How might we work with just enough trust in the spaces between us. and have the more open & meaningful conversations we surely need?. A blog about listening & trust by @charlie_psych & me. We'd love to hear what you reckon.

"The truth we seek"- inspiring theme for this @edintfest. Highlights the essential part art plays in our lives. Life-affirming, beautiful, meaningful, connecting, deeply moving. As exemplified by a virtuosic concert by María Dueñas & Alexander Malofeev at Queen's Hall yesterday.

On this day 3, 4, and 5 years ago. Each in very different times and circumstances which make me grateful to be how and where I am now. To friendship, meaningful connections, cake-baking, and the wisdom and solace of trees.

It can be the same conversation, yet we can experience it in markedly different ways. Why? Maybe because each of us, in moments of supposedly shared time, can't help but come with some of our own lingering shadows. It's rare to find space to share those thoughts and feelings.

All in the space of one walk.

That phrase 'time heals' has never sat well for me. It makes it sound like healing just happens - in some passive, inevitable, disembodied kind of way. When really healing takes a lot of active, painful, joyful, tough, over-and-over, life-affirming work. Time is part of it, too.

Story of a sky

In fleeting moments,.never quite the same each time,.gently unfolding.

How much and what gets understood depends as much on *how* we're each able to hear what each other is saying as on the content. That may feel infuriating. None of us can avoid that conundrum. We could focus more on understanding and improving how our interactions happen, though.

These purple flowers.punctuate this special place.with hardy beauty.

Sometimes I need to look from another perspective to remember how far I've come, how much I have to be grateful for, and how love and beauty will always be there alongside loss. In this special place.

What if what's required is a generous space to connect with other people similarly facing complex challenges, to find mutual support here, and a chance to learn alongside each other in all the messy reality? What would it take to make that happen freely?

Things that get kept, put in boxes, placed on a cupboard shelf, there to gather dust. Last time I sorted through them, I wasn't ready to admit I don't need (will never use) them again. They're not just things (of course). Each carries memories of moments past. And living on.

Spaces for conversation to ebb and flow, to falter, rest a while in silence. To be untidy, awkward even, rambling at times. That feel spacious, unrushed, unfolding. Conversations which are unfinished and unpolished because they are real life.

Working out loud feels essential to me. How useful I find the rough workings out scribbled in the margins (even if messily). How it helps me say what I'm thinking & feeling, rather than chase glossy perfection. How it enables us to be in an unfolding conversation with the ideas.

I'm reminded of the importance of quiet spaces and time to make sense of it. Or not, as the case may be. And to let thoughts and feelings percolate as they will. There's no set or tidy ways of getting there. It's in the unfolding of it. That's the thing.

Sunlight after the much needed rain brings welcome relief.

I end this week full of gratitude for moments of connection and reconnection and friendship. Moments when this place almost felt like it used to be. A place of community and heart.

RT @FBanishoeib: Posting isn’t a performance. Reading isn’t a reward. It’s a shared responsibility:.→ for the writer to offer something re….

Where we look, and how we see. What we listen to, and how we hear. Who gets listened to, and who doesn't, and why (not). Where and how we talk to and with each other. The spaces and the times we create between us. It all matters.

It seems to me that the values of community learning and development - social justice, equity, participative democracy, collaboration, inclusion - could better inform how the development of leadership is approached. It's more often treated as a business discipline. Why? I wonder.