Rights Equality

Communication

Reflection & Action

Welcome. These spaces are for those who want to join us in the struggle of communicating in and through an often uncertain world.

worldviews Kenneth Burke a way of seeing is also a way of not seeing

Upcoming Events

learning Paulo Freire asking "why" about our world

• Rights Equality
• Storying Trauma
• Story Sensing
• A Narrow Ridge
• Critical Consciousness
• Lead Learners

Rights Equality

A Free Space

Reflecting and acting upon the communication in our lives, relationships, and communities.

______________ resilience American idealism communication social change _____________

subjugation Stephen Porges bodies-minds conform to institutional forms

Neoliberalism

Moral Principles & Rules Of Law

Our economic and political system has been designed to diminish the safety nets, social fabrics, and human rights that are central to resilient, sustainable communities. This is because a horrendous amount of special interest money has been infused into both political parties to determine U.S. policies, institutional priorities, and unprecedented protection of elite interests.

an ideology Chomsky & Robinson (2024) the belief that their domination is for the good of the dominated

Resilience

Stability & Change

Challenging the ideologies and structures that impose absolutes onto our social realities.

Social Change

The Power Of The People

relies on people to endure The Honourable Vida Yeboah (2006) to advocate for the change that will benefit them, to work through their differences, to come together and form social movements in order to demand their rights

Storying Trauma

$35 per person

Understanding personality and trauma patterns

__________________ embodiments patterns somatic experiences critical trauma studies ___________________

Personality

Body-Mind Awareness as a Social Self

Personality develops from networks within the brain as well as interpersonal experiences in our social world. How is your personality expressed? Experienced? "The Enneagram of personality system describes nine fundamental or "core" patterns of personality that each have unique ways of processing emotions, directing thought, and driving behavior" Daniel J. Siegel, M.D.

Trauma

Personal Wound & Bio-political Tool

As human bodies increasingly become a primary site in the struggle for political power, hierarchy of suffering gets defined by the State, with compassion becoming a tool defined by power. What trauma gets recognized? Who decides? "There are high stakes not only in studying how and why people are injured, but in assessing, articulating, and even challenging hegemonic modes of diagnosis, rehabilitation, recovery, and redemption." Eric Wertheimer & Monica J. Casper

Somatic Narrative

Personality and Trauma Patterns

A primary location for our body story is housed in implicit memory (one of several types of memory), which begins in the womb and works throughout our lifespan as an operating system that reacts to patterns below the level of conscious thought. "What if the patterns that have shaped how you think, feel, and relate could become gateways to freedom instead of limits?" Daniel J. Siegel, M.D.

Human Development

Grounding & Growth

Human development, a biological and relational process, offers windows of change throughout the life span where increased vulnerability acts as an opening for transformation. "Interpersonal experiences shape the mind as it continues to develop throughout the lifespan...Interactions with the environment, especially relationships with other people, directly shape the development of the brain's structure and function." Daniel J. Siegel, M.D.

(Dis)Ability

Normality as a Tool of Exclusion

What is defined as normal was created institutionally by people in power to categorize others. The "tyranny of the average" situates the body as the site of an oppressive struggle. "Much of what passes for normal in our society is neither healthy nor normal" Gabor Mate, MD

Embodied Participation

Agency & Integration

The capacity to act with intentionality (agency), rather than reactivity, is dependent upon relational integration (being "seen" and "soothed" by others), as well as our ability to regulate our nervous system.

"Once our body-mind understands how to engage safety and connection, expansion becomes the imperative, both for our well-being and the world's." Daniel J. Siegel, M.D.

Story Sensing

$35 per person

Asking "why" about our direct experiences with the world.

__________________ experiences sociality inquiries-performances narrative sensemaking _________________

each word Mikhail Bakhtin tastes of the context and contexts in which it has lived a socially charged life

Sociality

Temporal & Spatial

Individuals act within certain narratives.

an earlier story Arthur W. Frank (2010) works to hold people to a particular understanding of their lives

Environment

Self-Concept & Social Support

Our environment demands frameworks and processes that can move beyond the fragmentations, reductions, and causal explanations that are all too often privileged in our world.

human needs Abraham Maslow (1968) we communicate to meet a range of human needs

Trauma

Narratives Of Selfhood

Early attachment experiences echo their stories through our bodies, nervous systems, and relationships as we grow and develop.

trauma Peter Levine a loss of connection

Narratives

Inquiries & Performances

Our narratives are how we co-create and share meanings with others as we navigate our experiences in and through the temporal, spatial, and social realities of our world. Moving beyond what has been psychologized, what has been institutionalized, and those who have been granted a certain status.

experience John Dewey (1938) continuity and interaction enacted in situations

Stories

Listening & Storytelling

Focusing on storying our bodies and minds toward the possibilities of creating new experiences with others and our world.

narrative ground Walter Fisher (1987) we need to be able to articulate and offer a public account of the good in which we believe and that propels our communicative action in public and private life.

A Narrow Ridge

$35 per person

______________________ practices positions-persuasions communication ethics interpersonal communication _______________________

Practices

Assumptions Of Good

The critique of monologue. This is why communication is important.

a right to exist Martin Buber If one of the parties in discourse does not agree on the value of conversation or even on the right of the other party to exist, there is little opportunity for shared learning. In such cases, dialogue is simply not possible.

Forms Of Knowing

Protections & Promotions

Our suffering often searches for healing in "private" psychological and/or institutional spaces where emperors, tricksters, and anointed queens can be found collecting their status and practicing their discretion while offering out-dated, so-called knowledge. They're afraid of the public. Yet, it's the public they serve.

Human Perception

An Active Process

Communication offers us frameworks and processes to expand what we notice, how we organize our relationships with others, and the ways we interpret our world. What has been defined, appraised, scripted, attached, ascribed, and/or generalized in our relationships with others and our world?

Practices Of Good

Private & Public

Moving conversations about the assumptions of good from a private holding to publicly shared mappings.

_______________ narrative accounts shared mappings public commitments _______________ Arnett, Harden-Fritz, & Bell-McManus (2018)

Debate

Positions & Persuasions

Communication is central to how effectively and competently we can participate in the debate of where we are positioned and how we are persuaded in our world.

the ability to John Dewey (1927) ______________________ follow an argument grasp another's point of view expand in our understanding debate alternatives to pursue ______________________

Communication

Standpoints & Locations

Expanding in our experiences of identities across the continuum of personal growth, performances, relationships, and communities.

interpersonal communication Julia T. Wood (2020) a selective, systemic process that allows people to reflect and build personal knowledge of one another and create shared meanings

Communication Ethics

A Sharing Between

As communication claims the priority a new bond takes form between followers and leaders. The followers begin to lead their assembly.

Critical Consciousness

Systems

Investigating the commonsense assumptions.

_______________________ systems consent-dissent critical-cultural approaches organizational communication _______________________

culture Fassett, Warren, & Nainby (2018) assumptions that draw people together within a social context of shared power

Forms Of Discipline

Consent & Dissent

We must be quiet when the emperor comes around. We must not speak of the taken for granted or his discretion. Do not, under any circumstances, ask questions. We may have to turn on each other.

Power

Resistance & Control

Reflecting and acting upon our shared power.

assumptions political-cultural-economical

A Critical Perspective

A Form Of Inquiry

Communication offers us frameworks and processes to question and challenge what we directly experience in our world.

_________________________ How did it come to be this way? Who does it harm? Who does it benefit? ________________________

critical inquiry Fassett, Warren, & Nainby (2018) asking complicated questions and sorting through the implications of our (in)actions

Communication

Individuals & Collectives

Expanding in our experiences of identities, relationships, and cultures.

______________________________ a right to be understood a right to communicate a right to the decision-making process _______________________________

communication Mumby & Kuhn (2019) the dynamic, ongoing process of creating and negotiating meanings

Lead Learners

$35 per person

Communication offers us possibilities to understand and address diversity, inequality, and inclusion as ideological and structural issues that we can respond to in our practices, discourses, and systems.

_____________________ d/Discourses understanding-knowledge communication pedagogy intercultural communication _____________________

discourse Leslie A. Baxter (2011) a system of meaning a set of propositions that cohere around a given object of meaning

Intersubjective

Understanding & Knowledge

Learning from our differences.

knowledge production Mumby & Kuhn (2019) a highly contested, contingent, and ever-changing process

A Relation Between

Sameness & Difference

What are the possibilities between us?

a relation between Mikhail Bakhtin the simultaneity of sameness and difference in which knowing becomes possible

d/Discourses

Competing Meanings

We can develop binaries that lack the sophistication of the structures we are within.

turning points Leslie A. Baxter (2011) moments of heightened dialogic struggle

Dialogue

Meaning-In-The-Moment

Responding to competing meanings with others.

__________________ contexts competing arguments informed choices __________________

mutual authoring Mikhail Bakhtin the joint act of creating