What is the Authentic Relating Training for Intentional Communities?

Conscious communication training for leaders, facilitators and residents based on Authentic Relating, Integral Circling, T-Group, Jungian Psychology, Conscious Leadership, Non-Violent Communication, Trauma Education, and research on high performing professional teams.

These modalities are synthesized into the primary vehicle we will use for experiential learning which is called, “relational inquiry”.

Community members will level up:

• Taking responsibility for projections

• Awareness of relational blindspots

• Transforming conflict into opportunity for connection, growth, creativity, and aliveness

• Sharing dissonance

• Revealing withholds with skill and compassion

• Congruence between internal experience and external expression

• Speaking from your own experience

• Set boundaries and make requests

• Managing defensiveness, boundaries, blocks, walls, and mistrust (in self and other)

• Capacity for vulnerability and candor 

• Empathetic listening skills

• Deepening intimacy

• Emotional literacy and somatic awareness

• Self awareness and social awareness

• Relational intuition

• Noticing and managing power dynamics

• People will feel safer to speak truthfully and be their authentic selves

Designed for intentional communities:

Leaders are responsible for managing power dynamics and architecting an environment with high psychological safety that invites open and honest feedback. They need communication skills to operate business tasks effectively and productively while maintaining loving and intimate relationships.

Facilitators of forum, transparency circles, or other social processes should be the most revealed in their internal processes and witnessed by community in their own personal shadow work. They also need the relational awareness and facilitation skills to cut through layers of interpersonal fog to extract the truth and transform it into opportunities for intimacy and healing.

Residents often arrive in intentional communities with unresolved traumas and lack the capacity to heal it. Communities are left constantly playing catch up to teach communication and shadow work. To become a collective healing space, everyone must have the skill to take responsibility for their projections, give each other empathy, and be self aware enough to articulate their internal experience.

What is “relational inquiry”?

Relational Inquiry is a facilitated practice in which participants share their sensations, emotions, and thoughts in the present moment while in connection with each other. This is the most advanced communication tool we are aware of for creating intimacy, uncovering relational blindspots, and leveling up EQ/communication skills. Four styles of Relational Inquiry we will explore are:

• T-Group - Staying in the present moment, within the last 30 seconds (most popular class in the Stanford MBA program for the past 40-years). 

• Focused Inquiry - The group’s attention is focused on one person for a set period of time.

• Open Inquiry - There is no focus person; the attention moves around organically. 

• Kabuki Roleplay - Participants practice one skill at a time (example: noticer, imaginer, reflective listener, impact sharer, seemer, question asker, etc).

What will we actually do?

The training program is custom built for your community. Here’s what a one week program might include:

1. Interviews with leaders, residents, and people that have left the community to learn about the interpersonal dynamics and what conflict is being avoided.

2. Leadership training for two days of authentic relating training and relational inquiry. Leaders will get high contact with the facilitator to uncover relational blindspots and level up conscious communication skills.

3. Facilitator training will be done at the same time as the leadership training. Some experienced facilitators in the leadership team can be taught how to facilitate relational inquiry to help conduct the same training with residents.

4. Residents training for two days of similar training as the leadership team with the help of community facilitators.

5. Full community transparency circles, authentic relating games, and withhold clearing.

6. Mediation for processing challenging conflicts as they arise. It helps to have a third party mediate complex and challenging conflicts.

7. Integration plan is built with leaders and facilitators to continue the program after Social Architect leaves.