Welcome!

This group will be dedicated to exploring intimacy, authenticity, and wholeness. We'll come together to investigate what leads to genuine communication (the feeling of contact or intimacy that many of us crave).

In the service of making contact with others in the group, the rules are as follows:

1. The sharing of feelings is more valuable than the sharing of opinions.
This is the big one. The principle behind this is that our feelings provide the motivation for our behaviors, but most of us aren't conscious of why we do what we do. When we start to develop awareness of the feelings that prompt our actions, then we begin to have more choice about our responses.

Also, revealing feelings leads to being known for who we are, rather than for who we'd like to be, or for who we think others will accept. This can be scary stuff!!

a. It's more beneficial to communication to reveal a feeling rather than acting on it in a way that conceals it or which gives the other no choice in the matter.
b.Feelings are value-free; they're neither good nor bad, they simply are.

2. Each of us is the expert on our own internal affairs.

3. Direct communication requires that I lay my cards on the table before I ask you to. So, question-asking isn't helpful unless I disclose the feeling that prompts the question. (Curiosity isn't usually the motivation - the feelings beneath are often subtler than that). If you can't figure out your motivation, ask yourself
a. Why am I asking this?
b. What answers would please me? What answers am I afraid of?

4. The majority of the focus is on what's happening in the here and now. STICK WITH THE PRESENT MOMENT.

5. Defensiveness blocks communication. Defensiveness in this context means refusing to listen to and accept another's feelings about me. Defensiveness is always about "winning" the interaction rather than making contact.

6. If I want to confront you, I'd better do it directly and be available for your response, rather than doing it indirectly, in a way to which you cannot respond.
BE ACCOUNTABLE/AVAILABLE.

7. Communication requires that I take risks in exposing myself to you. Especially communication where I believe that you might not validate my feelings.

8. It is devastating to communication for me to take advantage of another's openness to "one-up" her.
We one-up others when we're more interested in winning the game/the social interaction than in communicating with the person in front of us. One-upping others leads to feeling superior, graceful, in command, etc. while if you're left one-down, then you feel awkward, inferior, embarrassed, helpless, etc. The need/desire to be one-up can be thought of as the secret motivation for most human interactions.

9. Openness and truth do not have absolute value. They must be employed in a context of sensitive responsibility for the needs of the other. Otherwise, they are simply new one-up weapons.

So, those are the rules according to Kroeber and Kahn & those are the rules this group is going to be using. This group will have facilitation, and I ask that if you show up, then you're implicitly agreeing to do your best to stick to the rules.

There will be a $15 fee per meeting to help pay for organizational costs/space rental.