wednesday, January 17, 2024

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Die zentralen Seminareinheiten dieses Programm werden von Thomas Steininger und Elizabeth Debold auf Englisch gehalten. Wir bieten aber auch deutschsprachige Übungsgruppen an, um Emergent Dialogue auf Deutsch zu üben.

Once you have developed some capacity to sense and to embody living interbeing, now comes the truly exciting process: learning to work with the field and its synergetic intelligence. The motive of this creative life force is higher integration. Tapping into its capacity to create synergy allows for a co-conscious creativity to emerge. In this module, you are invited to go much deeper into alignment with the creative impulse that moves through the whole as you learn how to hold the tension that gives birth to creative synergy.

The Module meets every Wednesday for three months from January 17 to April 3, 2024. We alternate between whole group sessions led by Thomas Steininger and Elizabeth Debold and small practice group sessions led by experienced Catalysts of emergent dialogue.

What is
emergent dialogue?

emergent dialogue

empowers you to participate in a new culture of creative togetherness. Through this collective practice, you become an agent of emergence, discovering how to make yourself available to what wants to become known between us. Neither simply a method nor a technique, emergent dialogue takes the most fundamental human activity—speaking with each other—and transforms it into a powerful shared space of curiosity, reverence, meaningfulness, and potential.

emergent dialogue

brings to life a Co-Conscious We. It takes us beyond interpersonal relationship into the dimension of interbeing where co-consciousness and co-intelligence thrive as a new way of being together.

Our Approach

The only way to learn emergent dialogue is through practice. You cannot learn it by studying or thinking about the concepts only; dialogue is something that you have to do. Yet, “doing” here is more than speaking together; it’s a matter of sensing, presencing, letting go, choosing, and being available to the emergent edge of what happens between us.

During the three months of the program, you will have many opportunities for practice. We combine ongoing instruction and exercises in each teaching session, and twice monthly small practice groups will allow you to explore and develop what you have learned.

Transmission & Initiation. The first, and most important, element in learning emergent dialogue is an experiential recognition of this living space between us. Establishing this through transmission is essential. It is an initiation into collective presencing.

Experience & Exploration. Practice starts with perception training: developing the sensing “muscles” to perceive the subtle, embodied connectivity of the living intersubjective field. Again, this is not a concept or an idea, but depends on the palpable experience of this field and the sensitivity to recognize it. From here, we inquire together into the nature of this space of interbeing, and in the process, it and we develop a new way of being human together.

Understanding. In addition to exploring and inquiring together, we will also provide content for the mind to place the practice of emergent dialogue in a larger context. This includes philosophy, history, developmental psychology, and cultural evolution.

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What you can learn

Once this field intelligence has emerged as a collective presence between us, then a tension and dynamism arise as we make ourselves available to the emergence of co-conscious creativity. Bringing our unique perspective together with others, you learn how to engage with the friction of diverse views and to bring them into synergy without losing coherence.

Together, in active participation in the large and small sessions, we will explore and practice:

Caring for the space between while showing up as your self

How to hold tension and conflict without fragmenting

Aligning with the impulse of Eros arising from the whole

Grounding yourself in wholeness

How to allow the creative unfolding of the dialogue

Transforming tension into creative synergy

Becoming available to the synergetic intelligence of the whole

And you will share all of this in the company of curious, high-spirited fellow humans.

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Our Guides

Tom Steininger

>>Bio<<

Elizabeth Debold

>>Bio<<

Dr. Elizabeth Debold

For the last forty-some years, I have sought the answer to the question: how can we transform the dynamics of relationship and complexities of desire between women and men so that we all can thrive and reach our full human potential?

This inquiry has taken me from feminist activism in New York City to a doctorate in developmental psychology with Dr. Carol Gilligan at Harvard to a tumultuous global spiritual community that pioneered collective awakening and, finally, to an ongoing experiment in intersubjective emergence in Frankfurt, Germany.

I founded One World in Dialogue, an online forum to explore how intersubjectivity can bring us together across cultures to create new capacities in global consciousness. An author, transformative educator, journalist/editor, community leader and mentor, I have found the answer to my question in the amazing collective emergence of the Co-Conscious We and seek to share its potential in all that I do.

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Thomas Steininger

Dr. Thomas Steininger

I have been cultivating transformative “We Space” practices for nearly 30 years. As a philosopher, practitioner, and spiritual mentor, I have dived deeply into the practice of meditation and into an exploration of the evolution of human consciousness, particularly the current transition from a hyperindividual “I” culture to a co-conscious “We.”

As an authority on cultural evolution and the different spiritual and religious currents that have formed our postmodern world, I bring this perspective into my work as publisher of evolve-magazin, the leading German magazine on consciousness and culture and as faculty at Meridian U. in California. I also have a weekly webcast called Radio evolve, where I have interviewed over 500 pioneers forging the future.

For the last decades, I have co-founded and developed a process of emergent dialogue, an advanced practice in conscious communication.

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Our Team of Catalysts (more to come)

MIKE KAUSCHKE
Faculty of the event
BIO

I am managing editor of evolve Magazine, a translator, author and facilitator of emergent dialogue. I have studied Zen Buddhism with various teachers, engaged in hospice work and have nearly 20 years’ experience working with We Space and emergent dialogue. Currently, I am writing a book about a poetic art of living that will be published later this year.

CARRI MUNN
BIO

A living systems strategist, Carri combines wisdom traditions with ecosystem principles to nurture regenerative cultures in conscious organizations and multi-sector collaboratives. Her holistic approach to evolutionary work rewires individuals and organizations to actively participate in shaping conditions that allow us all to flourish in a complex world.

KERRY LINDSEY
Faculty of the event
BIO

After a long trifold path through the arenas of small business start-ups, collective spiritual practices, and developing physical communities, my paths began to merge 30 years ago into the world of collaborative technologies.  That journey ultimately landed me in the realm of intersubjective practices five years ago. Thanks to the new world that opened, the context that most drives me now is, “How do we create–From the We– the localized human-scale economies that will absolutely work… for the we, and the planet?”

MARLENE POTTHOFF
Faculty of the event
BIO

The question of how environmental protection and social change can go hand in hand with actively lived modern spirituality has occupied me since my youth. Professionally, I am committed to living climate protection. In addition, I am inspired by the vitality of the field of consciousness between us and the desire for deep human togetherness. For the past 15 years, the co-conscious and co-creative thinking and working in emergent dialogues have been the engine of my work for a new culture between human beings and for the world.

MARIA ZACHERL
Faculty of the event
BIO

It is such a joy to have been workng with this dedicated team and other members since 2009. Although I am a naturopath by profession, I am involved in facilitating different Co-Conscious We-space and emergent dialogue programs at emerge bewusstseinskultur e.V. and One World in Dialogue and am part of the support team of evolve Magazine’s salon work.

NADJA ROSMANN
BIO

As a cultural anthropologist, I’m fascinated by exploring how collectives find purpose and create togetherness. In the past ten years, emergent dialogue became to me a life practice in this discovery. Being a member of the editorial team of evolve Magazine, I established and co-lead with my colleagues a network of almost 30 evolve salons in the German speaking countries where we take deep dives into the evolution of culture and consciousness, based on the magazine topics.

The Program

The two Teaching Sessions each month will be held on Wednesdays from 17:00-19:00 Central European Time. For the time in your location, see World Time Buddy.

The small group practice sessions will held twice a month in the weeks when there isn’t a Teaching Session and will be scheduled by each group so that they are at a time convenient to the group members. These sessions will be about 75 minutes long.

Recordings of the Teaching Sessions will be made available to course participants, but watching them does not substitute for attending the sessions, which are interactive and experiential.

You will also have access to an online forum for all participants and for each practice group so that you can share insights and connect in between the teaching sessions and practice groups.

What we do in each session:

Each 2-hour Zoom teaching session will begin with an approximately 45-minute exploration of one aspect of the practice. This exploration will be led by Thomas Steininger and Elizabeth Debold. You are invited to take part in this inquiry during the session.

This opening is followed by small group exercises (for about 30 minutes) designed to give you experience with these different aspects of emergent dialogue. Finally, the last part of each session invites you to continue the inquiry in the whole group.

The teaching team will also bring in relevant concepts to help you to understand the process you are in. They will also take questions, discuss implications, and provide context about emergent dialogue–and offer guidelines for the small group work that will happen the next week.

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emergent dialogue module 2

Caring for the Space
Teaching Session:
January 17, 2024

How do we keep the presence alive between us? Care for the space allows it to work through us. But to care for the space, we need to be aware of the space. Care does not mean simply being nice or avoiding tension or differences. In this first session of the module, we will explore how care is a gateway to the collective presence of interbeing.

Practice Group Session:
January 24, 2024
Authenticity
Teaching Session:
January 31, 2024

How do we show up in and as interbeing? In our postmodern culture, authenticity often means speaking one’s truth. In the context of interbeing, you are called to stand for the space, not just one’s self. To do this, we need to develop our trust in interbeing as a reality, not just as a passing experience. Learning how to hold both the space and one’s unique perspective creates a dynamism in the dialogue.  

Practice Group Session:
February 7, 2024
Eros—The Creative Impulse
Teaching Session:
February 14, 2024

How can we align with Eros as a collective?​ Most of us have had the experience of being creatively inspired: there is a thrill and absorption in flow. Through the awakening of field intelligence, a different source of Eros becomes possible. When the creative impulse is sourced from the whole, from interbeing, a co-conscious creativity and synergy are the exciting result.

Practice Group Session:
February 21, 2024
Letting everything be as it is
Teaching Session:
February 28, 2024

What does the dialogue want to unfold now? The capacity to hold tension, within and without, is essential to allow the field intelligence to work in the dialogue. Often, we are tempted to fix the dialogue because bearing tension is uncomfortable. But tension is the source of creative synergy. Learning how to let everything be—without being passive—enables the dialogue to unfold from its own momentum.

Practice Group Session:
March 6, 2024
Creative Friction
Teaching Session:
March 13, 2024

How can potential conflict transform into a higher integration of perspectives?​ Conflict does not have to lead to fragmentation. Many of us are conflict-avoidant and try to bypas the necessary friction that allows for higher integration and deeper synthesis. We will explore how the friction of diverse perspectives opens the potential for a creative outcome—an emergence.

Practice Group Session:
March 20, 2024
Synergistic Intelligence
Teaching Session:
March 27, 2024

How can we allow this synergetic intelligence to do its work?​ In our final session of this module, we will lean into the capacity of interbeing to find synergy between us. Aware of our own views, listening deeply to others, and opening to the field of interbeing, we can discover the creative force of the synergistic intelligence that interbeing makes possible.

Practice Group Session:
April 3, 2024
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We commit to you...

To offer 7 2-hour Zoom video-conference sessions, co-led by Thomas Steininger and Elizabeth Debold that combine both guidance on and practice in emergent dialogue

To provide 5 60- to 75-minute small group practice sessions to support learning the practice, facilitated by practitioners with experience in emergent dialogue

To make available video recordings from the Zoom Teaching Sessions (small group meetings are not recorded)

To provide supplemental readings and recordings to support your understanding of emergent dialogue

To provide forums for participants to share ideas and explore the practice on the Communiverse, our practitioner community

You commit to all of us...

To show up and give your full presence to the twice-monthly Teaching Sessions

To join in twice-monthly group practice sessions and let go into the practice itself

To bring your curiosity and sense of adventure to learning this emergent practice

Registering & Contributing

Our aim is to bring this process of emergent dialogue to as many human beings who would benefit from its potential as possible. We recognize how urgent it is to discover new ways of sense-making together and to unleash a deeper creativity to respond to the crises we are in as a species. This emergent capacity for intersubjective dialogue belongs to humanity, not to us. We want to make it available as widely as possible so that money is not an obstacle to anyone who sincerely wants to take part.  

We offer all of our programs in the spirit of the gift economy—or, in German, a Geschenkkreislauf—where we offer what we have learned and you respond with a gift, usually a financial contribution. However, we have come to realize that, for some programs and this program in particular, we cannot simply offer it for free and ask for contributions. Too many who sign up for free end up not having a commitment to the program, which makes the practice groups unstable and hurts the learning environment. So, we are asking for a specific contribution when you register.

To help us cover our costs and be able to continue our work, we ask you to contribute 300 euros. That amounts to 25 euros per session.

If you cannot afford this contribution–due to being a student, getting hit by inflation, having a fixed income, living in a country where this is far too expensive–then please be in touch with us. Or if you need to pay in installments, say of 100 euros per month, we can arrange this.

We also invite you, if you are able, to make a contribution of 500 euros as a Benefactor. Your contribution will help provide scholarships to those who cannot afford to contribute financially and are eager to learn. AND…

AGAIN, IF YOU TRULY WANT TO COMMIT TO THE PROGRAM, AND NEED A FEE REDUCTION OR PAYMENT PLAN, PLEASE BE IN TOUCH. We have scholarships and will not turn away any motivated person who happens to have financial limitations or who lives in a part of the world where this is far too expensive.

Plus, you get 6-months FREE access to the Communiverse,
our practitioner community space

Supporter

You enable us to offer our programs

€300(VAT Included)

  • 14-hours of teaching sessions

  • 6 practice group meetings

  • Recordings & other materials

  • 6-months FREE access to the Communiverse

Thank you for helping us cover our costs so we can offer these programs.

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Benefactor

Your generosity supports others

€500(VAT Included)

  • 14-hours of teaching sessions

  • 6 practice group meetings

  • Recordings & other materials

  • 6-months FREE access to the Communiverse

Thank you for your generosity and for supporting others to take part.

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All 3 Modules

Sign up for all 3 modules and save €100

€700(VAT Included)

  • Full access to Modules 1, 2, & 3

  • ALL practice group meetings

  • Recordings & other materials

  • 12-months FREE access to the Communiverse

Thank you for signing up in advanced to all 3 modules.

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